Event Designer: Luxury or Necessity

Busy schedules and limited time can make it difficult for most couples to plan and orchestrate an entire wedding. The wedding or event designer, once a luxury reserved for only the wealthy and elite, has become a necessity for many people. A wedding designer can coordinate every aspect of your wedding and provide a range of services from concierge to coordinator.

How does your designer make your event successful? I think giving my clients their personalized version of "WOW" will make their wedding successful. With that feeling of amazement also brings a sense of joy. Our couples share that joy with people who can recollect memories from their wedding for years to come. Your event designer should create a unique atmosphere to ensure that your guests will truly enjoy a memorable moment of your life. He or she has to help you express yourself and define your event goals.

Ultimately, an event designer can provide support for and insight into all the various aspects of your wedding and give couples added comfort that the event will run as smoothly as possible.

"Now There's (One Type of) a Bride"

The first Sex and the City movie, released in May of 2008 was a must see for many brides-to-be. Not only did the movie reveal some of the details that go into wedding planning, but how beautiful things can look when you create a cohesive vision.


Through the movie, main character, Carrie Bradshaw became even more of a fashion icon in a Vivienne Westwood wedding dress that was complemented by a classic bird headpiece and an exquisite bouquet of flowers. Since Carrie’s fashion is often portrayed as sophistically-daring, you can probably appreciate how her wedding décor reflected her personality. I couldn’t help, but notice the wild stems enclosed in silk fabric – that reminded me of Carrie (and she’s a fictional character)!

You can fully accomplish the same feat when you design your own wedding. Giving yourself enough time to think about things like the color and tone for your wedding can help you achieve your vision of the big day.

Photo by perischristou.blogspot.com

Weddings at Liberty House

Ting's & Ken's wedding @ Liberty House in May 09

Weddings at the Shadowbrook

Sara's & Terrance's wedding in January 09 @ the Shadowbrook

Victoria's & Chris's wedding in June 2008 @ the Shadowbrook

The key question isn't, 'What fosters creativity?' But it is, 'Why isn't everyone creative?'"

The wedding can be built around tradition and heritage, your personal style and taste, couples' interests and hobbies. It is a priority for everyone to ensure the success of this memorable moment.

So, where do you begin? How do you envision and create an environment for your guests from scratch, the one that they will remember long afterwards?

Over a decade, I have been privileged to help people to plan and design their weddings. Although every event or wedding is unique, similar components are always present. Most likely, a wedding will have a ceremony and reception, flowers for the bridal party and attendants. The décor for every segment of the wedding may be elaborate, simple or traditional and can be summarized with one common word - elegant. Therefore, we need to determinate what style suits you best and start designing an event that is truly yours.

Be original. Your guests will certainly be charmed and excited by what you create because it is unlikely for you to be ordinary. A wedding is all about details every step of the way. Today I would like to concentrate on the reception area. In most cases, it would be a place where your guest will spend the majority of time. The table settings will be a focal point that commands the attention of everyone. Depending what kind of space you have to work with, you have to consider a few aspects while designing the centerpieces for dinner tables; scale, texture, color and even sense.

Lighting could be the most important design element, it evokes a different atmosphere.

If a wedding is a formal seated dinner in a ball room with a twenty four foot ceiling you probably will want to fill the empty space by building six/seven foot arrangements.

Most likely, you would want to add more texture by dressing the table with an elegant overlay and napkins. In the areas where the ceiling will not allow you to use the high arrangements, you may want to create an interesting composition of different size lower glass containers and flowers. Whatever the case might be, we need to allocate the budget for our table setting and frankly it could be very costly, especial in our trouble economy.

Don't worry. There are ways to create elaborate events without spending a fortune. Let's look at some options.

Visualize the overall look that we are trying to achieve. If we were to build a high centerpiece, wouldn't you say that using small flowers might not be feasible? On the other hand, flowers like hydrangea, gerberas, and lilies would cover a lot. A lot of times my clients don't want to see any greenery. Ok, not a problem. Use less expensive flowers like carnations as a base. It just happens to be that carnations are very beautiful, sturdy and colorful flowers, but if you do not particularly like them, not to worry, you will not see them. Use them as filler and a base.

If your theme is more towards the natural look, you can use branches with flowers attached. I love to work with curly willow. When using a proper container you can build a centerpiece that would be over six feet high and still cost under a hundred dollars. Another option is to use natural trees. For example, a six feet tall Manzanita tree gives you a spectacular, chic and unique look. Again, although those trees are very pricey you may easily find a company who rents them.

Recently we built a six-foot crystal chandelier centerpiece with silk orchids attached. Our client saved a ton of money and still had a million dollar look on her wedding day. There are event design companies who specialize in building custom designs. You can save money and yet craft a unique wedding.

I remember, about seven years ago we created our first life-like silk centerpiece. Over sixty high quality flowers in true natural colors were used in each arrangement. It was a "million dollar" look then and it still is. Today you will find a few companies that rent silk centerpieces for your event for a fracture of cost.

Keep in mind dimensions if you need to create low table arrangements. Pending on your theme, use different size glass containers. There are so many options. The containers can be filled with different color gel and LED lights, sea glass, marbles, green leaves, fruits and more. You can use the same flowers in all of the containers or fill each container with a different flower in a different color. The possibilities are endless.

My advice to you is, find an event/wedding design company near you, make an appointment and see what they have to offer. Tell them your budget and see what they can do for you. You will be surprised how easy it could be.

Michael Heifez

Event Designer - Luxury or Necessity ?

The wedding/event designer, once a luxury reserved for only the wealthy and elite, has become a necessity in today's world. Planning and orchestrating a successful event can require the coordination of numerous details. A wedding designer can provide services in various capacities, from concierge to coordinator. It's important to learn as much as you can when you are looking into hiring a wedding designer for your event. How does one person manage to stay on top of the myriad decisions that must be made? Often the biggest challenge will be to keep yourself focused as you bringing your thoughts and ideas to a particular venue. You have to adopt your vision to a location without losing it. Designing an event or a wedding takes much more time and effort than planning it. Planning an event is like a production of the show, whereas the venue is a stage, the bride is a director and your designer a producer. A good wedding/event designer will help you to express your vision. Begin with inspiration, ideas and dreams! He will help you to generate an overall concept, conceptualize a style and communicate this to your guests. He should be able to find a way to create a wedding uniquely your own.

What makes an event to be a success? I think the "WOW" factor, the feeling of joy that people will feel when they remember the party later. Your wedding/event designer should create a unique atmosphere to ensure that your guests would truly enjoy the memorable moment of your life. When you design a wedding you are surrounding your guests with a part of who you are. It would be a challenge for a wedding designer to read your mind, sometimes as we say get into your head to understand what are the most important aspects that matter to you. He has to help you to express yourself and what you are aiming for.

Usually at the first meeting with your wedding/designer, you should discuss an ultimate concept or theme, including color and mood. You have to be as original as you can and design something that you are comfortable with. You have to pinpoint what do words like romantic, chic or elegant mean to you. You will be surprised how differently each one of us defines them.

Style is adaptable; it can be anything for anyone. Signature elements of your own wedding design have been overlooked in the pass, some of the elements like ambiance lighting in reception area will add enormous visual impact, adding scent will tickle your guests' senses and using texture in your floral décor and table setting will leave fabulous and breathtaking effect.

A good wedding designer also should maximize any budget and make the most out of the couples' valuable time and hard-earned money. He should be there to ensure proper setup and breakdown of each decorative element. Any wedding and event presents a challenge and it will turn out to be successful when you will love the result and your guests will never forget it.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Heifez

How to Choose Your Wedding Professionals

Eight most important principles to consider when choosing your wedding professionals:

Reliability, Experience, Reputation, Honesty, Ethic, Personality, Professionalism, Cost

A wedding professional with all of those values is the one you want. The real challenge is to find one. Newly engaged couples have to select qualified wedding experts from unqualified ones.

Because in today's advanced internet era it takes just a few hours to create a spectacular website, then a few minutes to insert raving reviews by imaginary wedding couples, less than a hundred dollar payment to the top wedding sites for advertising and off you go. Online you would never know the difference! You hear a lot of horrifying stories how the florist did not show up to the wedding or photo albums did not come in, or wedding video got lost and it goes on and on. Unfortunately it is true. In today's economy, it is obvious that price determines the sale. You will find people who will promise you an exceptional deal for a very low cost. Just be aware that grapes are not always sweet and even the best deals sometimes fail. We all know that the value of quality, honesty and reliability cannot be priced. Indeed we are not suggesting clients to overpay just because some vendors have been on the market for 20 years.

Always check the credentials or at least ask for valid references. Any vendor should not be offended, he or she should be happy to provide you with a list, because word of mouth is the best advertising. This does not apply to situations, where your sister already used the services of the same professional, it applies to professionals you do not know.

I would suggest meeting the vendor before reserving his/her services. If you have three similar offers from wedding professionals in pricing, quality and services - who will you hire? You need to establish a bond and understanding with that person. Personal qualities are important and you have to assure that you feel comfortable. There are some exceptions; for instance being an out of state bride makes it difficult to meet with the vendors in advance. In that case, I would either call up the banquet hall or ask for references.

Also, don't forget to ask for a contract, read it carefully and then mutually sign it. Make sure that the person you are meeting with is actually the one performing the services on your wedding day, and if not, ask to meet with the one who is. The last thing you want is to spend all that time and money to find out on your wedding day that the job is subcontracted to a totally different person or a company.

If quality is important to you, don't only consider the price, find out about how reliable and experienced the vendor is. You have to keep in mind that most of the advertisements in different wedding magazines and sites are "paid advertisements" and do not necessarily always mean high quality service. As I said before the best advertising is word of mouth. If your friend is raving to you about a wedding designer who decorated her/his wedding, definitely check that professional out.

by Kristina Valdmaa

February

How stylish!

January 09 Wedding Highlights

Congratulations Joan and Samy!

The Wedding Guild

Society of Certified Wedding Professionals of NJ

So many books are written, thousands of articles are published; endless blogs are overpowering the net… New trends are set every day…thousands of ads...

Where do we go? How do we select? How do we make a decision which would be the best for our special day that we have dreamed of for years? How much time do we need for preparation? How do we choose? What criteria should we use to decide who to trust? The list of questions is endless. It is too overwhelming and stressful - isn’t it?

Don’t worry. There are thousands of great professionals with solid reputation. The only thing left to do is to find them which can take hours of research. You need to collect references and evaluate their performance, professional attitude, personality. For instance you just visited several photographers, who all are compatible in their work and pricing. Now you have to make a choice. And then a scary thought - “did I make the right choice”.

That is where we come in. For decades we have worked side by side with professionals in every aspect of wedding production. We have seen the success and the failures, and we want to protect our own clients from costly mistakes, from series of disappointments and frustration.

To that end we created the Wedding Guild of wedding craftsmen based on the guilds of medieval times. A guild was composed by the most experienced and confirmed experts of their field. A prerequisite of any new member joining the guild is a thorough and careful evaluation of his experience, reliability and approval by all the other guild members. Our standards are set to be the highest in the industry and we enforce a code of professional responsibly by examining the knowledge of our members.

A wedding is very much like Broadway show, with a wedding planner as a director and all of the other professionals as cast members. The more we “perform” together, the better we know what to expect from each other. We become intuitive. We trust each other to provide everything necessary to make your event beautifully seamless.

We would gladly share this information with you and refer you only the best. Contact our concierge service; give them all the necessary details and criteria. They will find you a match who will suit your needs. In case you don’t know yet what you are looking for, or have not picked your venue, theme and décor, again we can help. Make an appointment with one of our experienced wedding and event planners and they will coach you through.

Do you know what the most fascinating part of all is? It is absolutely FREE. You will not be charged for any of the event planning consultations or referrals.

Now you are asking yourself, why would anybody do this? What’s the catch?

All of our members refer each other to their clients. We believe in “word of mouth” referrals, which only occur when you make your client completely happy. This is our highest reward.
One more benefit! When you call us, you will be given a unique pass, a number that you can take to any of the guild members and receive incentives as a Wedding Guild client. The more vendors you choose, the greater your savings.

So why not try it? What have you got to lose? Imagine…save time and aggravation, hire a team of professionals, and save money too. Call or email us today and obtain some valuable information that will help you plan the wedding more efficiently.