Now how fun is that!

At the Campfire Ball benefit for Children’s
Oncology Services in May at Venue One in
Chicago, Cork Catering set up a make-
your-own s’mores station.

Photo: Gerber + Scarpelli Photography

While you are inspiring the kid in your guests, why not add an old fashioned soda bar.

At a promotional event at Skylight West in New York in June, Great Performances showcased its house-made sodas, ice cream floats, and handspun milk shakes at a soda jerk station.Photo: Mimi McCormick

p.s. This is a great way to end your reception. No one will notice that you have closed the bar.

Related posts:

1. Goodies from Around the Blogosphere I have been completely swamped for the last week and...
2. Escort Cards That Aren’t Boring Why are escort card usually so boring? You know, a...
3. So What Does A Wedding Planner Do? Yesterday I staged with one of the very best wedding...

Who Is Your Customer?

I got to thinking about this today as I was following a fairly heated conversation on a couple of wedding blogs.

By and large, the customer base of wedding blogs and the wedding print media is wedding vendors, not the bride & groom.

Now think about that for a minute. Any information based business is going to advocate for their customer base. They are going to speak in such a way and feed their readers information that is going to enhance the position of their customers. Again, please remember, their customer is the wedding vendor.

What does this mean for the bride and our industry?

It means that today’s bride is being fed a steady diet that is not always in her best interest. She is being told what to do and what is hot based on what the wedding industrial complex wants to sell. Just take a look at the dramatic rise in staged photo shoots on wedding blogs. Yes, they are gorgeous, I won’t argue that. The problem is they aren’t reality, although they are often presented as such. Most are unreachable by the average bride. I hate to tell you, but not every couple is hipster or shabby chic. don’t even get me started on the wedding gowns shown in the major magazines editorial. I have ranted on that until I am blue in the face.

It is no wonder that today’s bride is turning to alternatives to wedding professionals. As heavily exposed as brides are to over the top weddings they are beginning to believe that they both will not be able to afford a “wedding” professional and that even if they could, said “professional”  wouldn’t listen to them anyway. It isn’t that they are exploring using professionals and deciding against it, they are looking for alternatives first.

Is there an answer? Maybe.

I think that every wedding professional out there has a blog, why not start using it to really advocate for the bride. There is this little thing called Karma. If you as wedding professionals start telling the truth, being an advocate for the bride, showing them that you do offer alternatives  they will come back. Not only that, they will see you as a savior, a bright light in the darkness and they will be your evangelists.

Disclaimer, the ads at the side of this blog are through an affiliate service. I don’t sell ads to individual wedding vendors. I probably should, but then I couldn’t be this honest with you. Karma, baby, karma.

Related posts:

1. What Brides Should Know: Photography I started a rather interesting thread on the Wedding Dish...
2. What Brides Should Know: Wedding Planners In this installment of What Brides Should Know we look...
3. What Flowers Are in Season for Your Wedding Every book and expert will tell you to save on...

To hear Jerry tell it, “I just do what I do.”  Um,did I say humble? Heck, he won’t even post his many award winning images on his website!  Uh, no my friend, what you do is fine art photography meets fashion photography like I haven’t seen before.

Take a look for yourself. All of the images are linked to the original post on Jerry’s blog. Check it out and send him some Dish love.

This is from the wedding that Jerry shot for the VH-1 reality series, “My Big Friggin’ Wedding!”

This is also from Alyssa & Tyler’s VH1 wedding. I love what this image says about the couple.

This is perhaps my favorite wedding image of all time. It just screams, “Anna Karenina”The size limitations of this blog don’t do it justice. Click the image to see it on Jerry’s blog.

Jerry isn’t for the couple that just want a record of their wedding. His is the bride that sees the art in the finest photography and understand that to capture it on this one day, that is all that matters. You can view Jerry’s website at Gerard Tomko.com.

Related posts:

1. Fine Art Photography This is a little off topic but I just had...
2. Wedding Photography Contest Score! If you like looking at beautiful wedding photography then...
3. Wedding Photography I had an interesting discussion with a wedding photographer friend...

And last but not least, because nothing makes life better than cookies and a breath of spring..

Related posts:

1. Inspiration for Your Wedding Cake One of the greatest joys I have ever had was...
2. Spring Green Wedding Cakes Maybe it is because the leaves are starting to burst...
3. Another Stunning Wedding Cake When I first started in the wedding industry there were...

Well now you do! Just go to the same place the pros go: the wholesale suppliers. You can be sure they know what’s in season when.

Mayesh Wholesale Florists are one of the largest suppliers of wholesale flowers in the United States. As such, they do not sell to the public, but their site is still a wealth of information; information from REAL experts for professionals. You may not be able to buy directly from them but you can still benefit from their knowledge and information.

I found this very handy Flower Library on their site. It lists flowers by color, by group and yes, by season.

What better place to get your information than from the authorities on flowers.

Related posts:

1. Wedding Flowers Every article on wedding flowers says that if you want...
2. Gorgeous Flower Ideas for Your Wedding There is a goldmine of flower ideas out there if...
3. Your Wedding Vendors Are a Valuable Planning Tool It’s always fun to sit down with other industry insiders;...

Take it Personally is launching a new line called Hugs and Kisses and you can win a set of 50 Save the Dates and 50 flat invitations.

To win you have to register by midnight January 19th on the Fan Page

Custom Cartoon Invitation

Once you register, hop over to Christine’s website to check out the rest of her too cute for words personalized invitations and stationery.

I absolutely love her custom cartoon invitations.

Related posts:

1. Wonderful, Whimsical Invitations I don’t often talk about one of my clients on...
2. Tweets from the Dish 2009-11-01 Tweets from the Dish 2009-10-25: love it. viewing an ehibit...

One of my photographers has one on her front page, a planner friend just completed a huge one this fall, a floral designer friend and client has one coming up in the spring. Plus I just finished a site for the grand master of the style, Anais Events.

While a full on Asian wedding may not be in the cards for everyone, they are certainly a place to find some fabulous touches to inspire your own wedding.

Please enjoy these bright,bold bursts of color in the cold, gray month of January. All images courtesy of the lovely and talented Amrit Dhillion-Bains,  Anais Event Design.

Related posts:

1. Far From the Pale. Soft, Romatic Weddings There is something so romantic about pale, soft colors. ~sigh~...
2. Escort Card Alternatives Sometimes I get tired of seeing the same old set-up...
3. Tented Weddings Having your wedding in a tent in your parent’s backyard...

Kathy and her hunky fireman husband, Brian are your propietors. They look at the whole site as a part of thier love story and want to extend that same feeling to the couples that choose Front Porch Farms for their weddings.

Enjoy the view.

{Source- All images Front Porch Farms}

Related posts:

1. Shabby Chic. Yep, It’s Officially a Wedding Trend I have been kind of tracking this for a while....
2. Shabby Chic: Getting the Look for Your Wedding I am seeing a resurgence of the shabby chic look...
3. Putting Together a Shabby Chic Table I had a great time today. Friend of the Dish,...

I ran across this very fun idea today that you might like.

This one was done by having the guests put their fingerprint on the tree and then add thier name. It kind of oooges me out to think of my guests having to be fingerprinted for my wedding.

{source}

Here is another idea that I think I like better. Get a line drawing or painting of a tree with out leaves

{source}

Then get either die cut leaves from some where like Paper Source , Hobby Lobby or Micheals or get a paper punch and make your own and have your guests sign them.

{source}

You could get some pretty baskets or glass bowls to fill with leaves and a pen and use them as parts of your centerpieces. Put another on with the tree picture and a small sign explaining the idea.

Once the wedding is over, put the leaves on your tree. Frame it and you have a piece of art to treasure for ever.

Or you could just have a boring book you won’t ever look at again.

Related posts:

1. Guest Book Alternatives I helped work a lovely wedding this weekend. Lovely bride,...
2. Puzzle Guest Book I saw the cutest idea for an out of the...
3. This Guest Book Alternative is Just a Little Dirty! You know I love alternative guest books, right? Well check...

My advice has always been to start by looking in your closet. Face it, don’t you buy the clothes that look best on you? Well it only seems right that the colors you look great in would be a great place to start with the colors you want to surround you on your wedding day. Savvy?

So, look to your closet then look to your venue. How can you make those two work together? Still stuck? Throw the season of your wedding into the mix.

Now that you have some foundation of the colors you look best in and the canvas you have to work with, get busy with some of the best tools on the internet.

These are great for providing inspiration.

Preston Bailey’s Color Picker

Bride’s Color Studio for Receptions

Panetone Wedding by the Dessy Group

Still stuck? Here are a few tools that you can pop in a picture and it will break out all the colors in it.

ColourLovers

Big Huge Lab Color Palette Generator

Kuler

Ok, got your colors? You can search Google images by color and collect some image that inspire you and you are ready to make your inspiration board. Here are tool really easy tools for that.

Picasa

Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker

If you are anything like me, you have just spent an entire day playing with colors! I hope it helped you find the palette that makes your heart sing.

Related posts:

1. What Color is My Wedding? Are you struggling to pick the perfect palette for your...
2. Finding inspiration. Sometimes putting together a color palette for your wedding seems...
3. How to Find the Perfect Color Palette for Your Wedding Why on Perfect Palette of course. Just found this lovely...