When former MTV VJ, LaLa Vazquez, married Denver Nuggets basketball star, Carmelo Anthony, on July 10, her wedding planner, Mindy Weiss, dressed up the red soles of her Christian Louboutin heels with “I Do” in blue. It turns out Mindy sells a rhinestone shoe applique, so you can do the same for your brides.

Other wedding ideas that you may be able to use at weddings that you plan:

They sent their save-the-dates out on Valentine’s Day

If your couples have a red theme, this would be the perfect date to send out a red heart card.

They had a candy bar stocked with sweets

This is popular with many brides today. You can fill glasses and glass candy jars with the bride and groom’s favorite candies for guest to enjoy.

A photobooth served as a guest book

You can find photobooth rental vendors at bridal fairs or you can find them by Googling “photobooth rental.” Photobooths not only take the place of guest books, they also serve as a form of entertainment during the cocktail hour. If there are no photobooth rentals available in your bride’s area, set up a special area in the cocktail or reception room and have a photographer snap photos of the guests.

They had a red wedding cake

Wedding cakes can be any color the couple want. If they have a favorite color, you might suggest they talk to their cake designer about a colorful wedding cake. This one was a red velvet cake with red frosting and an edible 22 karat gold monogram that took Ron Ben-Israel Cakes a week to make.

You can see a video of LaLa preparing for her wedding on the Entertainment Tonight website.

LaLa’s red-themed wedding was filmed for a five-part reality show that will begin airing on September 19 on the VH1 channel.

Whether or not you have been watching the Bravo TV show, “Bethenny Getting Married?”, you might want to watch tonight’s episode in which Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy actually tie the knot.

Bethenny was a controlling client who initially didn’t trust wedding planner Shawn Rabideau but with only four weeks to plan a wedding, she needed help. Shawn has been able to get her the wedding venue she fantasized about and give advice on the wedding dress, cake, table settings, marriage license and much more.

You can see a preview of tonight’s show on the BravoTV website. The site also lets you see full episodes that you might have missed which are worth watching to see how an experienced planner deals with a very stressed, controlling and famous bride.

One thing you might want to be aware of as you watch Bethenny and Shawn work with the different wedding vendors, the vendors were given promotional consideration when they participated. In other words, they may have donated their services in order to get on the show and get publicity. Nothing wrong with that, they would not have been allowed to participate if Bethenny didn’t like them.

Last week’s episode of BravoTV’s “Bethenny Getting Married?” showed Bethenny Frankel meeting and working with her wedding planner, Shawn Rabideau.

It was quite a stressful experience for Shawn and you don’t want any experience with your client to be like this:

-Bethenny asked Shawn if he knew about the cotton candy at The Four Season Restaurant, he said he knew, but she realized he wasn’t telling the truth.

-She wanted her wedding at  The Four Season Restaurant, or at least a classic, iconic New York location, and he took her to a “white warehouse.”

-She wanted a “social restaurant” or “club” atmosphere and he didn’t agree, suggesting instead traditional round tables.

You may be thinking, “Didn’t he listen to her?” “Why did he always disagreed with her?” “These can’t be the right things to do!”

True, clearly you should be honest with your clients. You won’t know everything and people can easily tell when you are lying. And, taking your client to a place that is the total opposite of what they wanted and constantly disagreeing with them is not helpful and could probably put you out of business pretty quickly.

Shawn addresses all of these issues in his blog. He explains how he typically works with his brides and how this situation of planning a wedding in four weeks, in front of a television camera, with a client he didn’t even know (her assistant found him on The Knot) caused him to do and say things that were out of character for him.

In tomorrow’s episode, Shawn has to tell a stressed, time-crunched Bethenny that she needs her divorce papers in order to get a marriage license. Also, he suggests he take control of the wedding planning and she refuses.

You can see the preview of the show below (sorry about the commercial – I can’t get rid of it).

Thanks to Nicole at BravoTV for providing the video.

Bethenny Frankel, of Bravo TV’s “Real Housewives of New York”, debuted her own television show, “Bethenny Getting Married?”, last week. In this show we see her juggling her career and pregnancy as she rushes to plan her wedding, within four weeks time, before her baby arrives. (She and her husband, Jason Hoppy, welcomed a baby girl, Bryn, on May 8, 2010.)

In the episode that airs tomorrow, a controlling, non-trusting Bethenny meets her wedding planner, Shawn Rabideau, who often appears on television and has planned events for many celebrities.

Here is a preview clip of the show from the Bravo TV website:

Shawn doesn’t look at all comfortable speaking with his new client but you have to remember that the shows are heavily edited to create the most interesting story. Shawn talked about the expereince on his blog and mentioned that he has no control over the content of the show and that, as the one being filmed, ” You don’t have the power to hit the fast forward button so all the millions of viewers don’t see your un-finest moment.” Something you might want to remember if you ever think about going on a reality television show.

You can read Shawn’s comments on his blog. Hopefully, he will say more about his experiences after his debut on the show tomorrow night. (He doesn’t see the show until it airs.)

If you missed last week’s episode or don’t get Bravo TV, you can see the show on the BravoTV website.

Celebrity event designer Preston Bailey was on the season finale of Joan Rivers’ TV Land program “How’d You Get So Rich?” last night. Joan counts Preston as one of her dear friends and he calls Joan and Oprah his “angels.” Joan hired Preston to design her daughter’s “winter in Czarist Russia” wedding and he designed Oprah’s 5oth birthday celebration. Preston wrote about this in his April blog post.

Preston spoke of how he was born dirt poor in Panama in the house the size of a shoebox. His parents sent him to America when he was 19 years old. A close friend suggested he make money by doing weekly flowers for some of his clients. He didn’t know what he was doing in the beginning but loved it and began learning as much as he could.

Joan mentioned that Preston is now worth $10 million but still lives in the same small New York apartment he has rented for 30 years. His big extravagances are vacations, he spends about $1 million a year his trips.

By the way, the show mentioned that Preston does not take on weddings with a budget of less than $250,000.

I’ve received questions from new wedding planners who wanted to get celebrity endorsements in hopes that these will bring lots of clients.

Whether this is a local celebrity or one who can be found on the cover of People magazine, here are a 3 of things to think about when considering celebrity endorsements:

1) Have you planned a wedding for this celebrity?

Your potential clients are looking for a wedding planner who can do a good job planning their wedding, not someone who just knows the person or was able to send the right gifts that would get a celebrity to endorse them.

2) What do you want the celebrity to give to you?

Before you approach anyone who has a high profile, know exactly what you need from them. A testimonial? Referrals?

Testimonials are great if you have planned a wedding or event for this person in the past. It’s best to get this as soon as possible after you have planned the event. This is true of getting testimonials from anyone, capture them when they the most excited and everything you did is fresh in their minds.

Regarding referrals, unless the celebrity knows your work as a wedding and event planner, they might not be willing to give you referrals. Their own name and reputation would be on the line. Also, unless the celebrity has frequent contact with a lot of brides, there would be little opportunity for the celebrity to offer referrals.

3) Would an endorsement from this celebrity be important to your niche?

There are celebrities in every industry and niche who are not well known to people in other industries and niches. If you have a celebrity or high profile person endorse you, make sure it is someone whose opinion your target market would value.

Don’t feel that testimonials and endorsements are only good if they come from someone famous. A potential client mostly wants to know that you did a great job planning weddings for brides like her. Make sure your testimonials include kudos from clients who were happy with the many different ways that you used your skills and creativity and provided excellent customer service.

I answer reader questions here on my blog and also in my ezine, Wedding Planner Tips. In the Thursday, May 20, 2010, edition, I answer questions about being an exhibitor at a wedding or bridal fair. To get your copy, sign in at www.HowToBecomeaTopWeddingPlanner.com and get a free Special Report, “7 Steps to Becoming a Top Wedding Planner.”

As a wedding planner you want to keep up with the magazines that brides are reading. One that just hit the newsstands is Shape Bride, published by the editors of Shape magazine. Like Shape, the magazine is mostly focused on health and fitness with articles on exercise and weight loss. But there are also articles on bridal fashion, beauty, celebrity brides, conquering stress and handling financial issues in a marriage.

There are two articles you that can help you in working with your brides. One gives a timeline for when a bride should make appointments for beauty treatments such as hair cuts and colors, spray tans and teeth whitening. You can include this information in the timelines that you create for your brides. Another article that will give you helpful ideas is on handling last-minute beauty emergencies that come up for a bride such as blisters from new shoes, pimples, and too much self-tanner.

Get information about the magazine and get more tips for your brides on the Shape Bride website.

I blogged about learning the event and wedding planning process from Preston Bailey and Marcy Blum during their mentoring weekend in March and though many were interested, few could attend.

So I thought you might like to see this video of Preston on Entertainment Tonight, talking about his wedding planning process and his work designing the October 25, 2009 wedding of Ivanka Trump.

Also, the March/April 2010 issue of Bridal Guide magazine has an article entitled “Visions in White” that has photos of the work Preston did for Ivanka’s white themed wedding reception. It was held in a white tent. All the flowers were white: lilies of the valley, hydrangeas, orchids, ranunculus, roses and gardenias, arranged in three different ways on the tables. He also used crystal candelabras and white pillar candles. The accent color was gold and was seen on the Chiavari chairs, the rims of the china and crystal and the embroidered napkins.

If you have never seen any of Preston Bailey’s designs, check out his website. The photo below from the site.

Wedding planners often get inspiration for planning weddings from wedding and bridal magazines. Sadly, three of them, Elegant Bride, Modern Bride, and InStyle Weddings, folded this year. The latest and last issue of  InStyle Weddings just hit the newsstands.

The issue is filled with make-up and wedding gown tips for brides. But also features details from celebrity weddings that you may be able to “steal” and recreate at a less expensive cost for your brides.

Also, the magazine includes seven wedding planning ideas from some of the top wedding planners in the country.

If you don’t have access to the magazine, the InStyle Weddings website has similar information and photographs.

There has been much buzz this week that Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, may be getting married this weekend.  It’s hard to say since, like the weddings of high profile entertainers, this one is being kept very secret.

But former President’s daughters and entertainers aren’t the only ones who demand privacy.  I have done events for people who are famous in their own industries, but are not household names, who wanted their events shrouded in secrecy. You may get the same type of clients so here are some tips, some from my own experiences and some from research, on how to keep wedding plans and the wedding itself secret:

1. Have them keep the guest list small.  The more people they invite, the harder it is to keep the event a secret.  My clients had less than 50 people.
2. It is not a good idea to send paper invitations since they can be intercepted. Invite people by phone or leave crucial information, such as the time and location, off of paper invitations and call people later with the details.
3. A good alternative is not telling guests it is a wedding.  In 2002, Julia Roberts invited friends to a 4th of July barbecue that turned out to be her wedding to Danny Moder.  Actress Kimberly Williams and country-western singer Brad Paisley told people it was a wedding rehearsal.  Kimberly surprised guests when she took off her coat and they saw she was wearing a wedding gown.  Britney Spears told guests it was an engagement party when she married Kevin Federline in 2004, in fact her mother and the entire wedding party didn’t know about the wedding until the last minute.
4. Hold the wedding indoors or under a tent, if it is outdoors, to avoid uninvited guests being able to see and photograph the event.  (This is what Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston did when they married in 2000.)
5. Don’t tell vendors the real names of your clients.  I placed orders and told vendors where and when to arrive but never revealed my client’s names.  All charges were billed to an assistant’s credit card.  You can ask vendors to sign a non-disclosure when they arrive, if necessary.  (In some cases you might need to shred your notes, that is what designers who handle celebrity wedding dresses often do.)
6. Collect cell phones and cameras, any types of recording devices, at the door.  (Singer Fergie banned cell phones at her January wedding to actor Josh Duhamel.)
7. Hire security to keep out unwanted guests.

Most importantly, be sure that don’t tell any of your family, friends, or associates whose wedding you are planning.