newly engaged : 5 tips to starting off right

Congratulations on your recent engagement!
This is definitely an exciting time for you and your fiance. To ensure the coming months and your wedding planning experience continues to be pleasant and exciting be sure to start off right. Here are our 5 tips for the beginning stages of planning…

1. Spread the fantastic news!
Get the word out by plane, train and automobile… No wait! It’s okay to place phone calls to family and friends announcing your engagement. You can send out emails too. We love using an online-service called paperlesspost.com just for this special occasion. Create a fun and fabulous engagement announcement very simply at the fraction of the cost of mailing out actual paper announcements.

2. When is the date?
Your family and friends will definitely ask when is the wedding date? Take time to discuss with your fiance as to when would be the best time of year to hold your dream wedding. As you may know there are many factors that go into determining a wedding date: money – available funds and time to save, venue availability, work/school schedules, family obligations, etc. You want to be sure the day you choose works best for your personal and work schedules and ease of travel – if this required.

3. Let’s talk money Honey…
The wedding budget definitely drives the WHO, WHAT, WHEN and WHERE for your wedding.

WHO will contribute to our wedding? Will your family give you money towards your wedding or will you and your fiance foot the entire bill? This is a very important matter to discuss before you start to look for a location, determine the number of guests to invite, what you're able to do for your wedding, etc. This can be a very uncomfortable and challenging topic to discuss, however it is so important to do. You want to know and establish what you are working with financially in the planning of your wedding. Oh and don't forget about life after the wedding.

WHAT will your wedding day look like? Are you dreaming of floor-to-ceiling floral arrangements, a 20-piece Latin band for your reception, 300 of your closest family and friends in attendance, an exquisite fireworks display at the end of the evening? These elaborate details and factors add to the bottom line and determine your overall wedding budget.

WHEN will your wedding take place? The time of year and day of the week can greatly affect your wedding budget. If you pick a date during wedding peak season and days (May – October Friday or Saturday) you will pay top dollar. Considering off peak times to hold your wedding can save substantial money (possibly up to a few hundred to thousands of dollars) on your overall wedding budget.

WHERE will your wedding be held? Are you envisioning a wedding at a prestigious museum, an amazing vineyard or on an exclusive beach in the Caribbean? Where you decide to hold your wedding will greatly impact your budget. The location you choose determines if you have to pay additional international duty/custom fees and taxes, membership fees to use the facility, guest travel costs, etc... Keep in mind, these are all things which add to the bottom line.

4. The wedding day & life after!
Let’s face it you want an amazing and memorable wedding day and a great life together after the wedding. Right? Sit down with the fiance and talk about the details of your special day and your hopes for after the wedding too. You want to be sure you both remain on the same page throughout this whole entire planning process and don’t run up against any surprises with any unspoken expectations of what you want for the wedding and in life together after the big day. Talk it out, make plans, and work together… You don’t want to go into major debt just to have a dream wedding and experience challenges immediately after the wedding.

5. Hire an amazing wedding planner!
Once you’ve...
- announced the engagement
- set a date
- finalized a wedding budget
- discussed your wishes for the wedding and your life to come

... Look to hire a professional wedding planner. This very important step will help you streamline the entire process of planning all the details for your special wedding day. The benefits of hiring a wedding planner are numerous... Save invaluable time and money, gain exclusive access to the wealth of information and resources a planner has at his/her finger tips, find the best local vendors with ease, receive great cost cutting ideas, benefit from the organization of every single planning detail to ensure your plans and wishes are executed the day of your wedding and much, much more. Simplify your wedding planning and life during this wedding journey -- go ahead, hire a wedding planner. You won't regret it --you'll see! :O)

Happy engagement and planning!

mrs. brewington confidential : gowns | to sample or not? pt. 1

Do you imagine yourself as the hidden princess waiting for your pumpkin, a fairy godmother and the perfect glass slipper? Or maybe you're a graceful Audrey Hepburn full of whimsy and silent beauty; think Breakfast at Tiffany's meets Roman Holiday. Weddings bring out the inner diva in every bride. It's a time to wear a beautiful gown, sparkling jewels and glam it up on your personal red carpet. The choices for gowns, and their price points, are endless! Let me start by saying I fell all in. I was helplessly head-over-heels overwhelmed with all of the choices. Ball gown, empire waist, goddess, strapless; the list is astounding. Although I spent months flipping through magazines, when it actually came to looking there was nothing like trying it on firsthand.

To prep for this adventure, I spent time watching several wedding shows, Say Yes To the Dress, Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? and Platinum Weddings. I knew I wanted 'that' experience; slowly emerging from the dressing room turning the corner and seeing the reaction of your mom and closest girlfriends. As you turn to look in the mirrors to get the full effect you hear gasps and see the tears of joy while onlookers remark how beautiful you look and you know ‘This is the dress’. At least that’s how it always played out on television.

My first outing I was accompanied by my mom, maid of honor, my planner and her assistant. Rule #1 - Anytime you plan your gown shopping search definitely book an appointment. It saves time confusion and frustration. The bridal consultant can help you navigate the daunting and exciting task of narrowing your selection. We had great fun and I liked each gown I tried on, but didn't love any one in particular. My entourage was not short of varying opinions and patience. Rule #2 - "Too many cooks spoil a great meal." In the end I had tried no less than ten gowns and didn't select one. At the end of the day Samara (Fab Wedding Planner Extraordinaire) gave me that great pep talk and said "you have to be happy and most of all comfortable."

This is just the beginning of the adventure of finding my fabulous wedding dress... stay tuned to see what happened!

Mrs. Brewington

photo credit: labor of love photography

mrs. brewington confidential | to hire a wedding planner or not?

Rings, gowns, vows, and tears of joy . . . It’s wedding season! And nothing says ‘I do” more than an autumn and fall wedding. Well, at least for me. That was my ideal time to marry my husband (October 11, 2008). Unfortunately that was the extent of my wedding vision. I didn’t really think of myself as the fairytale princess type. The very best I’d done to imagine that day was visualize the leaves falling in their beautiful colors, after that the picture of my wedding vision fell flat and to be honest I really didn’t think of it that much.

So where did I begin? Well, I knew I needed help. Planning a wedding is a big job and not for the faint of heart. I wrote down some key elements that were important to me for my day: creativity, warmth, friendliness, a workable budget, and find the best darn planner I could find. Who was I kidding? I had absolutely no clue. I needed someone who would care as much as I did about my wedding, have a flair for design, and know weddings inside and out.

The best thing I did in this entire process, besides saying ‘Yes’ to the proposal of course, was hire a wedding planner. It allowed me to truly enjoy planning all of my wedding details and my wedding day. I’ve heard many women complain about the things that went wrong either in the planning, the wedding day, or both. The bridesmaids fell apart a month before the wedding. The caterer bailed, or their parents secretly invited an additional 60 people without telling them; a whole host of obstacles that threatened to ruin their experience. To avoid these types of things happening for my wedding I knew I better get a planner. I knew early on this is where a wedding planner can save me from so many of the headaches that could (and possibly will) occur.

I've come to realize planners provide so much skill and knowledgeable advice to assist in planning for my special day. From the gown to the décor, the food, to the favors, a professional wedding planner can provide the extra bit of pizzazz that will elevate your wedding from an every day wedding to a wonderful platinum affair that is full of elegance and fun for all.

I'm happy to say... I look back on my planning experience and wedding day with no regrets. My wedding gown was simply gorgeous, the cake and décor from the ceremony to the reception was stunning, and the food was simply delicious. Yes, I had a bridesmaid back out, the DJ delayed the start of the wedding, and some of our relatives danced the night away (read: spent a little too much time at the open bar). But despite all of the little hiccups, I was able to truly laugh, love, and cry tears of joy on my day. I wouldn’t change a thing thanks to my wedding planner, Samara Mendoza, and her fab team at By Design Events. They were able to handle all of the details and allow me the opportunity to not ‘sweat the small stuff’.

My best advice to the newly engaged? Hire a planner early in the process. Even if you only use them for the day of or to consult throughout your planning process, it’s definitely worth it!

Until next time...

Mrs. Brewington