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m. elizabeth events lake guntersville wedding recap – sherry + kyle part 1

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

I am excited to share an M. Elizabeth Events wedding recap from Sherry and Kyle’s beautiful May wedding.  We had a gorgeous day and couldn’t have asked for a better backdrop than The Lodge at Lake Guntersville.  This was my first time working with Robinson Studio and Design, and we had a blast! The photos turned out awesome, as you will soon see, and both Kyle and Sherry were a lot of fun throughout the day.  Kim and her team at Rock House Flowers in Guntersville created all the stunning floral bouquets and arrangements to go along with the pink and black color palette.  Sherry loved the idea of including a little bit of bling here and there to match the crystal and pearl beading on her dress so some sparkly embellishments were added to the bride’s bouquet. The bouquets were comprised of ballerina pink hydrangea, pale pink roses and tulips, bright pink gerber daisies, and green stock for a pop of bright color.

There ceremony took place on the Lower Terrace of The Lodge at Lake Guntersville.  I have been to few weddings (and I’ve been to a lot!) with such a gorgeous backdrop.  Sherry had a custom aisle runner made that stayed true to her pink and black color palette. At 6:00 p.m., 150 guests were seated in black folding chairs from Mullins Rentals in Huntsville.  A string trio from Huntsville, Mimosa Strings, played a beautiful selection of songs during the prelude as guests were seated.


Stay tuned for part 2 with all the details from the stunning reception!

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be kind to your wedding vendors

Monday, June 28th, 2010

The wedding industry is quite unique for a variety of reasons. It’s a tight-knit community of people who are essentially in the business of love. We work with couples on one of the most meaningful and monumental days of their lives which can be extremely rewarding but also downright stressful at times. There are rarely repeat clients so we work super hard on one big day for which there are no do-overs, and then chances are, we probably won’t work with that particular client again since weddings are a one-time deal (there are exceptions to this for certain types of vendors). But don’t get me wrong, we love our jobs! We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t love watching couples exchange life-long vows and then throw a huge party afterwards. :)

There is something to be said however for treating your wedding vendors with kindness and respect. We love to work with couples who love and admire our work and we’ll go above and beyond for those couples who we have a real bond with. I truly believe the more positivity you put into the wedding planning process, the more positivity you’ll get in return. It’s a wedding after-all, it’s supposed to be wonderful! Today, I thought I’d give some tips on how to have the best possible relationship with your vendors during the planning process, on wedding day, and long after!

- Choose vendors that you love! Don’t just hire someone based on price alone or because a friend referred them. There are plenty of vendors out there in every price range, so find one who’s work you admire and who’s personality you click with! You will be interacting with this person (or team of people) for many months so be sure you like them!

- Keep the lines of communication open. Stay in touch with your vendors, sometimes you may hire someone 14 months before your wedding so check in every 4-6 months, ask how business is going, and provide any new details about your wedding that they might need to know about. Before your wedding day provide your vendors with a detailed timeline of the wedding day (I’ve heard horror stories of vendors not being able to get in touch with brides before the wedding day and all they have is the location and time to show up but no other information, that’s just not very helpful). On the flip side, please don’t stalk your vendors. They don’t need six emails from you every day. And when you do email give them a chance to respond, sometimes it may take a few hours (or a couple days) to give you the answer you need.

- Go easy on them. Things might get stressful, sometimes mistakes happen, and you may feel the need to vent your frustrations but stick to the issue at hand and keep it brief. Vendors are trying to do their best job possible. We really do want you to have the best day imaginable.

- Feed your vendors on wedding day! This is often overlooked! You can not expect them to work a 14 hour day with no breaks and no food. Make sure to coordinate vendor meals with your caterer (your wedding planner can help with this as well). If it’s a buffet style dinner, often the easiest thing is for vendors to go through the buffet line after all the guests have sat down to eat their meals. If it’s a plated dinner, you can arrange for your caterer to provide boxed meals or sandwiches in a separate room. You and your guests won’t want photos or video of you eating anyway.

– If possible, make sure your vendors have a safe area to put their belongings. Photographers and videographers bring quite a bit of equipment and they can’t carry it around all night long. I always bring a tote full of emergency items and need a place to stash it out of the way. If you don’t provide a separate room or area, most likely it will get piled up in the corner of your reception space and that’s just not pretty.

- Finally, once wedding day is over and gone, say thank you! (If your vendors did a good job of course). A nice thank you note (and tip if it’s appropriate) goes a long way. Take some time to write recommendations on websites such as The Knot and Wedding Wire. It means a lot to vendors and really helps them book future jobs. And refer your friends and family!

Happy vendors make for a happy and wonderful wedding!

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m. elizabeth events: fabulous find

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Today’s fabulous M.Elizabeth Events find comes from my favorite website…Etsy.  I absolutely despise having to write my return address on envelopes, but I think I just solved my problem.  Primele on Etsy has these fabulous address stamps with beautiful calligraphy.  Must have?  I think so.

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tips for creating a wedding registry from m. elizabeth events

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

With all the newly engaged couples we’re meeting in our office, I thought I would include some helpful tips for creating a wedding registry that will be sure to please you and your guests!

1) Register early! Don’t wait until your invites have already hit the post office. Begin creating registries at least 6-9 months before your wedding. Not only will you be less busy during this time, but any guests who may want to send a gift early will appreciate you planning ahead.

2) Choose more than one store. Anything more than four is a bit overkill but choose places with different price ranges for items and add some variety! There are now photography registries, honeymoon registries, even mortgage registries so mix it up!

3) Only register for what you will actually need or use (this is something my fiance and I had some issues with). You might think you need that juicer so that you can make fresh pineapple juice every morning but really examine whether you’ll have the time for that (and whether you’ll want to deal with cleaning the thing after every cup of juice). Keep in mind you don’t HAVE to register for kitchenware or bath supplies. Love camping? Register for camping equipment! Do you travel often? Register for new luggage or set up a travel registry. There’s no point in getting gifts that will end up collecting dust in the attic someday.

4) Keep gift costs reasonable and register for items in a variety of price ranges. This concept is really really important. There’s no faster way to anger your guests than to have them pull up your registry only to find the least expensive item is $100. Try to mix and match more affordable options with a few splurges. And don’t ask for 12 sets of $300 china place settings. Most likely you’ll end up with two and you’ll have to buy the rest yourself to complete the set.

5) Make it easy for your guests to find your registry. Now, this does not mean you can include it on your invitation….no….never….don’t even think about it. The best place is on a wedding website with the rest of the information about your wedding. Create links on your site that direct your guests straight to the store’s website. And for your older guests who may not be computer-saavy, make sure your parents have your list of stores on hand so they can readily give out the information when asked.

6) Check your registries once in a while to make sure items have not sold out or been discontinued. Also, definitely check your registries often around the date of your wedding since most guests will buy gifts in the two weeks prior to your wedding date or in the two weeks after so be sure that there are still plenty of items to choose from in a variety of price ranges.

7) Write thank you notes promptly! I know some say you have until your 1st wedding anniversary to write your thank you notes, but personally I think that’s far too long and just rude. Find the time within 2-3 months after your wedding and send them out!

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Posted in advice from your wedding planner, wedding advice & etiquette | 1 Comment »

m elizabeth events advice: booking hotel blocks for your wedding guests

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

These days, we at M Elizabeth Events see that many people travel far and wide to attend weddings and anything you can do to assist your guests with their travel arrangements is sure to be appreciated. One easy way to help is by blocking off hotel rooms in an area close to your venues. Most hotels can arrange this free of charge and often your guests can get a better rate than they would by booking the hotel room on their own. Here are some things to keep in mind:

- Call a large variety of hotels about 9-12 months before your wedding date and ask what the rates are for a wedding block and compare. It’s best to choose 2 different hotels in 2 different price points.

- Go visit the hotels you plan to choose! You want to be sure there’s no massive construction or renovation happening and that the rooms and common areas are actually nice.

- Some hotels do charge for attrition so be sure to ask about it. What is an attrition charge? Basically it means that if you block a certain number of rooms, you are required to fill a percentage of that number or else you will be charged for any rooms you do not fill. Since very few hotels still charge for attrition, I usually advise my clients to go elsewhere and choose a different hotel if they come across this.

- Make sure to reserve a variety of room types such as king rooms, double or queen rooms, and suites.

- There is always a cut-off date, usually 3-4 weeks before your event date so be sure to let your guests know either on your save-the-date, or on your wedding website. Even still, you’ll find many guests completely forget and then call you 2 weeks before your wedding to tell you that the wedding block no longer exists and they don’t know what to do. Good times.

- Ask about hotel transportation. Some hotels have a shuttle that runs to and from the airport and some may have a shuttle that is available for use to the guests at anytime to bring them around the city. Huge bonus! But please don’t plan on using these types of shuttle services to bring your guests to and from your ceremony or reception. Often these shuttles only fit 6-8 people, and since anyone at the hotel is allowed to use it, the shuttle may not be available when your guests need to get to your ceremony. It’s a much better idea to hire a large passenger shuttle for this purpose.

- Finally, make sure that whoever handles the room blocks at the hotel has all your contact information and will notify you if the room block fills up OR if the whole hotel is filling up so that you can adjust the number of rooms in the block if necessary.

Guests always appreciate the time and effort that couples put into making the wedding weekend as easy on everyone as possible. Once you’ve set up the room blocks and given your guests the information, step back and let them handle their own accommodations. You’ll find that people will still have trouble, and try to call or email you to ask if you can find them a better rate at another hotel, or if the hotel offers childcare or has a pool, or how many miles it is from xyz tourist attraction, etc. If they do, just nicely email them back with the link to the hotel’s website, a phone number, and a link to Google maps. You can’t help everyone and play travel agent or you’ll drive yourself insane. After-all, you still have an entire wedding to plan.

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Posted in advice from your wedding planner, destination weddings | 3 Comments »

m elizabeth events advice: “are my wedding photos finished yet?”

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Let’s take a little journey into theoretical land…it’s the week after your wedding, all the guests have left town or gone back to their regular lives, you’re coming down off of the crazy high that is “wedding week” and sorting through all the memories of your day, when you suddenly wish you had some photos to look at! And you wonder when your photos will be ready to view…so you reach for your computer (or iPhone, or Blackberry), and start typing a friendly little email to your photographer(s)…

HOLD UP! STOP right there!

Before you go typing what you might think is an innocent email asking “Hey, just wondering when my photos are going to be ready? How are they coming along? Have any teaser shots yet? Do you think maybe they’ll be done in a week or two?”

M Elizabeth Events begs you to please think it through first.

Photographers everywhere are familiar with this email, I hear about it ALL the time. Even though it states very explicitly in the contract that it will take anywhere from 4 to 8 to 12 weeks (or whatever) to process and deliver your images, many brides and grooms think that maybe they are the exception to this, and the photographer just loves them so much that he’s been awake for the last 72 hours working on nothing but their photographs in an attempt to have them done in a week’s time.

Unfortunately, that just doesn’t happen. Photographers each have their own workflow but most edit weddings in the order that they are shot, and then add into this the time it takes for designing albums, ordering products, blogging, running a business, sleeping…you get the idea. Some photographer’s artistic vision relies heavily on programs like Photoshop and Lightroom, it’s how they create their art. Some don’t and that’s perfectly fine too. But it can take anywhere from an hour to one-hundred hours to edit a wedding. And since many photographers shoot multiple weddings a month (or one every weekend during the busy spring and fall seasons) it’s close to impossible to finish each one in a week. Typically photographers have a back log of anywhere from 2 to 5 weddings to edit before they start on yours.

And the last thing they need eating up their time is weekly (or daily as it’s been known to happen) emails asking “Are my photos done yet?”. Many times it’s not only the bride, but the groom, and the mother of the bride, and the mother of the groom, etc. So please pass along the message to your family as well. The photos will be finished when the contract says they will be. Photographers know you are excited to see them, and they are super excited to show them to you! But it’s important that each photo gets the time and attention it deserves (and that you paid for). So in the meantime, sit back, relax, and try to enjoy the bazillion photos your guests have already posted on Facebook. I promise, the wait will be worth it! :)

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rehearsal dinner at the veranda on highland

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

I adore planning rehearsal dinners and wish more of my couples asked for help with them! There’s much less pressure than with the actual wedding reception which leaves room for more creativity and fun. To kick off Kerra & Christopher’s  wedding weekend we put together a fun, elegant rehearsal dinner! Jonathon Davis captured some great shots of the festivities for M. Elizabeth Events!

This rehearsal dinner was a full scale production! The event took place at the  The Veranda on Highland which offered the simple elegance Kerra and Christopher were looking for.  The gorgeous centerpieces and various floral accents were created by Kathy Miller with Kathy Miller Flowers.  The unique, custom stationary was designed by Sonia Davis and consisted of beautiful place cards, table numbers, and menus.  The goal was for the decor to look fun and festive but still have a high degree of elegance.

Virginia Au and Stanley Reynolds of The Veranda, helped us to create a delicious menu.  As guests arrived, they were treated to fabulous passed hors ‘douevres, followed by a wonderful seated dinner. If you’re looking for the perfect venue to host your rehearsal dinner or wedding reception, keep The Veranda on Highland in mind.  They have beautiful rooms which hold up to 84 guests for a seated dinner.  They also rent out either floor or the entire restaurant for private events.

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Posted in Rehearsal Dinners | 1 Comment »

carla + bill engagement

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

In just one and a half short weeks, Carla and Bill will be saying “I Do” on a beautiful summer evening.  The 6:30 p.m. ceremony will be held at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church with the reception immediately following at Soho’s Rosewood Hall.  With a color palette of silver, green, white, and a hint of pink, the dynamic floral design team, Andy Boyles and Rachel Gaudel, have come up with designs that truly captures the essence of this couple: elegant and romantic.  Birmingham-based photographer, Mason Fischer, captured these engagement photos of the couple at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  Check back with us in a few weeks for more pictures of this elegant fete!

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m. elizabeth events: prioritizing wedding vendors

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Make no mistake, this is a tough economy and engaged couples are looking for ways to cut costs on their wedding and stay within a set budget. I’ve written posts before on setting your wedding budget but I wanted to discuss today one aspect of wedding budgets that is often overlooked…prioritizing your wedding vendors. What do I mean by that exactly? I mean, before you set your budget you must look at what areas of your wedding are important to you as a couple. Is it the photography? Is it the food? Do you HAVE to have an 8-piece band? An amazing cinematic wedding video? If you’re on a budget (and really everyone has a budget whether its $10,000 or $60,000) you may not be able to have everything you’ve ever dreamed for on your wedding day, but you can still have a good chunk of what’s important to you. And yes, this means that you will have to cut costs elsewhere, but as long as you have the things you REALLY want, you probably won’t even notice the other stuff.

For example, almost every couple I work with says that wedding photography is a HUGE priority. And so the bride and groom go on a large-scale search for the perfect wedding photographer, and meanwhile, they book their ceremony and reception venues, hire a caterer, hire a band, start shopping florists, the bride buys a beautiful dress, and finally amidst it all they come across a photographer with amazing images and style and a great personality to top it off (cue the choir angels!). Turns out, this photographer is a little pricier than anticipated, so they go back and crunch the numbers, surely they can find some wiggle-room in that wedding budget somewhere, right? After all, they did find out what an average photographer cost in their area and budgeted for that so they shouldn’t be too far off. But after adding up everything they’ve spent so far and committed to spending they realize…uh oh…we’ve already spent 80% of our wedding budget! And still need flowers, a videographer, and gifts for the wedding party, in addition to photography! Whoops.

At this point they start to realize, they probably could have hired a DJ instead of a band, possibly held the ceremony at the same place as the reception instead of paying for a whole other venue, spent a bit less on the wedding dress, but now it’s too late, as this bride and groom has already placed quite a few non-refundable deposits. So the photography search continues, for someone less expensive, closer to the “average” photography cost, although now the bride and groom know they’ll be settling instead of having the vendor they truly wanted. If only they had prioritized their wedding budget from the beginning.

Moral of the story? When creating your wedding budget, pick the top 2-3 things that are a priority (I sure hope a wedding planner is on there! ;) – sorry had to throw that in, couldn’t resist) and budget high for those items. Don’t just base your budget on those online wedding budget calculator things. Usually they are way off and don’t account for variations by region. Work with your wedding planner who will be very familiar with vendor costs and budgeting, or do some serious research and find out what the low end and the high end rates are for vendors in your area and budget high for those vendors that you know are really important to you. Then cut costs elsewhere and work around your priorities.

A final word of advice: add a miscellaneous column to your budget. This way you’ll have a little extra for that dream wedding vendor or for anything you might forget and realize you really do need later. It’s much easier and less painful to budget at the beginning for all those extra expenses that are sure to crop up (and trust me, they will crop up).

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bridal shower themes – around the house shower

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

As a wedding planner, one of my favorite ideas for a bridal shower is to theme it for “Around the House.”  Start with a fabulous invitation, and let your wording cue the guests for what to buy for.

One of my best friends is getting married on Carillon Beach in August, so we decided to throw her and her fiance an “Around the House” Shower one weekend in May when she was home from New York City.  With fifteen creative hostesses, we chose a laid-back “Southern BBQ” theme for our Southern Belle turned Northern Yankee.  Jim ‘N Nicks in Southside hosted us perfectly.  With a menu of pulled pork, baked beans, and cheese biscuits, we enjoyed sweet friends, good food, and uncontrollable laughter.  The perfect mixture of fun for any successful event.

We chose to decorate the private event space with burlap table cloths, gerber daisies in tin cans, and candles in mason jars.  The otherwise nondescript room was turned into the perfect space for a quaint and very Southern “Around the House” Shower.  Photos courtesy of Jonathon Davis Photography.


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