Hi Everybody!

 I'm back on Vieques after a week in the big bad COLD north -- and it's nice to be here!  It was 85 degrees and breezy today and tonight's another night we don't need air-conditioning.  Yay!  I love this time of year in the Caribbean.  So obviously I was tied to my desk today, trapped inside, working to get caught up on everything I missed by taking a travel day.  While I was working, I wrote three wedding reception catering contracts that included huge dessert bars in lieu of the traditional wedding cake.  It's a trend I've noticed over the past year, and it's time to blog about it!

I've noticed we're doing more and more dessert bars these days.  Some are in addition to the cake -- sometimes instead of the cake.  Some include a small non-wedding cake (we've done cheesecake, carrot cake, molten lava chocolate cakes) that the bride and groom cut for picture purposes only.

Martha Stewart and all the other doyennes of all things wedding related have helped to push this trend into popularity with extensive photo spreads of creative dessert bars month after month in magazines.  I've seen candy bars, chocolate bars, make-your-own-sundae bars, and just about anything and everything else you can think of.  The sky is the limit -- or rather, you are limited only by your imagination and your budget.

As a general rule, dessert bars are at least as expensive as cake.  Some are more expensive -- depends how many different kinds of dessert you choose, and how fancy they are.  Mini cheesecakes, individual strawberry shortcakes, champagne flutes of chocolate mousse, personal creme brulees, key lime pie martinis, banana-nut caramel spring rolls, butter cookies and tembleque are just some of the fabulous offerings that our local Vieques caterers have put on display at weddings I've coordinated.  We've even done chocolate fondue dipping buffets, despite the numerous challenges presented by the humidity in the Caribbean.

Should you do both a cake and a dessert bar?  If you want to and your budget can handle it.  You might do a smaller wedding cake.  I wouldn't suggest doing cupcakes in addition to a dessert bar unless they're the bite-sized ones (speaking of which, has anybody tasted the chocolate peanut butter mini cupcakes at Starbucks right now?  Freakin unbelievable!).

Fruit buffets can be fun, with papaya, kiwi, mango, banana and strawberries for dipping in chocolate, caramel, powdered sugar, creme fresh, yogurt, and anything else you can imagine.  Make-your-own-sundae buffets must be done inside if you're getting married in the Caribbean.  And even inside, be prepared for a literal meltdown.  You'll have to have service staff act as scoopers because nothing can be scooped ahead of time.  On a super hot day, it's an incredibly refreshing treat.  You can always do an ice cream bar in addition to wedding cake -- that's one of the few instances when you'll find that people tend to eat both.

Whether or not you have a cake -- full size, with multiple tiers or just a small cutting cake -- should be determined by whether or not it's important to you to have the traditional cake-cutting pictures.  Do you want to feed each other cake?

If you're doing a dessert bar, you can have some fun with the presentation, using different kinds of cake plates and stands and towers.  It's a great way to incorporate your graphics and logos if you're a graphic-heavy decor.

If you want to do a candy bar, that can be a great reception favor to offer your guests on the way out.  That doesn't mean it can't be open from after dinner through the remainder of the evening.  As long as you provide some cute containers and appropriate signage so that guests understand they should help themselves and take some with them.

I promise to blog about another wedding next time -- I still need to finish catching you up on the ones you missed.  I might go out of order because I'm dying to write about Shari and Chris's February 26th extravaganza... but we'll see. 

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!

Sandy

Hi Everybody!

This wedding review is long overdue because of the tragic death of my pink Dell laptop.  I started writing this one back in January, the week after the wedding.  Then, all of a sudden, I got the blue screen of death on my pretty pink laptop.  Sigh.  She was a good computer.  She hung in there for nearly three years despite repeated unrealistic requests from her owner and the owner's clients.  She rarely complained and had to be rebooted.  We never appreciate enough about the ones we love until they're gone.  And I can honestly say that this Toshiba replacement I flew to the big island and bought in a panic doesn't have half the personality of my pink Dell laptop, with matching pink mouse and pink external drive. 

Sooo... back to business!  I need to get caught up on telling you guys about all of the beautiful weddings we did on Vieques in January, February and March of 2011.  Let's start in January with Danielle Hitzeman and J Wagamon.

Danielle and J traveled to Vieques all the way from their new home in California the third week of January to be married under a canopy of ancient trees on the rolling lawn of Villa Vista Linda in Pilon.  Danielle dressed her bridesmaids each in a different color, and we repeated the tropical color theme through the wedding decor -- right up to the little satin ribbons we tied around each white linen napkins to anchor a green Dendrobium orchid blossom.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Danielle and J first contact me a year ago, back when they were both living in Washington, DC.  But my husband was sick for a couple of months last year and I didn't take on any new clients during that time so I had to turn them away.  When they contacted me again six months later, desperate for some on-the-ground help to pull things together for their wedding in Vieques, I recognized their names and was happy to jump in and coordinate.

 Villa Vista Linda is a very special property in the center of the island.   It's high on a hill with a lovely view in all directions, and the property itself is large and very private with a big, beautiful pool.  The house, and the casita on the pool deck, sleep 14 people all together.  But even with that many guests staying there, the house still feels big.  The nicest feature is the catering kitchen and tiki bar on the first level.  Basically, the house is designed so that you can have a wedding reception (or any other event) without having to disturb the folks staying in the upstairs of the house.

While Danielle's family and the girls in the wedding party occupied Villa Vista Linda, J and his guys were staying across the island in Casa de Claire, another fun house that can hold up to 16 guests, if my memory serves me correctly.  In lieu of a welcome party, the girls and guys split up for tandem bachelor and bachelorette parties the night that everybody arrived on the island.  On Thursday evening, the groom's family hosted a lovely rehearsal dinner at El Quenepo, and on Friday morning our crew arrived bright and early at Villa Vista Linda to set things up for the ceremony and reception.

The bride and groom had chosen a romantic spot in the yard, under a pretty canopy of trees, for their wedding ceremony.  We imported a bona fide Episcopal priest to perform the ceremony (full disclosure -- she's my godmother and she married me in Vieques too).  The ceremony was traditional and meaningful. 

Danielle is one tall drink of water -- and gorgeous!  She played volleyball at University of Alaska, as did some of her other attendants.  I haven't felt so short in a very, very long time.  She carried a fabulous bouquet of mango calla lilies, green Cymbidium orchids, orange Mokara orchids, pink roses, and blue hydrangea, hand-tied with an ivory satin ribbon.  The idea was the bouquet was representative of the many colors worn by the beautiful girls in her wedding party.  The bridesmaids themselves carried ivory bouquets of calla lilies, in contrast with their brightly-hued dresses.

The groom and his groomsmen were very handsome as well -- and J and Danielle make a simply stunning couple (he's not short either).  This was a very attractive wedding group in general.

We lit the villa with hundreds of white fairy lights, tiki torches and underwater LEDs in the swimming pool.  We did learn a lesson about the villa that night -- probably our one bugaboo -- the pool deck really isn't wide enough to hold the band or the DJ if the wedding guests are likely to start jumping in the pool.  I had them staged inside the downstairs (which is really outside too -- just separated from the pool deck by a little wall and rayhas) but DJ Sonny wanted to move it out to the pool deck.  It's his equipment -- who am I to argue?  But at the end of the night, the groom actually shut down the reception about 10 minutes early because some very enthusiastic guests were greatly enjoying a splash in the pool and we didn't want anybody to get electrocuted.

 I really enjoyed working this wedding, but I'm also realizing that I've waited so long to finish this blog that I've forgotten a lot of the little details that make telling the story so much more fun.  I'll have to remember that going forward when I think I'm too tired to blog the day after the wedding.  But when I write right away, I tend to say too much.  Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Congratulations to Danielle and J -- we wish them the best of luck and hope they'll plan to come back and visit for many anniversaries to come!  Next blog I'll tell you about Mary Jane and Kyle's wedding on  February 11th and we'll be that much closer to caught up!

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!

Sandy

Hola Mis Novias y Novios!

 I promised I'd write again soon.  And today's topic is time management on your wedding weekend.  By time management I'm referring to you (the bride and groom) getting your asses to your own wedding events on time.  Are you a late person?  Are you somebody who is perpetually late to everything?  If so, then you know you need to give yourself lots of downtime and lead time for all of the things you have planning for your destination wedding.  Tell your wedding planner you have a punctuality problem and she'll work with you when she creates your schedule to make sure you have enough time to get ready for all of your special events.  Even though it's fun to make an entrance a few minutes after everybody arrives at your welcome party, it's just plain old rude to show up more than an hour late to greet your guests.

Yes, I actually had clients who were so late to their own welcome party last fall that I had to send my husband out like a search party to find them.  They were staying at a villa with an unreliable cell signal and I was really getting worried when they were an hour late.  They actually ran into my husband when he reached their driveway, leaving fully 90 minutes late for their own event.  Rude rude rude!!!  And then the bride tried to blame it on the hairdresser who had been up at her villa doing a practice session.  Fortunately, the stylist had texted me when she finished and left their villa, fully 20 minutes before the party started.  Liar liar, pants on fire.

That's another thing -- if you fuck up, own it.  If you are late because you're a hot mess, don't blame it on some poor vendor.  Somebody who doesn't see through your bullshit might fire somebody else for underperforming.  That same bride blamed other people for a number of her own faux pas during the course of the weekend.  I busted her each and every time, but I never called her on it.  I just know that she's the kind of person who skates through life on bullshit and that one day it's going to get muy ugly when somebody calls her on it.  That's not my job.  I'm just a wedding planner.  My job is give her a beautiful wedding, not a conscience.

I give all of my clients a schedule (a copy for each of half of the couple -- not one to share) when they arrive on the island.  The schedule tells the wedding couple where they each need to be when and for what.  The schedule is all about them -- there's no vendor information on it other than appointment times and other activities taking place at the villa where they are residing.  This schedule is something I create with my clients on our last conference call before the wedding.  I also provide copies for their immediate family and wedding party.  THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR ANYBODY TO BE LATE TO ANYTHING!!!

Okay, so with that said, sometimes it's really important to be someplace on time -- like if you're the groom and you're supposed to meet my staff on the beach to choose the spot where we're setting up your wedding ceremony.  I'm always very, very specific about this with my clients.  If the groom is where he is supposed to be when he is supposed to be there, he can choose the exact spot we set up the ceremony on the beach.  However, we're running on a tight schedule and if the groom is late, we choose the spot and set it up without the groom's input.

 Recently, one of my grooms showed up 20+ minutes late for his own wedding ceremony.  In fact, guests were already starting to arrive when he and his groomsmen finally graced us with their presence.  We'd waited as long as we could and then cleaned the beach in a spot we thought had a cool view, and we had just finished setting up the rental chairs when he arrived and told us the ceremony was supposed to be 40 yards down the beach.  I tried to tell him it was too late and he got his guys cleaning up that section of the beach where he and the bride had determined they would get married.  My guys hauled the chairs over and the musicians got set up.  The groom and his groomsmen were getting pretty sweaty -- they were taking an unusual cleaning approach and they were trying to clean a huge section of beach, totally beyond ridiculous -- and the groom suddenly decides that my staff should be re-cleaning the beach for him.  Remember, we'd already cleaned up a section of beach and set things up because he couldn't be bothered to arrive on time.  It was a bit unreasonable.  If there had been time, it would have been up for discussion.  But guests were already on hand when this nonsense about moving locations started.  So the groom starts screaming at me.  In front of his guests.  I mean really screaming at me, right up in my face -- and he was about a foot taller than me so it was pretty intimidating.  I wasn't sure what to do -- I have never had a groom (or a bride for that matter) scream at me ever before.  I stood there and took it and then tried to calm him down, but the guy was muttering nasty things at me right up until the very moment when I sent him to get married.  All of this because the guy showed up late to his own wedding.  No joke.  By the way, their entire wedding weekend was perfect and he never even bothered to say thank you.

And while I'm ranting about that... read your own materials people!  A few weeks ago a bride arrived at her beach party and asked me where the chairs were.  Not only had she opted not to rent tables and chairs for her guests in order to save money, but she had also ostensibly read and duplicated the welcome letter that reminded all of her guests to bring the beach chairs provided by their accommodations to the beach party.  The reminder was in her own welcome letter and she really truly looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.  And she actually looked a little irritated with me about it when I pointed that out.

Hopefully, wherever you get married, your wedding planner will work with you to create a good working schedule for your Caribbean destination wedding.  But only you can be responsible for yourself.  Wear a watch if you need to.  Set the schedule reminders on your cell phone if it's absolutely necessary.  But get you to the church on time!!!

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!

Sandy

Hi there!

 No, I haven't been blogging much lately.  It's cuz I'm so slammed with weddings that I don't have time to blog.  It's the season for lots of weddings, and it's also the season for lots of new client inquiries.  I have Shari and Chris's wedding coming up this weekend -- they arrive tomorrow -- and then Claire and Matthew arrive with a big group on Friday in preparation for their wedding next Wednesday.  We are so busy -- but it's good busy!  I love that we're working with so many fun clients and creating such beautiful events.  But I was struck with a brilliant idea today.  It's time for me to hire a couple of interns.  We had interns a couple of years ago but then I didn't do them last year because Bill was sick and we were gone a lot.  But now we're back in Vieques full time so I'm ready to make the intern commitment again.

I started out my career in journalism as an intern, and it was the most valuable experience of my education.  I got an internship with Campaigns & Elections Magazine through the The Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University that led to a full-time job.  When I left C&E to go to the Wall Street Journal, I had climbed to the position of managing editor.  You never know where an internship may lead.  

Internship Details

This is a paid internship.  It's a serious internship.  You'll work your butt off.  Yes, you get to live on a Caribbean island, but you're going to work harder than you play.  When you leave, you'll be prepared to do event planning pretty much anywhere.  There's nothing easy about pulling off events on an island like Vieques where today, there wasn't a bag of regular Tostitos to be had.  Interns will learn about marketing, planning, client relations, contracts, scheduling, vendor relations, event setup/teardown, event coordination, flower assembly and guest management.  Plus a whole lot more other stuff that I'm too tired to think of right now.

Candidates should have:

- experience with Microsoft Office Suite

- excellent written and oral communication skills

- experience in party and event planning

- interest in flowers and event decor

- creative spark

- excellent sense of humor

- outgoing personality

- interest in and experience with social networking

I am willing to work with you and your school to get you credit for public relations, etc. internships.  Might also be able to work with a journalism major to fulfill a course requirement.  Same with marketing and sales, depending on where your interests lie.  Interns must find their own housing and transportation to/from work on the island.  There will not be time for interns to work a second job while fufilling the requirements of the internship.

 Internship may involve some travel to other islands (Puerto Rico and/or U.S. Virgin Islands).  Spanish is a huge bonus but not an absolute requirement.  Impress me with another skill set and we can work around it.

Candidates should email their cover letter and resume to me at info@weddingsinvieques.com.  Let me give all of you a big hint:  SPELLING AND GRAMMAR COUNT.  Don't even bother to send me a cover letter or resume with typos.  And please refrain from using texting acronyms.  In your cover letter, tell me when you are available, why you want to learn how to plan destination weddings, and why you are a good candidate for the internship. 

We are currently looking for interns for early/mid-May through July.  We are also accepting resumes for October through mid-December.  This is a position for current undergraduate college students, or recent post-grads. 

This is a really great opportunity with a fun, young company.  It's an internship for somebody who wants to learn destination wedding planning.  We work hard, but we play hard.  You'll have time to play on the beach and experience living in a real life Margaritaville while gaining valuable experience in a growing field.  Even in this difficult economy, people continue getting married.  And destination weddings are getting more popular every year.

I realize that I'm starting this process a bit late for this summer, so send me your resumes as fast as you can!  I'll review them and do interviews in the order I receive them -- I'd like to have this all over with in a week or so.  So write an excellent cover letter and attach your resume and start packing for a few months in the Caribbean!!!

 Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques!

 Sandy

Hola Novias y Novios!  Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Bill and I just got in from a fabulous dinner at Next Course and I wanted to sit down and write a Valentine's Day blog before bed.  I've been terrible about blogging lately because I've been so busy with weddings.  As a result, I'm three weddings behind.  So I owe you guys reviews of Danielle and J's wedding, Mary Jane and Kyle's wedding, and Jen and Ian's wedding.  I promise to tell you all about those in blogs later this week (gotta get caught up before Shari and Chris's wedding on February 26th), but tonight we're going to talk about holiday weddings.

There are three kinds of holidays -- real holidays, government holidays and theme holidays.  Real holidays are Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Easter.  As far as I'm concerned, these holidays are off limits for weddings -- at least for my company.  I did a Christmas Eve wedding my first year in business.  It was beautiful, but it kicked my entire Christmas holiday in the ass.  I was working right up until Santa and his reindeer appeared, and I was falling-on-my-face exhausted on Christmas day.  Not fun.  So I decided no more Christmas holiday weddings.  Same with Thanksgiving and New Year's.  Easter is one of those holidays I could do if it was a big enough wedding to be worth it, but I'd rather not.

Federal holidays are full of weddings.  Labor Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, MLK Day, and all the other three-day weekends are very popular for destination weddings because they give wedding guests that one extra travel day without having to take vacation.  But because they're popular, they go quickly.  If you want to snag a three-day weekend for your destination wedding, plan as far ahead as you can.  And don't assume that all the dates you want are taken just because they're only a few months out -- you might luck out.  Also, you might be able to slide your wedding to Friday or Sunday if Saturday has already been taken.  Talk it through with your wedding planner.  We do weddings seven days a week here in Puerto Rico!

Theme holidays can be a lot of fun too -- that's Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Groundhog Day, etc.  I find that these holidays are only popular when they fall on weekends.  I did a Valentine's Day wedding a few years ago that had nothing Valentine's Day about it.  Not a bit of red or a spare heart anywhere.  The only concession to the fact that the date was February 14th were heart-shaped butter cookies wrapped in glassine baggies, handed out as favors at the end of the reception.  I just booked a wedding for St. Patrick's Day of next year that's entirely the opposite.  We're talking green beer, shamrock cupcakes, and pots of gold.  It just depends on what the bride and groom want.

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Sandy

Hey Bride and Grooms,

 Those of you who are long-time blog readers of mine may not regularly visit our homepage anymore, so you probably haven't noticed its facelift a few weeks ago.  We started 2011 out right by launching a new web site shortly after the start of the new year.  After almost a year of promising my clients and readers that I would put up a web site reflective of all the beautiful work we do, we finally did it!  With the help of my incredibly patient webmaster Kelci Feeney, with encouragement from our mutual best friend Myra Laird, and with endless support from my wonderful husband who never questioned my millions of excuses for putting it off, Weddings in Vieques now has a website with photo galleries and a lot more information about the services we provide.  So go check out the new homepage and surf from there! www.weddingsinvieques.com

And for those of you former clients out there who still read my blog once in awhile, send me your favorite snaps from your wedding in Vieques!!! The more pics we can show, the better our potential clients can see the services that we provide.  You know, it's kind crazy that we waited so long to update the web site.  The old site was something that my friends Ben and Cathy Wilson put up for me back in the summer of 2007 when we launched the company.  The only pictures on the old site were from my wedding and the first wedding we did as a business.  And we've managed to stay alive and grow the company for four years based on that alone -- wow!  Just think how many new clients we can grab the attention of with the new website, right?  Watch out Martha Stewart!

So why don't I blog more and do more marketing if it will make me rich and famous?  Why would I risk my chance to become the Martha Stewart of the Caribbean?  Because I'm so busy managing all of my amazing clients that I have very little free time left to do the fun things I like to do -- like blogging, for example.  But then today, I was doing a conference call with an awesome new client and her mom, and they told me that the reason they decided to hire me had more to do with my blog than anything.  And it was just the kick in the butt I needed to log on and start writing tonight despite the fact that I've had a 1o hour work day already, and I'd much rather be on Facebook talking smack about the weather back in DC where I'm from.  They're shoveling out from 12 inches of snow, and I'm feeling a bit nippy this evening as the temperatures dip to 74 degrees with a 7 mph breeze.  Muahhhhh! :)

And with that, I'm going to sign off because I have to fly over to the big island tomorrow afternoon to buy a new mattress and a new dryer.  Exciting stuff!  Both are work related items -- after all, I always say a well-rested wedding planner is a better wedding planner.  Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques!!!   Do your family and friends a favor and start planning your Caribbean destination wedding next winter in the Jewel of the Caribbean!

Sandy

Vieques Island, Puerto Rico – January 25, 2011 - WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, is thrilled to announce Weddings in Vieques has been selected to receive the prestigious annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 for wedding and event planning!  This is the third year in a row that Weddings in Vieques has been a recipient of this coveted honor. Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation.Weddings in Vieques stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud Weddings in Vieques for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.”

We are happy to announce that Weddings in Vieques is among the very best professional wedding and event planners within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Martha Stewart Weddings, Project Wedding and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for nominating us to receive the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011.

For more information about Weddings in Vieques, please visit our website at www.weddingsinvieques.com.
For more information on the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire.com, the nation's leading technology company serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 local wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers to wedding cakes. WeddingWire also offers an online community and a suite of cutting-edge planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire provides free online management tools creating the only market opportunity that gives local businesses control over their clients, reviews, leads and performance. Businesses that join the WeddingWire Network appear on WeddingWire.com and other leading sites, including MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), ProjectWedding.com and Weddingbee.com (both part of eHarmony), and Celebrations.com (part of the 1-800-Flowers family of brands, NASDAQ: FLWS). About Weddings in ViequesWeddings in Vieques is a full-service destination wedding planning company based on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.  The experienced professionals of Weddings in Vieques have planned weddings of all sizes and budgets, and specialize in featuring each bride’s individual taste and style. 

Happy New Year Everybody!  Prospero Ano Nuevo!  And today, most importantly, happy Three King's Day!

Three King's Day is a holiday that's even bigger than Christmas in Puerto Rico -- sort of like Christmas for the adults.  It's such a big deal that tomorrow is a holiday too because they figure that everybody is going to be too hung over to work.  Don't you love the Puerto Rican philosophy?  Anyway, it works out nicely this year because nobody has to go back to work until Monday.  Or probably Tuesday.  Almost every Monday in January is a holiday.  God, I love this island!  So anyway, it's a new year and a new wedding season and I'm back to blogging.  I know I was terrible lately after I promised to turn over a new leaf, but I have an excuse, I swear!  Bill and I went up to DC to spend the holidays with our families for the first time in years and years, and while we were spending time with all our friends and family and all of their little ones, we got sick as dogs!  I got strep throat for the first time in my life at the ripe old age of 37!!! How ridiculous is that?  And it was freakin miserable.  We're on our second round of antibiotics and back to swearing that we'll never go north while it's cold up there ever again.  Never ever again.  Brrrr...  Anyway, my whining about being sick (so sick that we couldn't even attend a good friend's wedding on New Year's Eve) made me think of today's topic because I was so sick that I couldn't even enjoy the big spa day I'd planned for myself on the Monday after Christmas.  My head was too stuffed up to enjoy the spa treatments at Elizabeth Arden.  But while I was laying there trying to figure out how to breathe when my nose was plugged up and my mouth was covered for the face mask, it occurred to me that I haven't given any guidance about how to prep your face ahead of your wedding.  Listen up!

If you've never had a facial, you're missing out!  Or you're young enough that you never really needed one.  For most of us over the age of 25, an occasional facial to help get rid of the dead skin and to drain those persistent black heads is an absolute must.  But anybody who gets facials knows that you never get one the week of any big event.  A good facial may well lead to a break out as oil and other impurities are drawn to the surface by the heavy-duty skin treatments. 

When you set a wedding date, it's time to go see an esthetician at your favorite local day spa.  I strongly recommend Elizabeth Arden in just about any city.  They're reliably good.  And when they're not and you actually complain about it, they always make the situation right again.  So if you don't already have somebody you like, make an appointment at your local Red Door Salon, or at someplace else reputable near you, and discuss your skin with a professional.

Depending on the amount of lead time you have, you can dramatically change your skin in four or more months.  You will schedule monthly facials, take some recommendations on skin products, and actually start taking the time to put on moisturizer before bed at night.  If you have perpetually dry, scaly hands, you may also begin a skin regimen for those so that they don't look funky every time somebody looks at your wedding ring.

A good esthetician will put together a plan that steps you up as you get closer to your wedding date.  You'll have the heaviest moisturizing facial last, two or three weeks prior to you wedding date.  A quick tip -- if you're getting your eyebrows done, have them done at the beginning of the facial rather than the end because the tearing of hair off of your face tends to undo all the relaxing that you've been doing during the facial.

You don't always have to invest in a lot of expensive products from the spa, but it's not a bad idea to buy the recommended cleanser and creams the first time.  Then you can take the bottles to your local drugstore and compare the products.  When you look at the ingredients, you'll be shocked to see that you could be paying less than $10 for the Wallgreen's version of your Elizabeth Arden 3-in-1 scrub and there's really no difference.  Same goes with a lot of different moisturizers.  Unless you have the bucks to buy La Mer, most products are fairly similar.  Look around and experiment until you find one that makes your skin glow.

Keep in mind what time of year you're getting married.  If you know you'll be tan, you can be careful about tan lines, sunglass marks, etc.  If it's a winter wedding, you can be busting butt to make sure you don't have a flaky scalp and peeling dry skin by moisturizing like a demon several times a day for a couple of months.  If you're not the kind of girly girl who usually does this stuff, it'll kill you to take the five minutes to do it.  But really, at the end of the day when you look at your wedding pictures, you'll be so glad you did.

It's never too early to schedule those facial appointments.  And it's also never too early to get the appointments made for your wedding day.  Whether you're having a destination wedding someplace like Vieques, or a hometown wedding at your local church, make your hair and makeup appointments  now.  You never know what other big social events may be scheduled for the same day and you don't want to be the one trying to work around their schedule.  It's YOUR wedding day, for God's sake.

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!  May 2011 bring you all happiness, good health and beautiful engagement rings!

Sandy

   

Hello Bride and Grooms!

I'm finishing up my Christmas shopping today online by sending edible goodies to a few friends with families who live far away from us.  One more quick trip to the post office (is the Post Office EVER a quick trip the week before Christmas?) and I'm done with just about everything I'm going to do this year.  Today is the 7th anniversary of the day my husband Bill proposed to me.  He proposed over dinner at the Hotel Washington (now the W Hotel in DC) the night that one of my girlfriends was having a Christmas party.  It was so much fun to show up at her party sporting a big diamond and announcing our engagement!  And that brings me to today's topic -- how to announce YOUR engagement!

First, let me say that announcing your engagement is pretty much the same regardless of where you're getting married.  It's the place that you're from (where you're making the announcement) that affects how you do it.  For example, I grew up in Washington, DC, where you pay to have your wedding announcement printed in the Washington Post unless your last name is DuPont or Kennedy.  But if you're from Winchester, Kentucky, your engagement is serious news for the social pages!  Take advantage of that.

Don't wait until a month before your wedding to submit the engagement announcement if you're also planning to submit a wedding announcement after the big day.  In the case of doing both, you should have your engagement photos taken as soon as possible after you get engaged, and send the announcement to the paper 6-9 months ahead of your big day.  Every newspaper has different submission guidelines, so be sure to check with your local paper to find out what format they want to receive your stuff in -- can you email everything?  Some newspapers are technologically behind and will need an actual print from you.  Just depends on who you're dealing with.

As for writing the announcement, some papers have a copy editor who does it, and some have you do your own write up, with the understanding that it will be seriously edited before publication.  Be sure to have your future spouse or MoH proof-read EVERYTHING before you submit anything.  Don't need some Freudian slip announcing your engagement to your ex-fiance.  :)

If you decide to publicly announce your impending nuptials, you should make sure to register for wedding gifts first.  You WILL receive engagement gifts from random people who pop out of the woodwork.  While I'm certainly not suggesting that you encourage this, but you should be prepared for it.  If you're not registered anywhere, consider yourself doomed to a whole bunch of ugly Mikasa vases you can't return.  You should write all engagement gift thank you notes within two weeks of receiving them.  Keep in mind that those random folks sending gifts probably expect to be invited to the wedding now, so be sure to add them to your list unless you have a really, really good reason to justify to yourself why you didn't.

Identity theft is one reason that I've heard for why brides don't publish their engagement announcements anymore -- and that's not totally unrealistic.  But for more women, I think the practice has become a bit old-fashioned and passe.  If they wanted to announce their engagements in the paper, they would.  But why would they spend money to do that when they've already had it up on Facebook for four months and everybody who matters already knows about it?  But going the old-fashioned route can be a lot of fun too, and a great way to start your wedding scrapbook.

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!

Sandy

Hello Brides and Grooms!

It's been a long time since I've done a true rant, but it's clearly long overdue for this new E! television debacle called "Bridalplasty."  Basically, it's about perfectly lovely engaged young women who are competing to win plastic surgery procedures prior to their wedding day.  I am beyond horrified.  When I got engaged, Bill didn't say "Please marry me, here's a ring.  And you get the second one after you lose 30 pounds!"  And I'm willing to bet that none of the fiances on that show told their future wives that they'd really like to marry them AFTER they have a nose job.  "I love you BUT I want to change you" isn't how getting married works.  And shows like this simply bolster the idea that only physically perfect and exceptionally attractive women deserve to get married and be happy!  WRONG-O!

Look, I get it that weddings have become a  multi-billion-dollar industry.  Hey!  I'm a part of that machine, I get it.  And anyone who doubts the strength of the industry should just sit down with their cable remote and see how many wedding television shows are on the air these days.  For real, you can watch a wedding show 24/7 on one network or another.  It's like Law & Order or Soul Train, you can always find something involving brides somewhere on your television set any time you sit down to watch.

At first, all the wedding shows were just "about" the weddings.  You'd see badly behaved brides, trashy in-laws, and hideous venues that you would never choose in a million years.  When that wasn't enough, and when viewers expressed that they loved watching brides lose their shit, suddenly it was Bridezillas. (Please note that you rarely ever see a bride with a wedding planner on any episode -- probably part of the reason the bride has lost her mind.)

But then watching couples plan and enjoy their weddings wasn't enough, and the television producers introduced competition.  At first it was just games, like having the groom and the MoB plan the wedding in 24 hours w/o the bride knowing, or giving the friends of the couple $5,000 and a wedding planner and three days to plan a wedding.  Then it got more aggressive, with 50 girls competing for their dream wedding gown by trying to be the one who could physically hold onto the dress the longest.  There are other versions of wedding competitions too -- with famous cake decorators competing with each other to win the blessing of the lucky young couple who chooses their cake.  I suppose I could go on and on and on with this, but I should get back to the original topic -- Bridalplasty.

If you think you need to have plastic surgery BEFORE you can have a beautiful wedding and a successful, happy marriage, you are in the wrong relationship.  RUN!  No man (or woman) who loves you will ever say to you "I want to marry you after you have such and such done to you."  It's just sick and wrong.  And yes, I realize that these women in Bridalplasty all claim they are the ones who want the surgery -- their fiances love them as they are -- the sad part is that regardless of what their future spouse has told them, these women do not believe they deserve love and happiness unless they fix whatever part of themselves they consider lacking.  And for most of them, that involves going under the knife.  I thought that show Bridal Boot Camp was tacky and crass, but Bridalplasty is worse because it's permanent. 

When you go to E!'s website to look at the show, you can see all of the individual contestants profiles, along with a list of the plastic surgery procedures they'd like to have done.  Most of it is liposuction (no shock there), but quite a lot of them also want nose jobs, Botox, and other things.  One of the girls with the longest list is only 22 years old!  Really?  I mean, seriously?  This has got to stop.  I don't know how to stop it other than to tell people DON'T WATCH THAT SHOW -- something has got to be done.  The is not a message we really want to be giving to our young people.  It's a bad, bad message.  Isn't it hard enough to grow up in a world where Taylor Swift has the perfect figure?  Do we really need to beat down women's self-esteem even more with television shows like Bridalplasty?

I'm not going to watch it.  That's the only thing I can do to register my complaint (although I'm also sending a nasty letter to E! because I feel that strongly about it).  You should do the same.

Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra.  Remember, the person you're marrying is marrying you for YOU. 

Sandy