Tag: wedding planning

Make it a White Friday instead, and set your wedding planning intentions

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Wait! Before you make one more Black Friday purchase, stop for a minute! If you're recently engaged and hoping to have your wedding in 2010, why not take a little time this holiday weekend to set your intentions around what's really important for your celebration? A little pre-planning before the plunge of wedding shopping can go a long way.

1. Have your families met yet? Ideally, your families will meet before the wedding day. FIgure out a way to make this happen if it hasn't already.

2. Have you set your budget yet? There are many budget planning tools online, or you can email me with the subject line "I read your 11/27 blog" and I'll send you the one I use for my full-service clients — free!

3. Have you started on your guest list? Your budget will give you an idea of how many guests you can have. It's not a perfect rule of thumb, but just to get you started, consider on the casual end (in the Portland, Oregon area), a budget of $50-100 per person; then, a more elaborate celebration will have a budget from $100-500 per person. Reducing your guest list is the easiest way to reduce your budget.

(Of course, all you really need is your intended and the witnesses, but these guidelines should work for anyone hoping to host a celebration with more than a dinner-party number of guests and some kind of food, drink, and entertainment.)

Another way to think about budget is to consider a favorite restaurant whose food you would love to have at your wedding. What did you pay per person the last time you went there on a date and had appetizers, dinner, and a few drinks? Take that number and double it (in order to budget 50% on catering and 50% on the other things like planning, venue rental, entertainment, documentation, printing, etc) and that can be a rough budget for you.

4. Have you discussed your shared vision with your fiance(e)? On The 2000 Dollar Wedding Blog, Sara Cotner discusses how she and her fiance "started with the end in mind". No matter what your wedding budget might be, this is great advice.

So take a few moments during this holiday weekend to be thankful for this exciting time, and to set your intentions and get your wedding planning started right. Who knows–maybe eliminating one Black Friday impulse purchase will allow you to get something you really hoped for for the wedding.

Email etiquette tip: the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field

Posted on by Emee Pumarega
photo of laptop on a table, next to a vase of flowers
Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

Here’s an email etiquette tip some may not know: when you CC: (Carbon Copy) an email to a list of unrelated contacts from your regular account for a group or “blast” email, it’s considered to be poor etiquette. This is because all who receive the email will then be able to view each other’s private email addresses. Your contacts may or may not wish to have their personal or work email broadcast far and wide, and it’s safer to assume that they would rather not.

Next time, use the “BCC:” (Blind Carbon Copy) function to send an email like this. Put your own email address in the TO: field, which  sends it to yourself. Put the list of email addresses that you’re sending to in the BCC: field to keep everyone’s email private.

Technorati short code: 6PRGAEPTKZCY

Updated 9/17/2020 by Emee Pumarega

What you can and can’t learn from a vendor’s website

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Woman-using-laptop-to-plan-wedding

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/ / CC BY 2.0

So many of you are planning your weddings long-distance. We talk regularly to couples in L.A., San Francisco, Houston, and other locales. Whether you or your family are Portland-based, or you just wanted a destination wedding in the Pacific Northwest, here you are doing your planning from afar.

Because of this, I get lots of questions about how one should pick a vendor or service provider. Some of my own clients tell me, "Oh, you don't need to help me with X or Y service, I found this great one on the internet." Which can be great, but I wanted to put my two cents in about some things to look for when you're wedding shopping on the web.

1. You CAN see photos. You CAN'T see their personality or how they will execute on the wedding day.

We've seen countless examples of vendors with stellar portfolios who in person are um, a little bit hard to deal with in person. I think back to one officiant an East Coast client chose by virtue of website alone, who came out of left field with an impromptu ethnic slur during the ceremony homily.

2. Are the photos representative of the service provider's work?

As a business person, I know I have to have some kind of "eye candy" on my website, and so I try my best to pick the best photographs from the weddings I have coordinated. However, I did not bake the cake, or arrange the flowers, or take the pictures! So website photos can only go so far in describing what I do or how well I do it. Clients will get the best picture of what we can do if they interview my team in person, check references around town, and find out what kind of experience they and their guests will have when we are working a wedding.

3. Are the photos actually of their work?

The ease of use of many blogging platforms allows pretty much anyone who can use a WYSIWYG editor to create a wedding blog and rehash content from other websites. The savvy consumer will dig deeper, both online, and face to face, to find out if the business is responsible at in any way for any the pretty photos or written content on the website.

4. You're loving photos of the vendor's real work, but it isn't work that will actually apply to your wedding.

For example, a makeup artist or hair stylist who has countless photos of gorgeous editorial and high-fashion features is obviously a skilled individual. But if you are buying makeup, for example, I recommend that you look at the makeup — not the lighting, photography, visual styling, clothing, or the attractiveness of the models! If you're shopping for wedding makeup…look for wedding makeup.

Similarly, a snappy website design is always pleasing, but unless you are looking at this wedding vendor to design a website for you, it doesn't tell you much about how they will perform at your event.

It's not that websites can't be helpful, it's just that there is so much more to your experience than what you can find on the web. In fact, some wonderful service providers I have worked with have little to no web presence, although this is becoming less and less common. Do your initial research on the web, yes, but there is no substitute for the face-to-face interview, client and vendor references, and other processes relating to your own due diligence.

Where to put your wedding website? Which wedding websites are free?

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Free-website-for-wedding

With all the excitement and information there is to share regarding a wedding, an invitation is only the start.  Most of us want to share lodging information, photos, fun things to do, and perhaps some silly stuff as well!  Hence the popularity of the wedding website.  But with so many providers, which one to choose?

We reviewed a few sites at Portland Wedding Coordinator and found a few keepers that we hope you'll like!  Some of the things that made these stand out were: ease of use; classic, good-looking designs; reliable uptime (as far as we can tell) and that they are FREE!  Enjoy.

momentville.com

projectwedding.com

mywedding.com

weddingwire.com

weddingmapper.com (Less traditional website design, more of a "map of the whole week", but cool idea!)

And of course the old standbys:

theknot.com

weddingchannel.com (now a division of The Knot)

In addition, many savvy brides and grooms who want more customization (and also who don't mind doing a little bit more footwork) are using the free blog services such as blogspot.com, wordpress.com, and weebly.com as wedding websites.

Do you have any free wedding websites sites that we haven't heard about yet?  Let us know in the comments!

Wedding photography packages – Making sense of it all!

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Portland-farm-wedding-evrim-icoz-portland-photographer

Something I'm often asked by my wedding planning clients is, "How do I choose a photographer?” I often hear, “They all seem to offer different combinations of packages and services and it’s confusing."

Because photography is such an essential part of the wedding, and also a large part of the stress in initial planning, I wanted offer a quick rundown of my method for comparing apples to apples in the photography world.

I’m not going to cover artistic styles in this post. It’s of first importance to choose a photographer with whom you feel a connection, and one with whom you’ll be comfortable under their gaze the entire wedding day. But let’s assume you’ve found several photographers whose shooting style, artistic eye, and personality you really like. Now it’s time to select.

In my opinion, there are three “must-haves” to a photography package:

1.  Coverage time and personnel.

Most photographers offer packages ranging from six hours to unlimited time.  Some will add or include the rehearsal dinner and other events surrounding the wedding. You need to look at your schedule of the day to decide what exactly you want the photographer to cover.  I find that a minimum of eight hours works for many of our clients, and allows them to have the photographer from the end of getting ready time through to the toasts, cake cutting, and the first part of dancing. However, if you want more getting ready coverage, have multiple events such as related ceremonies or rituals (such as a morning Chinese tea ceremony before a afternoon Western wedding), or want to have formal photos taken at several locations, eight hours may not be enough.  Definitely look closely at your needs and timeline.

Photographers also offer additional photography staff ("second shooters").  This is different from a photographer's assistant, who carries and sets up equipment for the photographer, takes lightmeter readings, and performs other tasks, but who may not actually be taking photos. Do ask what the role of any additional staff will be. For many of our clients with elaborate events or multiple locations, a second shooter is essential in order to get the detail shots, as well as alternate angles and takes on the key moments.

Photo: Portland Wedding Photographer, Evrim Icoz

Continue reading “Wedding photography packages – Making sense of it all!” →

Color Scope: Electric Plum

Posted on by Emee Pumarega

Spring is here, and I am in love with the spring plums. I like to call it "electric plum" because it seems to have more energy than plain old purple.  It's not exactly purple, there's a little warmth, a bit of pink and raspberry in there.  This would be a great main color with ivory, gold, silver, or graphite as the neutrals.  You could even throw in some chartreuse or a bit of spring green. Darling!

Spring Plums
Spring



Purple n Lime
Purple n Lime

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