Wednesday, August 20, 2008

WHY NOT TO BE A "BINDER BRIDE"


You’ve dreamt of your wedding day since you were six years old. Your mother has cut out pictures of wedding dresses and engagement rings since you were in college. You’ve analyzed every shade of pink you can find, and have a swatch board trying to decide whether your colors are “Blush” or “Bashful”. Unless you are, in fact, Julia Roberts, and have an abundance of time and money, you should never be burdened as a bride-to-be with these decisions. The differences here for your guests are between “That’s pretty” and “Hey, that’s pretty”. We in the event business refer to those who have floor plans, and checklists, and swatches and pictures of every bridal bouquet they have ever seen in Martha Stewart Weddings, simply as BINDER BRIDES. And you know who you are ..... :)

We got in this business to HELP you with your weddings, not steal them from you. You have an idea, we make it a reality even better than you imagined. You keep control, and we just become robots that can’t use our skills and expertise. As a florist, I was born to be creative. I have a floral imagination that makes Martha Stewart look like she works at the gift shop in the hospital. The bride sees a picture in a magazine and brings it to our consultation. She says, “DO THIS”. “THIS I LOVE”. So now I get to be a monkey instead of a designer, and you don’t even know how AMAZING it could have been! Magazines show you perfect pictures of fresh and sometimes artificial flowers, under perfect lighting, that was made like 30 minutes before the shoot. It may contain flowers that are well out of season for your wedding, certainly things that may or may not be obtained by your local florists, and often, if silk is used, don’t come in the colors being shown to you. Not to mention that half the flowers used are likely well out of the average brides price range. These bulk magazines create trends that get repeated by every other bride in the area, and you think you are being unique. Ha! Martha got you, GOOD!


People in this industry are here to take your ideas, not decisions, and turn them into a vision that will take your breath away on your big day. How fun is it to know EXACTLY what to expect that day? How memorable are things that are PLANNED and STRATEGIZED? Hire an event planner. Let THEM be the planner and strategizer…then you get to relax, and OH MY GOODNESS! ENJOY YOUR DAY! Why? Because that is what they get paid to do, make YOUR day stress-free. Perfect! Spend the week before your wedding drinking margaritas and getting pedicures. Instead of creating an exhaustive list of every picture you’d like taken, “Mom and Susie and Uncle Ray with bride”, “all the bridesmaids with grandma’s dog”, hire a photographer you KNOW does a great job, because you have seen their work, and let them take candid shots all day…You will be SURPRISED when you get those photos back, and they will be better than the ones you had planned. Why? Because photographers know how to take pictures and you don’t, goofball. Here’s another tip, just because invitations are expensive does NOT mean you should go to Michael’s or Target or some other evil empire, and buy pre-made, pre-folded, crappy ass card stock to have your invites printed on. Call a professional; let them design it with YOU in mind. Get people excited about your big day the moment they open up that envelope. You’ll get better gifts.



Take an idea, or a few ideas, and let us roll with them…..when you do, three things will happen.
#1. You will get exactly what you hired us for. You don’t hire florists and photographers, event planners and graphic designers, because they follow lists well….You hire us because we are creative geniuses who KICK ASS.
#2. You will enjoy the ENTIRE planning process without stress, fear, guilt, or anxiety. If you feel these emotions, AND you have put down your binder, you have hired the wrong vendor.
#3. You will have memories you never knew you could have. You will feel like it was money well spent. Everyone at your wedding will know it was truly unique and very YOU and will spend their whole night saying just that. And even YOU will enjoy your wedding day.
Put down the binders, stay away from Martha Stewart Weddings, and the Knot.com…..be YOU.

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