Click here to view the embedded video.

Celebrity wedding planner David Tutera’s latest challenge was a Texas bride who was planning a cowboy themed wedding complete with a collection of cowboy boots (to use as vases for sunflowers), wagon wheels (to lean against tables), mason jars (to use as drinking glasses) and horseshoes. All of which David found to be a little kitchy.

Here is what David did to change the wedding from cowboy kitchy to country chic:

Set the wedding at MD Resort in Aurora, Texas, a guest ranch and Bed and Breakfast.

The ceremony was outdoors and set to look like a backyard wedding. He hung ribbons is from the trees which blew in the wind and added movement and color. The aisle was sprinkled with flower petals. The seating was an electic mix of old chairs and pews.

The bride, in a gown by Jorge Perez that David chose, and wearing her purple rose boots, arrived in a horse-drawn carriage with her parents. Because she did not have bridesmaids, David used this as a way to create a dramatic, theaterical moment that usually comes with a procession.

The reception was in a barn at the resort. The ceiling and columns were filled with lights and ribbons and sunflowers hung from wagon wheels on the ceiling.

David wanted the tables to look like someone went to grandma’s cupboard and pulled out whatever they could find so assorted little jars, mason jars, and soup cans tied with burlap and lace were gathered together. Each had one flower, a sunflower, tulip, peony, or ranunculus, so it looked like someone went to the garden and picked flowers to bring to the tables. Plates were a mix of vintage china patterns. Linens added color and texture to the tables.

The wedding cake was rolled fondant painted plaid and decorated with gum paste flowers. The grooms cake was made to look like a fishing tackle box. The cake designers/bakers offered three flavors; white cake with white buttercream filling, almond cake with blackberry cream cheese filling and white cake with raspberry liquor buttercream filling. The bride had selected white with white buttercream and the baker suggested she have different flavors on each tier. She just should make the anniversary topper, which the bride and groom will eat on their first anniversary, the favorite flavor.

The dance floor and band were setup outside the barn.

The video above shows the wedding with all of the details and you can go to the WEtv site for a full list of the vendors.

When helping a bride select her wedding colors, you might want to follow the recommendations of celebrity wedding planner David Tutera. In his advice column in the September/October 2010 issue of Bridal Guide magazine, he writes about the importance of selecting colors that express the personality of the bride. This may mean getting the bride away from traditional all-white or all-pastel wedding color schemes and getting more daring.

Some of his suggestions:

Spring Weddings

Add plum or coral to pastels

Summer Weddings

Bold yellows, purples, reds and blues or use shades of one color such as coral, salmon and burnt orange as a scheme

Fall Weddings

Taupe or burgundy with copper and a touch of lavender

Winter Weddings

Use white with a touch of lavender or add a metallic pewter, silver, copper, bronze or gold

David suggests having fun with color but not overdoing it by trying to incorporate more than three or four hues.

Read the magazine for more of his advice on color.

Many of you are busy this summer planning your first weddings as a professional. Congratulations! As you plan these events, you will notice that some things that you do work really well and you want to do them that same way again. Or you think of ways that you could do things differently in the future. Don’t rely on yourself or your assistant to remember how to do it later, write it down.

Here are 9 questions you might want ask yourself at the end of a wedding to help you prepare for your next assignment:

1. What do you wish you had asked the bride about her wedding wishes before you began planning her wedding?

2. What projects should you have started earlier because they took longer than you thought they would?

3. Did you hire the right number of assistants?

4. Did you hire the right assistants?

5. What vendor issues should you watch for more carefully in the future?

6. Did your wedding day attire work well for you or was it uncomfortable?

7. Did you accurately estimate the amount of time you spent on the wedding?

8. What worked really well for you that you would want to do again?

9. What must you absolutely do differently the next time?

Answering these questions after each wedding will make it easy for you and your assistants to be even more successful in the future.

Many brides carefully follow celebrity weddings to get ideas so, as a wedding planner, make sure you read about celebrity weddings to keep up with your brides.

Singer Carrie Underwood wed Ottawa Senators center, Mike Fisher, on on July 10, in Georgia.  Her wedding was featured in People magazine.

Here are some of the details from the wedding, you can may be able to use when working with your brides:

Processional Music  – “Bride’s Chorus” (Here Comes the Bride) by Wagner.

Wedding Gown – designed by Monique Lhuillier, it was a custom-designed, drop waist, ballgown with a corseted bodice made of Chantilly lace and covered in silk flowers and crystals.  It was cinched with a blush pink sash. The chapel-length circular veil with clear and pink crystals was topped with a diamond tiara from her groom. For dancing at the reception, Carrie changed into a short, strapless, corseted, cocktail dress with an organza skirt also by Lhuillier.

~Your brides can find Monique Lhuillier’s corseted wedding dresses in her Spring 2011 collection.

Ceremony – traditional vows with favorite scripture passages were exchanged outdoors, on the lawn of the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds Plantation Resort in Greensboro, Georgia, beneath an arbor of birch trees and roses by Branches Event Florist in Nashville, Tennesee. White flower petals were sprinkled on the sides of the aisle.

A dog in the wedding - Carrie’s dog, Ace, dressed in a Swarovski crystal-encrusted pick tuxedo, walked down the aisle with the ring bearer and flower girl.

~There are many sites on the Internet that sell formal wear for dogs if your couple wants to include their pet. Make sure they assign someone, in advance, to care of the dog during the wedding day. They might want to have the pet taken home instead of taking it to the reception. Animals are usually not welcome where food is served.

Reception location - indooors in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds Plantation Resort.

Reception decor – Everything was pink!  5,000 crystals were lit in pink, vintage toile tablecloths had a pick design, and pink napkins were folded to look like tuxedos and accented with crystals.

~You can find instructions for folding a napkin in this way in this video on YouTube.

Table Assignments – cards with the guests’ names were attached to painted hockey pucks (a nod to the groom).

First Dance – “Love Never Fails” sung by Christian singer Brandon Heath.

Wedding Cake – a cupcake tower with a small cake at the top was placed on a round cake table and surrounded by the bride and bridesmaids’ bouquets. The cakes were made by her bridesmaid, Ivey Childers, of IveyCake in Franklin, Tennesee.

~Cupcakes are very popular right now and you can work with a traditional bakery to create a cupcake tower for your bride. Or, find a bakery that specializes in making only cupcakes, there are many of them now and they make creative cupcakes in many flavors. (If you are in Southampton, United Kingdom, talk to Laura of Genii Cupcakes. She is a wedding planner too so she will really understand your brides’ needs.)

Look at the July 26, 2010 edition of People magazine for photos from the wedding.

When you help a bride plan her wedding, she may also need you to help her select her wedding invitation. Most brides have never had much experience with ordering custom printed invitations or personalized stationery so they aren’t prepared to make decisions concerning lettering styles, printing, colors, shapes and sizes.  It can be overwhelming. They will need your help to choose an  invitation that coordinates with their wedding and gives guests an idea of their wedding style. They also may need your help wording the invitations correctly.

If you don’t have a lot of experience you can direct brides to stationery stores and bridal shops that have people trained in helping brides but you should also take the time to learn about invitations. You can start by going to websites such as emilypost.com and learning the correct etiquette for wedding invitations and announcements. You can also visit stationery stores and bridal shops yourself and do some research. You might want to speak to a wedding invitation consultant and see if you can add her or him to your vendor network to exchange some referrals.

The August 2010 issue of  Brides magazine features a guide to invitations which will give you some basics such as a timeline, a glossary of terms and it has photos of some great invitation designs.

If you love the idea of helping brides select their invitations, consider becoming a dealer. Stationery companies, such as Carlson Craft, welcome wedding and event planners as dealers for their products.

I received an email from Preston Bailey Designs that they are planning a new section for their website. They are looking for entertaining stories and photographs from parties you have thrown for yourself or your friends. They do not mind that you are a professional wedding and event planner, but they do NOT want client photos.

Your stories and photos should include:

• What the event was
• Where it took place
• Who was invited
• Any horror stories related to the event
• Any moments of triumph that happened

Email party stories and photos to Karell@prestonbailey.com

If they pick your story, you’ll be featured on their website so please let me know so I can talk about it here on this blog.

Good luck!

 On the last episode of WEtv’s “My Fair Wedding,”celebrity wedding planner, David Tutera, was faced with a bride whose wanted, ” a swamp, frog-related outdoor oasis.”

She was obssesed with frogs and wanted them to be a part of her day. She also was very allergic to flowers and did not want them at her wedding. (Something you might have to face at some point are brides and grooms who are very allergic to flowers or particular types of food.)

David gave her an organic styled outdoor wedding. The ceremony took place outdoors and the reception indoors in a tented pavilion, both spaces are part of  The Liberty House Restaurant, who filmed the video below of David Tutera and the venue.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since he could not use flowers, David decorated with vines, curly willow, mosses, ferns, all elements that could be found in a forest and had lights hanging from the ceiling that looked like falling stars.  Centerpieces included runners of moss, pods, candles and leaves. Each place setting had a lily pad that held a menu card (see top).

The favors were frog placecard holders which could be used later to hold small photographs. ( I didn’t see the frog placecard holders on the vendor’s website but they did have a good selection of placecard holders and other wedding favors.)

The wedding cake was tiers of cake decorated to look like tree stumps with butterflies, ivy, flowers and lily pads – you can see it in the video above.

A new wedding planner asked me how to start a fabric swatch collection. She didn’t mention if it was for dresses, satin shoes or linens so here are some suggestions for each:

Pantone Wedding Color Guide

This is a color reference tool that you should have to help you color-coordinate a wedding. You’ll often see mention of “Pantone color” numbers in wedding trend reports. Florists, caterers, party rental companies and other wedding vendors have this guide also so it will help you understand the colors they are referencing. It is not a swatchbook but a color fan that can easily fit into your purse, briefcase or tote.

After narrowing down colors, you can also purchase individual color swatch cards that have 14 chips which can be torn off and given to different vendors for color matching and coordination.

Bridal Fashion Swatches

You can order a swatch card for $6 from Alfred Angelo. They also have a Bridal Party Bundle for $10 that has a swatch card and bridal fashion catalogs. (Swatch cards are free for brides who book appointments.)

David’s Bridal, which has shops around the country, usually sells individual fabric swatches for $2 each. Brides can get swatches of bridesmaids’ dress materials to assist you in color-coordinating their weddings.

Nina Shoes offers a swatchbook of 16 satin swatches to coordinate shoes to dresses. The book is $9.95 but the price can be subtracted from the price of any satin shoes that you order. (At the website, type “swatchbook” without the quotes into the Search box and it will take you to the order page.)

Linens

Most linen companies sell swatchbooks through their representatives and they can be expensive so don’t get these unless you seriously think you will use them.

Here are two good companies:

BBJ Linen will refer you to someone who handles your area. Their book runs $75 plus $10 shipping.

Creative Coverings has an order form on their site and will contact you. Their book is $120.

When you work with party rental companies to get table linens and chair covers, they can supply you with sample swatches.

Don’t order linens or chair covers without seeing samples. Colors in brochures and on the web can look totally different in person. Most online rental companies are happy to lend samples of linens and covers that you are considering using at a wedding or other event.

When celebrity wedding planner David Tutera met his Dallas, Texas bride, Sheena, on the show “My Fair Wedding,” her concept was, ”Beyonce, meets Lady Gaga, meets tropical, meets Cajun, meets New Orleans, feathers and parrots.”  Which David called, “a disaster” and even her groom said they needed someone to, “pimp our wedding.”

The bride said she wanted something out-of-the-box and wanted to feel like a diva, but without the attitude. David gave her a “crazy, off the charts, nontraditional wedding” that brought out the diva in her and her bridesmaids and made the wedding memorable to the bride and groom and all of their guests.

What David did to transform this wedding was big. These ideas are probably beyond most budgets but you can get inspiration for the weddings that you plan:

Attire

David didn’t change any of the dresses, as he usually does in most of his shows. Instead he gave and bride and all of her bridesmaids sequined party dresses for the reception that brought out the diva in all of them.

Entertainment

David had a special photo shoot with the bride and her attendants in which they got made up and dressed like a diva and her divaettes and acted like women from the movie, “Dreamgirls.” He later used the photographs at the venue and showed a movie that he had created of the women doing their photo session.

Food

The bride had wanted to honor her fiance with something from New Orleans, his home city. David did this by working with the caterer to create a Cajun style menu. (A nice way to incorporate the groom’s background.)

Venue

The bride had chosen to have her ceremony on a rooftop of a venue which meant she and her groom would be reciting vows against the noise of overhead jets and the traffic on the freeway. Something to really consider when planning outdoor weddings.)

David relocated the wedding to the historic Lakewood Theater. The marquee stated the event was “One Night Only” and “The Wedding of Sheena and Cedric.” The movie posters were from the diva photoshoot.

The groom and groomsmen arrived in a black limo. The bride and her attendants got made up and dressed in a star trailer and made their entrance in a white limo. With a red carpet and guests at the entrance  lining the velvet ropes, calling the bride’s name and taking photographs, the couple got a taste of stardom.

The ceremony took place on the stage with the guests already seated at their reception tables.

The stage later became the dance floor (the floor was lit by LED lighting).

Last year I wrote a blog post about different Time Thieves that keep you from getting your work done.

I’ve just recognized 2 addition thieves:

1) Membership in multiple business networking groups

When you hear about networking groups, do you join all of them without asking  who participates? It is important to go out and meet other people to expand your network but be discriminating. Select the ones in which you can actually meet people and vendors with whom you can exchange referrals. And, if you attend a variety of  groups and same people are in all of them, you aren’t expanding your network. Decide which groups to drop and find new places to meet people.

2) Meeting with people who only want to sell you something

In the past week I’ve received calls from two different people who used to be in the networking groups I attended. They both said they were doing a different businesses now and would love to have coffee and tell me about it. They never asked about me or my business. I declined the invitations. Don’t take time away from your business to listen to sales pitches for things you don’t want.

If you stay focused on the goals you have for your business and decide what you intend to accomplish each day to reach those goals, it will be easier to protect your time and fight off any time thieves that you encounter.