Celebrity Weddings by Chad Wandel

Celebrity weddings are all about personalization and absolute attention to detail. Nothing can be overlooked and every opportunity to make the wedding personal to your celebrity client is what is expected from the wedding extravagant clientele.

The celebrity clients that I have dealt with are always looking for the “Wow Factor” when it comes to entertainment and décor for their weddings. Thinking in new media and layering décor concepts are how to please the tastes of this client.

Using light is an important aspect of obtaining the ambience and visual touches that will make the décor really pop. With large budgets spent on floral arrangements, I never miss the opportunity to have them pin spotted. Use of plasma screens to display portraits rather than traditional prints and incorporated music videos and multimedia presentations by the specialized entertainment are all additional ways to cater to the luxurious tastes of celebrity weddings.

And lastly, a professional Master of Ceremonies is always on my list of must-haves for my clients. True professional entertainment is the best way to ensure a harmonious incorporation of planning and entertainment. They are the director to our craftily composed wedding reception.

Chad Wandel is a classical violinist, an award-winning videographer, the founder of Artistic Image Weddings in Arlington, Texas, President of the Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter of the American Disc Jockey Association, and a Certified Wedding Planner and Instructor for The Wedding Planning Institute’s How to Become a Wedding Planner certification course at the University of Texas Arlington.

The Highest Happiness on Earth is Marriage

Tomorrow, our country will vote for our next President, hundreds of members of Congress, thousands of state and local officials, and numerous ballot initiatives. For the wedding industry and the Certified Wedding Planner, propositions in Arizona, California, and Florida are drawing attention almost on par with the national election. In each of these three states, voters will decide whether or not to ban same-sex marriage.

As same-sex couples rush to the altar in the hotly contested California ballot race, commercials for and against Proposition 8 are airing multiple times each hour. Since the California Supreme Court decision in June 2008 that legalized gay-marriage, thousands of couples, including celebrities, have tied the knot. In the meantime, arguments for the societal benefits of traditional marriage versus equality for all have continued to be waged. In many cases the contest has become vitriolic.

William Lyon Phelps, early 20th century American author, scholar, and ordained minister, wrote that “the highest happiness on Earth is marriage”. In the view of opponents of same-sex marriage, their efforts are nothing short of heroic protection of marriage in the face of a threat to that happiness. For proponents of gay marriage, the fight is against discrimination and the right of everyone to pursue their personal happiness.

While recent polls have tightened to the point of a statistical tie, the battle is being fought on the Internet, at city halls, in churches, internationally, in homes, in labor unions, in schools, in political parties, and in movie productions. In an election where economic, foreign policy, health care, and energy concerns compete for our collective attention, the war over our subjective marital happiness will inevitably continue after tomorrow’s votes are tallied. Both sides of the issue are counting on your support to either protect marriage or protect equality.

For the Certified Wedding Planner, depending on your viewpoint, a defeat for Proposition 8 will either increase your business opportunities or someone else’s. To some, victory for the measure will protect their happiness by denying it to others. When deciding your position, perhaps another quote by Phelps, highlighted in the 1001 Smartest Things Ever Said, in need of slight paraphrasing for the 21st century, can be of some guidance:

"This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him."

Please remember to vote.

This Week in Wedding Planning News

For today’s busy Certified Wedding Planner, keeping up with wedding industry current events can be challenging. With that in mind, here is a recap of what you may have missed this past week.

The former world’s heaviest man, Manuel Uribe, married his fiancée, Claudia Solis, in a ceremony in Monterrey, Mexico that was filmed by the Discovery Channel for an upcoming documentary predictably dubbed “My Big, Fat Mexican Wedding”. In other big wedding news, the pictures are in for the mass wedding of 700 couples in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, an independent state nestled in Azerbaijani near the border with Armenia.

In an effort to avoid bigamy, Tatsuhiko Kawata set fire to the hotel in which he was scheduled to be wed. Police reported his current marriage as the reason for canceling the wedding and arson as his way of notifying his fiancée. In a multiple weddings publicity stunt, the so-called “World’s Most Romantic Couple” and Danish celebrity wedding planner couple, Anette and Kenneth Lund, have tied the knot a total of six times, including a record breaking four Las Vegas weddings in one day.

Choosing the right venue can make or break a wedding. Signs are good if you win a contest that celebrates your wedding during the naming inauguration of Princess Cruises latest Love Boat. It is a somewhat bad omen if you book the Corazon Club in Dublin, which recently closed, leaving several couples without their venue or their deposits.

Forbes Magazine detailed the eight financial threats to (affluent) marriage. Apparently, eight out of ten very wealthy couples would divorce should their net worth nosedive. Unfortunately, USA Today reports that couples booking weddings at luxurious hotels such as The Pierre in New York are settling for disk jockeys over live bands, miniature cupcakes instead of elaborate multitier cakes, and truncated guest lists.

To help boost the economic plight of the pastoral class, wedding officiating is touted as the perfect way to pay off debt, put the kids in braces or college, purchase a new car, or party at Disneyland. Alabama’s Weddings 911 columnist, Alene Gamel, is asked whether the Internet will displace traditional wedding announcements and replies with a brief history of invitations and decides that electronic invites should RSVP in a few years.

Celebrity nuptials remained in vogue with rumors that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, two of the world’s most famous unmarried parents, are reported to be considering a simple wedding ceremony. Best selling event planning author and host of the WE network’s “My Fair Wedding”, David Tutera, has partnered with Knork Flatware, a cutting edge cutlery company, to provide customers entertaining ideas and designs that represent their own personal style.

From the silly to the surreal, anime wedding news included Hello Kitty wedding gowns for the childish bride and a disturbingly serious effort in Japan to legalize marriage between humans and cartoon characters. If added to the top eight complaints that irk wedding guests, we assume the bride being a cartoon would rank higher than her wearing a cartoon.

Off the beaten path, the driveway paving father of Missy Quinn, a 16-year-old girl who lives in a gypsy caravan, threw his beloved daughter a wedding costing over $160,000. The celebration featured a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Swarovski crystals, bridal hot pants and bra top, gallons of fake tan, and a promise from the newlywed Mrs. Moghon that she would pursue a career in glamour modeling and that the 17-year-old Mr. Moghon best not expect her to cook or clean, but had better spend his days catering to her every need. In ironically unrelated news, mustached wedding parties have apparently become all the rage.

The State of the Wedding Industry

The wedding industry has historically done well even in times of economic uncertainty. Tough financial times simply do not override love and marriage. With that in mind, here is a look at wedding statistics for 2008 as researched and reported by The Wedding Report. Dollar amounts are the average spent for each category across the country. In some cases, such as Bridal Attire, the amount represents the sum of the averages of all items in that category.

Estimated U.S. Weddings: 2,212,923
Total Estimated Wedding Market Value: $62,053,359,662
Average Number of Guests: 166
Total Average Spending: $28,704

· Bridal Attire: $1,903
· Groom Attire: $449
· Hair and Makeup: $166
· Wedding Ceremony: $1,552
· Wedding Officiant: $226
· Rehearsal Dinner: $1,300
· Entertainment: $493 to $1,786
· Flowers: $2,033
· Gifts and Favors: $1,427
· Honeymoon: $3,805
· Stationery: $911
· Jewelry and Rings: $5,803
· Photography and Videography: $3,502
· Wedding Planner: $1,483
· Reception: $15,516
· Transportation: $257 to 690

For the Certified Wedding Planner, here are the estimates for the range of services you provide to your clients.
· “Day Of” Coordination: $500 to $3,000
· Month-of-Direction: $1,200 to $2,150
· Full Service Wedding Coordination: $2,500 to $6,500
· A La Carte Services: $55 to $150 per hour

Additionally, Shane McMurray, CEO and founder of The Wedding Report, writes that “despite the credit crunch, the wedding industry remains steady. Most business reporting sales are good with consumer spending remaining steady. Businesses are also reporting that the number of couples getting married remains steady, three month sales expectations are good, but business cost continues to increase.”

This Week in Wedding Planning News

As a busy Certified Wedding Planner, there is precious little time available for keeping up with the latest news and trends in the wedding industry. To help keep you up-to-date on wedding current events, we offer a quick rundown on some of this week’s top industry stories.

As the wedding industry continues to battle the current economic downturn, wedding businesses are evolving to meet the challenge in different ways. Some businesses are merging to combine their products and services in an attempt to increase their market share. A wedding supply website has responded to its local market need for a hands-on source by opening its first brick-and-mortar location.

Other wedding industry marketing news includes a review of a wedding resources portal that bills itself as “The Future of Weddings”, an international corporate event planning group that is launching itself headfirst into the wedding planning business, and a New Jersey shore community rolling out its plans to promote their destination wedding appeal.

With many prospective clients either cutting back on their wedding budgets or forgoing wedding planning altogether, a wedding planning business owner has taken umbrage with TheKnot.com’s article on the recent survey revealing how much time brides-to-be spend at work researching caterers.

This week, weddings were challenged by unexpected military deployments, uproarious opponents of same-sex marriages, and Hurricane Ike induced venue closings. Offbeat weddings featured unusual cake designs, a swinging 40’s theme, and a mass ceremony of seven hundred couples seeking to spark a baby boom. Wedding contests offered an unclaimed $10,000 for the couple who waits and an $80,000 award to engaged cast mates of the CBS Survivor: China show.

In the world of celebrity weddings, Fergie is looking for the best wedding planner, Mena Suvari is learning about wedding planning in Italy, Gisele and Tom Brady are rumored to be game planning a run to the altar, Paris Hilton tries on glass slippers, Madonna and Adam Shankman are producing The Wedding Planner 2, and Captain Kirk and Mr. Sulu aren’t communicating well.

Oh, and pink is the new white.

The Certified Wedding Philanthropist

What do you get for the bride and groom who already have everything? Many Certified Wedding Planners are helping clients celebrate their nuptials with the art of giving while receiving. Keeping charity in mind, there are numerous ways to design a wedding plan that appeals to the better angels of our nature.

Cards for Causes allows a couple to create customized wedding stationery that promotes their favorite charity and donates 20% of the purchase toward that cause. Recipients are alerted to the donation and encouraged to make a contribution of their own.

When setting up a gift registry, organizations such as Just Give, the I Do Foundation, Global Giving, and Changing the Present provide options that either encourage guests to donate directly to a choice of more than a million charities, donate a portion of a gift’s purchase price toward the couple’s chosen beneficiary, or provide gifts that are sent directly to a cause in the couple’s name.

One unique gift registry, Ten Thousand Villages, features Fair Trade products handcrafted by fairly paid artisans in thirty-two countries around the world. Some couples choose to request donations to benefit a local charity. A couple in Washington, D.C. created a perpetual scholarship fund for the groom’s alma mater and requested their guests make donations that benefit disadvantaged children.

For goods and services for the ceremony and reception, consider attending a show such as the Get Hitched, Give Hope event taking place in Seattle this evening. Coordinated by six wedding industry professionals, including wedding and event planners as well as wedding vendors, the event requires participating vendors to donate an item or service to be auctioned or raffled during the show to benefit Brides Against Breast Cancer.

After the “Day Of” events are complete, there are many options for continuing the spirit of giving. Brides Against Breast Cancer is holding a charity wedding gown sale in Los Angeles at the end of the month, with similar events taking place throughout the year around the country. Other options include contributing leftover reception food to a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter, delivering the wedding flowers to a local hospital to brighten patient’s spirits, and donating the wedding gown and other attire to a local thrift store, the Salvation Army, or an organization like the Princess Project.

Many charitable organizations provide wedding favor signs to be used as table place cards to inform guests of donations made in their name and describe the significance of the charity to the couple. If the favored charity is local or does not provide a favor sign service, many stationery companies allow you to create your own donation cards and envelopes.

After the main events, the new husband and wife can continue their philanthropic journey by turning their honeymoon into a life changing event. The travel service i-to-i.com arranges trips overseas to meet new people, get immersed in a new culture, and make a difference abroad. Destinations include Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia where celebrating wedded bliss can be coupled with working with local children or wildlife and helping a local community or environment.

Wedding related charity allows the joy of the “Day Of” to reverberate into the future. The simple act of helping others while enjoying their good fortune can multiply the blessings of your client’s union and help set their marriage on the path of goodness and hope.

Turn Your Wedding Industry Expertise into Additional Revenue

The wedding industry has historically been resistant to economic downturns domestically and internationally. During the current global financial crisis, there are signs that even love and marriage is feeling the pain. As the wedding industry seeks solutions to fewer clients and decreased wedding budgets, it is imperative for your business survival to adapt to the needs of a slumping economy.

Interest in the wedding industry is reaching an all-time high around the world. For the Certified Wedding Planner and wedding industry expert looking for ways to increase income while doing what you love, The Wedding Planning Institute is offering the right vehicle for these troubled times. As a veteran wedding planner or wedding vendor, you can turn your years of experience in the field into a lucrative business helping others to learn more about your specialty.

Like many of our current instructors, also successful wedding industry professionals, you are asked frequently for advice, tips, and guidance from others getting started in your field. This program is your opportunity to earn money while you help others learn from your real world experiences.

WPI is currently accepting proposals from industry professionals who can communicate their expertise in the form of an online course. WPI will work with industry experts to develop their course utilizing the latest trends, industry best practices, and time-honored traditions to provide instruction and valuable information on to our worldwide network of students.

The Wedding Planning Institute is partnered with over 1,800 accredited colleges and universities. Courses will be offered through our partner colleges as online training programs and the Industry Expert will provide training, advice, and feedback to students through our online curriculum system.

As a WPI Industry Expert, you will earn tuition revenue, enhance awareness of your core business, and enjoy networking opportunities throughout the WPI system. The Wedding Planning Institute will also help make your course successful with various marketing efforts, such as press releases, advertisements, direct mail, and college course catalogs to give your course national and international exposure.

For more information, including frequently asked questions and course topics, and to submit a proposal, visit:

http://www.weddingplanninginstitute.com/instructor_partners2.html

Business Survival Means Aligning Your Services to Your Clients’ Needs

Monday’s Los Angeles Times featured a review, titled “Why you should look at your firm from the outside in”, of the book “Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs” by Craig Stull, Phil Myers, and David Meerman Scott. The main lesson of the review and the book is that to survive in today’s economic climate, businesses must learn to see things as your customers do and avoid the tendency to react to financial crisis by cutting back without a clear and accurate view of what your strengths and weaknesses will be in the upcoming market.

The author of the review, Alan Mitchell, a contributing editor to Marketing Week and the Financial Times of London as well as co-writer of “Beyond Branding”, a multi-author text that challenges businesses to have a human perspective that benefits people rather than manipulates them, highlights a six step recipe for overcoming this tendency detailed in “Tuned In”.

For the Certified Wedding Planner, there are specific lessons to be learned from this advice. Whether you are in your first year of business or your twentieth, your business is being directly affected by the fears and concerns prospective clients feel about the state of the economy. Only by truly listening to your market will you be able to fashion your services menu to meet the needs of a client base determined to do whatever it takes to make their dream wedding a reality.

First Step – Search for the problems your bridal clients want solved. This means going to bridal shows, Bridal Balls, or even establishing relationships with bridal stores. Directly observe what interests brides-to-be and listen carefully to what they have to say.

Second Step – Identify the various buying personas in your market. These are definable groups of brides who share the same problems and desires. They could include full service brides, DIY brides needing help in consulting or “Day Of” coordination, or somewhere in between.

Third Step – Get the hard data. Are your prospects prepared to pay for your services? According to The Wedding Report, for the over 330,000 weddings that are being professionally planned this year, brides and grooms are paying an average of around $1,500 for planning services. Your research needs to include statistics for your local market as well as information culled directly from your conversations with brides-to-be.

Fourth Step – Make every step of your client’s decision and planning process an experience that resonates, from discovering and contracting your services through your meetings, your performance, and your communication.

Fifth Step – Articulate your idea in a way that is about your bridal prospect’s beliefs and not about your services’ descriptions. Speak to the solution your brides want and not the need you have to sell a particular service.

Sixth Step – Communicate not by pitching your services, but by creating information that answers the questions posed by your different bridal buying personas.

Business survival in a recessionary market takes research, planning, and action. Get out of the office and meet with your potential clients. Listen to their concerns about wedding planning costs and logistics. Discover an innovative angle that will set your business offerings above the crowd. Learn from other planners to find out what is and isn’t working.

The days of boosting business with a charitable act or by figuring out how to get the groom involved may not be completely gone. But for your wedding planning business to survive and even thrive, you need to listen to your market and give them exactly what they want.

These Days, Diversification can be for the Dogs

As a Certified Wedding Planner in a tough economy, diversifying your revenue streams is often a necessity of survival. Beyond expanding your services menu to include multiple service level packages and ala carte offerings, sometimes you need to plan outside the proverbial box. Think: pet weddings.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

On that measure, America is doing just fine. According to the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association, we are spending over $43 billion dollars on our pets this year. Of that, $3.2 billion is being spent on services outside the initial pet purchase, food, supplies, and veterinary care.

While not an exclusive American province, pet weddings are gaining traction in our culture as a way to celebrate our love for our four-legged friends. Puptials, as they are often called, have been held to raise money for animal shelters, staged to attempt world records, hosted at famous luxury hotels, or planned to simply find a play date.

Pet wedding officiants range from the Reverend Tyker, a miniature schnauzer ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church, to human officiants providing “heartfelt, tail waggin’, light-hearted ceremonies with personalized puptial vows”.

A 2006 survey by the American Kennel Club reports that one-third of women and nearly one-fourth of men would date their dog if it were human. This love we have for our pets is evolving beyond including them in our own wedding celebrations to holding ceremonies for the dogs themselves.

As a CWP delving into the world of animal matrimony, there are several resources you can tap to deliver the dream. When planning a puptial service, keep in mind the special dietary needs of the betrothed. Wedding attire will also present a challenge, although pet tuxedo sizing charts and pet wedding dress up programs can help. To capture the memories, be sure to consult a seasoned pet wedding photographer.

Whatever your quadruped client’s desires, you can find a service provider to help you plan the best pet wedding possible. It may not be one of the most expensive, such as the 1996 union of two rare “diamond-eyed” cats named Phet and Ploy that cost over $16,000 and was attended by 500 guests. It may not be one of the largest, such as the hundreds of pet owners in Bangkok, Thailand hitching an impressive variety of animals together just before Valentine’s Day.

But with some research, creativity, and a respectful understanding of Immanuel Kant’s assertion that we can judge the heart of a person by their treatment of animals, you can help your client and their pets realize their wedding dreams.

Wedding Industry Trends for September 2008 from The Wedding Report

Each month, researchers at The Wedding Report compile the top 10 wedding consumer and industry trends from consumer and vendor feedback. Today, we highlight the latest trends and how they have evolved from previous months.

In keeping with the economic concerns everywhere, couples are continuing to set lower budgets and stretch their money using do-it-yourself solutions to wedding decorations and services. These include utilizing buffet meals, amateur photographers, mp3 players, and off-peak wedding times and settings.

Here is the list of overall September trends. Keep these in mind as you are working with bridal client prospects who are concerned not just with the details of their wedding plans, but also with the size of their wedding budget.

1) Holding weddings on off-peak days, times, and months is more common
2) Budgets are shrinking and couples are looking for bargains
3) Do-it-yourself projects are replacing wedding products and services
4) Using iPods and mp3 players for music is trendy
5) Outdoor weddings are very popular
6) Couples and guests prefer buffet reception dinners over sit-down meals
7) Photography is more often done by amateurs, friends, or family members
8) Brides are spending less on wedding gowns
9) Bright, bold colors are fashionable
10) Destination weddings are becoming more popular

You can download the full report PDF for free at www.TheWeddingReport.com by setting up a free subscription. This resource also offers paid subscriptions that allow access to very detailed statistic and trend information that can be invaluable for the Certified Wedding Planner.