It All Starts With The Ring!

Brandy Here...

For those of you shopping around for an engagement ring it ultimately comes down to your personal style and individual fit; however, when faced with the daunting row upon row of fluorescently highlighted diamonds in display cases it's easy to get lost in the beauty of them all. Which one do you choose? Often, the perfect styles you imagined fitting so elegantly are quickly forgotten. Just in case you are like me, and need a new starting point here are the most currently sought after rings:

Vintage inspired rings will always be popular. These "intricate, exquisite" rings are a melding of modern day diamond cutting techniques with the forever classic Audrey Hepburn look to get the perfect sparkle and unique style only found in the silver-age inspired classics.

If you find most rings a bit too flashy, an Eternity band style engagement ring is most likely for you. These bands symbolize the "eternal nature of marriage" by articulating the ethereal band with numerous smaller cut diamonds rather than a large center stone.

Cushioned-shaped halo engagement rings are increasing in popularity, but if the right angles of the typical princess cut are a little too sharp for your finger try a round diamond instead. Round diamonds reflect the most light for a "maximum brilliance" where as the rounded corners tend to make the finger look slender.

Hopefully this will serve as a new starting point to those readers finding all of the usual styles a bit to ordinary, and want to find a new look setting themselves apart from all of the repeating muted types you may find in the display case.

The 4 Hottest Trends in Engagement Rings Right Now!

"Learning From The Experts"

"Learning From The Experts" - How to find the Perfect Bridal Salon?

Lets hear from the Editor of St. Louis Bride Magazine:

Before a bride invests the better part of the year finding, fitting and outfitting the perfect wedding gown, she should first take a little time to shop around for the perfect bridal shop. After all, the staff at the bridal salon is going to play a key part in the bride’s overall happiness in the months leading up to the big day.

Here, the experts suggest a few things to look for when finding the bridal salon that’s right for her.

Even when a bride is “just looking,” it is always best for her to call ahead and arrange an appointment with the salon, so that she can receive the most attentive customer service.
Don’t just size up the merchandise. Are the fitting rooms well appointed? Is the lighting suitable for inspecting the details of a dress? Do the floor samples seem to be worn out?

Try to find a friend there. A Bride should feel the consultant she works with it not only going to be her advocate in the purchasing and tailoring of a gown, but is also going to give her kid, honest opinions during the entire process.

Don’t’ be afraid to ask any questions. A bridal consultant’s main job is to make the bride happy.

Check out the other people in the store. Do the other clients appear to be happy? Do they seem to be having a good experience?

Trunk ShowsFor a list of upcoming events and trunk shows, please visit http://www.bridestl.com/events.html

Nancy Slade is the editor of Saint Louis Bride Magazine.

"Learning From The Experts"

Although they are technically not considered a "wedding expert," I would say that a previous bride has a lot of insight that they can share with future brides.  I asked one of our previous clients to comment on this and hopefully it will help future brides to hear it straight from the source...

Previous Bride's statement:

Hiring a Wedding Planner:  An Investment in Sanity

I almost didn't hire a wedding planner for my October 2008 wedding.  Like many brides out there, I thought "I can handle this," because I loved planning a wedding.  How hard could it be to pick out flowers and cake?  I didn't hire anyone until just a few months before the wedding, and my only regret was that I didn't hire one earlier!
First of all, wedding planners can save you a lot of time and money.  They know who the best vendors in town are, and they can get you a discount on their services.  Having reliable vendors at your wedding is so important.  You can spend a ton of money on someone and they can provide you with a poor product.  This doesn't happen with wedding planners; they use reliable vendors who they've worked with before and who have motivation to provide top notch services.  I had many of my vendors booked before hiring Shayna, and we wound up changing some and I could have booked others at lower prices with her help! She also gave me some really great vendors, who I was very happy with.

Second reason to hire a wedding planner - your sanity.  Someone has to be in charge on your wedding day.  Decisions have to be made like where does the wedding party go when they arrive, who will tell the band what time to make announcements, what happens if it rains, what happens if the limo driver doesn't show up -- do you want that stress on the happiest day of your life?  And if it is not you, do you want that stress on your mom or sister or best friend that day?  No.  Hire someone to deal with it -- Shayna has dealt with and solved every problem you can't even imagine could happen.  Book a wedding planner, and you're booking your peace of mind.  

Third reason to hire a wedding planner - you never have to be the bad guy.  No one likes to see a Bridezilla.  Especially not on her wedding day!  Let your wedding planner take care of dealing with those stressful issues.  If you're not happy with the way your makeup artist did your trial, have your wedding planner talk to her about it.  Or if the band is playing the wrong songs, she can step in and tell them what to do.  All a bride should do at her wedding is smile and enjoy herself, and wedding planners make this possible.

Finally, wedding planners know so much more about weddings than the average bride ever would know.  There were so many details planners think of and plan for that I never knew existed!  They know all of the customs of tipping and helped me prepare for that before the wedding day.  Hiring a good wedding planner, like Shayna who knows the industry, will provide you with a wealth of knowledge you can't get anywhere else.  

I have nothing but wonderful memories from my wedding day.  I don't ever think I've smiled as much as I did that day and it was because I was happy with my vendors, I was prepared, and I didn't have to deal with any details.  What's the point in going through all the hassle of planning a beautiful wedding if you can't enjoy it?  And why not save some money in the process?  This is why a wedding planner is a must.  Trust me.  You won't regret it.  

St Louis Wedding Consultants Couple of the Week! Katy & Craig

This is one of our most favorite couples ever!  Their wedding was AMAZING and made us feel like we were in a tropical paradise! These wonderful pictures were produced by none other than L Photographie!

"Learning from the Experts"

Ever have questions about different florists or just flowers in general?  Maybe this will help answer some of your questions...let's here from the ladies of Sisters Floral Design Studio!

What a Professional Wedding Florist Can Offer Their Clients-

These days, there are so many resources out there for brides planning their weddings.  The various looks and different types of elements to choose from are both astounding and overwhelming.  In the sometimes uncertain process of choosing a style, one thing is for sure, you want your entire day to have one consistent look and feeling.  You want it to convey your overall personality and emotions of the day.  This is where a wedding florist can help.

Wedding florists are designers that specialize in wedding flowers.  It is their main focus and something that they take great pains in perfecting.  A specialized design team like we have at Sisters Floral Design Studio can come up with many ways to incorporate your own personal touches within the larger scheme of the flowers.  Professionals can help guide you in choosing elements that will give you that consistent look you want from personal flowers to ceremony décor and into the celebration at the reception.  A design team can take away the overwhelming feelings that sometimes come with choosing flowers from what seems like an unending garden of choices.  They can suggest blooms based on your likes and dislikes, the season and color palette of your wedding, and the budget you have laid out for each flower element.  Flowers are a great medium for accentuating a certain idea or theme or for creating the main focus of the event.  The guidance that can come from meeting with a wedding florist can really help set the tone for the rest of the event.

With so many DIY websites and “just-picked” flower looks, it can be easy to think, “I could probably do the flowers myself.  I just want something simple.”  Here are a few things to think about when considering DIY flowers for your wedding day:  1) The logistics.  They are the last thing that most people think about, but the first thing that needs to be considered.  If you do your own flowers and have a source to purchase them, where will they be stored while they hydrate?  Do you have coolers with controlled temperatures to house them after they are arranged?  Do you have the materials, tools, containers, work area, etc. to assemble them?  How and who will deliver them?  What can be logistical issues for a DIYer are all things that professionals are equipped to handle every day.  2) The design.  Consider how important that overall look you have been dreaming of is to you.  Is it worth having someone with training and experience suggest ideas for what may work best to achieve it?  Do you want floral designs in your wedding pictures that look professionally executed and that evoke the emotions of the day?  Professional floral designers specialize in all these aspects.  3) The hassle.  Do you want to be tied to processing flowers and making bouquets the last few days before your wedding?  Do you want to be worrying about you or your family members setting up and delivering flower arrangements the day of your wedding?  A full-service wedding florist takes care of all of these things.  It is part of the service they provide and they are top-notch at making sure each flower detail is fulfilled.

So, how do you go about selecting a professional wedding florist?  Use all the resources at your disposal.  Magazines, websites and blogs featuring local vendors will display first-hand accounts of a florist’s work.  Often times, you may have a friend or relative who recently got married.  Ask who they used and if they were happy with their flowers.  If you are hiring a wedding coordinator, they can also give you suggestions.  Once you have a florist in mind, call and make an appointment to meet with them.  Go to your appointment prepared with inspiration images and a budget for flowers in mind.  Flower budgets are based on your overall wedding budget and should be 8-10% of the whole budget.  Be open to the design team’s suggestions.  The pictures you selected as inspiration should be used as just that- inspiration.  Often times, blooms in a picture may not be the best choice due to availability or color selection.  Let the professionals design a piece for you that will mimic but not copy exactly the picture you love.  It gives the designers the freedom to what they do best!

When you find the right wedding florist, all the elements from your wedding will come together.  You will know it’s the right fit when you start to feel your thoughts and ideas taking shape.  As professional wedding florists, we have a wonderful occupation.  We get the opportunity to work with brides and grooms on one of the most important, emotional and joyous days of their lives.  It is an opportunity that we take very seriously and are so proud to be chosen to take part in.  Best wishes to all those planning weddings! 

St. Louis Wedding Consultants Couple of the Week! Amazing Indian Wedding!

Jaya & Avi!

Don't these pictures capture great moments!  Only the best from Charo Photo!  Just a beautiful and fun couple!

Couple of the Week!

We had the honor of being featured in Style Me Pretty with this fabulous wedding!  Natalie and Ian have such a great relationship and we were so happy that Megan Thiele Photography captured the moment! Check out the feature on Style Me Pretty. 

"Learning From the Experts"

This week could be one of the most important topics of all! The importance of hiring a professional photographer! Time and time again I tell my clients that photography is going to be the only lasting impression you will have of your day and wouldn't you want to use someone you trust and someone you know will do a great job? Well this weeks Expert is Liz Sloan from L Photographie...check it out!

For my first guest blog, Shayna asked me to start with a basic question…why should you hire a professional wedding photographer?  My first thought?  Why wouldn’t you hire a professional wedding photographer?!  But I may be biased seeing as I AM a professional photographer.  Please read on accepting this self-proclaimed bias. 

Allow me to paraphrase the cliché which says something along the lines of “The cake will be eaten, the flowers will die and all you will have left are the photographs.”  That cliché’s got some good logic behind it!  The truth is you have more than photographs left.  If everything goes as planned, you have the love of your life to cuddle with for the rest of your time here on earth.  That is the number one reason you get married right?  (Piles of registry gifts coming in close second!) 

Your wedding day is going to fly by in the blink of an eye.  Don’t take my word for it, ask any bride.  No matter how hard you try to take it all in, so much of it will be a blur.   And if it’s a blur the next day, imagine how blurry that day becomes in say 5, 25, or even 50 years?   Photography shouldn’t MAKE the memories.  Your wedding day isn’t all about the pictures.  Photography should capture those memories so that when you look at the photographs you are immediately transported back to how you felt in that moment.  They should help you remember the blur of that one crazy awesome day in your life.  Even 50 years later.

It’s a one-time shot.  Wedding photographers don’t get do-overs.  I have shot hundreds of weddings, and this thought still makes my stomach churn with nervousness.  I spend days prepping my equipment before every single wedding.  Charging batteries, charging backup batteries and even backups to the backups.  I clean memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space (and yes, backups and backups of storage space) and that each and every one of them is working properly.  I have back up cameras, back up flashes and I have them in different bags incase one bag is stolen or lost while I am shooting.  I can’t tell you how many times I get in my car to drive to a wedding and pull over on the side of the road to double check one more time that nothing has been left behind.  I only have one chance to get this right. I personally wouldn’t gamble that one chance on an amateur. 

Equipment doesn’t make the photographer, but it certainly helps.  Especially at weddings which present some of the toughest lighting situations photographers ever have to deal with (candlelight ceremony anyone?!)  A professional will probably be carrying around a good $15,000 - $20,000 in the best of the best photography equipment available for what we do.  And it’s very specific to exactly what we need for weddings.  A wildlife photographer, landscape photographer, or even a studio fashion photographer owns completely different lenses, cameras and equipment than a wedding photographer.  Different situations present different needs and challenges, and we have equipment specifically suited to capture a wedding day.

Experience makes more difference than I knew until I had it.  I am so much better at what I do now than I was when I first started.  (Insert apology to early clients here!)  And I am still learning and improving nearly 10 years and hundreds of weddings later.  As far as photography disciplines go, wedding photography is certainly on the tough end of the spectrum!  It’s not as if we can set up the perfect studio lights and your photographs look consistently beautiful for the rest of the day.  Weddings move from place to place and settings need to change at the drop of a hat.  From you and your new husband laughing together in a beautiful window to grandma watching you lovingly from a dark corner of the room.  From your vows at the radiantly lit altar to your parents blotting tears in the first row of pews.   These tiny moments happen quickly and they are gone in the span of a second.  To actually get them right, that quickly, with one shot, takes practice.  And from my experience, a lot of practice. 

When it’s all said and done, you should rest easier approaching your wedding day knowing your memories are in the hands of the person best equipped to capture them.  And in my humble and somewhat biased opinion, that is a professional wedding photographer. 

Liz Sloan, L Photographie

Couple of the Week!

TONI & JAKE! We love this couple so much we had to share TWO photos!  How beautiful are these! Thanks to Clary Photo!

St. Louis Wedding Consultants Welcomes Missy & Woody!

Welcome Missy & Woody! We are so excited to be working with this amazing couple!  How cute are they in these pictures! Check out some of their incredible engagement pictures by Kelly Manno Photography!

We couldn't be more thrilled for their upcoming wedding in 2013!

"Learning From the Experts"

This is Erin Schulte, Owner/Producer of Exclusive Events Inc.  Erin and Exclusive Events are dedicated to providing extraordinary lighting and design concepts for any event.  Their customer service is excellent and they are one of the leading Event Design and Production Companies in St. Louis.  They are committed to provide the most unique and creative options for your event! Erin and her team believe that the possibilities are endless and they will bring your visions to life!

Here is what Erin had to say this week...

Pin Spots…what are they?
Pin spots can be described as a direct focus of light that shines down onto the table centerpieces to allow them to shine in an otherwise dim room as well as to not take on the color of the wall lighting.

How are they installed?

Pin spots can come from the ceiling in venues that might have the capacities to hold the weight of the spots, although this can often be a more expensive approach it also usually ensures a more direct focus.  Another and most common way of pin spotting will come from lighting towers.  These are disguised lighting trees put in the corners of your room and raised high to shine this light from above.

Won’t the spots get in our eyes?

Yes and no.  When the spots come from towers it is not humanly possible to avoid light direction at some point from some angle in the room.  Light shining in someone’s eyes is bound to happen as some random second throughout the evening.  It is a fact.  However you can control this to a certain extent by making sure that the lighting tower goes high enough.  Often times the complaints of light in people’s eyes are from when lighting towers are positioned too low.  This can happen when a ceiling is just too low to be able to raise the tower too high, and it can also happen when you hire the wrong person with the wrong equipment. Chose a vendor whose focus is in lighting design and décor to help ensure you will receive a professional that understands the nuances such as having a lighting tower high enough.

Pros and cons:

The pros of pin spots far outweigh the cons.  You spend thousands of dollars on your centerpieces; it would be a shame if they were not showcased after dark. Pin spots are a minimal cost with a large impact.  Cons are that at some point there may be someone that moves into the light and complains.  It is just a price to pay for a beautiful room.

To help illustrate the impact of with pin spots and without the photos show the difference!

Look for another "Learning From the Experts" next week!

Couple of the Week!

This week we want to go back in time to one of our most favorite couples!!! Jill & Jon...don't they look beautiful! Big thanks to Jon Koch Photography for capturing the moment!

Caitlin & Jack

Caitlin and Jack were such a pleasure to work with and so open to doing fun and different details.  Let us know what you think! 

Wedding Planner and Design: St. Louis Wedding Consultants
Venue: Lemp Mansion
Church: Cathedral Basilica
Photographer: Ryan Gladstone
Florist: Sisters Flowers
Transportation: Best Transportation
Decor/Lighting: Exclusive Events
DJ: Millennium Productions
Linens and chargers: BBJ Linen
Cake: The Cakery Bakery
Dress: Simply Elegant Bridal
Stationary: M. Haley Designs
Other Food: Gus' Pretzels

"Learning From the Experts"

My name is Shayna and I am the owner of St. Louis Wedding Consultants.  Over the past several years, I have been asked many questions over the course of planning weddings and events and now is the time for answers.  Welcome to "Learning From the Experts!"

Here it is, this is what you have been waiting for!  Advice, suggestions and knowledge from some of the best vendors in St. Louis.  Every week you will hear from a different wedding and event professional about their expertise and advice.  Some will share opinions, some will share photos and some will share some exciting secrets that will enhance and assist you in your current and future wedding planning!  Each expert is here to help and educate on issues that we as professionals deal with on a daily basis.

For the first entry, I have decided to write a submission and address the forever question..."Why hire a wedding planner?" I have several reasons for hiring a wedding planner and here are my top five:

1. A wedding planner can help you create a budget and help you stick to it! In turn, they will keep you on track through the process.

2. A wedding planner can help you expand or come up with an entire design and concept for your wedding day so everything comes together beautifully.  A planner can convert your vision into reality.

3. A wedding planner isn't as expensive as you think, its worth inquiring about.  Think about all the money you spend on hiring the perfect venue, the perfect photographer, the perfect entertainment and the perfect florist...and then imagine having no one to follow through with your plans and make sure everything you have spent your time and money on is exactly the way you want it! Plus, as stated above, a planner can help you create a working budget and therefore help you save some money.

4. A wedding planner can be your point of contact for the day of the wedding and throughout the planning process, that way your friends and family can enjoy the entire event and everyone can remain STRESS FREE!  Plus, if the wedding planner has helped suggest wedding professionals through the process, its even more comforting to know how smoothly the day will run.

5. A wedding planner can help keep you on track through the planning process with to-do lists, reminders, attending meetings and communicating through emails and phone conversations.  Its always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

(6). OK, ONE MORE!  When hiring a wedding planner, I always like to tell people to make sure to find someone who is professional and experienced but most importantly, someone that you can get along with and enjoy their personality because you will be communicating with this person A LOT! :)

Happy Planning and look for the next entry of "Learning From the Experts" in one week!

Style Me Pretty Little Black Book

We are very excited to announce that we have chosen for Style Me Pretty's Little Black Book! Be sure to check us out!

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Indian Wedding at The Four Seasons

We had the privilege to work with this couple on an AMAZING Indian wedding! Every detail was perfect to their personalities and style. What a fun and interesting wedding that we are so greatful to have been apart of! Enjoy these amazing pictures!

Sangeet Venue: Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel

Wedding Venue: Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis

Event Coordinators: St. Louis Wedding Consultants LLC
Event Design, Lighting, Draping, and Mandap: Exclusive Events
Photography: Charo Photo
Hair and Makeup: Virun Aesthetics
Video: Video Views
DJ/Emcee: Sunny Singh
Florist (aisle, mandap, reception): Artistry Florist
Florist (garlands and ceremony flowers) Vivek Flowers
Ice bar and Ganesh: Ice Visions
Stationery: Priya Patel, Pomegranita & M.Haley Designs
Baraat Horse: St. Louis Carriage Company