SF Zoo Recap

Happy Friday blog friends o’mine!

What’s on tap for you this weekend?  We’re going to be doing some nesting projects on this end.  This past week we had an accent wall painted for Sawyer’s room and also got all the carpets cleaned. So tonight we are going to pick up a futon for his room:

And tomorrow we’ll be picking up the crib and putting it together –oh boy!

Let me say thank you for the wonderful dialogue on yesterday’s post about pregnancy impressions.  What is important that we all remember (pregnant or otherwise) that this is our own life and our own unique experience and that’s what makes it beautiful!!!

About a week ago, I shared with you my background as a wedding planner and now I want to show you a bit of how the wedding went at the SF Zoo held on September 24th

Alison was a fabulous client to work with because she’s highly organized, super energetic, and beyond creative.  Working with her was – in a word – fun!

It was Alison’s intent for me to act as a “Day of” coordinator, which really means you are the main POC during the entire wedding day directing, orchestrating, fighting fires, adhering to the timeline, working with vendors etc.  This means that Alison essentially chose the “Ballet Flats” package with some modifications.  My duties included:

This is a pretty basic package, but definitely meets the needs of the bride and groom. 

This is what I wore for the Rehearsal and Wedding:

Part of my duties at the Rehearsal was to ogranize the wedding party for the processional/recessional by marking spots, orders, etc.  Sometimes the priest or officiant will do this, but in this case, the officiant was a newly ordained friend.

On the day of the wedding, I arrived at 2p and immediately began making sure everything was in order, which included laying out all the name cards, table settings, cake, and directing the event staff per Alison’s desires.

 

Check out the cake toppers – Alison molded them herself the day before her wedding out of clay.  Talk about talent!  The cake was more ceremonial because the real ‘dessert’ were custom ice-cream sandwiches via an ice-cream truck.  So cool!

After the bride and groom’s special reveal, they were off to take photos at various locations around the zoo.  Though I desperately wanted to witness much of it, I was dealing with some not-so-fun shuttle issues.  (And happily crisis was averted!)

Here are a couple of shots I did manage to get of pre-ceremony and at the ceremony (where zebras were galloping in the background ):

AFter the ceremony most guests went to the carousel area for cocktails and appetizers while also having animal encounter with 5 zoo friends (like an armadillo).  I had my asssistant take care of this aspect, while I followed the bride and groom to the giraffe feeding.  Let me tell you, this has to be one of the most unique and amazing things I’ve ever seen incorporated into a wedding.  It was a huge hit among the guests.

Truly the entire day went without a hitch (well 99.9% of it did).  We were almost to-the-minute with the timeline and adjusted as need be. 

When it came time to dance, the floor was alive and the bride and groom were grinning ear-to-ear.  By the way, after their announcement into the reception, they did a flash dance!  Again, amazing.  I have no words to describe what a playful, personalized, fabulous wedding was.

Congrats to Alison and Eli!

What is the most unique thing you’ve saw or done at a wedding?

Tell me a faboosh plan you have for the weekend?

Glimpse into what a wedding planner does

Hello, hello!  Many of you have repeatedly asked for me to talk about my “other job” – Wedding Planning! 

Yep, I am a professional trained Wedding and Event Coordinator.  After planning my own wedding in 2009, I was inspired to see if I could make this a money-making endeavor since I had enjoyed it so very much.  Besides, it capitalized on all the things I already do as an Engineer, which is manage schedule, budget, and performance (= event execution).  Easy peasy, no? 

In many ways, yes, it is!

October of 2009, I took a week long class given by the Association of Certified Professional Wedding Consultants (ACPW), which has been in place over 20 years and is nationally recognized.  Prior to the class I spent well over 60 hours preparing and doing homework, such as designing a wedding from beginning to end, conducting interviews, and finding multiple vendors for about 25 different areas of suppliers.  Phew! 

I loved the class.  Loved!

But being a wedding planner is tough work.  You lose all your weekends from about April through October to attend events. And what’s more, you have to market, market, market – yourself!  That may come easy for some, but the amount of networking events, social networking exposure, and legwork that is required is endless. 

And the pay, well the pay can be big if you put your heart and soul in for years.  Wedding planning can be quite lucrative, but to be frank, most wedding planners won’t break $50K/year. 

(There is no way I can recap everything, so I’m going to cut out a lot – feel free to let me know in the comments if you want to know more)

Early 2010, I started my own business called Engineered Elegance by S (below is the logo I helped design):

I got my business license and enlisted by bestie as my partner.  All was good.  I had contracts in place, packages to order (Ballet Flats, Kitten Heel, and Stiletto were the 3 main ones )

We quickly made business cards and set out on the networking circuit, which often included meeting with various vendors at wineries, beautiful mountain locations, etc.  And of course, there was food to test, cakes to nibble on, centerpieces to ooo and aaahhh over and officiants to chat with.  Let me tell ya, this was fun stuff!

But just because you do this, weddings don’t just fall in your lap.  You have to continously reach other to others, hand out your business cards, follow up with phone calls, assist for free until you have clout. 

And frankly, that takes a LOT of time.   Time I didn’t have the luxury of like I thought / hope I would

So I scaled my expectations and decided to carry out my wedding planning as it fit in my life.  And even if that just meant small consulting jobs here and there and assisting weddings when I had a  free weekend, that was A-Ok. 

In fact, it was perfect.

So when last weekend’s wedding opportunity popped out many months ago, I took it!  I loved the couple, their vision, and how this ‘extra job’ would bring me happiness in my life. 

Zoo recap wedding will come next week – this post is too long!

Preview:

Wedding dresses: why there isn’t “the one”

I wrote this on Sunday but am posting today because I knew my mind would be too focused on heading to the Healthy Living Summit in Philly to think about anything else!

Anyone getting in at 10p that wants to cab share?

So for those of you that don’t know, I am a professionally trained Wedding Consultant – yep, outside of my daily engineering job, I like to dabble in wedding planning.  Why?  Because it’s a blast!  And I had such fun planning my own, I just had to get trained (which I did October of 2009).  Admittedly, my ‘real job’ takes up 99% of my attention, but I still consult on the side and have my next wedding job in September for a fabulous girl!

But on to wedding dresses.  Aside from dreaming about my wedding ring, I loved (loved) wedding dress shopping.  So much so that after I purchased my dress I continued to wedding dress shop as if I hadn’t bought mine yet and just kept ‘fibbing’ about my wedding date

The trick to shopping for dresses after you’ve purchased one, without having buyer’s remorse, is to only shop for dresses well above your budget.  After I bought my dress, majority of the dresses I tried on were in the $5,000-$10,000 range.  Too pricey for this chica for a one-time wear.

Let’s just first establish, that the dress below was ‘the one’ for me, for our venue, our level of dressiness, time of year, desire to dance, budget etc:

I had a lot of thoughts of what I wanted in a wedding dress going in (more like what I did not want it to be, haha:

• Not strapless (I was so worried I’d end up with a million photos of me tugging up  my dress)
• No sweetheart neckline (I am not a fan of “heart” things) –> this was probably the biggest mistake I made because the neckline turned out to be extremely flattering on me
• Not all satin – I wanted some dimension to the dress be it lace, beading, etc
• Not stark white – I just assumed this wouldn’t look right.  Some dresses that were white-white were quite pretty
• Nothing too risqué – this is a family affair folks.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable with too much skin showing
• Nothing poofy – I ran away from princess gowns like the plague.  I felt they were too typical and would also inhibit me from dancing. Turns out the hubby didn’t like the idea of a princess gown either.

So you have a snippet of the dress I did pick, but I actually found a LOT of dresses that I would have been equally happy with. 

Let’s see some skin:

These are two different dresses, but both are shear –> meep!

While I love the detail and unexpectedness of the dress on the left, the front was boring and this dress felt too nighttime/indoors for my vineyard wedding that started late afternoon.

The dress on the right was, frankly, HOT.  It fit like a glove, had beading, lovely French silk bottom, but it was shear people.  Shear!  I don’t need friends and family seeing the belly button and nips, thankyouverymuch.

What about soft and demure?

Again, two different dresses.  The dress on the left was pure loveliness.  I felt so feminine and light in it and it flowed so beautifully.  But it also reminded me of a nightgown and I wouldn’t be able to get past that.

The dress on the right was just so unique with the butterfly-like cutouts that almost acted like a train.  This dress may be great on a nighttime beach wedding filled with white lights and candles.  Also very intimate feeling.

Let’s see the strapless…

The corset beading on the top left was actually quite pretty.  This dress would have probably been a top contender (along with another similar one with floral applique (not shown).  The majestic of the other two dresses above was nice, but not for me – they felt too “stiff” if that makes sense.

Soooo, let’s see more of the dress I picked:

ThoughI didn’t get that instantaneous overwhelming feeling of “this is the dress,” I did find the dress that fitted everything I wanted for my day. 

I think their a lot of expectations to instantly know when you’ve found ‘the one’ but in reality, I say release the pressure and think about how you want the dress to be an accent to your big day while still representing your personal style.

If you are married would you say you found “the dress”?

If you are not married, what do you envision your wedding dress to look like (or not look like that, for that matter)?