The Do’s and Don’ts of Reception Seating- Wedding Planner, Dayton, OH

It’s time to figure out your seating chart!!! AGH!! Always a dreaded task of my clients. Here’s a great guide to all of the do’s and don’ts of putting together your seating layout.

Don't: Make your reception into a free-for-all.
Do: Arrange a seating chart for any guest list over 50, even if you think this is a drag. Even if you want a low-key, fluid vibe where guests aren't stuck in their chairs all night, guests will like knowing where to go immediately upon entering your reception area.

Directing guests to a specific table (or maybe even a specific place setting) makes them feel comfortable. No one wants to feel like they're jockeying over chairs like they're in a high school cafeteria all over again.

Do use your seating plan to introduce people with similar interests, backgrounds, etc. Try to make everyone feel comfortable by offering a mix of familiar and new faces at each table.

Don't: Get bogged down with spendy wedding planning software.
Do: Plan seating at your reception the old-fashioned way: write each persons name on 8-10 small post it notes. This will represent how many seats your tables can accommodate. Label paper plates with the table number and go to town sticking and resticking.  Using post it notes gives you the freedom to move guests from one "table" to another easily as you go through your list. Or, if you really need a digital helper, try out a free seating chart tool online. Wedding Wire offers a great one.

Don't: Forget to consider complicated relationships.
Do: Let divorced parent head a separate table to keep the peace.

Don't: Sit people together who have a complicated past, clump all your single friends together at one table or, conversely, plop an unattached pal at a table full of marrieds. Avoid lumping together people who have zero in common, too.
Do: Do use your seating plan to introduce people with similar interests, backgrounds, etc. Try to make everyone feel comfortable by offering a mix of familiar and new faces at each table.

Don't: Sit discreetly at your wedding
Do: Sit in a spot where every guest gets a good look at the newlyweds. Whether you sit at a table all alone with your new hubby or at a larger table with attendants or family, sit so you're facing your guests.

Don't: Tackle hard seating questions by yourself.
Do: Enlist your wedding planner to help guide you when you're not sure of the best seating arrangements at certain tables. Also, let your parents give suggestions, for example, if you don't have a clue where to seat their friends who are attending.

Don't: Go blindly into making a seating chart
Do: Work off a copy of the floor plan at your reception's locale. This will help you position people wisely if there are unexpected pillars or walls on site. Ask your site coordinator to help you design the room in the way it best fits the venue and your needs. They may be able to complete the layout for you!

Don't: Play down how you tell guests where they'll sit.
Do: Make the presentation original, even splashy. Having a small reception? Make a large display or escort cards or even just a chart where table names and numbers are listed with place cards at each place setting.  (Escort cards direct guests to their tables. Meanwhile, place cards are cards set up at each place setting if you're also doing assigned seats at each tables).

Remember to  keep a few extra host cards on hand on your wedding day in case you need to make any last-minute changes.

So now that you’ve got a good start, grab a glass of wine and get to work on that seating chart! YOU CAN DO IT!!

Au Revoir for now!

Nerdily Ever After- Ohio Wedding Planner

 

Yep! I’ll admit it. My husband is a total nerd! Oh it’s ok…. don’t worry. He’s totally out of the nerd closet so he’s fine with me calling him that.

He prefers nerd over geek but really I’m up for either. What can I say… I’m a nerd lover… always have been, always will be. I AM that girl that buys a sweater vest for a guy just hoping he’ll look a little nerdier!

Nerdier…? Pretty sure I just made up that word. None the less… since I’m pretty sure my husband of 10 years doesn’t read my blog I thought I might share a photo of him at his nerdiest!

In his defense… he was singing a little ditty he wrote and doing a nerdy dance for me for Valentines Day! Who could resist!

So now onto the reason why I write this bliggity bloggy… WEDDINGS!

So I ran across these today.

Aren’t they original! Such a geek idea! It made me think… what if my husband planned our wedding…

I imagine it might have looked something like THIS….

Followed by THIS:

And maybe some of this…

And No Doubt in My Mind We’d Have Something like THIS!

And we all know the colors of the wedding would not have matched!  But hey… at least I’d love the favors!

What would your wedding look like if your fiance planned it?

Au Revoir!

Questions, Queries, and Conundrums?? Dayton, Ohio Wedding Planner

 

Q: I was hoping you’d be able to help me. I have just start planning my wedding for 2013 and honestly I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know what kind of wedding I want to have!

Of course I can help with that… this is the best time to call a wedding planner!! Getting started on the right path can save a bride and groom so much time and money!!

To answer your question I’m going to borrow a quip from world renowned event designer Colin Cowie’s blog. Not sure I could say it any better than this!

Questions to Consider When Your

Wedding Planning Begins:

• What kind of ceremony and reception suit you and your bride?
• Do you live in the city and prefer urban chic cocktail parties, or do you prefer a more casual country feel?
• Formal or informal?
• Would you rather have a large gathering of friends and family, or a more intimate setting at a remote location?
• Will your ceremony be religious, secular or spiritual?
• What are your favorite restaurants? Describe what you like about them--the atmosphere, the type of cuisine, the quality of food, the way the food is served and perhaps the way the restaurant is decorated. Are there any elements that your favorite restaurants have in common, and if so, what are they and how might you wish to incorporate them into a great wedding reception?
• What are your favorite foods? Are there specific types of foods--French, northern Italian, Indian, Japanese, Southwestern barbecue--that you love? What are your least favorite foods? Are there certain dishes from favorite restaurants that you love, such as a grilled vegetable salad, or the way a local bistro prepares duck breast? This information will help you better direct your caterer or banquet manager.
• What sort of foodservice do you prefer? Is a formal sit-down dinner your idea of a great party, or do you prefer a buffet, where you can select foods that suit you? Do you enjoy dining casually or formally?
• What are your favorite drinks? Do you prefer wine, beer, spirits or soft drinks? Do you have a favorite cocktail? Do you love microbrews?
• Where do you like to spend your vacation? What appeals to you about the destination and why? Is it formal or relaxed? Cosmopolitan or rustic? On the beach or in the country?
• What are your favorite books or stories and what sort of atmosphere does your favorite book or story create? Are there ways to incorporate elements of this into your wedding celebration?
• What is your favorite film and why? Are there scenes from a favorite movie that really appeal to you? Do you remember wedding scenes from films, like Four Weddings and a Funeral or My Best Friend's Wedding, that seem to match your style?
• What is your favorite flower, and if you're unsure, are there flowers you dislike? If you don't know the specific names of flowers, think about what colors and types of flowers appeal to you. Look through books and magazines, and note or clip photos of the ones you like.
• What are your favorite and least favorite colors? Consider how your favorite colors translate to different types of fabrics that might be used in wedding attire or decor.
• Does a particular time of day or season of the year inspire you? Do you love sunsets? Do you love the cozy feeling of being indoors after a winter snowfall? Do you love long summer evenings outdoors? Consider how this might affect the timing of your wedding.
• Do you have a favorite collection that might offer a theme for your wedding? Incorporating a collection of objects that have meaning to you and your bride or groom is an opportunity to personalize your wedding celebration.
• Do you have a hobby or pursuit that you want to incorporate into your wedding in some way? If a couple loves to sail, a seaside wedding at a marina, yacht club or even on a boat might be appropriate. If you love opera, maybe your celebration should include some of your favorite arias performed by a local opera singer. If you enjoy collecting wine, then fine wine might be a focus of your celebration.
• What clothing designers are your favorites? What specifically about their designs appeals to you? Is it the lines of the clothing, the use of color, the fabrics? Consider how these can be translated into your own wedding clothing or the overall party decor.
• Do you see your wedding as a single event, or would you like to have a series of events over several days, such as weekend-long celebration? Do most of your guests live nearby, or will many be traveling to the wedding from out of town?
• What is your favorite type of music? Make a list of your favorite composers and their works, the artists and their songs. Be sure to make a short list of the music you definitely don't want to hear at your wedding too.
• What are your favorite photographic styles? Do you like black and white, color or sepia? Do you like a photojournalistic, documentary, or traditional portrait approach? Remember that you can expect to look at your wedding pictures for decades to come, so be sure to determine the approach and style that suits you and your bride.
• When you can do absolutely anything, or nothing at all, how do you spend the day? Would you love to spend an afternoon shooting the breeze with friends over a couple of beers, or would you prefer a great hike in the mountains? How could you translate your preferences to your wedding day?
• Do you have a visual image of your wedding? Whether the answer is yes or no, another good exercise is to look through as many magazines as possible and tear out pictures of things you and your fiancée like and dislike. The more visuals you have when you meet with your vendors, the easier it will be to paint a clear picture of your personalities and taste.

Once you have the answers to these questions you’ll see that you’ve already laid out the road map to your wedding. Make it a fun exercise and cut pictures or write down key words in an inspiration book to help you pull together the complete vision!

We’ll be looking at each of these questions over the next couple of weeks and even putting together our own inspiration book! Stay tuned for our weekly inspiration book challenge.

Start here… Go out and get your favorite cool looking scrapbook and start pulling pictures and key words to go with these questions. Each week post a picture of your inspiration page on the Hand in Hand Bridal facebook page!

Au Revoir for now!

Beyond the Fascinator - Cincinnati, OH Wedding Planner

Not gonna lie… I am totally falling in love with the hottest new trend in wedding hair wear!

These are called the Bandeau. Swoon! So many options here!

What do you think… Bandeau or Bandon’t?

 

Au Revior for now!

Shoe Appeal Wednesday- Dayton, OH Wedding Planner

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Cincinnati Bridal Showcase at the Sharonville Convention Center.

Bridal show are always so fun for you as the bride to get a chance to talk to the vendor, try some great food, get do-able ideas, and grab some information from vendors. But what you don’t know is that it’s just as much fun for the vendors. We catch up, look at each others work, chat about the brides we have in common, and get to know each other better.

Well this time I happened to be chatting with the SUPER AWESOME Brenda Pottinger of Pottinger Photography! She is such an awesome person and she is so loved by all of the vendors! And her bridal show booth is so super cool and inventive! So anyways, I happened to browsing her FABU albums when I ran across these beauties!

Aren’t they beautiful! I just had to find them…. but to no avail! So I found something kind of close…. What do you think about these?

Close! Hope you enjoyed todays yummy shoe treat!

Au Revoir for Now!

Postage Rates Raising in 2012!

We all know that paper invitations aren’t going anywhere!

Here’s a little cheat sheet about the new pricing and what it’s most likely going to cost you when make your stop at the post office.

Now is a good time to stock up on those Forever stamps! And remember if you are sending out invitations with reply envelopes you expect to receive after January 22nd to put an extra penny stamp on them to ensure delivery back to you.

Here’s a quick guide to 2012 USPS rates as they apply to most wedding invitations:

• Save the date, Reply Envelope (with single reply card inside), Single card/invitation: 45 cents
• Invitation set (invitation, reply card, reply envelope, and another card or two, up to 2 oz.): 65 cents
• Response postcard: 32 cents

Keep in mind: square envelopes/postcards, non-bendable envelopes, and extra thick envelopes don’t fit through the USPS machines, so there is an additional fee for being non-machinable.

Thanks to Delphine Press for putting together this wonderful information in such a pretty format!

Au Revoir for now!

Vendors Uncorked! Wedding Photographer, Cincinnati, OH

It’s time…. I would have loved to post this earlier today but work and appointments got in the way. So I’m posting now… hoping all of you awesome readers will still click over to the blog tonight!

One of the greatest parts about this Vendor’s Uncorked series is not only that I get to introduce to you great vendors… but… you also get to meet some of the coolest, awesomest people I know! Yes, I just made up the word awesomest!

Today is no exception. Meet Jacalyn… btw… I don’t think there’s a single person that’s met her that doesn’t love her…

She just exudes cool, classy, and dramatic…. you know like if you looked up the definition of jazz hands in the dictionary… you might just find this picture! lol!

Jacalyn is the owner of JMM Photography and one of Cincinnati’s top photographers. She is fantabulous at what she does and honestly…. it’s because she loves what she does so freakin’ much!

Here’s a little of her work… but seriously this is just the tip of the awesomeberg. Yes… I made that word up too.  Check it…

So yeah… here’s what she has to say….

· Hi Kellie!  Here is my snippet on the “Vendors Uncorked”   Love the idea behind this Kell and am so honored you asked me to partake!

o Let's try this.... start here.
* What is your job/business?

o I am Jacalyn Mains- sole owner of JMM Photography.  I am a wedding and boudoir photographer.  What I am not is a photographer that will jump at the chance to photograph absolutely anything.  I’d rather be excellent at one thing than mediocre at many.  I find that I am inspired by the energy surrounding a wedding as well as the essence of a woman celebrating her beauty and thrive on woman power- so I’ve chosen to hone my skills and focus on those two types of photography, wedding and boudoir, because they stimulate my creative juices and keep my job fun!  I have a studio/consult space in Newport, KY that I share with four other wedding vendors (all women and all pure awesome.)

o
* What drives you to do what you do every day?

o When I first got into photography and decided to turn it into a career instead of a side gig, I said one thing to myself that remains true today.  If I am going to be away from my family, my children, and the ones I love most by working, then it will only be at a “job” that I love, plain and simple.  It isn’t worth it to be absent from what matters most to me to do something that I hate.  So, for me, that is photography.  I know not everybody has that luxury and I thank my lucky stars every day that I do.   I am an artist- you know, one of those creative types that marches to the beat of their own drum.  I am proud of that and think that that is what makes me a unique person and unique artist.  The only way to be fulfilled in my life, as a person who positively contributes as a member of society, is to express my creative nature through the lens.  It is what makes sense to me, it is how I see the world, it is how I capture others. 

o
* What is a common misunderstanding from couples in your line of work?

o I think that many potential clients don’t realize that when we are meeting, I am interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me.  I don’t want to work with just anybody.  For the wedding day to be “the perfect storm” our personalities need to mesh and our thoughts on the day need to be in sync.  For example, if you are a super control freak bride who wants to dictate my every move- you are absolutely not the bride for me.  I want to be trusted in the craft that I do.  I need that trust and I work hard to earn it.  I tell my clients that I am with them all day and, in fact, I usually see the bride more so than she’ll see her own fiancé on her wedding day.  It sounds crazy, but it is true!  So, we need to get along and, in my eyes, we need to be friends.  I am looking for clients that I simply click with and know that in the end, our relationship will extend beyond their wedding day.  Some people think this is strictly business, but for me, it isn’t. It’s personal.

o
* What is a common complaint you hear from couples about something that you do… and what is the reason why you do it this way?

o Ok Kell- I really don’t have a response for this one.  I’m not saying I’ve NEVER gotten a complaint, but when I have, it is something specific to the couple and not to my work (not tooting my own horn here, but just stating the facts).  If I had had a reoccurring complaint, then I would have changed the way I did said offense.

o
* What are some of the things you do that contribute to your bottom line?

o Lenses to me are like- I don’t know, say shoes, to the average woman!  You simply can’t have too many!!!  I believe having a variety of lenses to choose from helps keep the way I shoot fresh and ever evolving.  But the list goes on and I’m only going to mention a few things here as I don’t want to bore you but…..I attend a photography conference once a year to keep apprise to new products and to further educate myself.  Not to mention the hard cost of the albums I offer!  I want the best and have expensive taste- what can I say?  I work hard to present my clients with albums that they maybe have never seen before, or that has a unique quality to it.  It is something I am attracted to and feel that my idea client is as well.  Oh, and I gotta give some love to Rachel, my assistant and second photographer.  I have to pay her too!  She works hard!

o
* What are some little known facts about your particular industry that brides really should know?

o Despite what you may think, a lot of the photographers in this industry (especially the woman) are friends!  I meet with 3 other female photographers once a month for breakfast or lunch and we talk shop (and about our personal lives too).   We might be in direct competition with each other, but that totally doesn’t matter.  All four of us realize that there are enough brides to go around and that not every bride is for me!  I love knowing other ladies in the industry well enough on a personal and professional level to be able to confidently refer them to brides that have contacted me and their date is already booked.

o
* If you lived in a perfect world… engaged couples would…. __________________________?

o Absolutely, completely, and blindly trust and have faith in me.  Simply put- just let me do my job.  I know that seems like a lot to ask when there are people out there who aren’t trustworthy.  However, know that there are good people out there, good vendors who have a lot invested in their integrity and in the relationships they build with their clients.  My very favorite thing to hear from my clients is, “Jacalyn, just do what you do!”  Then I am like, “Hell yeah!  It is on!”

So there you have it. Here’s a few more shots to wet your picture palette before we go… I always tease her that she can make cheese look good!

Thanks so much Jac! Love ya girl!

Go check her out at www.jmmphotography.us

Or just call her up here….

Jacalyn M. Mains

Photographic Artist & Owner

JMM PHOTOGRAPHY

www.jmmphotography.us

(859) 803-8902

Au Revoir for now!