Super Bride Sunday 2012

10:00 – 3:00 pm

February 5, 2011 at the The Centre: Evansville, IN

Before you go though, you may want to take a moment to look back at our series, How to Choose a Wedding Vendor. It’s some easy reading with good information.

ps You saw our epic video from The Special Event last week. Well, check out this fabulous video from Voila Cinematic on the Opening Night Celebration. That evening was off the charts with experience and decor. If only people knew what goes on behind the scenes to create these fabulous events. Well, watch the video and you can see.

Not only did I get to speak at one of the training sessions, I was able to attend some of the special events and walk the trade show floor for several days. Look out … I took lots of photos and came up with great ideas for our local weddings.

Now you have to imagine, any type of cocktail party or dinner produced BY event professionals, FOR event professionals is going to be off the hook crazy with decor and the experience. This week did not disappoint.

The best part of this week was reconnecting with industry friends and sharing ideas. Social media has truly bridged a gap that makes people living miles apart, obsolete. It was great to meet up with people who I have been talking with for years, but never actually met in person. Thank you twitter and facebook.

So, true to form, my posse, Kelly McWilliams with Weddings by Socialites and Kelly Spalding with Perfectly Placed (and many others….) documented our epic journey through the week … it’s all here, hope you enjoy!

ps NEW found respect for videographers. All these photos were shot by iPhones so some of them are grainer than others. But this took me all afternoon to edit. It’s all in the editing …. lots of time.

Brides…we are not laughing at you. Just near you. xoxo

Thanks weddingchannel.com for this hilarious video.

You see David’s Bridal, who owns Priscilla (a bridal boutique), decided to close all of their store locations after 65 years in the business (thank you again, economy).

So with the doors closing, what do you do with the extra inventory? Apparently you bring the beautiful dresses out back and spray paint them with orange paint so they are never wearable. Now, you may ask yourself, why not donate them to a charity? Great question.

A spokesman from POB said that the dresses that were destroyed were old, tattered floor samples that needed repairing AND some labels contractually did not allow for them to be donated (this is me, paraphrasing. You’re welcome).

Who are these labels? A bystander said they found a $6k Vera Wang dress that was beautiful, BEFORE the orange paint, of course. I dug deep in the comments of the major news sites that were covering this story. On commenter (who worked for POB) said that they sold all the Vera Wang dresses by October 2011.

So who is right and who is wrong? Here’s my opinion (did you think you wouldn’t get one?):

• Legally, POB has the right to do with whatever they want with their own inventory. Do you have anyone standing over you on how you dispose of your garbage or old clothes?
• SUPER tacky destroying the dresses out in public at a busy shopping location. If they HAD to destroy dresses, then more discretion should have been used.
• Publicly list the designer labels that force you to destroy inventory as oppose to donating them. THIS is the crux, because those are the labels that should be boycotted. And, as far as I know there are many designers that design for POB, thus POB has their own label.
• Nah, I’m still back on cutting out the labels and donating them. Heck, a homeless shelter … some of them would make great comforters.

What’s your point of view on this subject? Let’s hear it!

image: uptownparkhouston.com (that’s a POB in Houston, TX)

ps I’ll be with my sweetie at midnight!

venue: victory theatre
planners: planning…forever events
photogs: jesse daniels photography
design: planning…forever events
catering: SMG
cake: alysia bigge
dj: mobile club entertainment

So today, I’d like to ressurect that blog post for your amusement and add a few more things about what down-right drives me crazy about the Christmas holiday. I write this blog post as my gingerbread cookies are baking in the oven and my beautiful tree is in the corner of my living room (lest you think I’m bah-hum-bug).

• The craziness of buying presents. I’ll be the first to agree I have fallen for this. The pressure of giving a gift because someone else is giving you a gift. And take a look at all the retail crap that come out in the stores. Loads and loads of useless toys or gifts that make no absolutely no sense, but we grab them up. We’ve lost all sense of what is important.
• My tree is bigger than your tree. Along the lines of the point above, I find it interesting to watch people’s photos of their trees on Facebook. Just this week I saw one photo taken from a corporate executive’s personal home that was huge and STUFFED full of gifts underneath. Meanwhile, just a few weeks ago, many were fired from said corporate executive’s company, due to downsizing and bad economy. I’m happy this executive will have a full and exciting holiday.
• Bell ringers. Holy holly balls… seriously. The obnoxious Salvation Army bell ringers should be banned (they are discriminatory if you haven’t heard, towards community civil rights and the hiring of mentally challenged people). One bell ringer outside my favorite locally owned grocery store (take that WalMart), has a ringer that is unbelievable. He rings louder, faster and harder every time you walk by. As soon as I pass him he stops ringing. I may just start boycotting stores that allow the bell ringers. They don’t encourage me to give my extra change, instead I want to donkey kick them.
• Christmas shoppers are psycho. What physical item could be so important, that another human being would pepper spray another human being in order to buy the item? Apparently that item would be a video game. Not food, because your family is starving. Nope. Half off a $60 video game. Really? REALLY?
• Retail businesses are starting too early. Black Friday turned into a fiasco this year. It used to be you would get up before dawn and head out to your favorite Big Box stores for some great Christmas deals. It is the starting block for the Christmas buying season. If you knew anything about retail and the concept of “loss leaders” most of you would stay in bed. However this year proved to be, on the Richter scale of craziness, an 11.1. For starters, the stores started opening at midnight. It was a domino effect … one store decided to open super early and the others followed. The poor employees were not able to enjoy their own Thanksgiving with their families in order to open up the stores. It was a shame. So I boycotted them all that day.

Now I don’t want to ruin your holiday, just suggest a small reminder of what is important. Let’s remember what this holiday should be above. Gratefulness, love, compassion, generosity and the excitement of little children. (Take some asprin tomorrow morning, you’ll need it).

fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-la

image: geelong-visual-diary.blogspot.com

venue: discovery lodge
planners: planning…forever events
photogs: jesse daniels photography
design:  planning…forever events
catering: the bauerhaus
cake: cake fairy
dj: khatoic productions

So, without further ado, the winner is:

Katelyn Clevidence + Andrew Crowe

A little background; we have never given away a service like this in a form of a contest. Our motivation was to give back and generate a little buzz about our company in the community, which we have proudly served for the past eight years in weddings, corporate events, and non-profit groups.

an unfortunate, but necessary disclaimer:

As some of you know (or will now know), we did hit a small snafu with the online voting application. The contest rules clearly states that there should be one vote, per computer. A few computer geniuses figured out a work around and cheated the system by doing multiple votes on the same computer. Luckily, the application tracked each vote down to the date, hour, minute second and respective IP address. So when you have a votes that are within ten seconds apart, assigned to the same IP address, it’s really, quite easy to see illegal votes. The volume of votes during some of these sessions were remarkable, the sheer patience it must have taken the hacker.

Rest assured, once we realized this was happening, we contacted all of the contestants off-line. Since every contestant had a loved one that thought it would be cool to do circumvent the system, we decided to the only fair way was to select a final winner by cross-referencing three different methods. 1. The voting application on the website, that is posted 2. Using the back-end log system by removing all multiple IP addresses and 3. Using the back-end log system to remove only voting sessions that were obviously cheating the system. After pouring over 106 pages of individual votes, the CLEAR winner was the same couple, using all three methods. We sincerely apologize that the third-party, voting system failed to stop hackers from voting illegally. We are disappointed to think we have had our own online “wedding-gate scandal”. This must have been how the politicians felt with their “dimpled chads”.

However this too shall pass. To the many of you that took the time to legally vote for your favorite couple, we truly appreciate you and am sure that they do as well. We look forward to serving all of our clients in 2012, including the winning couple.

image:  chefswidow.com

Top 2011 Marriages:

1. Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge Oh yeah, this was definitely the biggest shin-dig all year long. It also launched me into mini-stardom by having the opportunity to co-host Local 7 morning show for 45 minutes. The most watched wedding in years and one that everyone had an opinion on.

2. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Ugh, we had to add this. Of course it was watched, although I still have yet to catch it. I’m sure it’s being burned in the editing room somewhere. More about this farce of a marriage below in divorces.

3. Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert Personally, I had doubt about these two, but after they both took home the gold at the latest CMA show, I think they may be a powerhouse to be reckoned with. Much like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Hope they can keep themselves grounded.

4. Prince Albert and Charlene Whitstock Less popular to many, Prince Albert’s parents were Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III). This was the first royal wedding for this country in a jillion years. Was he named after the prank telephone joke, Prince Albert in a Can?

and now we are off Second Time’s a Charm (marriage number two or more….)

5. Shania Twain and Frederic Thiebaud Good for Shania. She has always been a favorite of mine, although I wish she had never recorded, “Any Man of Mine”, which happens to be the most popular song wailed by drunk women at karaoke bars. And it is sung extremely poorly, every single time.

6. Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth I just love Reese and have no idea who her husband is. Therefore, it will probably last.

7. Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo Love this couple. Pretty sure Vanessa knows that Chicken of the Sea is not chicken in a can. Smart and savvy, both of them! And I did see the wedding on TV. Absolutely beautiful, even when they both jumped in the pool with wedding attire on!

8. LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian Congrats LeAnn, you married a total DB. Good luck with this. Expect to see you both in the Divorce List shortly….

Top 2011 Divorces:

1. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Congratulations you two. You win the most Ridiculous Wedding of the Year award, followed up by the most Ridiculous Divorce of the Year award 72 days later. I wish all the wedding vendors that gave you free stuff would send you a bill.

2. JLo and Marc Anthony Um, the only shocker is that it didn’t happen sooner. Never saw “it” with them.

3. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher They tricked me, thought they may start to have a chance. Oh. And. Dear Nikon: Dump Ashton cause he’s a loser and does nothing for the image of your cute little cameras which have been replaced by my iPhone. Mmm,k?

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver Wow. Power couple and after so many years. Arnold probably blames the ‘roids for his infidelities.

5. Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson Ok, I didn’t even know they were married. I prefer to always think of Ryan Reynolds as a single, hot man. Just makes me happy.

6. Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxleitner Called it quits after SIXTEEN years of marriage? I did catch Melissa recently on live TV, she has had so much work done to her face, she looks like a 18 year old. Now it makes sense…. Pa Ingall would be disappointed.

7. Tareq Salahi and Michaela Salahi You have to be a Real Housewives fan to know this couple, and this divorce sent me clapping and laughing with glee like a comedian with instant material. I know, I’m horrible. But seriously the weirdest two people that you’ll ever watch on TV. Poor Tareq ran out of money and lies to tell, so Michaela (super loyal) ran away with Neal Schon, a guitarist from Journey. Really?

8. Hulk Hogan and Linda Boella This gets mentioned only because they truly filed in 2009 and JUST NOW finally reached a settlement. Can you spell “bitter divorce”?

source: The Washington Post Lifestyle

ps Don’t forget to vote for your favorite couple to win a Wedding Day Management Service! It’s still going!

pss Featured photo from: lifefashionfy.com