As wedding planners, you’re spending a good deal of time marketing online with websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But that doesn’t mean you can skip having printed marketing materials that you can give to others when you network or exhibit in bridal shows and wedding expos.

Here are the basics you’ll want to have on hand:

•  Business cards with your contact information that you carry with you at all times
• Letterhead with envelopes that you can use for business letters, proposals and contracts. Some planners also use them for invoicing, if they are not using QuickBooks to do their accounting.
• A simple brochure or one-page sheet that gives basic information about the features and benefits of your services and asks people to contact you.
• Note cards for jotting quick thank you notes to people you have met with or who have used your services.(If you are on a very tight budget, you might want to get these later.)

If you need help with designing your materials and don’t have any local contacts, you can go online and look for freelance designers at places like www.guru.com or www.elance.com and place your project up for bid. Or, go to design contest websites, such as www.designcontest.net and www.99designs.com, and hold a contest for designers to submit ideas for your review. Make sure you know your target market, the style and mood you want to project, the colors you want to use and how much you can spend. (Ask designers to provide you with the Photoshop or Illustrator original file as part of your project requirements and 300ppi versions for printing.)

As far as printing goes, check your neighborhood printers or office supply stores for good deals or go online, you’ll find many high-quality printers who can deliver as quickly as a local business. Order only as may business cards and letterhead that you think you might need in a year, not for the life of your company. Anything that has information about your services or lists your prices should be ordered in very small quantities, enough to get you through a few months, and not much more. Chances are good you will want to update the information and you don’t want to waste money on materials that you may end up tossing in a short time.

This past weekend WEtv started a new season of the show, “Amazing Wedding Cakes,” which features some of the top cake designers in the US making wedding cakes for couples who want something other than traditional white cakes.

In the episode that is airing all week, Meri Beaucoup, in Los Angeles, California, had a bride and groom who had were into tattoo art and wanted something funky and tropical to go with their table centerpieces that included goldfish. The designers created a seven-tiered cake, airbrushed with colors of blue and green to represent water, then piped with orange buttercream koi fish.

Cakegirls, in Chicago, Illinois, created a topsy-turvy teacup cake in pink, black and gold for a very chic, fun, modern, sexy tea party bridal shower. Their shop, unfortunately, was destroyed by a fire earlier this year so they are not currently making cakes.

Christopher Garren’s Cakes, in Costa Mesa, California, had a couple whose wedding theme was Steam+Punk, which is a style that combines Victorian England and Jules Verne science fiction. The cake had an antique look and featured gears, the inner-workings of a clock, a corset and a blimp. It was truly an amazing cake.

Five questions the cake designers asked the brides and grooms that your couples should be prepared to answer:

1) What are the specific design elements that you are using in the wedding?

2) What color palette do you have in mind?

3) Where is the wedding taking place?

4) How many guests are you expecting?

5) What size cake do you want? If the couple is having a smaller wedding but wants a tall cake, layers can be made of Styrofoam and covered with frosting or fondant to match the real tiers.

If your couple has an unusual theme, like Steam+Punk, have them bring photos to their meeting with the designers. Also make sure they bring their cake topper, if they have one they want the designer to use.

Whenever a new wedding planner comes to me for mentoring, I check out their website and their blog. More often than not, there isn’t a blog. They tell me they know it is a great way to attract brides and market for free, they’ve heard it all before, but they just can’t get started. This might be your problem too.

Here are 5 obstacles that may be stopping you from marketing successfully by blogging, and how to overcome them:

Obstacle #-1 -  You  worry about which blogging platform to use

There are many different blogging platforms, don’t get bogged down with discussions on which one is the best one. The best one for you is the one that you will use, so start with whatever platform is easiest for you. For many, it is Blogger. This is run by Google, it’s free  and you can be up and blogging in about 10 minutes.

Obstacle #-2 -  You think you can’t blog because you aren’t a writer

You don’t have to be a professional writer, you just need to give information that is valuable to the brides in your niche. You could do this by writing some content then illustrating it with photos from the weddings and events that you are planning. Or, if you are comfortable talking in front of a camera, tape yourself giving tips and post the videos on your blog. You can also occasionally have guest bloggers, for example, ask wedding vendors in your network to offer tips to your readers. 

Obstacle #-3 - You think you don’t have the time

You don’t have to spend a lot of time writing long blog posts. In fact, they are most likely to be read if you keep them short. Blog about a wedding planning tip, maybe something you did the day before as you were working on a wedding, or something you read in a bridal magazine (please give credit to the magazine as your source).

Obstacle #-4 - You worry about what to write in your first blog post

In your first post, write briefly about who you are and your company. Then tell readers what you will be blogging about in the future.

Obstacle #-5 - You worry about being perfect

There are many good things about blogging, posts are quickly picked up by the search engines – which means brides can find you more easily, you can create a link to your website – which will bring more traffic to your site, and, for perfectionists, blog posts are easy to edit. If you suddenly discover you misspelled a word or think your post on a topic needs more information, you can change it without a lot of hassle, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Don’t allow these obstacles to stop you from using one of the best ways to market your business online.

I have recently received a number of emails from people asking how to start getting paid for planning weddings with no wedding or event planning expereience besides planning their own weddings.

I would say it is very difficult to do this and I don’t recommend trying it.

The reality is that you need to get experience beyond planning your own wedding. Although you can learn a lot by doing it and it may have helped you realize how much you want to be a wedding planner, you need to get some experience planning weddings for other brides. When you planned your own wedding, you were using your own money, you got to make the decisions, and you had people involved in your wedding, family or friends, whom you knew how to deal with. As a professional wedding planner, your focus is the bride, her vision, her budget, her personality and the personality of her groom and the entire wedding party. Also your experience planning your own wedding probably hasn’t prepared you enough to work with different visions, ideas, and vendors or to handle a wide variety of wedding day emergencies.

Spend some time getting experience assisting wedding planners and other wedding vendors and/or volunteer to help friends and family members plan their events for free. Collect some testimonials and photographs for the work that you do, then start charging people and marketing your services.

I know this might not be what you want to hear but it is important that brides who hire wedding planners get people who can truly plan the weddings of their dreams.

If they lieve in a good climate, brides like to get married outdoors in the early Fall. Southern California Meetings and Events magazine interviewed some top wedding vendors and gathered tips that will help you make outdoor weddings go smoothly.

Tips From Caterers

• Know the budget and the location before meeting with them (this is true of any wedding).
• Have a designated area for the catering staff to work.
• Think about proper shade for the food when designing the floorplan.
• Tell them in advance about the logistics of the site, such as where to park when they arrive at the location and where to get running water.
• Designate a member of your staff to be their contact person during the day. They often have questions and find wedding planners are too busy with other details to assist them.

From Tent Rental Companies

• Do research before you and the bride meet with them and basically know what type of tent the bride needs and wants.
• Make sure you have the proper permits, if necessary.
• Know if the tent area is asphalt, concrete or dirt and find out in advance if stakes can be driven into the ground.
• Make sure you plan a reasonable timeline for setup and tear-down. Other vendors cannot set up until and tent is finished and the tent cannot be taken down until all guests and vendors have left the area.

From Parking Valets

• Hire a responsible company with good insurance.
• Let them know of any parking concerns you have about the area.
• Ask them to arrive at least 45 minutes before the wedding to accommodate guests who arrive early.
• Let them know if there are big changes in guest numbers.

From Audio/Visual Technicians

• Get them involved early in the planning process.
• Plan to meet them on site for a walk-thru before the wedding.
• Explain any concerns you have about weather, getting electricity to the right places, neighbors complaining about noise, etc.

Outdoor weddings can be a challenge, do your research, pay close attentions to every detail and work closely with your wedding vendors.

I just read an article on the Internet that was addressed to people who want to become wedding planners. It gave terrible advice and I just had to blog about it.

It advised new wedding planners to “get friends who can cook to do the catering.”

No!

If you are running a professional wedding planning business, you can’t just ask friends, who are not professional wedding vendors, to work with you. This is especially true in the area of catering. There are health regulations regarding clean and safe food prepartion. So, besides offering your brides unprofessional service, you could be giving everyone food poisoning if your friends don’t know what they are doing. And you could be sued.

If you are going to start a business and are serious about becoming a top wedding planner, you have to take the time and effort it requires to start and run a business from the very berginnning. Don’t ruin your reputation and opportunities for success by offering less than high quality services.

It’s August 25 and here, in the United States, Thanksgiving is November 25, just three months away! I know it is difficult to think about the holidays when, at least here in Northern California, we are experiencing the hottest days of the year. However, Thanksgiving starts “engagement season” and you can’t wait until November to start your marketing to reach the many couples who get engaged over the holiday season.

Here are 5 things you can do to get ready:

1) Review your marketing plans for the next few months. If you don’t have any plans, start making a list now of online and offline marketing you can begin and continue throughout the rest of the year.

2) Update your portfolio and website so they contain the most current photographs of the weddings you have done. Your website should also have the most current information about your services.

3) Investigate bridal shows and wedding expos and consider participating in January, when many of these events get the most attendees. A benefit of looking into them now is that many have Fall shows that you can attend before you decide to become an exhibitor.

4) Keep in contact with your current vendor network and make sure they know of any services you have added, they might be able to refer more brides to you.

5) Take action on your plans. I know a lot of people who stay in the research and analysis mode. Although it is a good idea to research your target market and understand what they would respond to, you need to take action to make things happen.

Make sure people know you are available to plan engagement parties and wedding related events. Also, if you are open to planning holiday parties, the end of summer is a great time to market your services for those events also.

If you are dreaming about becoming a wedding planner and haven’t started your business, sign in to get my free Special Report, “7 Steps to Becoming a Top Wedding Planner,” to learn how you can realize your dream.

For the season finale of celebrity wedding planner David Tutera’s “My Fair Wedding,” he created a wedding with theme of ancient Greece. The bride had been in love with movie,”Clash of the Titans” since she was young and was marrying a man of Greek heritage. They wanted a wedding in which guests would think that they had been transported to ancient Greece. (They wore Grecian-style wreaths on their heads to meet David for the first time.)

David nixed the wedding favors of chocolate Greek coins with the profile of the groom and proceeded to create a wedding worthy of a Greek goddess.

Here is what he did – you can get ideas for the weddings that you plan, whether or not they have an ancient Greek theme:

Wedding Dress

David did not feel that the bride’s gown reflected the theme of the wedding, so he chose a couture gown for her. (Sometimes a bride forgets that her dress should also carry out the theme of the wedding so you should help her keep this in mind when she shops.) The gown, from Chagoury Couture, was strapless, had a rusched bodice with bias strips and a long skirt with rosettes, the bride is wearing it in the photo with David below.

Bridesmaids’ Dresses

The bride had chosen Grecian themed long, one-shouldered dresses for her attendants which they didn’t like. She allowed them to select their own, short black sleeveless dresses with no connection to the theme. David made a bold style move and placed the entire wedding party in white. The chiffon dresses, from Thread, had an empire waist and gold trim. They were similar to the dress, below, that I found in the Luxe Collection – Etheral on their website.

The Venue

The bride had chosen her venue online and had never been to it before she and David went for a site visit. It was a lovely, private home in Malibu that, again, did not look anything like ancient Greece. Dave chose Castle Green, in Pasadena, California, and set both the ceremony and the reception outdoors.

For the ceremony, guests, who had been asked to dress all in white, sat in white chiavari chairs, bright pink flowers (which the bride and bridesmaids also carried) atop white Grecian columns defined the space. The altar area was small so attendants sat in the front rows during the ceremony. The couple gave each other a single red rose, their first gift to each other as husband and wife. When the couple kissed, white doves were released into the air. (Some locations do not allow the releasing of doves or butterflies so check with the venue before you and the bride plan to do this.)

For the reception, also all in white, each table which was filled with flowers and vases of fruit, sat under a tent so guests had the feeling of having their own feast. David used Raj Tents, who I have worked with before and mentioned in a previous post. I totally recommend using them, their tents and lighting are beautiful and they are very professional and will take excellent care of you and your clients, even though you are not David and don’t have a television show.

Wedding Cake

The custom designed wedding cake by Cakes By the Pound was white with gold and resembled Grecian architecture.

David created an ethereal, romantic, mystical wedding for his bride and groom.

As a wedding planner, you’ve probably watch cake shows on television (such as Cake Boss, Amazing Wedding Cakes, and Ultimate Cake Off ) to get ideas on how cake designers and bakers work and get inspiration to pass along to your brides. Your brides probably watch these show also, along with looking at spectacular cakes in bridal magazines, and may be dreaming of multi-tiered cakes with rolled fondant. But the no one mentions the prices of these over-the-top cakes and unless your brides have big cake budgets, you may want to give them some ideas about how much cakes cost before they approach cake designers and bakers.

The Fall/Winter 2010 issue of area-specific Brides magazines, mine is Brides Northern California, has an article, “What a Cake Costs.” It will give you the basics of cake costs and the choices brides can make that might can lower costs. If you are just starting to learn about wedding cakes, you might want to pick up a copy of the magazine.

Here are 5 tips from the article:

1) Custom designs cost more because the designer needs to create the design and figure out how to execute it.  Brides can save money by choosing an affordable design from the baker’s portfolio and having it slightly altered to suit the color and style of the wedding.

2) The rolled fondant you see on many of cakes on television is expensive because of the labor involved. Colored fondant is even more expensive since it is additional labor to knead coloring into the icing. Buttercream is cheaper but it does give a whole different look to the cake.

3) The realistic flowers on cakes are made of gumpaste and are time-consuming to make. Fondant flowers are quicker to make and therefore less expensive. They won’t be as detailed as ones from gumpaste but are still very attractive.

4) Intricate piping takes time and skill. If your bride wants piping on her cake, have her select a simple sign.

5) Hand-painting, needed to add designs on fondant, give a pearlized  look to flowers or add gold leaf to a cake, also demand a lot of time and a high amount of skill so it can be expensive.

If the bride is on a tight budget, help her have realistic ideas in mind before meeting with a cake designer and baker.

The photo above is from a YouTube video of Cake Boss.

The celebrity wedding of Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie, planned by event planner, Mindy Weiss, who has also styled weddings for Heidi Klum, Gwen Stefani and Eva Longoria Parker, was classic with soft colors. She personalized the wedding with many special touches. Here are some of the wedding details that might inspire you when you plan weddings for your brides:

Style

A rustic and organic feeling using soft colors.

Music

The processional was “Here Comes the Sun,” a Beatles song, and “Pure Imagination,” from the 1971 version of the movie “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (Maroon 5 also recorded a version a few years ago).

The first dance was “Stand by Me.”

Wedding Flowers

An abundance of pale flowers wrapped around the archway at the ceremony. The bridal bouquet was blush dahlias tied with a linen ribbon. The tablescapes were of dahlias, lilies and roses. The flowers were in white and blush tones.

Food

The caterer modeled one of the dishes, truffled corn ravioli, after a dish at the couple’s favorite restaurant. (Something your bride might be able to do.) Other foods were pigs in a blanket, sliders with beef and cheese, pepper-crusted rib-eye steak and miso-glazed black cod. (Your brides may prefer lighter food and, depending on her guests, might want to have a vegan option.) There was a dessert station with warm, molten chocolate cake and profiterole ice cream sandwiches with hot fudge sauce.

Wedding Cake

The white cake, by Fantasy Frostings, was not frosted! The layers were had buttercream filling and were decorated with fresh roses. Hilary liked the “vintage homemade look” of an unfrosted cake.

Wedding Favors

A cigar and small box of chocolates were tied together with a white ribbon and included a tag that said, “Compliments of Mr & Mrs. C.” Guests also received paper hand-cut silhouettes of themselves. 

You can see some great exclusive photos from the wedding in the August 30, 2010 issue of OK! magazine.