The difference 2 seats makes

Making the best of your budget.  How to stretch a dollar to get what you really want.  Have you thought about how many seats to place in each row at your wedding ceremony?  Have you thought about how many seats to place at each table at your wedding reception?  No? Well let me show you a little something that could potentially make a big difference to you.
Let's say you have 150 confirmed guests at your wedding. You have $175 budgeted for your aisle runner and $4,350 budgeted for your tabletops (flowers, details, and linen).  What difference does 2 seats make?

The Ceremony

On each side of the aisle you'll need 75 seats. With 6 seats to a row you'd need a 75 foot aisle runner.  By increasing the number of seats by just 2 seats per row, you would only need a 50 foot aisle runner.  Which means you could upgrade from a basic aisle runner to that patterned runner and matching vow book you were just dying to have!

The Reception

SouthernLiving.com

You have the option to have 8 or 10 seats per table. With 8 seats, you would have 19 tables to dress.  By increasing by just 2 seats per table, you now only have to dress 15 tables.  That means your per table budget goes from $230 to $290.  Imagine the difference in the centerpieces, details and linens $60 per table makes! It could mean adding those peonies that you were just dying to have or upgrading the linens from the basic that are included by your venue to the seersucker linens you really really wanted.

Fashion. Its coming to wedding tidbits!

Last fall I attended New York International Bridal Week. For as much as I love fashion and weddings, I rarely blog about dresses or all the the accessories that go along with your wedding weekend ensembles. Until now.

  I'm not sure where this new avenue will take me, but I am so looking forward to it.  I figure the best place to start is with where it all started for me, at the market & runway shows.

Let me say thank you in advance to Krista from Impressions Photography for accompanying me to so many of the shows and capturing the amazing designs we were seeing. The pictures above are from the Junko Yoshioka showcase.  It was my first time seeing her designs in person and I was was immediately enthralled by the textures and treatments she had in each dress.

This wasn't the finished design...but it turned out amazing!

While I was in New York, I met with one of my clients at her fitting with Christian Siriano.  I will confess, I would have paid money just to play dress up in his studio.  I love his designs.  It was really quite inspiring to see him at work; it was obvious that he really does know what he's doing and he has such a dedication to his craft.

Kleinfelds hosted the Pnina Tornai show.  Prior to the show starting, guests (including the likes of Colin Cowie and Housewives of Atlanta's Kim Zolciak) were offered a great signature drink made with Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka.  I for one loved it, yum.  The dresses were incredibly dramatic.  You could see how much thought was put into each and every inch of them.  Amazing is an understatement.

I could post a hundred images of all the gorgeous dresses we saw at the shows.  Here are a few more of my favorites.

 Anne Barge

 Claire Pettibone

 Ines Di Santo

Destination Wedding Invitations (Gorgeous ones)

I just felt like sharing some pretty.  I confess to stalking the Ceci New York website. But do you see why?

Oh, and of course, there's also the love for pretty much everything on the Martha Stewart Weddings website too.

Quick tip: Put as much information in your wedding invitation as you can or (I like this idea best) send a "looking forward to seeing you" package when you receive a yes rsvp from your wedding guests. The package can include more details about the events you're hosting, as well as local places to shop, dine and tour during their time away.

Styled Shoot on crack.

Most of the people I work with in the wedding industry will agree that I can never do things small.  I love to push the envelope.  Its always, ooooh I wonder if we could...
Last summer I gathered nearly 30 of some of the most talented and creative people I work with and we just went crazy on a styled shoot.  Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share what we came up with.

Here are the talented people behind this series and the companies who contributed:

Photography

Ashley Brockinton Photography

Floral Design

Botanicals on the Gulf

Cake Artistry

Kakes by Karen

Cinematography

Iheart Films

Bridal Gowns

Tie the Knot Bridal Couture

Stationery Design

A Deux Bespoke Bridal Paper

Tuxedos

Rnells Tuxedos

Linens & Chargers

BBJ Linens

Venue

Mediterra Country Club

Makeup Artistry

Hope Henderson Artistry

Hair Artistry

Faces by Frohmberg

Jewelery Design

Ring Finger Studios

The Mrs Shop

Styling & Production

Kelly McWilliams' Weddings by Socialites

Here's the behind the scenes video of our styled shoot. I think you'll get an idea from this that we weren't looking to do your standard pretty shoot. In fact, rather than just show everyone the results of our hard work on Vimeo, I went all out and planned a big screen Premiere at Silver Spot Cinema in Naples. It was the perfect way to celebrate.  Enjoy!

 

Quick tip: Renting out your local movie theatre and then heading to a local restaurant or swanky cocktail spot is a great and unique way to share your short wedding film, trailer or directors cut. Especially if you had a destination wedding and want to share with friends and family who weren't able to attend your celebration.

If your wedding was in a magazine, which would it be?

When I'm working with my clients on the design concepts for their weddings I have always asked questions about their personal aesthetic, style and likes.

What movies do you love, television shows you watch, celebrities you like, stores shop at, designers and lines you love to wear...

None of these questions have anything to do with a wedding - but it has everything to do with who they are.  This is important because your wedding should very much be a reflection of you and I want to make sure that we can easily be on the same page. For instance if you said you loved Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Great Gatsby, and Mad Men, Kate Spade and Calvin Klein; instantly I know that we have a connection.  Of course, at some point its great to know where the two of us can find likely sources of wedding inspiration and this is when I turn to the wedding magazines (print & ezines) & their websites (and of course pinterest and blogs).  If someone asked you what wedding magazine or blog was your style, what would you answer?

Martha Stewart Weddings

Grace Ormonde Wedding Style *

Inside Weddings*

Destiantion Weddings & Honeymoons *

Southern Weddings *

Weddings Unveiled

Brides

Style Me Pretty *

Utterly Engaged

Eco-Beautiful weddings

Junebug Weddings

The Knot *

* We've had recent featured weddings or editorial contributions in these magazine publications, websites, and/or blogs