Today I have to indulge just a little, it’s been over two years since I started The Wedding Genie and I thought I would stop and reflect on what has been for me an outstanding couple of years.

I have been privileged to work with twenty couples at various stages of their weddings. A mix of services from Partial and Full Wedding Planning to On the Day Coordination and everywhere in between.

What a fantastic job where the people you work with are generally always happy and what you do really makes a difference to them.

I certainly have gained some fantastic experience from all types of weddings including a beautifully themed barn wedding, an asian wedding (two in fact in one!), country house weddings that were to die for, spectacular glamourous weddings taking place in two venues!!  One of my lovely brides from one of those days even has her ownWedding blog now. The other was filmed for The Great Cake Bake program on wedding TV. Oh and what about the Italian Wedding! I have done things that would never have occurred to me like giving advice on BBC Radio West Midlands, being filmed by Wedding TV, giving monthly expert wedding advice to Your West Midlands Wedding Magazine. I do love writing for them and for Wedding TV.

Along the way I have built up a team of professionals to die for, a phenomenal Genie Dream Team. All of them going the extra mile and providing a service second to none. I believe your wedding is all about the journey and you should enjoy it with the people you work with.

What’s the point of using a wedding planner if you can’t have fun and have time to enjoy the good stuff. Thanks to everyone I have worked with and their help for making our clients wedding day vision a reality. Busy people in demanding jobs just don’t have the time to research and organise their wedding. It really is great to be able to provide a service for these clients who want to enjoy the planning but all the tasks like finding venues, suppliers and visualising their ideas and inspirations to come to life can be done by me and a fantastic team.

Next year looks like a great year!! The Wedding Genie is doing their first civil partnership and I am just thrilled to bits about that. Two absolutely delightful ladies who are such fun to work with. I can’t give much away about the themes and styles of next years weddings but the blog will showcase them all they unfold.

I am particularly excited about my Bridal Workshops. Lovely couples come along and spend time with me learning the building blocks of wedding planning. They go home brimming with ideas and inspiration. These are going to be held next year in Hagley at Blue Door Bakery Studios. The dates will come out next week.

You can now hire various items such as garden games, an instamatic digital camera for your guest book and glassware from me.  I will come and dress your venue for you, great if you are on a budget. More about that early next year. I will be adding to the website so that you can see what there is available.

My Wedding Planning Genie Wizard is flying off the shelves, am so thrilled about that. Next year I am going to add a Wedding Journal, which you can use as your bible for all things wedding. It’s like having a piece of The Wedding Genie to advise you at home!  All in all exciting times ahead.

I just want to say a “Massive Thank You” to all the lovely couples I have worked with. It has been a pleasure to be part of your special day and to be so involved in your plans and ideas. I can’t wait to get started on the weddings for next year too. I am off now to visit Sarah at Blue Door Bakery so hopefully she will give me cake to celebrate!!

Until next time, happy planning.

This blog is a little out of my norm but I so wanted to help Amanda who is the fund raising guru for for St John Ambulance, Stafford. A few weeks ago Amanda asked me to speak at one of their lovely ladies lunches about being a wedding planner.

I started thinking about what I would talk to you about that would bring into play both aspects of the day, the medical side, nursing, and the wedding planning aspect. So just for fun this is my story about how a nurse specialising in Intensive care came to be a wedding planner.You first reaction may be that these two careers have nothing in common, and of course you may be right but I started to examine the parallels of the two very different industries.

Firstly weddings are occasions of joy where families come together to celebrate the beginning of a fundamental new chapter in a couples life.

Whereas ICU is sometimes an environment of tragedy, stress and sadness. The relatives are often shocked and bewildered.

Secondly, weddings are generally organised well in advance and have a very structured sequence of  events. There is a ceremony, wedding speeches, the wedding breakfast, a first dance, a highly choreographed sequence of events. You know what the outcome is going to be. Wedding planning needs major organisation, and preparation. In fact this is well suited to my OCD like personality.

This may seem like a major disadvantage, for instance not being able to leave the house without everything being in its place. But actually that meticulous obsessive attention to detail is exactly the kind of characteristics that are necessary to be successful in wedding planning.

whereas

A stay in ICU is often unexpected and unplanned where you have to respond to the situation as it unfolds. A patient may enter the doors from the scene of an accident without the staff having too much idea of the injuries, there is not time to organise or think about the solution too much.

Thirdly, with weddings you often have to think on your feet. A bride of mine managed to drip tomato soup all over her designer wedding dress, how in hell do I get rid of that? Quick thinking saved the day, that and Johnson baby wipes and talcum powder.

Weddings can be emotional roller coasters where diplomacy and tact are called upon in huge measures.  Everyone wants the perfect wedding that is different from their friends or family. Budgets are constricted too so coming up with innovative ideas to spread costs without compromising on style and quality is often called for. Also you need to encourage and help couples put themselves into their wedding day. There is nothing more memorable that the little details that spell out their personality and style.

Similarly -  In Intensive care you have to also think laterally when people are sick, you need to put all the jigsaw pieces together to find a solution.

Despite the very different events that occur in both areas, both call for similar skills of organisation, being calm under pressure, dealing quickly and efficiently with situations that arise and meticulous attention to detail. Not forgetting of course the people skills that are necessary to keep everyone happy.

It really was a superb day. There was a fashion show of wedding dresses throughout the years and clothes for the Mother of the bride. Real dresses from real brides, it was smashing to see the original dresses from way back when and meet the ladies themselves.

The St John Ambulance do a sterling job. They believe no one should die because they needed first aid and did not get it. I bet you can’t believe they train over 800,000 people a year in first aid. The whole organisation is charity led so they do need our support. Next week Amanda is holding a fashion show, the details are below. If you are available please contact Amanda to buy a ticket, . The clothes are great, I saw some of the lovely affordable things when I attended the ladies lunch.

Keep Calm and Carry on Being Gorgeous

Fashion Show

Thursday 12 May 2011

7.30pm for 8pm

Pie and Ale House

Crabbery Street, Stafford

Drinks and canapés on arrival

To obtain tickets email  Amanda at fundraising@staffordshire.sja.org.uk or call 01785 257124. For Intensive wedding planning services, just joking I will be happy to help. Call or email me and for a chat.

Until next time, happy planning.

Over the last few weeks I have been getting calls from other wedding planners and brides saying they liked my website. I have also had some comments on twitter too. Well I want to introduce you to the talented chap who is responsible for the lovely window into the world of The Wedding Genie. Phil Smith, his company is called A Million Monkeys. Yes a great title and every time I think of it it makes me smile. I love this from Phil’s website.

“So the theory goes that if you sit a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters, sooner of later you’ll end up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Similarly, if you put a geek in front of a Mac, sooner or later you’ll get something beautiful.”

I found Phil when I first started in wedding planning. I saw a website that I thought was just beautiful, simple, chic and elegant. Those of you in the wedding planning know how will recognise the name “Zoe Lingard” straight away. I remember scrolling down her website and checking out the designer. One day when I had the courage to phone Zoe for a chat I asked her if she could put me in touch with the company and she handed the phone over. What better recommendation than your husband!

Phil has been working on my website on updates over the last few weeks which I am really pleased with. Our new success stories page and Genie News is his handy work. I thought it was about time we gave him a mention. I guess web designers are always behind the scenes and are sometimes forgotten. If you are thinking of setting up a web site then have a look what Phil can offer. Not only does he build beautiful websites but he is great at logo creation and branding. I should know! Oh and did I mention that he is very patient and gives great advice.  At this moment in time he is working on our sister company Bridalicious. Yes what a great name that is, but more on that over the coming months.

Oh and one more thing if you want somewhere safe and reliable for your beautiful website to live, put in the hands of A Million Monkeys and Phil will take good care of you.

Until next time, happy planning.

There are a growing number of suppliers who are becoming jaded with some companies in the wedding industry that seem to exist to extort as much money as possible from poor unsuspecting couples who go to them in good faith. At least if you see one of these badges you will know you are in safe hands. This was an idea the lovely Claire from the English Wedding blog came up with when she was researching how the wedding industry is portrayed sometimes, as money grabbing and existing to promote the fact, that you have to spend a fortune to have the wedding you dreamed of. Claire said weddings are spiralling out of control and what can we do as responsible wedding suppliers to try and change this image rather than contribute to it. You do not have to spend the average £23,000, yes I did get that right, to have the wedding of your dreams.

Look for suppliers like us who will help you with the budget you have and pledge that the experience you have with them will be a pleasure. I was taught that Wedding Planners are the guardian of your wedding day vision, this is true but wedding suppliers make your vision come true. It makes sense to deal with ones that are all about you. This is our pledge to you.

If we can help you with your wedding planning in any way, you can be sure the service we recommend will match your need and budget. That we promise. Call, or email me for a chat if you would like to see how we can help. Later in the week I have tips and advice on what not to forget when you plan your wedding so pop back and catch up then.

Until next time happy planning,

Look out for our Special Offer on our Genie for An Evening service to get your wedding off to a flying start, and the opportunity to win On the Day Coordination. It makes a great engagement gift if you are want something really unique for your best friends.

We look forward to your visits, please subscribe to our blog, we would love to hear your comments and help you, even if you  just want an answer to a question use our contacts page and we will get right back to you.