This Week in Wedding Planning News

Nov 7, 2008 Wedding Planning Institute

To help the Certified Wedding Planner keep up with the headlines from the past seven days, we offer an overview of the important and the trivial from the week in wedding planning.

With the apparent passage of California’s Proposition 8, a ban on same-sex marriages, upwards of $370 million in business will be lost to the wedding industry over the next three years, according to a study by UCLA. In continued opposition, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed a petition with the California Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the amendment. Protests are being staged in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Salt Lake City, and elsewhere, and a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is interpreting her new, second-class citizen status to mean there is no need to pay California state taxes. Ironically, an upcoming Hollywood movie, Milk, rings echoes from successful past gay-rights struggles.

Relief came to the 3,000 couples left in limbo by a bankrupt wedding photographer when a judge ordered Celebration Studios to release the photos and videos of their weddings. A more direct wedding perpetrator was caught stealing hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards, cell phones, sunglasses, and various electronic devices from guests’ stored belongings during an event at a Fort Meyers, Florida country club.

In celebrity wedding news, Ashley Olson is denying reports that she is planning a secret, million-dollar wedding in the South of France next summer. The Egyptian renewal of vows between former Scary Spice Girl, Mel B, and film producer Stephan Belafonte is taking place this week without the presence of one-time band mate Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice, and her soccer icon husband, David Beckham.

While actor Kevin Connolly of HBO’s Entourage was busy trying to break up a wedding reception brawl in Naples, Florida, television cooking queen Rachael Ray was turning the nightmare of Hurricane Ike into a mass dream wedding for dozens of displaced couples at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. In the United Kingdom, a television company has enlisted the help the owner of Flaunt Events, a wedding fair company, to identify engaged couples for a new show called Four Weddings.

The supposed wedding site of the legendary couple, King Arthur and Guinevere, Castle Hill at Knucklas (Welsh for Green Hill), is up for sale in what is billed as a “rare opportunity to purchase a site of historical importance”. In other UK wedding news, a south London couple agreed to exhibit their wedding in a public ceremony as part of artist Emma Smith’s reenactment of celebrations from the 18th century at historic Orleans House in the London borough of Richmond.

Internationally, cross-cultural weddings are on the rise, a Kenyan couple’s wedding plans are threatened by aspirations for the American dream, an arranged marriage of children to settle a family feud was disrupted by Pakistani police, and the Thailand wedding industry is touting its Buddhist temples, white, sandy beaches, and lush green forests for unique, imaginative destination weddings.

A Malaysian wedding planner has designed a beautiful traditional Indian rangoli display that carpets over 1,200 square meters at the Persada International Convention Centre in Johor, Malaysia. Comprised of five metric tons of broken colored rice and assembled by 35 volunteers over three days, the 30-year-old creator, N. Jeyasimman, hopes to set a world record with his art.

In wedding business, SCORE, reinvented as “Counselors to America’s Small Business” and affiliated with the Small Business Administration, is helping small-business people understand how to differentiate themselves and then market that difference. A wedding planning veteran in Minnesota has started the Green Wedding Planner Blog site to introduce her new business model for brides who want to wear green, environmentally speaking. In Israel, celebrants are taking advantage of farming and industrial land to build celebration halls to provide natural, green settings for weddings and other events.

The Knot was named a finalist for the 2008 Forrester Groundswell Awards for their innovative implementation of social applications, such as the Baynote, Inc. Collective Intelligence Platform, as part of their continued commitment to providing a one-stop wedding resource for their community of brides-to-be. Despite the nomination, shares of The Knot were downgraded by analysts, reflecting slower growth in national advertising and a decline in publishing. Once the actual third quarter earnings defied the conventional thinking and exceeded expectations, stocks of The Knot rose thirty percent.

A St. Petersburg, a Florida couple increased their enjoyment and decreased their wedding budget by holding their celebration in their own back yard. An Owego, New York couple infused their love of Halloween and things that go bump in the night with their love for each other by celebrating their wedding at a local haunted house.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the wedding party caught in the middle of a deadly battle in southern Afghanistan.

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Wedding Industry Trends for October 2008 from The Wedding Report

Nov 6, 2008 Wedding Planning Institute
The Wedding Report, Inc.

The Wedding Report, Inc.

The Wedding Report, Inc.Once again, the researchers at The Wedding Report have surveyed over 500 wedding industry vendors to gauge the top 10 wedding consumer and industry trends from the past month.

 In keeping with ongoing economic concerns, wedding couples are continuing to go small: smaller weddings, budgets, and guest lists. To save money, many do-it-yourself solutions are still popular, such as amateur photography, handmade invitations, bouquets, and decorations, and self-beautification.

Here is the updated trend list for October. While your clients’ needs and desires will be specific to them, your awareness of the overall tendencies of brides and grooms nationwide will help you better understand the concerns of your clients.

  1. Smaller weddings are popular
  2. Couples are hiring less expensive unprofessional photographers
  3. Do-it-yourself wedding projects are common among brides
  4. Couples are looking for packages from venues and venders
  5. The Internet is used in numerous ways during wedding planning
  6. Cheesecakes, cupcakes, and specialty deserts are trendy alternatives
  7. Bolder and brighter colors are fashionable
  8. Brides are creating their own bouquets
  9. All-inclusive honeymoon packages and cruises are popular
  10. Curvy tuxedos for women are in demand for gay weddings

Read full article »

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Celebrity Weddings by Chad Wandel

Nov 5, 2008 Wedding Planning Institute

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.

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Bridging the Gap between Nigerian and American Wedding Traditions by Narketta Sparkman

Nov 4, 2008 Wedding Planning Institute
I had the pleasure of assisting my clients plan the wedding of their dreams, which took place September 2, 2006 in Michigan. The bride is Nigerian American because she was born in raised in this country. Her parents are both native Nigerians immigrants. Planning this wedding was a task. My clients were very much in love and very laid-back people. They wanted to incorporate Nigerian traditions but did not want it to consume their wedding.

Nigerians believe the wedding is for the bride’s mother. She is ultimately the one to be praised for raising the daughter being married, which clashed with American tradition. My clients were paying for the wedding and felt it should be what they wanted. There was some compromise on my client’s behalf but ultimately it was the wedding they wanted.
The first compromise was having a Catholic wedding. The bride was raised Catholic but not a practicing Catholic and the groom was not Catholic at all. The parents of the bride wanted the wedding to take place in their church and wanted a traditional Catholic ceremony. However, the bride and groom were not comfortable with agreeing to raise their children as Catholics. They agreed to do this to please the bride’s parents but decided not to have a Mass as a part of their ceremony.
From the beginning, there was a conflict as to how many guest would be invited. My clients wanted to have no more than 250 guests, with the bride’s parents inviting 150 and the couple splitting the other 100 guests between themselves and the groom’s family. In the Nigerian culture, when someone has an event you go to that event regardless of invitation. The whole community supports your event. Two hundred and fifty invitations were sent with 200 of them going to Nigerian friends of the bride’s parents. There were 300 who confirmed their attendance and 350 guests actually attended the wedding. Many of the guests that attended were invited by word of mouth. Approximately 300 of the guests were Nigerian. The bride and groom wanted to ensure that all their guests, both Nigerian and American, felt comfortable during their celebration.
Since it is tradition that the wedding is for the bride’s mother, there were rituals that needed to take place. The Nigerian women dressed in Ashibi attire were to march down the aisle together as a part of this tradition. However, my clients wanted to stick to American tradition and felt the wedding party should be the only ones walking down the aisle. Ultimately the bride had her way.
After the ceremony, the women in Ashibi attire and the mother of the groom staged several photos outside of the church. They were congratulating the mother and the photographers were bombarded by the Nigerian woman wanting a picture with her. We had to ask the photographers to stop taking these photos to capture the bride.
In order to insure that all the guests were comfortable at the reception, we had two separate disc jockeys; one Nigerian and one American. We sat down with the disc jockeys twice to plan every musical detail of the wedding. The bride wanted there to be a good mix of music throughout the reception. The bride and groom danced to American music for their first dance and then for the father/daughter dance they danced to a more upbeat tempo Nigerian song. As the father and the bride danced, Nigerians threw money at their feet to wish them well.
Before dinner, the father of the bride began the Kolanuts Communion. This is a Nigerian tradition that bridged the families and guests together. Kolanuts is a way of getting acquainted with your guests. The father of the bride, standing with other male elders, gave a sermon on the dance floor. After each one of his statements, the elders stated “Onye wetere oji wetere ndu” (He who brings Kolanut brings life). He asked that the groom’s father join the presentation. They split the Kolanut on the dance floor and enjoyed it together. All of the guests were then given Kolanuts. Kolanuts is a bitter fruit from Nigeria. It smells like nicotine and tastes like cigars.
The presentation was done in the traditional language of Nigeria except for when speaking to the father of the groom. This really invited the groom’s family into the bride’s family and signified them merging into one family. There were four parts to the communion:

Iche` Oji (Presentation of Kolanut)
Igo` Oji (Blessing of Kolanut)
Iwa` Oji (Breaking of Kolanut)
Ike` Oji (Distribution of Kolanut)

The bride and groom decided against the traditional bouquet or garter toss. They just thought the tradition was dated. The bride was a member of a sorority and they decided to do the traditional sweetheart song and dance in which they are singing to the groom.
The bride and groom changed out of the traditional tuxedo and wedding dress and into Nigerian wedding attire. The women in Ashibi attire escorted them into the room. These women did a chant and danced with the bride and groom at the end of the line. There were approximately 75 women in costume. Once in the room, the groom had a seat while the bride and her mother danced in the middle of the dance floor as the women chanted and gathered around them. The bride’s mother draped the bride and groom with a sash made of money. The guests began to throw money at them all over the dance floor. This is for financial stability and to congratulate the couple.
Ultimately the couple succeeded in having a wedding that incorporated many Nigerian traditions. The décor was all Americanized with the colors the bride and groom wanted. Each guest received a favor of a coaster made in Nigeria with the bride and grooms name on it. They also received a more Americanized favor of personalized chocolates from the bride and groom. The parents of the bride were very satisfied with the wedding as well as the couple. Everyone seemed to have their way and not much was compromised as far as tradition and the desires of the couple.
Narketta Sparkman is President of the Metro Detroit Chapter of the International Special Events Society, a Certified Instructor for The Wedding Planning Institute’s How to Become a Wedding Planner certification course, author of Dream Big, Plan Smart: A Guide to Planning Your Dream Wedding, owner of the event planning company Special Occasions by Narketta, and is currently working on her doctorate.

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The Highest Happiness on Earth is Marriage

Nov 3, 2008 Wedding Planning Institute
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.”
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