Today’s post is the second of three parts on budgeting for destination weddings. Our guest writer is Chezelle Rodriguez, the owner of Chezelle Dezines, an event-planning and graphic-design company in Puerto Rico. And be sure to check out Part I and Part II if you missed them.

What couples often overlook and what to expect – Part III

Beware of the small print!

Hotels and resorts usually have fees that you won’t know about until that final bill comes. Find out in advance how much tax the city or place where you will hold your venue charges. This tax will be added at the end of the bill, plus a percentage for gratuity, usually 22 percent.

Sound equipment is always overlooked! Venues will charge for this automatically knowing that their space needs it. Sometimes couples don’t need this because their DJ will set up a sound system. Let your catering manager know if you have someone setting up the system to get that fee taken off. I always advise my clients to block rooms directly with the hotel. This always brings controversy, especially when guests arrive and the rooms they are given are not the ones with the best views. When booking through such third-party companies as Expedia, Travelocity and Hotwire the hotel has made specific rooms available, which cannot be upgraded or changed. When you block a room directly with the hotel you have control of where you want your guests to stay. You can even change the rooms once you check in if you want your parents closer to your grandparents, for example. Some venues offer free nights for the couple depending on the amount of rooms they block.

Everything is Negotiable!

Are you a last-minute or spontaneous person? I have some good news for you! If your lead time is less than two months you might be able to get an incredible deal. The sooner the event, the better the savings might be. Negotiate aggressively – your wedding planner can help you with this! Venues and vendors know it’s unlikely that another last-minute event will come along, and they are often eager to do business with you.

Destination weddings are beautiful, intimate, and a great way to have a mini vacation and celebrate your wedding at the same time!

Thank you, Chezelle, for a fantastic series on planning and budgeting for destination weddings! You can read more about Chezelle’s work in her Real Weddings From LWPI Graduates post.

Being a certified wedding and event coordinator means you get the opportunity to take an idea and bring it to life. From color to texture to florals, your style is a big part of the finished product. Learning how to create events from start to finish is a major part of LWPI’s training for its students. And instructors are encouraged to allow their students to get hands-on practice during their courses. Marling Obando, an LWPI instructor at Miami-Dade College, Wolfson, recently encouraged her students plan an event from start to finish, and she provided the materials for them to do so in class. Based on an assigned linen color they brought one of their class exercises to life, just as they would a real event. Marling says her students enjoyed the activity, and it was only one of the hands-on experiences she provided.

What a fun project! Are you interested in becoming a certified wedding and event coordinator? Check LWPI’s class calendar for a course in your area, and take a tour to learn more about the LWPI classroom experience.

Over the summer we had the pleasure of following Tara Martin-Crawford, an LWPI graduate of Preston Bailey’s Signature Wedding and Design course, as she interned with Preston Bailey and his staff in Manhattan. We know that what Tara absorbed during her 12 weeks will be invaluable as she begins her career as a certified wedding and event planner. Now that she’s had some time to sit back and digest what she learned she’s back with a few thoughts on her LWPI course and internship.

Preston Bailey, Tara Martin-Crawford and LWPI CEO Cho Phillips

“My internship at PBD was both rewarding and challenging in many ways. The first couple weeks were a little stressful because there were major events scheduled both weeks so I really had to hit the ground running. However, after I had a little time to settle in, I really started to love what I was doing. The vast majority of the work I did with PBD was in their Production Department. One of the best things that resulted from my internship was that I discovered my likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. I really loved working in Production and I also enjoyed working with flowers. Production really brought out the “organizer” in me, which has always been a big part of my personality. However, working in floral inspired me to want to learn a lot more about flowers and to find ways to be more creative in both my business and everyday life.

I used to be very creative as a child, but as I got older I became more practical and my creative urges began to dwindle. Working with PBD definitely awakened those old flames and has helped me realize that I do have artistic abilities that I can apply to my career. One of the challenges of the internship was learning how to create documents and make them user-friendly for the entire team. I’m not used to working as part of a team when it comes to planning and designing events. As an amateur, I have always done things in my own, informal way. As a PBD intern, I had to learn how to create important formal documents that could be used over and over by the whole team. It was challenging because I had to learn what information would be needed, by whom, and how to include it. Despite the fact that I was so new to the event industry, and, at times, didn’t know what I was doing, everyone at Preston Bailey Designs always treated me with kindness and respect. That was one of the other “bests” about the internship: getting to know the PBD team. They really were a pleasure to work with and amazing to learn from. They are obviously the best in the industry for a reason, and I hope to have the opportunity to work with them again in the future.

Taking Preston’s course really helped me prepare for the internship, and it was interesting to see how the concepts and processes described in the course were actually applied to the events he and his team create. For example, mood boards are extremely important to the design team. After Preston has his initial meeting with the client he sits down with his design team and creates the mood board, which will then be the foundation for designing the entire event. Giving the client the three design options is also an essential part of the success of his client relations. People love to have choices and taking the time to create exciting options for clients makes them feel as though the desires they have for their events are being taken seriously. I also had the opportunity to see how color saturation, lighting, and statement pieces were used in events and how important each is to the cohesiveness of good designs. I learned to be more of a perfectionist than I already am because it is the small details that really make an event spectacular.

I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to work with Preston Bailey Designs. I feel much more inspired, confident, and knowledgeable with regard to the event industry than I did just a few months ago. I feel like I want to keep learning and have been following up on some areas such as flowers and lighting that I want to know more about. I am also in the process of taking the Certified Wedding and Event Planner course though the Wedding Planning Institute. I had the opportunity to assist with some planning while I was at PBD, and I feel as though this is also an area that really interests me. I am so excited to finish the course because then I feel as though I’ll have the well-rounded education I desire and be able to assist my future clients with any facet of event planning or design they want or need.

Thank you so much to Cho Phillips, Preston Bailey, and all the members of Preston Bailey Designs for giving me this opportunity and helping me to further realize my goals and dreams. It was truly an inspiring and wonderful experience!”

Congratulations again, Tara, on a job well done! Are you interested in being the next LWPI intern at Preston Bailey Designs? Every graduate of his course has the opportunity to apply! Take a tour of his Signature course or enroll today!

This month’s Real Wedding comes from Randi Lawrence Moore, the owner of Randi Lawrence Moore | Couture Wedding Gown Salon in Atlanta, Georgia. You can read more about Randi in her Instructor Spotlight (Chattahoochee Technical College - North Metro Campus), and she has a few articles available at The Wedding Report’s Wedding Tips and Trends blog. Today she gives us some of the details of the wedding she planned for Michael and Tomeka Stevens.

“Working with this couple was a joy. Who says love doesn’t come later in life? With this being their second marriage, Michael and Tomeka wanted to go out with a bang! The love they share is so sweet and innocent, and they wanted to celebrate in style! Their tropical theme was wonderful, and their acrylic invitations set the tone. It was a great wedding with wonderful vendors in the Atlanta metro area. Their inspiration was: The Second Time Around is With the Perfect Person, My Best Friend!” How cute is that?

Are you an LWPI graduate or instructor? Are you interested in having one of your weddings featured? Contact our managing editor for more information, and for more on the vendors used in Michael and Tomeka’s wedding see the following links.

Wedding Planner: Randi Lawrence Moore
Wedding Gown: RIVINI
Photographer: Sapphire Photography
Drapery: Event Drapery
Wedding Cake: Perfect Wedding Cake
Venue: Ventanas
Ceremony Location: Hilton Garden Inn
Ceremony Decor: A Legendary Event
Videographer: Creative Video Moments
Florist: Fuji Floral Design
Stationary: Sandi Spells Design
Ice Sculpture: Ice Sculptures Unlimited
Catering: Epicurean Drama Events
Linen: BBJ Linen
Singer: Treble Clef Sounds

Everybody knows that Florida is a place that brides flock to for their weddings. If you’re an aspiring wedding and event planner - who wants to get certified to take your business to another level - Ana Cruz is just the person you need to talk to! She’ll be teaching an upcoming certified wedding- and event-planner course at Miami Dade College, North Campus, Miami-Dade County.

Ana Cruz

Ana has had her own business, Ana Cruz Event Planning, for going on 11 years. Certification is an important part of a career in wedding planning, she says, and “aspiring wedding and event planners today have so many wonderful tools to get started in the business.” Students should know that this business “is a lot of hard work. While many consider a party just ‘fluff,’ people hire a planner because they want to mark a milestone in their lives, help their business to be successful, or raise money for a worthy cause. All these things are very important and should always be treated at such.”

Ana didn’t plan on being an event planner. “I initially wanted to be a teacher,” she says. “Right out of high school I got a job at a bank, where I took on positions that involved such event-planning tasks as the company picnic, holiday party, etc. I really loved that part of my job and realized it came very natural to me. By the time I received my teaching degree I was sure I wanted to be an event planner. I was promoted to marketing manager and loved my job but a restructuring caused my job to move to New York, and I had too many ties in Miami to take the leap. In 1999 I took a position planning events for the American Diabetes Association and was very qualified thanks to having been a volunteer for the March of Dimes for almost 10 years, in which I helped with fundraising events. While my background was in corporate planning and later in not-for-profit event planning, I did plan a few weddings along the way for friends and relatives. In 2001 I started my own business, giving myself a year to either make it or go back to corporate America. I have never looked back!”

One of Ana’s weddings was featured on the Style Network in 2005, changing her client base. Suddenly more brides were coming to her asking for an amazing event like the one they saw on TV. While Ana plans all types of events, 70 percent of her clients are now bridal. She was also featured on the Style Network’s hit show “Whose Wedding is it Anyway” from 2005 until 2010, and she has also been featured on the network’s destination-wedding show, “Married Anyway.”

When it comes to planning, Ana’s favorite part of the job is “being able to be a big part of a milestone in someone’s life. It is a gift to be able to create an amazing memory for a client. With my corporate and charity events, it is very rewarding to create a vehicle to help my clients showcase their business or make money.” And the toughest part? “Balancing work and family. This is not the type of career where you can take a sick day. You have one shot to do it and do it right. My husband and two young boys, ages 8 and 11, are supportive and proud of what I do. There is a quote I once saw posted in the Florida Panthers’ locker room that said, ‘The will to win is easy, the will to prepare is difficult.’ Everyone wants to have an amazing event, but not everyone can or wants to put in the effort to make it happen. Luckily for people that hire a great planner, they do not have to.”

Ana Cruz Events / Facebook / Twitter
Certified Wedding and Event Planner Course
Miami-Dade College - North Campus
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Register for the class

If you follow Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute on Facebook you already know that LWPI has partnered with The Wedding Report to put certified wedding and event planners in front of thousands of brides and possible clientele. But have you seen all of the recent posts at the Wedding Ideas, Tips & Trends blog? They’re written by LWPI graduates and instructors, and we at LWPI are so excited to have them share their expertise with the wedding industry.

* Nicole Brennan of Lovely Girls Events writes about the awesome and fun trend of Late-Night Wedding Treats and Truckies.

* Randi Lawrence Moore, the owner of Randi Lawrence Moore | Couture Wedding Gown Salon, gives tips on how to maximize a wedding budget.

* Shafonne Myers of Making Your Event Special says you can save lots of money by doing your own makeup, and she shares some ideas on how to make your makeup look professional, too.

* Chezelle Rodriguez, who specializes in destination weddings at Chezelle Dezines, has advice on how to storm- and hurricane-proof a wedding, great advice during hurricane season!

* Amanda Allen of MMD Events is excited about the fall-use trend of using burlap at weddings and special events, and we are, too! So rustic yet chic.

* And Aimee Wendell of 2Chic Event & Design has written several articles, including her latest on how to deal with post-wedding depression.

Are you an LWPI graduate or instructor? Are you interested in writing for The Wedding Report? Contact us for more information on how to get started. We’d love to work with you!

Today’s post comes from Kate Harrison, the author of The Green Bride Guide. Kate and LWPI offer a Green Weddings course, which is a great way to attract new, eco-conscious clients to your wedding-planning business. Are you interested in becoming a certified wedding planner? Check out LWPI’s classroom and online courses today, and be sure to consider bundling the Green Weddings course, too.

In 2010, the Green Bride Guide launched the country’s first green wedding gift registry, where every product is hand picked by a team of experts for beauty, quality and environmental savings. The registry was created to make going green easy for couples by offering a complete collection of eco-friendly alternatives for everything from bedding to dishes. But there are more incentives to create a green wedding gift registry than just convenience. Here five reasons why your choice to create a green registry makes a difference:

1. Green gifts support the green economy: Every year, Americans spend $20 billion on wedding gifts (about $8,000 per wedding) and 70% of gifts are purchased off a gift registry. When you create an eco-friendly registry, you ensure that the money spent by your guests goes to support eco-artisans and companies taking significant steps to green their business practices. Every product in the Green Gift Shop is tagged with its country of origin, eco-certifications, and eco-strategy, so you can quickly assess its social and environmental benefits and filter your search to find products that represent your values as well as your style. The “why we love it” part of the product description provides additional information about the artist or company that manufactured the piece.

2. Green gifts are better for the environment: You may not realize it, but many of the conventionally produced products we buy are detrimental to the environment. For example, cotton, which is often touted as a “natural fiber,” is actually one of the most heavily pesticides crops in the world.  Most crystal is still made with lead (which is bad for you and for the environment), and almost all of the pottery in the United States is now manufactured is Asia under lax environmental regulation. Because many of our home goods are shipped in from overseas, their transport also contributes to global warming. The companies that Green Bride Guide works with take active steps to decrease their environmental footprint at every turn, from using organic, recycled or local-produced materials, to shipping in recycled packaging.  Plus, the site offers free carbon neutral shipping, neutralizing the impact on climate change through alternative energy programs.

3. Green gifts are unique: Quality green home goods are hard to find (and we know – we are always looking for them!) Because most of the artists and companies the Green Bride Guide represents work on a small scale, they are not found in major department stores and are hard to locate online. When you create a green wedding gift registry, you are adding interesting, unique and one-of-a-kind items to your wishlist – items that will reflect your taste and values for years to come.

This is the final journal entry from Tara Martin-Crawford, an LWPI graduate who has been interning at Preston Bailey Designs the last three months. Tara is a graduate of Preston Bailey’s Signature Wedding and Event Design course, and she is the first LWPI graduate to intern with Preston. All graduates of this course have the opportunity to apply for an internship. Will you be next?

For the final week of my internship I worked briefly with the design department. I am definitely a computer-literate person, but I don’t have experience with graphic design or any of the programs used to create renderings and floor plans. In Preston’s course he gives a list of suggested programs that can be used for event design. I was told by employees in his design department which programs they have found work best for them. Vectorworks is what they primarily use to create floor plans. For renderings they use a combination of Google Sketchup, Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. For people who are just starting out with graphic design, these programs may be a bit too advanced. AutoCAD, I was told, is a good program that is a bit easier to use. Another option for those who are not computer savvy is to hire a third party to create your computer images. There are a lot of companies that charge reasonable fees to turn your ideas into computer-generated images.

I was able to sit down and have a chat with Preston on my last day to get some lingering questions of mine answered. During my internship I didn’t really have the opportunity to work directly with him because most of his time is spent working directly with clients or with the design team. In any event, one of the questions I asked him was to outline what the process is from the initial client inquiry up until the event is produced. This is what Preston said: When the client first calls or emails PBD the sales department gathers as much information as possible about the event and what the client does and doesn’t want for it. The client then comes into the office and meets with Preston and a member of the sales department to discuss the event. Preston said he always has images and ideas prepared to present to the client based on the information gathered during the initial inquiry. He will also present the ideas that he has specifically for his or her event, but is careful not to give away too many ideas in case the client doesn’t commit to working with PBD. (He doesn’t want his ideas stolen and used elsewhere). After the initial meeting and the client decides to hire PBD the company secures a non-refundable retainer fee which is usually around $25,000, depending on the size and overall cost of the job.

Then the design team goes to work and comes up with three different design options. They create renderings and storyboards, which are then presented to the client at the first of two presentations. Once the client decides what look he or she likes during the first presentation, a second presentation is scheduled. For this one the design-element options are actually created for the client. Again, three options are generally presented. During the second presentation the client can choose specific items that he or she likes and/or make suggestions for how things should be modified. Once all elements have been selected and agreed upon the floral and production departments begin to price out the overall cost for the event. Those costs are then transferred to a proposal (with mark-ups, of course) and given to the client for approval. After it is signed the client is required to make a deposit equal to 50 percent of the entire cost of the job. It is not until this is done that orders can be placed for the supplies and elements needed to create the event. The final balance is due two weeks before the event date.

During my time with PBD I learned that the second client presentation can be pretty expensive to create. I asked Preston if that cost ever exceeds the amount of the initial retainer fee. He said that PBD tries very hard not to allow that to happen but there are instances when it does. In the cases when it does happen, he and the rest of the team need to sit down and take a closer look at what they think the overall cost for the event is actually going to be because it could be more than they anticipated. It takes a lot of experience to be able to price out an event without actually taking the time to price everything out. If you have the time and the resources to price things before you present them to a client go ahead and do that just to be sure that you are working within and maximizing the budget. It’s always surprising to find out what things actually cost because it’s usually more than what you might think and you don’t want to provide your clients with options that they either can’t afford or aren’t making the most of the money they have to spend.

My internship at PBD went by so fast! At the same time, though, I felt like I had been there forever. Everyone that I had the opportunity to work with was awesome. They all made me feel welcome and comfortable while giving me the chance to learn about and experience doing something I love. I appreciate everyone’s help and guidance so much. There is a reason why Preston Bailey Designs is one of the top event-design companies in the world: It has the best staff in the industry! I am really going to miss working with and seeing them all, but I will always be grateful for and remember everything that I learned during this experience.

Congratulations, Tara, on a job well done! LWPI is excited to follow what is sure to be an amazing career. Join us in wishing Tara good luck as she puts what she’s learned from LWPI and Preston Bailey to work in the real world!

Good news for Floridians! An LWPI certified wedding- and event-planner course is starting soon at State College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla., Sarasota County. The fall instructor will be Anna Pohl, who says her students can look forward to several field trips and some great speakers.

Anna Pohl is a certified wedding consultant with an MBA and BFA in fine arts. She says her background in business, paired with her creative side, are invaluable in navigating clients through the world of event planning. One of her strengths, she says, is figuring out what wedding style is best for each client: traditional, beach, modern, elegant, vintage, green or ethnic. She also tends to go with the creative flow and her events and weddings often counter what’s considered the norm.

She says her favorite thing about wedding planning is that “being a planner is truly knowing that I have helped couples and families to celebrate a very important occasion in their lives, their wedding.” And the toughest part? “Probably staying completely organized at all times. No slacking off for a wedding planner!” she says.

She is the owner of Day Planners (of Sarasota, Bradenton and St. Petersburg, Florida), and even before starting her own business she was an award-winning director of catering and events at Mattison’s in Southwest Florida. When she began her career she focused on event planning in the biotech industry, working on international meetings. Among her other awards and recognitions are: People’s Choice Award - Best Planner; the Herald Biz Bash Flash Award - Top 20 Event Planners in Florida Under the Age of 40; and the Gulf Coast Business Review’s 40 Under 40 Award. Anna events have been written up in several publications, including Kiplinger’s, The Knot, Sarasota Magazine, SRQ Magazine, Scene Magazine, Biz Bash Flash, Taste Magazine, Nuovo and several local newspapers. She was also recently interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, along with Preston Bailey, about wedding planning.

She wants her students to “never forget that you should do your very best to make your wedding clients as happy as possible. You should always strive for perfection and give the utmost care to your clients, their families and their friends. You shouldn’t be doing this profession if you don’t truly mean to do all that you can for those getting married. Go above and beyond, and then your clients will be thrilled and you will be blessed.”

To learn more about Anna, check out her Website and Facebook page. To register for her class, visit the LWPI Website.

Certified Wedding and Event Planner Course
State College of Florida
7131 Professional Parkway East
Sarasota, Florida 34240, United States
Sarasota County, Florida
9/22/2011 to 12/2/2011
Thursdays from 6 to 10 p.m.
Register for the class

Tara Martin-Crawford’s internship with Preston Bailey Designs is drawing to a close. Now that she has experience in several departments Tara is starting to better understand her strengths. This week was filled with organization and paperwork, which she enjoys. Tara is a graduate of Preston Bailey’s Signature Wedding and Event Design course through LWPI.

This week I resumed working in the Production Department. I must admit that although working in floral was both inspiring and informative, I definitely feel as though my heart is in production. By nature I have always been an organizer, and working in production really gives me a chance to use that ability.

This week was a very busy one for me. The Production Manager was scheduled to travel at the end of the week for three overseas site visits. He wanted to take a binder with all his important documents for the three events so I had to create that for him. When going on site visits, especially those that are overseas, the time spent there is usually pretty limited. In this case, each destination was delegated two days, at the most. Therefore, the Production Manager has to keep a pretty tight agenda in order to accomplish all his goals and meet with all the necessary vendors. As a result, he asked me to create a meeting agenda for him and contact all the vendors to confirm their designated meeting times. I was also asked to type up a list of questions and important issues that he will need to address. For one of the sites I also created a sample packet that contained renderings, dance-floor samples, linen swatches, and aisle-runner samples, which the Production Manager will show to the vendors so that they can source items that are the same or similar to those used by PDB’s local suppliers.

Preston Bailey Designs has three big overseas events taking place within the next three months. Some of the crews will consist of people from companies that are local to the events’ locations. However, PBD likes to have some of its own members working the events as well. The Production Manager keeps a list of freelance workers who PBD regularly uses and a list of who is going to be used for each event. One of my assignments this week was to create individual lists for each event with the crew members’ names, contact information, passport numbers, dates they will be traveling to and from the events, and which airports they will be flying in and out of. The events are spaced close together so many people will be traveling directly from one event to the next. However, this isn’t the case for everyone. Therefore, you have to know what everyone’s travel requirements are.

As my internship with PBD comes to a close, I am really starting to reflect on how much I appreciate having had this opportunity. Not only have I gained a lot of knowledge with regard to event design and production, but I’ve also had the chance to meet and work with some really wonderful people. PBD has an amazing staff! From Day One everyone has been nothing but helpful and welcoming and I really appreciate that. Having not worked professionally in the event industry before, and having my first experience be with Preston Bailey Designs, makes me feel truly blessed and has confirmed my love and passion for the field. I know I still have some things to learn, but now, more than ever, I am absolutely sure that a career in the event field is meant for me.