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Do You Need a Wedding Planner? Would You Remodel Your Home Without a General Contractor?

I don’t get it. Why would you take on a project that can cost you anywhere from $10,000 to, well, as high as you want to go without having a professional by your side?

Here is the thing, would you take on a major home remodeling project without hiring a general contractor? Of course not. I know, you are asking how are those even remotely the same. Let me ask you,

“How are they different?”

  • Both have budgets in at least the 5 figure range. That is a LOT of money.
  • In both instances you want a high degree of personalization. In short, you want YOUR dream to be executed.
  • Both will require a long list of sub-contractors that you have most likely never dealt with before.
  • Both require tight scheduling to make sure everything comes together on time and on budget.
  • Both are going to have glitches and unexpected issues pop up that someone is going to have to deal with.
  • The results of both are going to be with you for a long, long time.

Am I beginning to make some sense here?

All those things listed above are what a wedding planner does.

  • They know which vendors are reliable and match your style.
  • They help you translate your dreams to the people who are going to make them come true.
  • They know all about how your venue works in terms of timing and convenience for load in.
  • It is their job to keep that timeline on track so, for example, the flowers show up after the tables are set up, dinner is served hot and the MC know when to do the first dance.
  • It is their job to keep all those sub-contractors working together on the right plan.
  • They are there to look you right in the eye and say “Yes you can have that, but you are going to have to give up XYZ”
  • They are there to handle those last-minute glitches and issues in a way that you don’t even know they happened.

There is a wealth of information online today on how to plan a wedding, but until you actually do it, you have no idea of everything involved.
Seriously, when you look at it in this light, why would you even think of not hiring a wedding planner for one of the days you are going to remember for the rest of your life.

Sure, I could watch HGTV, DIY Network, House Crashers and This Old House until my eyes bleed but one episode of Holmes on Homes or DIY Disaster will cure my ass of thinking I can remodel my kitchen on my own!

 

*To my wedding planner friends, please feel free to copy this to your own blog. All I need is that you leave the following attribution:

By: Christine Boulton

Wedding Dish

Think Like A Bride

 

…and of course hit the buttons below to share it on G+, Twitter and Facebook

Brides Need A Reality Check

On my continuing rant of “Where do they come up with this shit” I had some very interesting conversations this week.

I was talking to a planner that is trying to, umm, fix the budget a bride prepared for her. Some of the little things the bride got WRONG:

Budget for invitations: $0.47 each. Can you even get a postcard and mail it for that?

Total budget for bouquets for herself and 8 attendants: $200. No, not one bouquet, all of them. Oh ya, she did toss in an extra $50 for the 9 bouts.

Moving on. I spoke with a florist that was dealing with a bride that found the perfect rose in the perfect color online. Problem is, the rose was on a site for hybrid tea roses, the kind you grow in your garden and they only came as bare root plants. The wedding is 2 weeks out. Um, that’s not happening!

Same florist different bride. Bride wants anemones for her wedding in November. Florist double checked with growers. Anemones start hitting the market in late December and hit their peak from January to April. Bride said,”NO, we Googled it and they come into season in October.” Maybe Google knows something the growers don’t.

Then I found this little video from Planet Money. The author obviously forgot little things like shipping and overhead for the shop selling it and maybe even a bit of profit. I’ll bet she is also the first one to scream”SWEATSHOP” at the first mention of Chinese manufacturing.


YouTube

One of your jobs as professionals is to educate your brides. That isn’t the easiest thing to do. There is a show on HGTV that I am addicted to called Property Brothers. They have figured out a way to educate their clients; it’s called shock therapy! They show them the house of their dreams and give them just enough time to fall in love with it. Then they hit them with the asking price which usually runs about double their budget.

Reality Check!

Once the shock wears off, the client is ready to tackle some less than perfect homes and some serious renovations to get what they want.

You may want to consider this with your clients. That is if you have the chops to pull it off.
A very wise friend once told me,

“It’s easy to pull off a gorgeous wedding when you have a $60,000 budget. It’s the real pros that can do it for $15,000.”

 

Please, oh please leave your examples of brides in need of a reality check. I could use the chuckle.
Besides, it would be good for us all to know we aren’t the only ones hearing this shit!!

Bridal Shows: What Can Go Wrong!

Sometimes no matter how hard you plan, things go wrong. You work like crazy to put the right pieces and people in place. Sometimes, those people drop the ball and make you look bad. Such is the case here. The bridal show was a hit without doubt, the fashion show (duh, an integral part of a bridal show) was not.

As you can see by the people sitting on the edge of the catwalk, this wasn’t a dress  rehearsal.

Beyond that I am going to hold my tongue because I may be looking at this all wrong. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the gowns fit the models or that they are pressed. I’ll let you provide the commentary in the comment section.

Fashion show fail

fashion show failure

Oh, hell, I can’t hold my tongue!

It blows my mind that these things even need to be said. If you are given the honor of producing the fashion show you need to realize this is a HUGE marketing opportunity for your business, take it seriously. Hire professional models that fit your gowns. Press the gowns. Really? I need to say these things???

Get Married Folds. What’s Next?

All the buzz yesterday in the Wedding Water Cooler was about the demise of Get Married. According to their press release, the once promising platform will cease operation on December 16th, 2011.

When they first hit the scene, it looked like a winning idea; the marriage of print, online and TV. Sadly, they never got the kind of support from TV that was needed.  Web TV is still in it’s infancy and didn’t come fast enough for the folks at Get Married. They needed big backing from networks like Bravo or Lifetime and it didn’t come. Now whether that was a money thing or the programming they were producing just wasn’t that good, it was still a fail. Without the TV component being big, really big, Get Married was just another national wedding portal. Yawn.

Another nail in their coffin was the deal with Taylor Corporation. While I’m sure it brought a much needed cash infusion, it came at a price. The magazine became little more than a catalog for Taylor’s products. That was a slap in the face of any small local advertiser that Get Married hoped to attract. It also brought the unwanted problem of corporate masters. As long as Get Married retained it’s independence, it could remain nimble. Not so much with old school corporate investors breathing down your neck every quarter.

In short, another one bites the dust.

There was much discussion yesterday about whose next on the chopping block.  Here is how I see it:

The big boys aren’t going anywhere. Oh they may hunker down, shrink and layoff some folks, but I don’t see them folding. For instance, I can’t see Conde Nast folding their one remaining bridal title. David’s and the Knot have enough cash to ride out the economic storm for a while longer. They are the exceptions. What I don’t see them doing is gobbling up the small competitors as they start to devalue. Get Married tried that and no one was buying.

 

Here are the losers:

The Gajillion small websites that thought they could be the next Knot. National portals are dead and they are going to start folding quietly but at an amazing rate.

You will probably see more closings along the line of Encore Studios. I don’t just mean in the invitation business, but bloated, old-school thinkers that deal in volume rather than service. This group may or may not include some more bridal gown manufacturers.

I think a large percentage of the folks that rushed into the bridal world when they lost their corporate gigs or graduated university and couldn’t find a job will give up. It isn’t the “paved in gold”  party all the time, recession proof industry they thought it was.

What does this mean for we that remain? Hunker down, market local, build your own online presence and sit back and watch. It’s gonna be fun!

Is The Knot Not Happy?

Thanks to some  ongoing discussions in The Wedding Water Cooler I became aware of a recent statement by the XO Group, parent company to The Knot.

You probably missed it. Heck I missed it. It was buried on page 17 of their most recent Q10 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (You read those, right?) anyway, thanks to reporter Paul Pannone for doing the due diligence of wading through this thing to find this statement.

It long, so I’ll highlight the good parts.

The Internet advertising and online markets in which our brands operate are rapidly evolving and intensely competitive, and we expect competition to intensify in the future.1 There are many wedding-related and baby-related sites on the Internet, which are developed and maintained by online content providers. New media platforms such as blogs are proliferating rapidly.2 Retail stores, manufacturers, wedding magazines and regional wedding directories also have online sites that compete with us for online advertising and merchandise revenue. We expect competition to increase because of the business opportunities presented by the growth of the Internet and e-commerce. Competition may also intensify as a result of industry consolidation and a lack of substantial barriers to entry in our market. In the wedding market, we also face competition for our services from bridal magazines. Bride’s magazine (published by Condé Nast), Bridal Guide (published by Meredith), and Martha Stewart Weddings (published by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia) are dominant bridal publications in terms of revenue and circulation.3 We believe that the principal competitive factors in the wedding market are brand recognition, convenience, ease of use, information, quality of service and products, member affinity and loyalty, reliability and selection. As to these factors, we believe that we compete favorably. Our dedicated editorial, sales and product staffs concentrate their efforts on producing the most comprehensive wedding resources available. Generally, many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater financial, technical and marketing resources and high name recognition. Therefore, these competitors have a significant ability to attract advertisers and users. In addition, many independent or start-up competitors may be able to respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging technologies and changes in Internet user requirements,4 and other competitors may be able to devote greater resources than we do to the development, promotion and sale of services. There can be no assurance that our current or potential competitors will not develop products and services comparable or superior to those developed by us or adapt more quickly than we do to new technologies, evolving industry trends or changing Internet user preferences. Any such developments or advantages of our competitors may have an impact on our future operations and may cause our past financial results not to be necessarily indicative of future operating results. Increased competition could result in price reductions, reduced margins or loss of market share, any of which would materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Ok, so I highlighted most of it.

This might help.

1Ya think? What have you been in a coma for the last few years?
2 Go bloggers! Again, this is new to you people? I have been screaming from the roof tops for years. The portal sites are DEAD.
3 Did they just notice that they aren’t the only game in town?
4Well of course they can. That’s why the blogs have been eating your lunch for at least the last three years. The internet today is about being nimble.

 

My point is that the only thing new about any of this is that the Knot is coming out and admitting what we have all known or suspected for years.
My question is are they just noticing this or has someone clued them in that we are sick of their fairy dust?

 

 #   #   #

 

Great I just found more to love about the Knot… I went looking for an image for this story and I ran across the company description. Clearly, their focus is on the “catalog” sector. In other words, they want to sell their products to brides and could care less about whether or not they buy from local vendors.

XO Group Incorporated Company Snapshot

Business Description:

XO Group Incorporated operates in the Catalog and mail-order houses sector. XO Group Incorporated Formerly known as Knot, Inc. (The). XO Group Inc., formerly The Knot, Inc., is a life-stage media and technology company. The Company connects engaged couples, newlyweds, and first-time parents with the community, products, and inspiration. The Company’s brands include The Knot, The Nest, The Bump, Weddingchannel, Wedding.com, Registry Services, Wedding Shop, Wedding Tracker, Lilaguide, Partyspot and Great Boyfriends. The Knot (www.theknot.com) is the Internet’s wedding planning solution. Its WeddingChannel.com packages planning information with a registry search tool. Both brands also deliver listings of local wedding planning services. The Company has launched many services: e-commerce, which is focused on personalized products for weddings and baby gifts; personal Website builders, and local mom social networks.

 You want my advice?

It hasn’t changed. Go local and build your own web presence. Yep, it may be easier to write a big honkin’ check each month to companies like the Knot instead of doing your own homework on local and building up your site. But then, so is just throwing your money in the fireplace; same results.

The Encore Invitation Debacle

Have you been following the Encore Invitations bankruptcy story? Paul Panonne has been doing a great job on it on his website eWedNewz.com

While Paul reports the news, my role is analysis and here is my take on this whole mess.

If you have been watching the trends, DIY is huge and invitations and the entire paper suite are at the top of the list.  Additionally, more and more couples that are having them professionally done are opting for one of a kind, hand crafted invitations from artists like Michelle  Mospens.

My feeling is that as word of the Encore failure and the deplorable way they handled it filters down to the consumer the net effect will be to drive more and more brides away from the large traditional invitation companies and into the waiting arms of the hand-craftsman. Whether those hands are their own or those of a professional artisan.

And why not?

Brides today are hell bent on as much personalization as possible. This is just going to increase an already hot trend.

Let’s take it a step further. If you add this mess to other things like Priscilla’s of Boston and countless other closings, you begin to see a picture being painted for today’s brides that leaves them fearful of ordering anything. They want it in their hand, or they want to find a small, reputable craftsman that cares about what they create that they can build a relationship of trust with.

If you are one of these small craftsman, as am I, now is your time to shine. Build trust, build relationships, show them that you aren’t some large corporate entity that sees business only in spreadsheets and ignores the human quotient.

DIY Your Niche

My friend Sheryl shared a press release she ran across about how Micheal’s is upgrading their wedding section to add more upscale designs. It just so happened that I had the opportunity yesterday to poke my head into the wedding aisle at this mecca of DIY. What I found got me thinking.

It wasn’t the products that intrigued me, but the shopper. Here stood a lovely young women, looking flustered, frustrated and not at all happy. Such is the truth about DIY.

To read the forums, the blogs and the magazines, crafting and creating all the details of your perfect wedding are a pleasure and a joy unspeakable; something akin to walking barefoot through a field and picking daisies. Well, as a life long crafter, I am here to tell you that is about as far from the truth as it gets. Then you go and add a deadline, a million other tasks and the looming presence of “The Biggest Day OF MY LIFE”  and you have a recipe for a major meltdown. I wonder just how many weddings have been canceled by grooms witnessing an overload of DIY?

I know, just make them stop doing it and we will all be a lot happier. Sorry kids, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

But…

You can use it to your advantage.

How you ask?

Trust me, when they finally cry “uncle” the person that picks them up, dusts them off and helps then finish is going to be their hero and they will pay handsomely. You have to have the right attitude about it, you can’t be all “I told you so” you have to be the kindly big sis/brother that just wants their day to be perfect. You will want to explain ~gently~ that you do of course have to pay your staff.

Business success has always been about finding a problem and then solving it. I am here to tell you, this is a problem!

The End of Marriage?

It has been a long held belief that the wedding industry is recession proof; couples would always marry. I’m not so sure that is always going to be true.

Let’s start with some simple things. Several years ago it was predicted that as Gen Y started hitting the prime marrying age (27 for women) that the number of weddings would see a steady increase for at least a 10 year span. This was the largest generation since the baby boomers and all things pointed to golden days for the wedding industry based on the power of the sheer number of individuals.

Instead, the number of weddings has fallen. Of course the standard answer is “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Well, that’s true, but maybe not just for the reasons that you think.

Yes some couples are postponing their weddings to wait for better economic times but there seems to be some recent data that says women are beginning to fore go marriage altogether. A read of this recent article in The Atlantic, The End of Men, will give us a few clues.This article expands on some of the data uncovered in the University of Virginia report, The State Of Our Unions

Today’s generation of marriage age women come from a much different framework than women of past generations. These women were raised in a post-feminist era. They were raised to believe that there were no limits on what they themselves could accomplish.

Past generations were concerned with choosing the right mate to anchor their financial situation and allow them to provide a stable environment in which to raise a family. For most everyone, marriage was an expected life-stage and two parent families were the expectation. As a generation that became accustomed to seeing the ravages of divorce, they no longer trusted that model. Today’s women are more likely to pursue a career that will provide them the level of financial security they desire rather than seek a husband. They have been taught to put their trust in themselves and that has come to include having and raising children.

Here is one more point to look at. What was the traditional nuclear family of the pre-feminist era? The man was the primary breadwinner, the woman was the caretaker. The man went out into the world and earned a living and the woman stayed home and took over all the functions that allowed him to do so:keeping the home, raising the children.

As our society has changed and seen the rise of the service industry, there is nothing to do with keeping the home that can’t be hired out. Children are customarily raised by nannies and daycare, even the education system is pushing children into formal education at younger ages.

In short, creating a home in which to raise a family no longer needs two people; just one with a good enough paycheck. If you have read the Atlantic article, then you know that the effect the current recession has had is that increasingly, it will be the women that will be the ones best suited to earning that paycheck. They are educating themselves at a higher rate than men and of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women.

Which brings us back around to marriage and weddings. What does this hold for our industry?

I don’t think that weddings will go away, but they will be more thought out and will happen for different reasons than traditionally.

Traditionally weddings were to mark a change in life stages. I see them becoming more and more a public declaration of a commitment to travel life’s road in tandem.

Saying that, yes, I think that there will be fewer weddings, but boy, will they be special. They will be more personal, and less conventional. We are already seeing that begin to manifest itself in the spurning of some traditions and the additions of new ones. Brides are no longer holding on to any pretext of the past. Couples are finding their own meaning and crafting their own celebrations. What’s more, I think that couples having these new types of weddings will be willing to spend more to get what they want simply because they are now doing something they truly want to do rather that something that is expected.

As wedding professionals, to survive, you will increasingly have to look and think outside the box.

Start out by reading both of the articles. Yes I know they are long. Then do some thinking on your own. The celebration of two people choosing to publicly declare their love for one another isn’t going to go away, but I feel that it sure is going to change. How are you going to roll with it?

Budget Cutting Tips?!

From The Archives, August 2007

When I started out researching this article it was intended for the “What Brides Say” column, but the more I read the more I realized that it really, really needed to be under horror stories. So if you are inclined to fits of apoplexy you might want to just skip this column this month!

I surfed through the Planning board on the knot.com and the Cutting Cost board over at IndieBride.com. Here are some of the best of the best along with a bit of pithy commentary from yours truly. If you want to chime in just cut and paste along with your comments over on the forums.

“I cut the middle man out of purchasing my gowns. I would have paid $1900 for the formal gown and $900 for my dance dress. I hired a company that operates in Shanghai, sent them detailed photos and measurements and paid 215 for both gowns. I can now afford to do the gift bags and extras.”

Oh I can’t wait to see how this one turns out. She may very well end up in a dress from Target but she will have lovely gift bags, won’t she?

“if you’re not completely set on having flower centerpieces, you also could do something with paper lanterns – i’m ordering the red 12″ lanterns from this website and illuminating them with votives, and then surrounding them w/ 3-5 votives on each table”

Doesn’t this strike anyone else as a bit of a fire hazard?  I hope she saved enough to buy some really good insurance and lawyers.

“-bought our sheet cakes at Costco, instead of through our baker. They taste great & are only $15-serves 50pp”

Just who decides which guests get the cheap cake? “Oh, you are on the groom’s side? Here we have special cake for you”

“-making our own cd favors-total cost is less than $1 each”

Living in Nashville and being very aware of the ramifications of illegally downloading and then reproducing the pirated tunes I am waiting for the day that some bride gets handed a subpoena at her own reception. Again, I hope you save enough to hire a good lawyer.

I think we have all heard this one before.

“We also only have 1 hour of formal pictures knowing that everyone in my family is big on digital pictures and will send us the photo links and get thousands of improptu pictures that way.”

I am sure your photographer is thanking you even as we speak for the opportunity to set up all those shots for the amateurs. Isn’t that what they live for? sigh

I think we can all relate to some of the nonsense that goes on in an effort to have the wedding they want with out actually having to pay for it. Every now and then however one of them gets it. This was listed under smart splurges.

“1. our wedding planner – she has already more than made up for her fee by negotiating photo, band, catering and rentals costs”.

As one parting shot at how some of our brides think, read this with special emphasis (mine) on the italicized word. You have to kind of feel sorry for everyone involved in that wedding.

“I just recently underwent my own wedding and wanted to share a few tips I discovered along the way.

The Bigger We Grow the Bigger Target We Become

This is from the “Way Back” machine. It was originally published on Think Like  A Bride in November 2006.

I am adding it to the archives because it highlights how we got to where we are today.

November 2006

If you think the wedding industry isn’t poised to change in some pretty radical
ways over the next few years you aren’t paying attention. You have only to look at this recent press release. If bridal wasn’t a hot market financial advisers and investment firms wouldn’t be taking notice. David’s isn’t on the verge being snapped up by someone in retail, a mergers and acquisitions firm is bidding it on. Do you remember the film Wall Street? These people pick business the size of most of ours out of their teeth. Watch your backs my friends.

October 30, 2006 10:00 AM Eastern Time

U.S. Wedding Industry Booming, Despite

More Cohabitation and Smaller

Percentage of Married Households

$100 Billion, Highly Fragmented Market Primed for Continued Growth, Says Study by The Mercanti Group

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Recent census data may suggest that more couples are cohabitating rather than marrying, but growth in the $100 billion U.S. wedding industry certainly isn’t showing any signs of slowing. According to a report issued by The Mercanti Group, a financial advisory firm focused on providing merger and acquisition, capital raising and strategic advisory solutions for small and middle market companies, the cost of the average wedding has nearly doubled since 1990, to $27,000, a rate more than 25 percent ahead of the average annual U.S. GDP growth rate during the same period.

The report, authored by Mercanti Principal Dave Remick and published in the firm’s October 2006 issue of the “Mercanti Chronicle,” predicts that the wedding industry will continue to generate compelling year-over-year growth for the foreseeable future. Given the approaching marital age of the country’s largest generation since the Baby Boomers, Mercanti expects overall growth of 20% or more in the wedding business over the next 20-25 years.

While the wedding industry is flourishing, it remains highly fragmented and may not be conducive to traditional market consolidation, the report states. Since most industry participants are small, independent local businesses, such as caterers, wedding planners, dress shops and photographers, so-called “pureplay” investment strategies are scarce.

“Our research indicates that new investment opportunities capitalizing on the positive wedding industry dynamics are most likely to result from an ‘adapt’ rather than an ‘adopt’ strategy,” said Mr. Remick. “Companies that can modify or augment a portion of their existing business models to focus on wedding-related products and activities will be best-suited to meet the growing demand from a difficult to reach, and yet very desirable, demographic group.”

Mercanti’s report does identify a few existing pure-play investment opportunities, including such well-established media, Internet and retail companies as:

  • Condé Nast — owner of Fairchild Publications (which publishes such magazines as Bride’s, Elegant Bride and Modern Brides).
  • The Knot Inc. — owner of TheKnot.com, WeddingChannel.com, TheNest.com and thelilaguide.com Websites.
  • Federated Department Stores (NYSE: FD) — whose Bridal Group (consisting of David’s Bridal stores, After Hours formalwear and Priscilla of Boston) has been widely rumored as a potential acquisition target.

According to Mercanti, an example of an effective adapt strategy is the success The Men’s Wearhouse (NYSE: MD) has enjoyed in starting and growing its tuxedo rental business. Between 2003 and 2005, tuxedo rentals nearly doubled as a percentage of the company’s sales, translating to additional revenue of $45.1 million during the period.

“Not only did the move add an incremental, higher-margin revenue stream, it also drove additional customer traffic to the company’s stores,” said Mr. Remick. “We expect an increasing number of businesses to employ a similar approach, with increased capital investments from private equity firms playing an important role.”

Other key statistics from the report, based on Mercanti research and data published by Conde Nast, The Wedding Report and Fairchild Bridal Infobank, include:

  • There are currently more than 44,000 weddings each weekend in the U.S., or 2.3 million per year.
  • The average cost of a wedding has nearly doubled since 1990, from approximately $15,000 to more than $27,000 (excluding ancillary wedding-related expenditures such as the honeymoon, engagement ring and gifts, which on average can total an additional $14,000 or more).
  • Today’s newlyweds are older, more established and are staying engaged longer. On average, today’s bride is 27 years old and her fiancée is 29. Their household income is $74,000, and they remain engaged for an average of 17 months (compared to 11 months in 1990).
  • After the $100 billion spent on the wedding, honeymoon and gifts, couples, on average, spend an additional $80 billion within their first year of marriage on automotive, financial services and home-related purchases.
  • Echo Boomers (the sons and daughters of the Baby Boom generation) are just starting to reach their mid-20’s, and represent the largest U.S. generation since the Baby Boomers, encompassing more than 70 million men and women.

About The Mercanti Group

The Mercanti Group is a results-oriented boutique financial advisory firm that embraces a fierce commitment to client service and provides creative Merger & Acquisition, Capital Raising and Strategic Advisory solutions to small and middle market companies, private equity firms and individual business owners in the consumer, health care, technology,