LWPI again welcomes Sally Lorensen Conant to the blog! Sally is also known as the Gown Care Lady, and she has a wealth of invaluable knowledge for brides and certified wedding and event planners. Be sure to visit her website, the Association of Gown Preservation Specialists, too.

Plastic bags are the worst possible choice for your gown because plastic emits fumes that can yellow your gown. If you have a bag made from muslin or tyvek, there will be no harmful fumes, but bags are not a particularly good choice for long-term storage. Hanging for long periods of time can distort the shape of your gown even if it is hanging from the ribbon loops attached to inside seams. All fabric, especially lace, will stretch if you hang it, and who needs a big bubble where the bustle should be or a saggy-looking bodice?

Having a professional clean and pack your gown in an acid-free wedding chest is a much better option. A professional will pack your gown so that it maintains it shape perfectly with a minimum of folds and creases, and the wedding chest takes up a lot less room in your closet than a big bouffant gown bag. Wedding chests also protect your gown from sharp objects that can slice into your dress. And they are a much more effective barrier against insects and mice than bags. A bride once came to me in tears because mice got into her bag before the wedding, shredded her train to make a nest, and left her a present of lots of little black stuff!

No museums that I know use bags to store textiles, and that, too, should tell you something: An acid-free wedding chest is a better choice than any bag.

The journey to your future begins with the first step. Did you know that LWPI now offers one-day seminars around the country for those looking to speed up the learning process and get started right away as a certified wedding and event planner?

Seminar instructors help students meet all assignment requirements, create project presentations, and prepare for the industry CWEP Exam. Seminar students receive access to LWPI’s online student center, which includes the student library, community, and resources for six months after the one-day seminar. Each LWPI student also works with a trained and certified wedding and event planning mentor who guides them through the certification process and assists with students’ internship experiences.

Life is busy, and starting a new career takes time. Find a seminar location near you, and get started today on your path toward becoming a certified wedding and event planner!

Click here to enroll for CWEP Seminar with Online and Mentor
Click here to enroll for CWEP Online Only with Mentor
Click Here for the CWEP College Classroom Schedule
Click to enroll in Preston Bailey’s Signature Wedding and Event Design Course
Click to Enroll in LWPI’s Green Weddings Course
Coming Soon! Preston Bailey’s Series of Floral Design Courses

CWEP Tuition will vary based on enrollment options such as online, seminar, college classroom, etc.

When it comes to interviewing possible bridal clients there is one thing every certified wedding and event planner must be: prepared. Being prepared means being on top of new and exciting wedding trends, and it means that planners must anticipate the questions brides-to-be are going to ask. Here are some of those questions; how would you answer them?

. How long have you been a planner?
. Are you a certified wedding and event planner?
. Is this your full-time job?
. How much do you charge?
. How many weddings have you planned?
. How many clients do you take on at one time?
. What is the largest wedding or event you have planned?
. Will you be at the wedding?
. Are you willing to travel to another region on the day of our wedding?
. Do you bring a staff with you?
. What are the best venues that fit our budget?
. (Once they choose a venue) Have you worked with this venue before?
. Can you help us with venue contracts?
. Can you get us discounts with vendors?
. Are you willing to stick to our budget and not guide us in a direction we can’t afford?
. How, and how often, may we contact you?
. Do you also plan honeymoons?

Suffice to say - brides are likely to add numerous questions to this list, but these are some common ones that every planner should expect to answer, and answer well. Remember that brides want to feel comfortable and feel heard. They’re likely going into this interview with a very specific vision in mind, and although your ideas may enhance their dreams - they’re still the clients’ dreams!

It’s important to remember, also, that although you’re the one being interviewed it’s a good time for you to get to know potential clients and try to figure out if you will work well with them. Trying to figure out how to say no? Read this great column by LWPI instructor Amanda Allen of MMD Events in Tampa, Florida: Insight from the Wedding Planning Institute: Saying No. To do a great job and end the day with a satisfied client you have to make sure your personalities mesh well!

What other important questions would you add to this list?

Congratulations to LWPI graduate and instructor Carol Crist, who is settling in nicely to her new position at Rancho de Corrales in Corrales, New Mexico. (You might know or remember Carol from her LWPI Instructor Spotlight!) We asked Carol a few questions about her new job and how her time with Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute has prepared her for working in the wedding- and event-planning industry.

What are the responsibilities of your new job? I am tasked with increasing sales, networking to increase exposure, and working with the local vendors in the wedding business to help market Rancho de Corrales, and of course closing sales with clients.

What do you think your favorite part of the position will be? Working with young couples to see their events become reality!

How many couples do you expect to work with per month? Probably four to six.

How did LWPI prepare you for this job? LWPI provided insight into all aspects of the wedding business, such as: how to negotiate, listen, market our venue at the most competitive pricing, and keep a fresh face on our website.

How will this position help you be a better LWPI instructor? It allows me the opportunity of physically showing my students a venue, table and chair options, linens, a full kitchen, etc. It will also help me talk to them about how to structure an event. And I will also offer them the option of volunteering during an event, which would really give them insight into what it takes to be a wedding or event planner.

Tell us a bit about your venue. Rancho de Corrales is a 200-year-old adobe structure with lots of ghost stories! Ghost Hunters did a show at the venue a few years ago to see if they could pick up any energy. You can catch it on YouTube.

Do you plan events other than weddings? One of my goals is to move Rancho de Corrales into the corporate market. I am on emails and rack cards to showcase the facility from a different perspective, and I hope to pick up mid-week business instead of weekend-only business.

How do you think this position will expand your career? My career is exactly where I want it! I have not too much and not too little to do. I am well-known in the Albuquerque area, and most of my vendor associates are very supportive in providing leads to me, as do I for them.

LWPI sends best wishes to Carol as she uses the skills she learned through LWPI to help her new venue grow and increase its business! Are you an LWPI student, graduate or instructor with news to share? Contact us so we can showcase your hard work and success, too!

Whenever I think about a fall wedding I envision leaves on a tree on an autumn day. These are the colors that are customarily used in a fall-themed wedding. Typically, you start with yellows, oranges, greens and reds. All of these colors give off the warm, bold and vibrant colors characterized by fall. Below is a great inspiration board that demonstrates some of these colors in a fall-themed wedding.

Autumn Wedding Inspiration Board (Weddingblogger on Polyvore)

I love this time of year because it is just the right weather to have an outdoor wedding during the day and not have to deal with scalding-hot or freezing-cold weather. This can prove to be great for the bridal party as well as the guests. It is also great because this time of year yields some wonderful ideas for wedding favors or decorations that can be very cost-effective, like fresh apples, gourds and pumpkins. These are great things to use as table decorations or as favors for your guests.

Be sure to visit Shafonne’s website, read her plus-size bride blog, follow her on Twitter, and read more about her in this LWPI Instructor Spotlight.

We’ll be the first to admit that these are ideas we’ve never seen in person. Fake wedding cakes? Rental wedding cakes? That being said, we can see the need for these in many bridal situations. Wedding cakes can be very expensive, and some couples just don’t see a reason to spend so much of their budget on dessert. Chances are, however, that they still want cake-cutting photos even if they want to forgo a traditional cake! What to do, then? Here are a couple of nontraditional and unexpected ideas that certified wedding and event planners can work with. Brilliant or bonkers? You be the judge.

Fake the Cake, of California

Fake Wedding Cakes. How many times have you been served a piece of wedding cake that tasted, well, just not so good. Fake wedding cakes solve that problem. They can be gorgeous - filled with details and flowers and everything that wedding cakes are known for. Fake wedding cakes are gorgeous in photos, too, and they’re less likely to get ruined on their trip to the venue. There’s just one thing: You can’t eat them! If you have a friend willing to decorate your cake for free this is a good option. They save time by using styrofoam, and you save money by skipping the bakery. But what about your guests? They get a slice of sugary perfection - straight from a sheet cake hidden in the venue’s kitchen.

Rental Wedding Cakes. Don’t have a friend with handy decorating skills? No problem. There are companies with fake wedding cakes to rent. That’s right. You get to choose a cake that matches your theme. They set it up for you at your reception, where your friends and family ooh and ahh over it. Then it’s whisked away (your guests, once again, get a piece of sheet cake), and the rental cake is off to amaze the guests at another bride’s wedding. You can’t get more budget-friendly than this!

So what do you think? Is the wedding cake a disposable part of the overall wedding budget? Have you ever seen these options where you live? We think they’re a smart option, if done right.

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