One of the most important things of planning any type of event is staying organized during the process. There is Pinterest to keep your inspiration images organized, binders to keep track of contracts, and you could use a Word program to keep all of your computer documents organized. But what happens when you are gone on a long weekend adventure and you just want to tweak that guest list or time line a little bit but it is on your desktop at home? You don't have access to it. Not the case with Google Drive. I have been a long time lover of Google Drive (formerly Google Docs), and as I move into event planning it is still a very powerful and useful tool. Whether you use it or not I will most likely be creating your timeline, budget, guest list, seating chart, whatever I dream up with Google Drive and then sharing it with you. If you are using it too I will share the document with you so that we can edit it together, if you aren't using it I will email it to you either in PDF form or as a Word Document. Here are my top 5 reasons you should look into Google Drive as a method to keep yourself organized: - Instant access across all devices. There are apps for Apple and Android products and they work wonderfully.
- Live team edits. I've used Google Drive with brides to create a to-do list and as we complete things we cross them off the list. This way we don't both do the same task, plus it holds both me as the planner and you as the bride accountable by knowing the other can see if it's done or not. There's also a chat box feature.
- Shared documents. Your mom wants to know who's made the cut on the guest list? Send her a copy of the document that she can VIEW but not EDIT. You have the option when you share with others what they can do to the document.
- Forms. In previous jobs I used the forms option a ton. When it came time to send a rehearsal dinner invitation my time and budget were pretty much maxed out. So I sent an e-vite that I created in my Gmail with a link to a Google Form that served as the RSVP. Not perfect for grandparents who don't use email, but great for everyone else. You could also use it for collecting all of those groomsmen measurements.
- It is FREE. If you have Gmail, you have Google Drive. Simply click on the table "Drive" and you'll be taken to it and they have a spiffy little tutorial to teach you how to use it.
And best of all, if you hire me, I have already created a ton of documents that will make your wedding planning easier and I will either send them to you blank or get started filling them in for you! How are you staying organized?
Pink & Gold Sweetheart Table
Last April I co-hosted a wedding shower for Arianna & Zack. As soon as I started thinking about this shower I knew that a Pink, Glitter & Gold theme would be super girly and fun for Arianna, and well, Zack loves Arianna, so he'd love that she'd love it. We had a pretty tight budget (who doesn't?) and a lot of ladies that we were inviting. We ended up having about 80 ladies attend in the end. So we came up with the idea of serving soup, salad, and bread sticks and then having a decadent dessert table. Here's what I came up with!
Salad bar with pink heart bowls and gold silverware wrapped in pink napkins with gold bows.
Chocolate fountain with all kinds of goodies to dip and strawberry shortcake shooters.
Gold glitter table runners, pink and gold tin can vases and candle holders, kraft paper favor boxes.
I have to say that I had a ton of help with the shower. Vince helped me cut down rolls of glitter wrapping paper to be skinny enough for table runners. My sister-in-laws Miranda and Michelle came over and helped bake and package all of the cookies (no pictures of them, but we did white chocolate filled snickerdoodles and strawberry frosting filled sugar cookies both in a whoopie pie pan so they were big and soft and yummy). Michelle also came over and crafted the centerpieces with me--who knew a tin can could look so cute.
Since we had a large crowd we had to adjust the games so that people could be engaged and not bored. The game we played took place during gift opening and was as easy as setting a timer for random intervals and when it went off the person who gave the gift that the couple was currently opening got a door prize. We also had a mad lib for wedding advice at each seat which I just finished crafting into a scrapbook for Arianna and Zack along with photos from the shower and from the DIY photo booth we set up.
This picture of the bride to be, her twin sister, and their grandma is a perfect example of why I love photo booths!
And that's who you throw a girly pink bridal shower! I offer shower planning as part of my services. Need some help figuring out where to start or just want to have your brainstormed ideas come together without too much effort on your part? Besides, as a host, you still need to be able to enjoy the shower you are throwing! Contact me and we can set up a meeting to discus how I can help with your next bridal shower.
Two truths for you this morning. First, growing up I hated gold, had to have all of my jewelry silver and just generally didn't love anything gold. Second, a few weeks after purchasing my wedding gown, or rather my mom purchasing it, I saw a beautiful gold beaded gown in a department store and had a punch in the stomach of regret that I wasn't wearing that to my wedding. I of course LOVED my dress, and when I told Vince that I had this thought his response was "umm..yea, I really liked your dress." But here we are today and I love gold even more than before. And I still like the thought of a shimmery, golden wedding dress--who said you had to wear white anyway.
This whole inspiration board came from the lovely bouquet you see above (#3) that I stumbled onto on Pinterest. I just kept pinning and pinning lovely things with the combo of white and gold. I think it would make a goregous, elegant affair but could also easily be taken to a playful vibe as well.
To follow up with the photo shoot we did a couple of weeks ago I wanted to revisit Arianna's real life wedding and do a side-by-side of some of the images. When planning I find that making choices about colors and themes and big decisions can be extremely difficult because there are always the "what-if's" that creep in. These posts are just a way to show how one person can vision their day in multiple ways and that whatever is the ultimate choice, it will be beautiful no matter what. And Arianna is just plain lovely and you'll undoubtedly be wowed by her wedding photos. Zack and Arianna wed in a beautiful old bank, the oldest bank in Oakland County actually. It's high, ornate ceiling and mezzanine make it a very dreamy place to hold your ceremony and reception. I should also note that Arianna fully embraces her love of everything girly and glitzy and you'll see that this event and her shoot will reflect this personality very well! Photos from both the reality and reimagined are by Sonshine Images, Michelle is so very, very talented. As you can see both the reality and the reimagined were girl and glitzy, but the indoor and outdoor settings change the overall theme. I also made sure to carry over the table numbers as they worked well in both themes. What is your favorite aspects of these photos? Loving the pink peonies or the purple gladiolas? Sources:Images: Sonshine Images
When we got married last November I thought that I could plan all of my wedding events by myself, with the help of Vince of course. We certainly did succeed at this, but I lost small parts of my sanity in the process. Thankfully we had a week long honeymoon in Puerto Rico where I could reclaim this sanity and relax and bask in the sun and bliss of being married. This photo (as you may have guessed) was snapped by my sister-in-law Michelle at our rehearsal. I think our faces communicate our feelings that night--I'm stressed but smiling, Vince is a little nervous maybe? What happened that evening was that people were late, I wanted to wait for them to be there to begin, plus I wanted to talk to everyone that was there and things were running behind. I had laid out exactly how I wanted the rehearsal to go, instructions on paper that were not communicated well to anyone else. My bad. Thankfully my dear friend Kelly was able to get things on track and she ran the show for the night. She got everyone in line, and organized and got the ball rolling. For this I am eternally grateful because without her I don't know what might have happened to our rehearsal, we certainly would have gotten to eat a lot later than anticipated. And this is where I wish I would have hired a wedding planner to coordinate the rehearsal and the day of the wedding. It would have meant the planner being on the phone with people, that same planner would have gotten the show on the road so that Kelly would have been able to enjoy the experience with us as we prepared for our wedding day, and that planner would have told me to take a deep breath and take it all in. This is what I want to give to you as a planner--peace of mind that the details are taken care of, that every "t" is crossed and "i" dotted and that those that need to know also have this information, and most important: that you get to relax and enjoy what you have worked so hard on. If you want to enjoy this but don't need help with the planning process, I have a wonderful Day of Coordination package that you will be interested in, contact me and we can set up a coffee date to discuss it! Former brides out there: Did you hire a wedding planner or day of coordinator? If you didn't, do you wish you would have? Was there any wedding hiccup that a planner could have averted?
Last week I showed you Michelle's Green Goddess shoot, but today I wanted to show you the real vs the reimagined. Michelle and Trevor married in a beautiful farm wedding complete with hay bales, a photo booth inside the barn, and a goat and legless pig that just couldn't be hidden. It truly was one of those unique weddings that people talked about for a long time, actually almost two years later people are still talking about it. Why? This blog post on how to make your wedding fun (I love A Practical Wedding and Lowe House Events) nails why their wedding was memorable. Amazing location that people knew was a farm so they could be prepared, super meaningful ceremony that got everyone emotionally invested in the reason for the event, good food and on time, and then capped the night off in the party. Anyway, on to the pictures! Photos of their wedding day are from Elaine Von Photography, they are stunning, check out her site for more images and information on how you can book her!
Happy Friday! I'm so excited to be able to share the second part of the photo shoot I did last Sunday with my sister-in-laws. Please welcome the newest Mrs. Todero to the blog! Arianna and Zack married in May of this year in a beautiful ceremony at 30 North in Pontiac. For this shoot we decided to go a little bolder with color choices and still make it super girly which is Arianna's favorite. I also decided to enhance the "we're in a fancy garden" feel with a thrifted silver tea set. Here's the original inspiration board that we came up with together: And here's how it came alive with photography from Sonshine Images. Arianna is gorgeous as ever with her hair loosely back. And her headband? Turns out her dress originally was one shoulder and she decided she'd prefer strapless for her wedding so she had her seamstress cut it off. So glad she saved it though, how lovely is it as a head piece? We made the moss covered table numbers for Arianna's wedding, they are available to be used for your wedding or we can DIY your own version with different color base or font for the numbers. The flowers used in this shoot were super affordable, all from the grocery store (Kroger) or from the bush in front of my work apartment. They feature purple gladiolas, white hydrangea, pinkish-purple mums, pink statice, blue-purple limonium, and a giant hosta leaf. The table arrangement also includes a couple of white dahlias. All came to nine dollars total! Gladiolas may just be my new favorite wedding flower for this time of year, a huge bunch is less than 3 bucks. If you did a large gladiola centerpiece (easy to arrange yourself!) you'd need 2 bunches so 6-8 dollar investment, on half of your tables, say you have 24 (240 person wedding) you're looking at $70-100 plus vases for half of your centerpieces. And they come in a wide variety of colors. What's your favorite part? The flowers or her dress strap turned head piece? That lovely braid across her crown? Do you have suggestions for my next shoots or want to do your own Flip the Dress shoot? Let me know! Sources: Flowers: Kroger Floral Department, arranged by HT Events Linens: C & N Party Rentals, Royal Oak, MI Photography: Michelle Todero, Sonshine Images
When I started dreaming up this business I decided that I would hold as many promo photo shoots as I could but I wanted them to be collaborative in nature; not just my ideas but working with the "bride" to incorporate their ideas in a manner such that I would collaborate with YOU as a client of mine. So while brainstorming I came up with the idea of a "Flip the Dress" series where former brides would work with me to design a tablescape and theme for a photo shoot and then we'd make it happen. I just needed to find someone that would want to play dress up, dream up an alternate wedding theme and then make it all come together, her in her dress, with a table set up. Fun for the girl, fun for me, plus pictures for this website so you can see what I am capable of. So who would go first? Well....w hen I married Vince I also married into his family, his large family, which has been amazing. He is the oldest of five kids and two of his brothers also got married recently, in fact we had THREE Todero weddings from September 2011 to May 2013. This means I not only got four new siblings but also two more beautiful newly Mrs. Todero's to enjoy in the journey of life together. So I asked them if they'd be down to play and of course they said yes because they are just that awesome.
Today I bring you Mrs. Michelle Todero! Michelle is a wonderfully creative soul, there's basically nothing that she can't do when it comes to artistic endeavors. She is a photographer and has her own business Sonshine Images. We came up with a "Green Goddess" theme and I developed this inspiration board: So greens, gold, peach and pink were the plan. I also wanted to incorporate some unique elements in the florals, hence the artichokes and red cabbage in the centerpiece. And Michelle being a photographer, she agreed to take the photos and her husband Trevor took the ones that she is in. So without further ado, the images! So what do you think? Love the artichokes or hate them? Michelle will be posting these and probably a few more on her Facebook page so be sure to go there and show her some love! Sources: Flowers: Purchased at the Farmington Farmer's Market and arranged by HT Events. Linens: C&N Party Rentals in Royal Oak, Michigan. Photography: Michelle Todero, Sonshine Images.
|
RSS Feed