Have a Safe & Happy New Year's!

I'll be celebrating tonight with friends at The Banana Tree Grille at Bluebeard's Castle, toasting in the New Year watching the fireworks over the harbor! And I'll be thinking of all my future clients who just may be getting engaged this very night.

See you all in 2012!

She's my lobster...

It's finally safe to post this since the Christmas holiday is past! My bride Brooke was married earlier this month at the St. Peter & Paul Cathedral in St. Thomas. She was the cutest little thing:



(I'm sure her photographer Sage Crown Parker got a better exit shot that I did!)

Brooke surprised her groom with a special lobster ring pillow. Must like Ross & Rachael of friends, they are each other's lobster (awwww).



The very next day, I took my children to a holiday bazaar at a local school and there was a old man, looking much like Santa himself, selling ornaments he cut from wood and painted by hand. I pretty much buy an ornament from him whenever I see him at such local fairs but one in particular caught my eye and I knew I had to get it for the newlyweds!



How perfect is that for them?! I had the artist add "St. Thomas" and their wedding date to the back and mailed it off to them. Of course, it will have to wait until next Christmas to hang on their tree as they are spending the holidays honeymooning in French Polynesia!! I'm not sure my gift is as exciting as their honeymoon is, but I'm sure it will make them smile for years to come!

Happy Holidays from Island Bliss Weddings!

Everything Happy Holiday Card

Shop hundreds of holiday photo cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

No matter what you are celebrating this month, I hope it happy & festive!

I will be working "lightly" over the weekend, in between baking cookies & constructing holiday crafts with those two cuties in the above picture. My computer will be shut off all day on Sunday though. I'm excited to celebrate & focus on the family! Enjoy a great holiday season and see you Monday!

Confirmation Emails

Towards the end of each month, we contact each upcoming bride for the upcoming month with a "confirmation email". I usually send this out the last week or two of the current month (for instance, brides that are getting married between Jan. 1st and Jan. 10th will get a confirmation email from me within the next few days - the rest will go out next week).

The purpose of the confirmation email is to go over the timeline & details of the wedding day - everything from the ship or hotel you will be picked up from to where you will be dropped off at the end of the day. This is the time to make sure we are on the same page with every detail - and is often the time that we catch any inconsistencies. DON'T FREAK OUT if there are inconsistencies - that's the whole point of the confirmation email, to catch them! Often times we are spending a year or more going through the details of the wedding day so to sit down and compact everything in one email, mistakes can be made (hey - I'm only human - a human planning over a hundred weddings at any one time!).

We don't send the confirmation out too early because things change quite frequently with wedding planning - you may decide that you want to make your own bouquets for the bridesmaids instead of ordering fresh ones - your best man may not be able to come last minute - Aunt Sue and her family decide to come - numbers are always changing and DIY projects may grow (or shrink) so the confirmation doesn't go out until we're pretty confident things will be as planned; usually a month prior to the date. Of course this doesn't mean we hide the details of the wedding day until then. We plan the timeline together from the beginning and the fun details like flowers, the ceremony set-up, the music - those all fall in to place throughout the planning process.

While the confirmation emails may not be perfect from the moment you get it, we send it out with enough time to make any necessary changes, so that on the wedding day, everything will go perfectly and you'll be toasting your blissful wedding day with a big smile on your face!


(photo by Brooke Anthony of our Simple Island Photography team)

FAQ Round-up

In the next few days/weeks, I'll add a few blog post that will help to answer our most FAQs. I am compiling our most common questions and will publish them on the website as soon as they are done. My last two posts (Your Bridal Bouquet & Aaaaand...Centerpieces!) were both created so that when it came time to talk to a bride about her bouquet & centerpieces, I could refer her to these posts. I think they are very helpful in figuring out how flowers here work. I'm planning to make a few posts about other topics as well, and adding the link to the blog post to the FAQ form. I wanted to give my frequent readers a heads up...just in case you wonder why in the heck I'm talking about site fees and transportation!

With the new FAQ in mind...if you can think of any questions that you would like to see on the list, please email me or leave them in the comments. I am up to almost 13 pages right now! You can bet I know a lot of FAQs! But I'd love to see more.

Aaaand...centerpieces!

My bridal bouquet post was a big hit! I'm glad everyone found it so helpful. I really needed to get it written. It's hard to explain how flowers work on a tropical island and I think I've written that exact post in emails about 100 times in the past couple of years (sans pictures, which I'm sure made it more confusing for brides). I've received a few questions about centerpieces...does it work the same way? And then I posted a FABULOUS centerpiece picture on our Facebook page last weekend and that sparked some questions as well. So I decided to do another blog post on how centerpieces work.

The quick answer is, yes, they do work the same way. I think this photo is a perfect example:



A bride recently sent me this photo to see how much a centerpiece like this would cost for her reception. I showed it to our florist, who said an exact replica of this would be $600 but if they had the freedom of what flowers to use, it would be $400 (that's a significant savings...imagine if you had to do 10 tables...that's a $2000 cost difference). The centerpieces would look the same, but just different flowers would be used.

My centerpieces for last weekends wedding sparked a lot of interest. My iPhone did not do them justice. Here are some pictures from a real camera:






This is really a perfect example of how centerpieces work here. All of the elements to our method apply. First, the bride sent me this photo and asked for a price quote:



As you can see for yourself...1) It's beautiful....but 2) there isn't a TON of info to go on. I knew she liked the sea fans, the blue orchids, the overall white theme (she was ok with green too) with the blue accents...but you can't see what type of base the flowers are in, or the overall size/shape of the centerpiece. My bride was going to have long dinner tables, so we envisioned this to be the length of the table. My bride did not care what type of containers the flowers were in so I suggested something low to the table. This way guests can easily see over them and so that we weren't spending too much money on rentals (a clear glass square vase is going to be more expensive than a cheap plastic bowl that you won't even see because it is so low to the table). The bride did not care about what type of white flowers were used. She did really want the blue orchids but as it is just the same for bouquets, I told her lets just request the blue orchids but not demand them. I was pretty confident that the florist would be able to use them without us specifying that they were a "must have" which overall, is going to save you money. You just have to be willing to live without them if they are not available.

The florist, as I predicted, was able to use the blue dendrobium orchids, and she included the sea fans and the starfish (which were returned to her after the wedding). She used a low bowl so guests did not see what the flowers were in. This centerpiece (per table - note: two tables were used in the above pictures) was $200 per table. But, as gorgeous as this table was, not every element was provided by me, or the florist. The bride added her own special touches, which I set up for her (that's part of my job - you want to mail me something and have me set it up? I'm happy to do so! I love to see what my brides come up with on their own). So...let me break it down some more:

Provided by the florist: vases with sand...sea fans...starfish...flower arrangements

Provided by me: arrangement on the table (I got so many compliments for it too! I felt bad...it was the brides vision and the florist put the flowers together...I just arranged them on the table - I guess this is where my education in design helps me out)

Provided by the bride: table runner, name card holders & name cards, blue votive holders

I have an album on our Shutterfly pages called "Fun Stuff" (help me out with a cooler name!). This album highlights the items that our brides do on their own, like those really cool name card holders and blue votives. I once had a bride ask me for pricing on a few items she found in the "Fun Stuff" album and I had explained to her that those were items that past brides had brought with them or shipped in advance. Her response was "so I have to bring everything I want with me???" and NO...you don't. But often times, it IS cheaper. For one, I am not a party supply rental company. I don't have the storage space (although I do have the hoarder tendencies!). For this particular wedding, the bride wanted blue votive holders...the next may want red, or green, or silver, etc. You might need five...or fifty! There is not a company on the island that we can rent these items from and I know my husband would kill me if I tried to collect every color! So yes, it's cheaper to purchase these types of items on your own. You can send them to me in advance or bring them with you (if you order online, you can have items sent directly to me, which saves in you shipping fees - don't send them to yourself just to box them up again and send them to me). We can pretty much get anything you need or want, but more often than not, you'll be able to get it cheaper on your own. Between the florist and myself, we do have some elements for centerpieces to rent (the florist has a ton of different sized, colored and shaped vases) so don't buy anything without checking with me first to see if we already have it here.

IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER IN REGARDS TO CENTERPIECES: keep in mind that some of the elements of a centerpiece may be rented, from either me or the florist. If the vase is rented, it must go back to the florist. It is customary at many stateside weddings that guests can take the centerpieces at the end of the night but with rented items, this is not always possible. We've actually had to stop some guests on their way out of a reception and let them know they were welcome to keep the flowers, but the container would need to stay. Discuss options with your wedding planner if you would like guests to be able to take flowers with them at the end of night.

We also often purchase items from brides - if you are bringing or mailing something in advance that you think we can reuse again in the future, let us know!

By the way...how freaking GORGEOUS was my bride?? Check her out as she admires her centerpieces:

My photo...



And a gorgeous photo by Blue Glass Photography...

Your Bridal Bouquet

I get a lot of questions on the bouquets and I have to admit, the answers are a little confusing. Unlike florists in the mainland, our local florists do not have a local flower market that they can attend and pick out the flowers that they want for their shop (have you ever been to a flower market? They are pretty cool). And, because we are a tropical island out in the middle of the Caribbean sea...ALL of our flowers are flown in, three or four times a month. Unlike your local florist that can get next day delivery on a flower order...our shops have to put in their order at least two weeks in advance.

I work directly with my brides on their floral order - this actually helps to keep the price of your flowers down, as the florist gives me a special rate on the flowers because I simply submit my order and save her time. I can spend two weeks and 20 emails going back and forth with a bride just discussing her bouquet...this is a job that I save my florist from doing and since I'm saving her time, I'm saving you money!

There are a few different price structures in bouquets - I'm going to do my best to describe them here, along with examples of recent weddings we have had.

We changed our packages in August of 2011 so that all packages that include flowers will include a full sized bridal bouquet & boutonniere (the florist includes the boutonniere at no additional cost, so there is not a price decrease if you don't want it). The bouquet below shows the size of a full sized bridal bouquet.

There isn't a magical formula for the size but this is pretty standard - sometimes they are slightly smaller and sometimes they are slightly larger.

Maids bouquets are always smaller. Please be sure to read our Bridesmaid Flowers Blog for details on the sizing & pricing. Below is an example of a bridal bouquet next to the "small gathering" option.



The bouquets in our packages are "color choice" only bouquets. The florist will use her judgement and stock to choose the type of flowers, but you are guaranteed the colors you choose. Here are some examples from recent weddings:

Bride J requested "purples and ivories" for her bouquet, which was included in her package. This is the bouquet that our florist made for her:



With just the simple request of ivories and purples, we received a bouquet of roses, dendrobium orchids and peonies. Now, here's the kicker...if the bride would have asked me to order lilac and ivory roses with peonies and purple dendrobium orchids...this bouquet would have been an additional $110 to her package price. This is because the flowers above are what the florist happened to have in stock when it was time to make the bouquet. She knew a month in advance that she would need these colors - but she was able to adjust her order so that she'd have these colors while still keeping other orders in mind. If the bride was specific on the type of flowers used, then the florist would have adjusted her order to make sure these specific flowers were in stock and by doing that, she would have had to increase her order...therefore increasing the cost of the bouquet.

Let's keep going...Bride A sent me this picture and said "I like this - something like this would be great":



She didn't really care if other types of flowers were used, just that it had a similar look and feel. This is what she received:



Pretty good, right?? And at no additional cost. You have to be flexible with the type of flowers and you can get a really gorgeous bouquet (do not fret, our florist NEVER uses carnations).

You can get a bit specific on things you like, as well as things you do not like, but these are never guaranteed unless you are paying a higher price. Bride D asked for: pinks, oranges and yellows. NO gerbera daisies. Likes: lilies (orange & yellow), orchids (green cymbidiums, blue & purple dendrobiums), gloriosa lilies, roses...lots of color. Boutonniere to be an orange flower. Here is what she received:




Now, the first thing the bride said to me was how beautiful the flowers were...the second thing was, "where are the green orchids?". That's the thing about color choice only...you are not guaranteed any certain type of flower unless you pay extra for them. While we did have it on the order that the bride liked green cyms, they, as well as the blue orchids, were left out. If you have your heart set on a particular flower being included, there is an additional charge.

For customized bouquets where you can specify not only the colors but the type of flowers used, the pricing starts at $150...here are some examples of recent upgraded bouquets.

Bride L asked for everything to be "fluffy and ruffly". She wanted a romantic bouquet in soft colors with peonies, anemones, ranunculus and roses. She wanted blush tones with soft lilac and a deeper pink accent. She also wanted a "mushroom cap" which makes the bouquet larger in size. Her bouquet was $225. Here is what she received.



You can see here, the bigger size.



Now, you may be thinking, I LOVE this bouquet but $225 is out of my budget. That's ok...there are options. Another bride received this bouquet:



Her order? She paid a slightly higher fee, just $40 more than her package price, to get a slightly larger bouquet with upgraded flowers. She did not specify what flowers she wanted, just hot pinks, bright greens, bright oranges and NO gerbera daisies. We let the florist know that she liked orchids, anemone, ranunculus, ruffled roses, hydrangea, peonies, green viburnum, orange roses, and arum/calla lilies. The florist has freedom to use those colors and knew that the bride was paying slightly more so she tired to use as many of the requested flowers as she could, without guaranteeing anything. The bride was thrilled with her bouquet. The boutonniere was pretty cute too.




You don't have to upgrade your flowers to get exactly what you want, most of the time, the florist can accomodate, but it just can't be guaranteed and without an upgrade, you have to be willing to go with the flow. We had a last minute wedding recently and the groom ordered his bride a red & white rose bouquet. I told him because we were being so specific, the bouquet would be $175 but if he wanted, we could just ask for a red & white bouquet and let the florist know that the bride preferred all roses (but they would not be guaranteed) with no upgrade fee. He decided to go with the flowers in the package. Look what we picked up from the florist that day:



Just what he wanted at no additional fee! The florist is definitely not "out to get you" on the cost of flowers. It's a difficult job for being so remote out in the ocean! They take every measure they can to make my clients happy and that's why we use them. Bride E wanted all an all hot pink rose bouquet. I explained the pricing and she decided to go with an all hot pink bouquet instead. This is what she received:



Gorgeous! The bride loved it, way more than she thought she would love an all rose bouquet.

What about boutonnieres? How do those get ordered? Easy! The florist will simply select a flower from your bouquet to make the boutonniere. Again, they are happy to take requests on the color and even can often times take flower type requests at no additional charge as well.

Maids bouquets? They are slightly smaller than the brides bouquet and can be made smaller versions of what you will receive or something completely different altogether. Here are some recent photos of maids bouquets next to the brides so you can get an idea of the size difference. You can also do something smaller for your maids, like the very first photo in this blog post.





And don't forget - all of our bouquets came with a special gift for you! It's not an Island Bliss Wedding without our signature seahorses!



We update our photo albums monthly with photos of bouquets our florist has created. Check them out in the Bouquet Album for inspiration (please do not send us a number of the photo of the bouquet you like, but copy and paste the URL instead - since we update the album so often, the numbers do not always match up).

Are you cruising for your wedding? Don't fret, you CAN bring your flowers back on the ship with you. Some cruise lines won't let you take them OFF the ship, but you can bring them on. And sneak them off....=)

I hope you have found this blog post helpful in answering your questions! But if you are still a bit confused, that's what I'm here for - shoot me an email and let's discuss!

Something blue...

I just loved these photos taken by Brooke Anthony of our Simple Island Photography team!



The photos are pretty but the shoes are fabulous! They deserve a closer look...



That's what I consider something BLUE! Loved them.

Can you believe this was at night?!

These pictures were taken when it was pretty much dark outside.





I felt so bad for this bride & groom! They put so much work into their wedding and then 10 minutes before the ceremony was to start, the skies opened up and it rained for the next hour. Right through sunset. =( We gave them some options...take the ceremony back to their villa, wait for the rain to stop, or hold the ceremony under one of the pavilions at Trunk Bay. We decided to wait for it to stop, but it was pretty dark by time the ceremony started. Many many kudos to Alain Brin of Blue Glass Photography and the magic of him camera for capturing these images with such little natural light!

Safe sealife place card holders

This idea is not new to me, I have seen brides do this before and it's always really pretty. But what surprised me when I opened up the box that the bride sent me was the fact that these are resin starfish and sand dollars. You may not know this, but real starfish? Smell crazy bad! And sand dollars? Uber fragile. They can chip like crazy. I loved these so much, I asked the bride where she found them and she got an amazing deal on them from Christmas Tree Shoppes. I tried looking for them online but with very little luck. If you happen to find them anywhere, please post in the comments below for other brides.

Introducing our newest staff member...

My real life new staff member will probably be annoyed that the car got top billing here, but I'm pretty excited about the newest addition to our fleet of cars!



It's a BMW X5 and it's really fun to drive...although I think the first time I took a couple to the courthouse in it, I'm pretty sure I made them carsick. I was still adjusting to it (ok, still am, it takes me awhile...).

I spend a lot of time answering the same questions over & over and it's totally my own fault. One thing Island Bliss Weddings's is lacking is an FAQ section somewhere on the website and it's my goal to get that completed by the end of the year. I often get asked what the included transportation is in our packages...is it a taxi? Limo? Well, here's the answer...

We have a Lincoln Navigator and now, a BMW X5. 90% of the time, it will be one of these two cars that picks you up but if for any reason, these cars are not available, we hire a Cadillac Escalade or similar SUV to pick you up. The islands, being as mountainous as they are, are HARD on cars. We have to replace the breaks and tires at least once a year. Plus, the ocean environment does it's damage as well. The Lincoln has been in the shop for a total of at least 2.5 months this past year. With this in mind, we can never guarantee which car will be picking you up. We can take requests, but they cannot always be honored.

I had a bride email me this past summer that she was disappointed in the car that picked her up - during the planning process, she had asked what kind of car it would be and at the time I answered it would be a Lincoln Navigator. A day before her wedding, the Navigator broke down and went into the shop. We rented the nicest car we could find with such short notice, and while it was a full sized SUV, it was not a luxury brand car. I learned my lesson right then and there to never say with absolutely certainty which car will be used. I also took down "transportation in a luxury SUV" from the website. While we will always do our best to use either the Navigator or the BMW, again, these cars cannot be guaranteed. We prefer not to rent a car, as it costs us money (we would never pass on the cost of a car rental to a client because one of our cars is broken down!) so we do our best to maintain them, but again, we often don't know until the actual wedding day which car will be used. We have recently found a taxi driver who drives a very nice Escalade and he is our "Plan B" in the event that neither car can be used. We even have a taxi driver that drives a very nice Navigator for "Plan C". So there is a very good chance that a luxury SUV will be picking you up....but I never want to disappoint another bride again based on the car that picked her up so I will not advertise that an SUV, luxury or otherwise, will be picking you up.

I do promise that you will not be picked up in a jalopy.

A cruise ship PARTY!

It's not very common, but every once in awhile, we get a group off the cruise ships for like 100 people. It's wonderful! We often do large weddings, but most cruise ship affairs are a bit smaller, normally less than 30 people. It's always fun to work with a large group though. This bride & I have been working together since September of 2010 to get all the details together. It was a really simple affair, just a nice wooden arch and a decorated aisle. Something unique about her wedding was the fact that she brought along her own photographer. Know what's really cool about that? All day photos, on the ship, on land, in different locations...so pretty. Check out their photographers blog for a timeline of their wedding day:

http://www.michaelwachniak.com/realloveis/2011/11/stephanie-colin-st-thomas-cruise-wedding/

My favorite photos? The ones in front of the Fort. Amazing.

PS I was TICKED that there was another wedding on the beach that day (you can see the other arch in the background). There is a calendar for wedding planners to use so that we can schedule weddings on this beach, as the beach is not very big for multiple weddings (like Magan's Bay can handle). The other wedding was NOT on the schedule. The wedding planner left it off on purpose so that we wouldn't be aware of their set up. Shady!! Then they had the nerve to ask me to move my set up! Fortunately, the bride & I had discussed the set up and she liked the idea of the arch being parallel to the water, not facing it, so my spot was perfect for her. I wasn't going to budge, especially since my wedding WAS on the calendar. Please note though, if you are not using Island Bliss Weddings and found the blog by some other means, PLEASE make sure you check with your wedding planner to make sure they have your wedding on the calendar or if they know of other weddings that are taking place at the same time. I really felt bad for the other bride, as I'm sure they did not tell her that there would be a wedding for 80 people at the same time.

Busy, busy, but.....

It's been a crazy week and keeps getting crazier (in a good way of course). I feel like the Energizer Bunny on weeks like this, but I do like to stop and truly appreciate some of the emails I get. For example, this one arrived yesterday and put a smile on my heart:

Today is Ben and my 4th anniversary! Time has surely flown by. I went to your website when relating to some friends how wonderful our wedding was with you. (I keep some photos up at work)

Your website is FABULOUS!!!

Having enjoyed both you and your husbands planning and performing our service, I have to say the beautiful pictures capture just how wonderful the experience truly is! Lindquest Beach looks as perfect as ever!

Best of luck to you and your beautiful family. We hope to see run into you both again on the beach in the future!!

I love to hear from my past brides!! I am very thankful for having a job where I have the ability to really make others happy!

A record breaking November!

Just a fair warning to my brides, this month is crAAzzy for us! We have a record number of November weddings which means I will be out of the office a lot during the day while I am on location at weddings. My November schedule will look something like this:

5:30am - wake up and respond to as many emails as I can before the kids awake. Then focus on getting them out the door to school.
8:30am - back from running kids all over the island to pre-school and kindergarten
8:30 to 9am - COFFEE

Depending on the Day
9 to 5pm - emails, emails, emails & return phone calls

OR

On-site for weddings

5pm - kids home from school - family time until bedtime
8pm till I crash - emails, emails, emails

There are 17 days in the month of November that I'll be "on-site" more than in the office. Very weirdly, only one of those days fall on a weekend. So of the remaining days that I will not be on-site, 7 of those are weekend days when the munchkins are home demanding my attention. That only leaves 6 days in November when I'll be able to really return phone calls. I try not to answer the phone while I am at a wedding unless I know that it is a vendor calling about that specific wedding (taxi guy telling me he has left with the guests, cake delivery confirming the location of the reception, etc). But by not answering the phone, it can put me really behind on messages that need to be returned. So please, if you need to get in touch with me during the month of November, please, please email instead. Emails get checked often and I can get back to you much sooner that way. I don't think you want me calling you at 5:30am. =)

I'm hoping to be better at blogging this month than I have since September though. I have some pretty cool ideas in store and will keep you posted.

Lime Tree Beach Wedding

I took a photo of this set up with my iPhone on Tuesday and posted it to our Facebook page but I have the old version iPhone and the photo was pretty "not great". But the set up was fabulous! I wanted to share some more pictures taken by a real camera of both the set up at Lime Tree Beach (also known as Bluebeard's Beach Club) and the reception at Havana Blue. Havana Blue is located at Frenchman's Reef, which recently underwent renovations. Havana Blue is a great spot for a luncheon or dinner reception.



These flower arrangements were supposed to be up on the candelabras that you'll see later on at the reception. Unfortunately, because of the breeze, we weren't able to use them. The candelabras are $750 to replace if they are broken...and um, no one wanted to take that risk! I'm going to rename the candelabras "how to give your wedding planner a heart attack". The breeze at Havana Blue was a bit...strong...and these things would lean ever so lightly, making my eyes bug out of my head and my heart skip a beat.




I didn't get a great photo of the rose petals we had put down. The breeze was not to kind to them, scattering them pretty quickly, but the did look lovely on the aisle runner.



The pomanders from the ceremony were reused at the reception...





This was such a fun wedding to work on, I love this set up, so pretty!

Enjoy your Halloween weekend!