Your wedding planning business is getting known, you’ve gotten clients, you’ve written proposals and you are meeting with brides in the next few weeks about planning their weddings for next year. You’re good at keeping up with the timeline and details of the weddings that you plan, but are you good at keeping track of potential clients?

You should be keeping track of the brides who contact you and show an interest in hiring you so you can follow up with them in a timely manner. There are software programs you can purchase that help you manage client and prospect information. Some programs are written especially for wedding planners, and they also allow you to track prospects and clients, in addition to helping you organize the wedding. There are also online programs that allow you to input everything on the web so you have access to it from any computer. (Links to programs are for reference, so you know what I’m referring to, they are not endorsements).

If you don’t like using these types of programs, you can create your own forms and spreadsheets to track your potential clients. Here is the information it should include:

• Name and contact information of the bride and groom along with the date of the wedding.
• Date of your first contact.
• How the bride found you – this will help you to track the effectiveness of your marketing – Find out if she contacted you because she saw you at  a bridal show or a networking event. Or, found you on Facebook or Twitter or found your website or blog via a Google search.
• Date of your first meeting and the results of that meeting.
• Date  you want to follow up on the meeting, either with a proposal or a call - put this on your calendar to remind you to do it.
• Date you sent out a proposal.
• Date you will follow up on the proposal – put this on your calendar. Don’t just send a proposal out hoping the bride will contact you. Follow up with a phone call to make sure she received it and let her know you will contact her again in a few days to discuss it.
• Date you sent out a contract – make sure your contract states the period of time in which the prices are valid. You don’t want someone contacting you a few weeks before the wedding asking for the same rates that you offered months ago.
• Date the signed contract is due – put this on your calendar and contact the bride if you have not received a signed contract and a deposit by the due date.
• Date you received the contract and deposit.

You should always have a clear idea of who your potential clients are and where they are are in the buying process. You don’t want to lose any clients because you aren’t organized and forget to follow up.

If you have followed up a few times and a bride never returns your call or emails, move on. Brides change their minds and don’t always know how to tell a vendor that they are no longer interested.

 A new wedding planner tweeted me asking whether or not she should allow someone to work in her bridal show booth to give them experience. She also mentioned that she was afraid the person would take her ideas.

It is very generous to offer to give experience to someone who wants to be a wedding planner. However, when you are new, you probably are not ready to take on an intern. It is already stressful making sure you get everything done properly. You don’t want someone working with you who does not know what they are doing and needs to be heavily supervised.

If you are an experienced wedding planner, it still is not always a good idea to take an intern with you to work in your booth. Booth staff needs to be knowledgeable about your business and the services you offer, know what it takes to plan and manage weddings, and they need to be able to answer questions from attendees. For a bride, there is nothing worse than asking questions of someone only to be told they need to wait in line and talk to someone else. Your booth staff represents your company, you need people who are intelligent, polite and professional.

If you are concerned that a person you are considering hiring might take your ideas, you should NOT be hiring them to work in your booth or any other position in your company.  You need to be honest and ethical and demand that the people who work for you, and with you, be the same. There is no room for dishonesty in this business.

If you have more questions about staffing your bridal show booth or want information on how to be a successful exhibitor, check out my Action Guide, “Exhibiting at Bridal Shows and Wedding Expos.” You will learn about selecting and training your staff along with how to set up your booth and what to do to market your business before, during and after a show so you get the results that you want. You can read more about it here. . .

Celebrity wedding planner David Tutera had a non-traditional bride with a non-traditional wedding theme, the “Day of the Dead.” (The “Day of the Dead” is a Latin American holiday that focuses on honoring family and friends who have passed on.) The bride’s idea for her wedding was a celebration of the death of the single life and the rebirth of married life. For her theme, she had gathered many skulls and skeletons, the symbols of the “Day of the Dead” holiday, including neckties with skulls for the groomsmen to wear and skeleton bride and groom cake toppers.

David didn’t want the wedding to be a celebration of death but he kept and the bride’s skulls and vintage look and turned it into something elegant, yet still dark. His ideas would work for “Day of the Dead” wedding themes, which other couples have also done, and goth or even Halloween themed weddings.

Wedding Gown

The bride originally chose a dress that looked very much like the one the skeleton on her cake topper was wearing. It was vintage and covered her all the way up to her neck. David chose the Emma dress from the Classic Collection of Birnbaum and Bullock that the bride tried on at The Ivory Suite. He chose the dress because the A-line style lengthened her body, showed some skin at the neck and the arms which made her appear slimmer and the off-the-shoulder straps emphasized her shoulders and minimized her bust. (David had her tattoos covered for the wedding.) The bride is wearing the wedding dress in the photo at the top of this blog post and below, is a full-length photo of the dress from the Birnbaum and Bullock website.

Bridesmaids’ Dresses

The bride had told each of her five bridesmaids that they could wear any black dress they chose. As often happens when the bride does this, the dresses did not look good together. The bride herself said they looked as if they were going to be in different weddings. So David chose a dress that would be flattering on all body types, had a vintage look and were in black and red, the color scheme he chose for the wedding.

The dresses were from Unique Vintage and are actually listed as prom dresses on their website. The bridesmaids did not wear red petticoats under the dresses, as pictured in this photo from the store’s website. Suggest your brides visit other places beside traditional bridal shops for dresses for their attendants, especially if they are not having traditional white weddings.

Venue

The bride had planned for the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception to be at her parents’ home. David knew immediate when he saw the space that is was much too small for a wedding of 100 guests.  People often aren’t aware of the amount of space an event like a wedding will take and need help your help, as a wedding planner, to select and planning the proper space.

David moved the event to Union Station, a train station in downtown Los Angeles that was built in 1939 and can now be rented for weddings and special events.

The ceremony was in the outdoor rose garden, guests were seated in black chiavari chairs with red cushions and sat on either side of a white aisle runner that was bordered with deep red rose petals.

The reception was “sexy, creepy, mysterious and magical.” Red tablecloths with black lace overlays covered the tables that held centerpieces of 10 foot tall dead trees draped with black and red roses. The menu cards, programs and escort cards all had skulls.

Even the cake, made by The Butter End Cakery, followed the black and red color scheme with edible black lace and red roses and one tier was a skull. 

The photos above and below are from The Butter End Cakery Facebook page.

As you can see, it is possible to take the theme and vision a bride has for her day, no matter how off-beat, make it magical and still have it express her personality and taste.

For more information about the show go to the WEtv website.

I received a call the other day from a sales representative who said she was a certified sales agent for a major search engine company. She said she was calling because I had a ranking in the search engines of 4.5 out of 5. She wanted to know if I wanted to take advantage of my ranking and attract more traffic by buying advertising that would put me at the top of the page for my type of business.

I asked her 3 questions:

1) Where can I see that I ranked 4.5 out of 5?

She said it was only something her company could see, it was not public.

2) I have many websites, which website were she referring to?

She didn’t know which site and said it didn’t matter, I could get advertising for any site I wanted.

3) What is my profession?

I figured if I came up with a high ranking, she must have an idea of what I do. But, she didn’t. She read off a list of different professions, only one of which was close to wedding and event planning.

Upon further discussion, it was clear that her company had bought a list of names and was calling everyone on it to sell advertising. There is probably noting wrong with what she was selling, although it is difficult to tell whether it would really bring the qualified buyers she claimed it could. But there is something wrong with telling me I received a high ranking when such a ranking may not even exist. I refused her offer and hung up.

If anyone calls or emails trying to sell advertising, ask questions and be sure you are dealing with honest people who have products that can deliver the results you want.

Bridal magazines don’t always seem to support wedding planners, they often offer a lot of DIY wedding planning advice to brides. However, in the September issue of Brides magazine, there is an article in their “Planning” section in which they suggest using a wedding planner. The article is, “10 Ways a Wedding Consultant Can Help – Her most important task: making the bride’s life easier.”

Here are 5 of the ways that they say you can help:      

1) Listen to a bride’s ideas and suggest things that work for her budget and style

This is important. Many brides are concerned that a wedding planner will “take over” and they will not get the wedding that they want. Make sure you let brides know you work with them to make their visions come to life.

2) Recommend vendors who can meet a bride’s needs

Brides don’t typically know a lot of wedding vendors. They need you to tell them who might be able to best help them carry out their visions based on their budgets.

3) Negotiate to get good deals

Explain to brides that vendors often give wedding planners better prices because they want you to give them referrals to more brides. They can come to you for better pricing and your excellent negotiation skills.

4) Assist with specific tasks

Many brides truly don’t have the budget or the desire for full service planning but they might want help with tasks such as finding a venue, mailing and tracking invitations or handling out-of-town guests. If you are able to offer these services, make sure you talk about them and let brides know the benefits of your expertise.

5) Oversee the wedding day

Even if a bride has done her own planning, explain that she should consider using a wedding planner to relieve her of the stress of trying to manage everything herself on her wedding day. Although family members and friends may volunteer, they often don’t know what to do and, besides, they want to be able to enjoy the wedding too.

There are many ways you can help make a bride’s life easier, just make sure she knows it.

In the latest episode of WEtv’s “My Fair Wedding,” celebrity wedding planner David Tutera had a bride who loved rainbows, crystals, pearls and butterflies and tried to incorporate all of them into her wedding. Even she thought the items she collected to decorate her wedding made it look like she was planning a party for a five-year-old.

The wedding that David designed for her had butterflies and rainbows but in a very sophisticated and elegant way. You might be able to use some of his ideas for the weddings that you plan.

Bride’s Attire

The bride kept her dress but was given modern Swarovski crystal earrings and a necklace to accessorize her dress. She was also given custom shoes that had a butterfly on the strap and a heel covered with a rainbow made of crystals.

Bridesmaids’ Attire

The bride had planned for each of her fourteen bridesmaids to be wearing a different color of the rainbow. David wondered, “Are there even fourteen colors in a rainbow?” He decided not to do multiple colors and instead chose dresses from Twobirds Bridesmaid in a sky blue color with rows of off-white rosettes along the hem that reminded him of clouds. You can see the back of the dresses in the photo of the ceremony from Church Estate Vineyards at the top of this page. Below is a photograph of the rosette dress style from the Gallery page of the Twobirds Bridesmaid website.

To pick up the butterfly theme, David had the bridesmaids wear butterfly necklaces made of Swarovski crystals.

Venue

David visited the country club location the bride had rented and found that it was not ideal. Like any country club, it was all about the golf course, tennis courts and swimming pool. The dining area in which a reception would have been held was little more than a plain dining room (something to think about if your bride is considering a country club location).

The location David chose was Church Estate Vineyards located in Malibu, California, which has been the site of many celebrity weddings including, Fergie to Josh Duhamel and Natasha Bedingfield to Matt Robinson.

Like many outdoor locations, the wedding party is responsible for bringing in everything needed for the wedding. This included food, drink, flowers, power, lighting, tables, chairs, linens, china, flatware, and even portable toilets. (Definitely reasons why a bride would need a wedding planner for this type of venue.)

As you can see in the photo from Church Estate Vineyards below, David went with pastel shades of rainbow colors. Chairs for the ceremony were lavender, pink, yellow, pale green and sky blue. Centerpieces, and the bouquets, were also in pastel pinks, yellows and lavenders. Butterflies dotted the trees brought in for the ceremony.

Wedding Cake and Dessert

The wedding cake was seven white tiers with casading white flowers and colorful butterflies.

Cotton candy, in the colors of the rainbow, was served in martini glasses as an additional sweet treat.

If you have a bride who wants to use many different colors in her wedding, use some ideas that David used to help her make sure her wedding is still sophisticated and elegant.

If you are a new wedding planner and recently started blogging, you might wonder if anyone is reading your posts, since you haven’t received any comments. If you just have one or two posts up, unless you have sent people to your blog, probably not. You will need to attract people to it and get them to return.

Here are a 7 tips for getting more traffic to your blog:

1) Send out a tweet on Twitter and a message on Facebook every time you write a blog post. You can do this automatically with a free service such as TwitterFeed or, if you have a hosted WordPress blog, use a plugin such as TwitterTools.

2) Post at least two to three times a week so search engines see your activity and your posts appear in search engines quickly.

3) Write useful information that will make brides want to return to read that you have to say.

4) Keep readers entertained. Use photos and videos. You can post photos from your events or buy stock photographs on websites such as iStockphoto. If you use photos from other sources, give them credit. Make your own videos featuring you talking about a relevant topic and upload them to your blog, it’s easy now with some of the fairly inexpensive digital video cameras available today.

5) Keep posts short and easy to read. If you have a lot to say on one topic, spread the information out over a few days. Make posts easy to read by using numbered lists and bullet points.

6) Have vendors in your network become “guest bloggers” to offer your readers information on their areas of expertise. This way you will be seen as the expert, the “go to” wedding planner for information on planning weddings in your area.

7) Write as if brides are reading your posts, even from the very first time you blog. I’ve often seen wedding planners’ first posts be nothing more than, “Hi, I’m learning to blog.” Or, “I need to go find clients.” You won’t get much traffic this way and when they do come, they’re not going to return. (Remember, that unless you delete your old posts, readers can see everything you wrote in the past.)

To check to see if anyone is reading your blog, use google analytics. Google analytics will allow you to see such things as: how much traffic is coming to your site each day, how much time they are spending on your site, where they came from, whether or not it was their first visit and what keywords brought them to you. You can easily set analytics up on your blog and your website or have your webmaster do it for you.

As almost the whole world knows by now, Chelsea Clinton married hedge fund trader, Marc Mezvinsky, in an outdoor ceremony at Astor Courts in Rhinebeck, New York, on July 31.  Her wedding was featured in People, and many other, magazines.

Here are some of the details from the wedding, you may be able to incorporate these ideas when working with your brides (her wedding planner was Bryan Rafanelli):

The Ceremony 

Chelsea is a Methodist and Marc is Jewish so they had an interfaith ceremony with both a Methodist minister and a rabbi. The ceremony included Jewish blessings, a  Methodist benediction and a reading of the poem, “The Life that I Have,” by Leo Marks.

The ceremony took place in a grassy field outdoors, under a chuppah of limelight hydrangeas, white roses and green parrot tulips. (Their florist was Jeff Latham whom some of you might remember was the star of the TLC show, “Flowers Uncut.”)

Wedding Attire

Chelsea wore a strapless, silk organza gown with a long train, full veil and a belt with crystals. She later changed into an ivory tulle Vera Wang dress for dancing.

~This dress has already been copied by a few different companies. Below is a photo of celebrity wedding planner, David Tutera, showing his copy of the Chelsea Clinton wedding dress, which runs about $2000. A.B.S. by Allan Schwartz  has it for $350.

The 12 bridesmaids wore strapless, bias cut lavender chiffon Vera Wang gowns.

The groom wore a tux by Burberry’s Christopher Bailey. He also designed the 12 groomsmen’s suits, shirts and ties.

Hillary Clinton wore a raspberry embroidered silk dress that was designed by Oscar de la Renta.

~It too has been copied by A.B.S. Allen Schwartz and is available for $300.

Wedding Flowers

The bride’s bouquet was made of white gardenias.

~Save money by getting flowers that are locally grown and in season , such as roses and calla lilies.

Groomsmen wore freesia boutonnieres.

Flower girls held lily of the valley.

Dance Music

First dance music - “Feeling Good” which was choreographed by Maksim Chmerkovskiy of television’s ”Dancing with the Stars.”

Father-daughter dance music - “The Way You Look Tonight”

Food

Dinner was salad with a choice of arctic char (fish), braised short ribs or a vegetarian dish.

The after party was in a nightclub tent in which they served mini grilled cheese sandwiches and tacos.

Wedding Cake

Made and designed by La Tulipe of Mount Kisco, New York. The four-foot, nine-tier cake was gluten-free and made of vanilla sponge layered with dark chocolate mousse covered with vanilla fondant and decorated with 1000 sugar roses, calla lilies and orchids.

You’ve spoken with a bride over the phone or email, or you’ve met her at a networking event or bridal show. You’ve shared some ideas, she is enthusiastic, she says she want to hire you and she books an appointment. But she doesn’t show up when your are scheduled to meet.

Is it something you said?

If you had pressured the bride into meeting you, yes. But, I’m betting most of you aren’t applying high pressure to get appointments.

You probably feel like you had a good conversation and the bride had a genuine interest in you. So why didn’t she show up?

It could be one of a number of different reasons, including these:

1) She had a last minute emergency

Things do happen to people and even with a cell phone, she might not have been able to get to you to cancel an appointment.

2) She decided she really wasn’t ready to meet with a wedding planner and didn’t know how to tell you

If you spent some time talking or emailing a bride before setting an appointment, she may have felt obligated to say, “yes,” to a meeting, then not known how to tell you she wanted to cancel, so she just didn’t show up.

3) She wasn’t the only one involved in making the decisions for the wedding and couldn’t get the other person to meet with you

If the groom or the bride’s family is involved in paying for the wedding, she will need to get them to agree to any meetings. If she did not, she won’t meet with you.

4) She just wanted answers to some questions and thought you might not talk to her unless she set up an appointment

Unfortunately, there may be a few brides who make appointments and have no inattention of keeping them. You may also get brides who tell you they will hired you, hoping you’ll share more ideas, then you never hear from them again.

4 ways to minimize this problem:

1) Of course, never pressure anyone into an appointment. Brides want wedding planners they can trust, not someone who they fear is going to push them around.

2) Be sure you qualify the bride before you make the appointment. In other words, find out if she is the type of client you are looking for and needs your services. Don’t just make appointments with every bride you meet.

3) When you schedule the appointment, invite the bride to bring anyone who is involved in making the major decisions for the wedding.

4) Always call and confirm you appointments the day before the meeting. Take this opportunity to remind her of the benefits of meeting with you and thank her for taking the time to meeting. If she has decided to cancel, you will know in advance and not waste your time going to the appointment.

If the bride didn’t show up, don’t assume she did it on purpose! Call or email and see if there might have been a misunderstanding and agree to set up another meeting.

If you are not able to reach her or she is hesitant, move on to someone who respects your time and wants to use your services.

If you love David Tutera on  ”My Fair Weddings, ” you might be interested in knowing that he often makes personal appearances to talk about wedding planning and answer questions. These are, of course, meant for brides, but you can learn a lot that can help you be a better wedding planner.

Here are some of his upcoming personal appearances.

August 14 – Jordan Creek Town Center, West Des Moines, Iowa
WEtv Wedding Mall Tour

September 11 and 12 - Che’ne Rose Weddings and Special Events, Hiram, Georgia
VIP Cocktail Party and The Tutera Touch: Creating A Wedding With Personal Style

September 19 – Monroeville Convention Center, Monroeville, Pennsylvania
Bridal Show

September 27 - The Palace at Somerset Park, Somerset, New Jersey
Wedding Questions and Answers

If you aren’t in any of these areas, he also has a book on planning weddings, “The Big White Book of Weddings, A How-to Guide for the Savvy, Stylish Bride”. Of course, the book is full of great ideas but unfortunately, it doesn’t have any photographs. He is releasing a book, “My Fair Wedding,” in January, that I hope will be filled with photos from his show.