Wedding Blog

As this wedding blog post is being published to the site, I am off shopping with my daughter and fiance. Another family tradition, wake up ridiculously early on “Black Friday” and search for bargains. I am hoping for a successful trip.

Back to Jenna and Jeff’s wedding day. We were just about to continue preparing for the wedding reception.

Jenna decided to have sand dollar place cards since the reception was on the beach. Kristin and Karen went to the beach to put sand in baskets while Lindsay and I counted chairs to make sure the table settings would be accurate. Then Kristin alphabetized the sand dollars to make sure that all the guests had one. A couple were missing, so Lindsay wrote out a few extras.

We finished all of the final preparations and the guests began to arrive. The remaining tasks included lining up the wedding party for their entrance, moving the wedding gifts to the newlywed’s suite, making sure all of their keepsakes like cake knife, champagne flutes and photos made it back to the suite and making sure the other vendors had everything they needed to make the evening run smoothly.

It was a long day. We were exhausted, but so excited for our beautiful couple and their families.

For those of you who were wondering, the fish made it safely to the centerpieces and happily swam around throughout the reception.

Once the photographer has finished editing Jenna and Jeff’s images, I will post them in a Real Wedding Wednesday. The entire wedding was gorgeous. I know you will enjoy it.

If you have questions about this entry or would like to see a topic featured in an upcoming wedding blog post, please leave a comment for me here or send me an email to susan[dot]southerland[at]pwg.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook by clicking here and follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Your partner in perfect planning,

Susan

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. The house is clean, the kids are still sleeping, and the turkeys are still sitting in the brine. The day is off to a good start. I am looking forward to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while cooking. It’s a family tradition.

Yesterday, I showed you the behind-the-scenes preparation on the rehearsal day for one of our weddings a couple of weeks ago, today I am going to show you what we did on the wedding day.

First, we had to move the fish to the reception site.

After that, we dressed for the wedding day and went back to the reception site to meet the wedding party. (They were all getting dressed there).

Pre-ceremony preparations included pinning boutonnieres, reconfirming transportation, putting champagne in the limos, and taking the boxes of reception items and putting them in the reception room. We loaded the wedding party into their cars, left Kristin behind to finish organizing the reception items and Karen and I jumped into the car to head to the church.

Once at the church, we organized the ushers and guests began to arrive.

Here is Jenna with her dad just before her walk down the aisle.

Once the bride was down the aisle, it was time for me to leave Karen at the church so she could assist the wedding party during post-wedding photos and put them back in the limos for the ride back to the reception site. My associate Lindsay picked me up on her way to the reception site (we like to try to limit our carbon footprint) and we were off to finish setting up the reception.

Tomorrow, watch us put the final touches on the reception.

If you have questions on what a wedding planner does behind the scenes on the wedding day, post for me here or email me at susan.southerland(at)pwg.com. Also become a fan on Facebook by clicking here and follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Your partner in perfect planning,

Susan

Today’s Real Wedding Wednesday is going to be a bit different. Our brides and grooms are constantly amazed at what my team and I do to make everything run smoothly behind-the-scenes. A couple of weeks ago, we even had to babysit fifty-five goldfish! Here is an inside (and humorous) look at what the wedding planner does during the hours leading up to your wedding.

After the rehearsal, Kristin, Karen and I spent the evening at a local superstore attending to some last minute details, including picking up the goldfish, developing some photos and purchasing 42 gallons of spring water for the centerpieces.

We took the fish and the water back to the hotel and filled some buckets with the spring water.

Then we put the fish (still inside their bags) into the water-filled buckets.

We waited thirty minutes so that the fish could get acclimated to the water temperature.

Then we released the fish from their bags into the buckets.

There they are… The fish are happily settled into their temporary home.

Our rehearsal-day work wasn’t finished yet… We went to the reception location to deliver a car load of items for the wedding, reviewed the wedding-day agenda and then finally, went to sleep.

Check back tomorrow to see how our wedding weekend adventure continued…

If you have comments or questions on wedding day preparations, the life of a wedding planner or using fish as part of your wedding decor, post for me here or email me at susan.southerland(at)pwg.com. Also become a fan on Facebook by clicking here and follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Your partner in perfect planning,

Susan

I have mentioned before some of the really great perks of being a wedding planner…days off during the week (it really feels like I am playing hooky), shopping with other people’s money, and my very favorite — eating fabulous food with great friends. Well, Wednesday night, I got to enjoy that favorite perk.

Damon Tucci Photography, Lee James Designs and Norman’s hosted many of Orlando’s finest wedding planners and catering managers for a dinner to show off their private room for rehearsal dinners. The food was amazing and the decor was stunning.

After dinner was over, we were escorted to the patio where we were served sweet wine and a selection of desserts. The patio was beautifully decorated and the temperature was perfect.

Below are some photos of my crazy friends in the Orlando wedding industry. More on my Jacksonville wedding vendors soon.

From left to right: Jennifer Smith from Omni Champions Gate, Lisa Konecny from E-Events, Tracy Marini from Eventfully Yours, Janine Boylan from the Grand Bohemian and me, Susan Southerland from Just Marry!

Orlando Wedding Photographer, Damon Tucci taking our photo.

More friends from left to right: Bonnie Garfield, Director of Catering Portofino Bay Hotel, Susan Pelteson from Distinctive Weddings, Susie Weiss from Wonderful Weddings, Jessica Lodispoto from the Winter Park Racaquet Club, Lisa Konecny from E-Events, and Laura O’Keef from Isleworth Country Club

Destination Weddings seems to be a topic on everyone’s minds. We at Just Marry! have seen a big increase in destination weddings here in Orlando and outbound as well.

A college student writing an article for Boston University just contacted me to ask me questions about the pros and cons of planning a destination wedding. As soon as the article comes out, I will link to it. Anyway, one of her questions was, is a destination wedding less or more expensive than a traditional wedding.

That is an interesting question!

My associate Aimee Bressler handles most of our inbound Orlando destination weddings. Her brides typically have fifty guests or fewer. Many of her clients say that they decided to do a destination wedding specifically so they don’t have to invite 250 guests to attend. Some of them do it for budgetary reasons, others do it because they don’t want to be “on stage” on their wedding day.

Aimee’s clients typically spend between $3000.00 and $12,000.00 on their entire wedding. That certainly seems like a big savings over an in-town traditional wedding.

Michele Butler and I typically handle the outbound destination weddings and the large in-bound destination weddings. Our clients for outbound weddings typically have ten to 100 guests and spend starting at $40,000.00. That’s a lot of money for ten people! The reason these couples do it, usually has something to do with sentimentality. They want to be married in a place that is very special to them and they want to share that place with their guests.

Our inbound destination weddings spend anywhere from $40,000.00 to $150,000.00 or more. These weddings typically have 150 guests or more. These couples usually say they marry here because the guests live all over the country, or all over the world, and they wanted to have their wedding in a location that was easy to travel to and had lots of things for their guests to do.

So, can you save money planning a destination wedding? Absolutely, but you have to plan carefully!