Tag: weddings

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Organize Your Occasion

Planning a wedding is a joyous and special time in life, but it can be stressful to keep all of the details of your wedding in order.

Vendors, guest lists, gifts, and thank you notes are a few that need to be organized with meticulous care, and in turn, require you to have that knack for detail to keep you on track.

Here are a few organizational tips to make this process easier…

There are some great online tools and apps that can keep your lists organized. I recommend WeddingHappy for staying on track with tasks and AllSeated for visualizing seating charts and venue layouts. You can even organize your entire wedding on Trello, and get a little help writing your thank notes on Postable.

If you are not into using digital tools, old school methods of keeping hand-written lists will work just as well. Use a notebook that has pockets, and dedicate several tabs for each category – vendors, gifts, guest lists, etc. and take copious notes! Make sure to include all of the details like costs, vendor proposals with the scopes of work, and all additional specifics that are pertinent.

To avoid getting endless emails and text messages from guests, use a simple wedding website where they can check out your wedding details. Include important information for your wedding like dates, times, locations, dress codes, registries, transportation and lodging, and a day-of itinerary. Everything that appears on the invitations should be present on the welcome page of the website.

If you do decide to work with a professional planner or coordinator, a traditional wedding etiquette and guidebook (such as The Wedding Book) is an excellent source of information and expert advice, including tips, tricks, and examples of useful timelines and checklists.

This will help you visualize and prioritize your goals without being overwhelmed with all your wedding details all at once.

Try and enjoy your wedding process as much as possible! The tools mentioned above will assist you every step of the way and help
to make your special day an even greater success.

By Lisa Haubenstock

Lisa Haubenstock is a Professional Organizer and owner of LisaTheOrganizer, LLC. A Home Organizing and Relocation Company serving Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. She is a member of the National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO). She holds certificates in household management & residential organizing. You can contact Lisa at lisa@lisatheorganizer.com.

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The workforce behind the dress

Marriage isn’t a ring worn or a paper signed. It’s not something endured, but savored. While people spend months, even years, planning every detail of the big day, there isn’t anything that could have prepared them for the coronavirus pandemic. Some couples had to cancel or delay because of coronavirus concerns, many still proceeding with smaller gatherings or virtual weddings for now. Designers and bridal shops that cater to these major life events are doing what they do best, offering creative solutions to unexpected circumstances. Alexander Couture Bridal in Pompano Beach and Susan Rose in Coral Springs are both open and working to accommodate their clients.

David Ramcharan, who has worked as a designer at The
Art Institute and an event planner, is continuing the 30-year tradition at Alexander Couture Bridal of providing his clients with the right dress for their event. “About 60 hours can go into a single wedding dress,” said Ramcharan. “It can take five to six months to be ordered in, but I’m still getting brides to come in and have that feeling of getting their dream dress.”

Susan Rose does not offer wedding dresses, but focuses
on fashion for other major life events – quinceañeras, sweet sixteen parties, bat-mitzvahs; along with dresses for your backyard wedding these days. She is seeing a mix of reactions from her clients, many forging ahead with their events, but with smaller groups, and many with virtual components to connect with loved ones not able to travel.

Both Susan Rose and Alexander Couture Bridal are minimizing risk
to their clients by seeing clients via appointments and following all social distancing and mask rules. Fashion is an in-person collaborative experience to try on a dress and customize, if required. To ensure her client’s safety, Rae Ann, owner of Susan Rose, shared that all dresses get sanitized after being tried on, and her two-hour appointment slots give the staff time to disinfect after each visit.

Ramcharan says, “We’re still taking safety precautions in the store like wearing masks, gloves, washing hands, and being mindful. Brides are still allowed to try on gowns because I want it to be as personal as possible. Regardless of what’s happening, my goal is not to take away from the experience that other brides have had in the past before the pandemic.”

At Alexander Couture Bridal, “we have a lot of dresses I create, and
we also have for the curvier girl. I give them a wish list for the design process, they tell me what they want, we do alterations, and if I’m putting my name on something it has to show I did them right. So even with the pandemic and a lot of things having changed, productions, styles, and fabric choices, are still going well.”

“The pandemic has also changed the way people shop for wedding dresses,” said Ramcharan. “A lot of brides are now also shopping for dresses online.”

The coronavirus outbreak has caused worry across the wedding industry. Postponements and cancellations have forced couples, bridal shops, and vendors to get creative. Most boutiques are doing virtual try-on’s however, Ramcharan believes the brides are limiting their experience by not getting the proper style, fabrics, or measurements when purchasing online.

“We give them a tour, suggestions for styles, fit, designs, and really help to make it a one-one-experience that you just can’t get when online,” said Ramcharan. “It can change the entire way it fits, and a dress often takes multiple appointments to find one that’s a suitable dress. Followed by several fittings over the course that can take up to several months.”

Ramcharan does believe the sector is anticipated to recover gradually after COVID-19 related restrictions are lifted. However, the recovery of the sector will depend on people feeling safe enough to hold a large gathering.

Many will likely downsize to smaller gatherings, or postpone the ceremonies until the pandemic fully subsides. Engaged couples who are planning to get married in the near future could postpone the ceremony to further save up for the occasion too.

Speaking of a recent wedding, “[The bride] said this was the wedding [she] really wanted and better than what we originally had planned,” said Ramcharan. “We were also able to do live streams with 300 guests when she would have originally had fifty. Even a lot of men were into it, and it all came out so beautiful and perfect.”

Pandemic or not, life still goes on, and many in the communities are finding creative ways to celebrate important life events. So if you are starting to plan your event, reach out to these two local businesses, they will be happy to give advice and share their experiences.

 

Contact information:

  • Alexander Couture Bridal, 878 SW 10th Avenue, Suite #8, Pompano Beach, FL, (954) 943-7768
  • Susan Rose, 9829 W Sample Rd, Coral Springs, FL 33065, (954) 472-2120

 

By Nile Fortner

Photography by Gabriella Melo/@melometer

Additional contributions by Li Pan

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