DIY Wedding Projects: What Do you Expect to Save?

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When considering DIY projects for your wedding, how much money do you think they’ll save you? As I mentioned in my prior post, our Trend Talk survey revealed that 88.8% of respondents said they’d DIY as a way to save, and now let’s look at just how much of a savings you might expect.

75% to 100%? No, that’s our last-ranking response, with just 5 votes. Unless they’re picking up pinecones from their backyard, putting them in vases and calling it a day. But we know you have more in mind than that…like gorgeous invitations and save the date cards (they cost money for great papers and printing,) table linen overlays (you’ll pay for pretty, shimmery fabrics,) favors and more.

I see our #1 response as completely realistic: 35% of survey-takers said they expect to save 25% to 49% on their DIY tasks. Brides want quality DIY projects, and they know that quality depends on good materials. We’re talking gorgeous organic roses, imported or recycled content cotton papers for invitations, shimmery charmeuse fabric for table overlays. Here’s the rule: anything that wedding guests will touch, feel, taste, or smell had better be top-quality. And you really do have to pay an amount of money for that.

Professional wedding vendors know this, and they stake their careers on acquiring top-tier materials for the projects they make you, and their expertise in making bridal bouquets is priceless. You don’t want your DIY bouquet falling apart as you’re walking down the aisle because Aunt Bertha used Scotch tape to hold the stems together. So here’s my top tip for the day: think really hard about whether or not you can master the art of bouquet-making for your wedding day before you plan to DIY it. A much safer bet is saving your DIYs for the engagement party florals and invitations, food, drinks, and desserts, or for the bridal shower, the morning-after breakfast…other events encircling your dream wedding day when you might not need or want a pro involved.

Those savings still count…and isn’t 49% off a $400 engagement party a welcome treat? Would you love for your bridesmaids to save that 49% on the bridal shower, or your in-laws who traveled across the country to spend 49% less on the rehearsal dinner?

DIY savings apply to all…so again, keep in mind that it’s most realistic to save that 25% to 49% on your well-planned DIY tasks. Pushing for 75% to 100% off could very well land you with disaster bouquets, itchy linens, horrible hems, and faded invitations. Or a huge waste of money when those nearly-free DIY project supplies show up and are completely unusable. Which means you have to go out and buy more. That’s the risk of a too-cheap-to-be-good DIY plan.

The WHY of DIY Wedding Projects

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Photo courtesy of www.InviteByDesign.net

If someone were to ask you, “Why are you planning to DIY a wedding project?” what would your answer be? To create completely personalized items for the big day? That’s actually the #3 most popular reason, according to our recent trend talk survey. I would have placed it at #2, right after ‘To Save Money,’ which — no surprise here — is the #1 response, getting 88.8% of the vote. You’d think that one-of-a-kind, personalized projects would be the only other option, but the #2 spot goes to “To include something very sentimental, personally-made by someone special.”

Brides today hold sentimentality and meaning close to their hearts. Who makes the project, and the love put into it, adds a tremendous amount of meaning to this hand-made wedding element…both on the wedding day and forever after when the item lives on in their keepsake collection, and is captured for eternity in the wedding photos and video. Grandma’s hand-made veil with the lace edging is priceless. Mom’s watercolor design for the wedding programs is not only breathtaking, but monumentally sentimental now and in the future.

And let’s not forget the groom…the projects he works on are ultra-special, because he’s giving you a gift by making something for your wedding day. Grooms want to be involved, in a much more hands-on way than picking designs off of a website…so they’re designing wedding invitations and programs, making their ceremony trellis or chuppah (and brides are right there constructing as well!) and even graphic-designing their monogram logos for the pattern-projecting gobo lights at the reception.

Every project he works on gives him a sense of pride and ownership, and here’s a smart tip: whatever your groom is working on, whatever you’re working on together, take tons of photos and video of your shared DIY project as a phenomenal keepsake. Grab up some leftover paint color samples and printouts of his designs to stow in your keepsake box as well.

Another top result in our Trend Talk survey, at 29.3% of the votes, is “It would give the mothers something enjoyable to do.” Moms want to contribute to the wedding plans. They imagined your wedding day since you were a baby, and since current trends have Moms pushed out of the planning since the grooms are full planning partners (unlike decades ago when it was the mom leading the planning, with the bride along for the ride,) it rescues her joy when you ask her to DIY a project or two.

Moms are working on decor items, accessories for the bride (such as making jewelry or wraps,) making edibles, and so many other projects, and it’s becoming a trend for the moms of the bride and groom to work together on a project as a fun way for them to bond. (They have to be the types to cooperate, though, since you don’t want power clashes!) And it’s also becoming a big trend for Moms to DIY items for the celebrations they’ll be hosting — such as engagement parties and rehearsal dinners – to save money, add their personal touch, and yes, Moms say they want to show off their skills at their own soirees. You want this time to be fabulous and fun for her as well, so you might find yourself at her kitchen table, gluing tiny Swarovski’s on her hand-made invitations to the morning-after breakfast, sharing quality time together.

We’d love to hear why you’re planning DIY elements, if your groom or moms are making anything, and what these hand-made-with-love elements will add to your wedding celebrations.

Bridal Shows: When to Go In Your Planning Process

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Centerpiece inspiration for your after-party; photo by Joseph Toris

Our recent Trend Talk survey delivered some fascinating comments on what brides thought about the bridal shows they attended. In addition to expected comments — free champagne, free cake, great vendors, pushy vendors, huge crowds, the show sharing their contact information too widely — one comment stood out: “I wish I’d gone later in my planning process.”

So that got me thinking: wouldn’t it be much wiser to go to bridal shows when you’re first engaged –to gather information and inspiration and potentially find some of your vendors — and then go back to additional bridal shows later in your planning process to find ideas and vendors for your later-on planning tasks? When you go a few months prior to your wedding, you might find the perfect hair and makeup stylists, favor vendors, decor ideas for your rehearsal dinner, and more.

I’m also hearing from brides who were offered discounts on their photo booths because their ultra-soon wedding dates were unbooked by photo pros who offered them a cut rate. Going later in the process could get you extra attention and special deals.

Plus, it would be a great escape from your own wedding planning stresses to take your bridesmaids or the moms out for the fun of a bridal show, not to mention free cake, while you’re all shopping for additional little details like jeweled hair clips, favors for the morning-after breakfast, items for guest welcome baskets and other things you weren’t shopping for when you first got engaged.

When you go back for round two, you could also win some fun and fabulous prizes in their door prize drawings…like a party bus for your bachelorette party, or even an entirely free bachelorette getaway trip (as I saw given away at a recent bridal show!)

What would you shop for at a bridal show later on in your planning process?

Bridal Shows: How Many Are You Going To?

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Gorgeous cake from The Wedding Salon event in NYC - photo: S. Toris

When you walk through the doors at a fabulous bridal show, it’s like walking into a wonderland of grand, arching floral centerpieces made of bold, bursting roses and cascading crystals, tables filled with candy-colored cake pops, tables set with regal china that you know Kate Middleton would have considered. Smiling servers offer you flutes of bubbly or bright cocktails, and gorgeous models glide by in glittery designer wedding gowns. It’s like bridal heaven.

The visual treats never end, and our Trend Talk survey respondents say they love bridal shows because you can actually touch, taste, and smell the amazing samples and details — which, they say, is the real benefit of attending bridal shows. As lovely as it is to see pretty bridal things on blogs, the bridal show is where you get to experience them…just as your wedding guests would.

There’s another perk to mention: going to a bridal show is one of the first, exciting planning trips you’ll take and share with your groom, your mom, your bridesmaids, even your future mom-in-law. Bringing them into wedding wonderland with you kicks off your wedding planning season with an ultra-special event, made all the sweeter by free cake samples.

So you’ve got gorgeous details to inspire you, free cake, the chance to win your dream gown or honeymoon, and so many other benefits. The big question now is: how many bridal shows will you attend? 37.5% of our survey respondents said they plan to attend one show, 28.6% say they plan to go to two shows, and 16.1% said they’ll go to three.

I’m not with the majority here, since different bridal show companies put on different types of expos, with different vendors at each one. Going to just one show is like going dress shopping once. You don’t know what else is out there, since you only gave yourself one day and exposure to one collection. It’s even more important now, if you’re among the many brides working on a budget, to get in front of as many vendors as possible, see and touch as many samples as possible, taste more cakes and cake pops and listen to more bands to up your odds of finding the best for your budget.

I wondered why brides were stopping at just one show. Could the ticket price be too expensive? Not likely, 71.4% of our survey group said they spent less than $10 on bridal show tickets, and there are lots of free entry tickets to be won on Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear how many bridal shows you plan to attend, and if you’re among the one-show-only crowd, please tell us why you decided one is enough.

Wedding Spending Trends: Gift Spending Is Down But Not Out

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After helping you create your dream wedding day, you’ll certainly want to give your parents and your bridal party members fabulous thank-you gifts. According to our Trend Talk survey, though, brides and grooms are spending quite a bit less on those presents, though. For parents’ gifts, 2010 spending was $148, and in 2011, that amount slipped to $103 — that’s down 30.4%. For bridal party attendants, 2010 saw spending of $196 total (not apiece!) and in 2o11, only $100 was spent — and that’s down 49%.

Those are some big dips in spending…but does it mean that everyone’s buying their bridesmaids little monogrammed notepads from the $5 store? Or getting parents a frame from a discount warehouse store? Not necessarily. Just because these amounts are lower doesn’t mean the gifts are ‘cheap.’

It could be that sales are so great at quality stores…and sites like RetailMeNot.com and other coupon code spots are saving 30%, 40% and offering free shipping…that the presents could be completely wonderful. They just cost less in shoppingland.

The only thing that’s different is the fact that this economy is helping you buy quality gifts for your most important people. Maybe you have it better than brides and grooms of six years ago. Maybe all of these incredible deals and savings are making it easier to buy the kinds of generous gifts you want to give them — because you love them so much and are so thankful for their work on your wedding.

If you haven’t purchased your parents’ and attendants’ gifts, you’re probably smiling right now. You sense a great opportunity here…but don’t go browsing for monogrammed totes and spa robe and slipper sets just yet. There’s another reason that these gifts could be costing less…

More brides and grooms are embracing the DIY trend. They could be making their parents and bridal party members their own fabulous photo flip books courtesy of low-priced and sale-offering sites like Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery. Or, they could have a different plan with a DIY angle, such as inviting parents and bridal party members to a wonderful, home-cooked dinner at their place, using all of their fabulous wedding and bridal shower gifts. The experience of being together is their thank-you gift, and it might cost less than $200 for all. This offering is new on the scene, so I’d love to get your thoughts: do you think your bridal party members and parents want a wrapped ‘something,’ or would they rather get the gift of quality time, making your VIP guest list?

If you’d rather give a wrapped gift, what are you planning to give? A framed photo? A box of truffles? A really nice bottle of wine, since we all know you can get a terrific vintage for under $30? Share your best budget-friendly gift here; we’d love to hear your ideas.

Wedding Spending Trends: Wedding Coordinators’ Full Packages Are The Choice

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Wedding coordinator-designed tabletop, courtesy of Joseph Toris

You’ve read everywhere that the services of a professional wedding coordinator can make your wedding dreams come true, and TheWeddingReport.com‘s new survey on wedding spending shows that wedding couples are not only booking accredited wedding planners, they’re booking them for the Full Package. Start to finish. Full attention. VIP service. In fact, spending on a wedding coordinator’s Full Package was up 39.8% in 2011, leading into this year.

That number is probably surprising to you, since you might think that in these stressful financial times, couples would book — if anything — Day-Of coordination just to get help with the timeline, setup and handling of snafus. But Only-Day-Of was actually up just  1.4%. Month-Of wedding planning was down 5.4%. Couples want their coordinators on call and involved from start to finish, and they’ll make room in their budgets to pay for it. Here are a few reasons why:

* Wedding coordinators take all of your clipped images and descriptions and masterfully transform your wedding vision into reality. While you’ve seen bridal magazine images of what’s been done, they know what can be done that fits much better into what you’re describing.

* Wedding coordinators will help you make a realistic budget, since they know the true costs of the things you want, and they’ll help you stick to it all throughout the process. Finally, that cynical ‘bridal planners make you spend more so that they get a bigger cut’ myth is out the window, with more and more recent brides reporting to friends, family and on message boards that their coordinator helped them plan right on, or below, their budget.

* Wedding coordinators know the best locations. They’ve worked them before, they’ve toured them, they know the unique ones that aren’t running full-page ads in bridal magazines. So their insider knowledge could bring you to the perfect sites that no one you know has ever been married at before, or the ones that really excel at every detail.

* They know the best vendors in the area. They know which photographers, florists, caterers, etc. are top-quality on the right price point, suit your style, and they may even be able to net you some discounts or freebies from their buddies in the industry.

* They know who to avoid. We all get terrified by those news reports of wedding photographers and bridal shops disappearing in the middle of the night, and a great wedding planner feels protective enough of you to keep you away from untested pros. Consider especially that right now, a large number of complete amateurs who own a digital camera or an iPhone are calling themselves wedding photographers and severly underpricing to steal business. People who enjoyed planning their own weddings and think “I can do that” are creating web pages and also undercharging — only to let down their clients. A wedding coordinator will warn you away from pretenders, saving you from wedding disasters. I personally think that this is the #1 reason why wedding coordinator Full Package spending is up 39.8% — we all want a gatekeeper to save us from the bad guys.

* Wedding coordinators mediate. If you have a ‘difficult personality’ in your wedding planning circle — whether it’s a cranky mother-in-law, a parent who insists on her style of ceremony, a jealous sister — the wedding planner can step in and defuse the tensions. He or she might say the perfect thing to stop that mom’s nagging, or get tough with the bitter bridesmaid to make her stop with the eye-rolling. People tend to hear what authority figures say, rather than discounting what a loved one says. So in that, the wedding coordinator’s cost becomes conflict resolution as well.

So those are my top picks for why Full Package wedding coordination is a top priority that’s getting a bigger chunk of the wedding budget. I’d love to hear why you think wedding planners are more valued now, or why you chose Full-Package with your planner…

Do Vendor Reviews Matter To You? Part 6: Wording to Look For

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Photo courtesy of Sharon Toris

You can tell a lot by what’s written in a vendor review, but there are some hot-button topics that our Trend Talk survey respondents said topped their list of most important review elements. I’ve pulled some of the top qualities of a vendor and his or her services that came up most often as top priorities, the things you really want to know:

Quality of work. Brides who are paying for a vendor’s service will have a lot to say about what they got for their money. Was that cake a dream come true? Did the table setting look like they spent 5x the money? Were the details as gorgeous as the brides wanted them to be?

Timeliness. This was a big one. We’re talking about the speed of delivery, whether it’s an emailed response to a question, the sending of a proposal, the speed of ordering. Every bride has her own preference for speed, her own patience level, so look for keyphrases like lightning-fast and faster than we expected. Right on time works for me.

Customer service. This phrase usually includes the treatment brides received from front-desk staff, support staff, billing staff and other behind-the-scenes business related to dealing with the vendor. Since you’ll be dealing with these people and not just with your vendor, look for high marks in this category, and chances are very good that you’ll get quality, satisfying help no matter who you talk to.

Ease of contact. Even if a vendor saves his or her 24-hour access for closer-to-the-wedding couples, it’s very important that your vendor will get back to you within 24 to 48 hours. If you see in reviews that a vendor took forever to return messages, that’s a sign that you’ll either have to be super-patient or you may have some frustrations with a vendor who takes a while to get back to you. It could be a sign of a very busy shop, or it could be a sign that a vendor doesn’t have enough support staff, or is overwhelmed. Ask yourself: am I going to want super-quick responses when I have questions? And see what the reviews show you.

Follow-through. If a vendor promised white roses, did she deliver white roses on the wedding day? If he promised six samples, did they get six, or did they get two? Look for signs of integrity in those vendor reviews. If lots of reviews say they didn’t get what they asked for, that may be what you could expect from this vendor. Now keep in mind that a vendor in, say, floral, is limited by what’s on the market. If a bride ordered ranunculus but only peonies were available in good quality, the vendor is going to tell the bride that quality is important, and her sea of springlike flowers will be better in peony. A frustrated bride might initially take to the review stage to voice her anger that ‘no one listens to me!,’ but then love what she sees on her wedding day. So when you see reviews about ‘item-switching,’ always remember that it might not be a negative against the vendor. Explore that review to see if there could be a market issue involved. But if it’s something like ‘I got pink lettering on my invitation instead of the cranberry we ordered,’ there’s no market unavailability there.

What are your keywords in reviews? What are you looking for? Which keywords would win your trust and get you to book that vendor?

Do Vendor Reviews Matter To You? Part 5: Do You Post Reviews?

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In the last of my series on Vendor Reviews, I thought I’d address an important issue related to the validity of wedding vendor reviews, good or bad. Simply put: not every bride and groom out there post reviews about their wedding vendors.

They might have had the most dazzling wedding possible, one that their vendors created from a next-to-nothing budget but looked like a six-figure wedding; they might have received celebrity-worthy attention and VIP perks; their vendors may have gone above and beyond, but they didn’t post any reviews. Why? I cringe at sharing this with you, but a bride I spoke to said, “Why? That’s their job to make me happy. I paid them money. Now I’m supposed to give them free publicity?” Yikes, that’s harsh.

It’s not about free publicity for the vendors. It’s about helping other brides and grooms out there to find the perfect vendors for them. It’s insanely crowded out there in wedding-planning world, and true professionals battle every day to stave off the newbies, pretenders and lowball amateurs who plan weddings as a hobby, and aren’t able to deliver the top-tier service and solutions that accredited wedding pros deliver. When you post a positive review for a great professional, you’re helping brides and grooms FIND that professional, and potentially saving their wedding.

Just the same, when you post a negative review after a vendor let you down, you’re looking out for the other brides and grooms out there, warning them away, so that their most important day isn’t wrecked.

But you know all this. You just might not think about the importance of posting vendor reviews while you’re so busy with everything else. Which is understandable. So here’s my advice: add ‘post vendor reviews’ to your To-Do list for after the wedding, which is quite smart for your time, energy and attention. It also gives you the benefit of the full experience of working with these vendors. Let’s say a vendor didn’t return your calls right away when you made a few a year prior to your wedding. He took 2 days, which you didn’t love. Rather than blast over to a wedding website saying this vendor is unreliable and slow, hang on. What you’ll more likely find out is that this in-demand wedding planner has a policy that his 3-months-or-less brides get instant callbacks and 24 hour access on his cell phone. If you posted your vent too soon, you’d do him a disservice and warn other brides and grooms away from him.

Should you always wait til the deal is done? No, it’s perfectly fine to post lovely little thumbs-up about a vendor who searched three states to find the lace you wanted. Reviews you post under your name are seen by your vendor and his or her staff, which could put you on the Favorite Bride list. I know that when I’m dealing with a dozen angry, pushy, negative brides, the one who’s sweet and appreciative is going to be the one to get free stuff and quicker callbacks from me.

So let me ask you this…do you, or have you, posted reviews for your wedding vendors? Do you consider it a good karma thing to help out other brides and grooms while you’re planning? Have you enouraged your parents and bridesmaids to post reviews, too? We’d like to hear about your review-posting plans or history…

Do Vendor Reviews Matter To You? Part 4 — Does a Badly-Written Review Affect You?

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Does the reviewer’s grammar or spelling have any influence in how much weight you give to a negative or positive review? That depends on your personal Cringe-Factor for typos, poor grammar, misspellings, and over-reliance on social media shorthand, like OMG. Some people have a visceral reaction when they see typos, and they’ll close their minds to any posted review, or vendor response, if it’s written horribly.

You might think that we’re all a nation of bad spellers, lulled down by grammar not factoring into social media posts as long as you get your point across in 140 characters or less. You might think that a mess-up of their and they’re…and okay, there is just one of those things we’ve grown so used to that we don’t even see it anymore.

Oh, but that’s not the case. It turns out that bad grammar and bad spelling does matter — a lot — to brides and grooms checking out vendor reviews. In our Trend Talk Discussion about vendor reviews, 89.8% of survey respondents said that the way in which a review is written (grammar, typos, spelling, etc.) has an influence over how much they take the review under consideration.

True, we tend to blame smartphones’ auto-fill for many typos in media posts and messages, so we can’t truly say that a bride posting a bad or good review has less of a point. But when all we have to go on is the presentation of a review, how the content is expressed, and how much care a bride or groom put into posting a credible review, it means a lot when every fourth word is spelled incorrectly.

It’s a harsh truth that we’re judged by what we put into black-and-white on vendor review boards. If we’re spelling city names incorrectly, consistently using its in place of it’s, and including what I call Sarcasm Messaging (like ‘umm….yeah….I so loved working with that inxperienced chik’) the entire value of the review loses its meaning. The reviewer could have fabulous intentions in warning brides against a vendor’s tactic of wowing you with the celebrity planner name, but then handing you off to a newbie apprentice. But if she writes on a third-grade level, will you hear her message? If her review is a glowing one, but she’s written, ‘I luv these planners – their so nice and sweat to me and my finance, and they listened 2 every thing we asked for, and everyone at our wedding said they were like so awesome!’ do you want to cut a check to that vendor right now?

We want to know where you stand on the grammar, spelling error, typo, OMG! scale…do these errors in a review render the post useless to you? Or are you willing to give brides and grooms a pass, take their grammar with a grain of salt, appreciating that they took the time to post a review? Share your thoughts with us hear…I mean, here.

Do Vendor Reviews Matter to You? Part 3 – What If Negatives and Positives Are Equal?

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Photo courtesy of Vanilla Iced Cakes

When a vendor has 200 glowing reviews and 3 negative, ranting ones, you pretty much know what you can believe. But what happens if a vendor has an equal number of positive and negative reviews? What does that tell you?

In our Trend Talk survey, the very first write-in response really caught my eye: “If it’s equal, then it’s too negative.” A split down the middle means there are enough brides and grooms out there who were unhappyto the point where they took the time to post their disssatisfaction. If those negative reviews were written with a good degree of detail, and those details spell out legitimate things they disliked, such as inattentive staff, or slow responses, not getting what they ordered, call me cynical, but I’m giving them weight.

A detailed review is always going to mean more to me than a ‘Wow, she’s the best! We loved her! Our wedding was awesome!’ That may be what that posting bride really feels, but when the positives are stacked up against the negatives, I have to look at the detail in each review to see which way it ‘bends.’

One thing that can bend it back to the positive is if the vendor takes the time to respond to those negative reviews, such as offering an explanation in his or her own defense. And that response factors into my weighing the + and – as well. If the vendor is professional and polite, such as saying, “I’m sorry you were disappointed with the shade of the blue orchids used in your centerpieces. We always try our best to search our local, organic flower market to acquire the shades our brides request, but we’re limited by the colors that suppliers can get at certain times of the year. It’s frustrating to us as well, since it’s always our mission to make your wedding dreams come true.” That’s professional, and I bend back to the +. If the vendor responded with a snarkier, “Well, I’m so sorry we didn’t match your color of blue orchids to the flecks of color in your groom’s eyes…we regret not taking a retina scan of your groom at our pre-wedding meeting.” That’s bending me to the negative.

I also like it when vendors post responses to positive reviews, and I look for clues in what they type. Are they posting that it was a pleasure to work with them? That they loved their vision? Did they go into detail, talking about the Mom’s flower choices, which is the kind of detail that shows a vendor knows the client well? Or was it just a ‘Thanks!’ or a ‘Thx!’

I know vendors are busy, working hard for their current clients, and not everyone has time to respond to posts on social media and response sites. But when negative reviews are out there, I like it when a vendor speaks up in his or her own defense. I wouldn’t want some unpleasable person posting complaints about me, and I’d post a polite response as well.

So maybe that’s the gift of the equal positives and negatives review count…it gets you to read further into what is written in each review and response.

How do you handle it when a vendor you’re interested in has some pretty crummy reviews mixed in with the raves? Does 50-50 equal ‘no thanks’ to you, or do you give a vendor a chance? If it’s a vendor a friend used, or a referral, do you give them the benefit of the doubt? What’s your formula for deciphering reviews?