Getting ready for your wedding day can one of the funniest things to do during the entire engagement period. Family, Friends and Food. These always make for a good time and that’s exactly what rehearsal dinners are! If you are unlucky enough to not have All Things Included as your wedding planner take action and make a plan for the rehearsal, dinner and day of. This plan should be an hour-by-hour plan that is written down clearly and then clearly communicated to your bridal party and immediate family. Be sure to included roles, times and locations. Not everybody knows what they should be doing at what time. An intinerary helps to clearly define these ambiguous details.

Now that everyone is at the rehearsal, what should you do? Running through the program in its entirity is a good idea. You can leave out the actual ceremony words to keep this portion special, but practice walking the isle, practice being given away, and the recession. It is especially important to be cogniscient of the children and their role. They need extra help and attention. They’ll do a great a job, but they just need a little extra help understanding their role.

Granted the rehearsal can sometimes feel like work, especially if you are choreographing your procession and recession line. So, now that this part is over get out at go EAT! This is where the good times begin.

Here’s a couple of pictures of a rehearsal from Friday night.

Hey guys and gals. Tonight’s post is just for the guys. Tonight I went tux shopping with Alex and recently I also took Curtis to Tuxedo Junction. During my time as a wedding planner I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a great bunch of vendors that cater to the groomal side of weddings: Tuxedo Junction, Jims, Clarks, Men’s Warehouse and others. Each are wonderful and have their own strengths. One of my favorite people to work with Dee, the owner of Tuxedo Junction and his manager Glen. They are flexible and have a extensive selection to choose from fitting nearly any budget.

As a bit of advice guys.

1. Make sure the tux fits the colors and style of your bride. If it severly clashes you might find yourself in the first arguement or comprise of your upcoming marital life. The size of the arguement will depend on your ability to compromise or defuse the situation.
2. Make sure it’s something you like. This is your one portion where YOU get to shine. Having said this, refer to the rule above and make sure it’s not out character for the wedding. YES, it is okay for the groom to look good. No bride wants her groom to look bad.
3. All matchy or some variety. If you’d like you can either wear all matching tuxes like Nick from the Ultimate Utah Wedding or you can make your tux stand out a little from the rest of the grooms men. This can be achieved by using different colored vests and ties, or a whole different tux.
4. Color: Men…don’t be afraid of color, it can be your friend. And yes, men can wear pink and still be manly. Using a different colored tux like a white, ivory, champaign, brown, blue or other colored tux is a great way to add or compliment the colors of your brides wedding. But, check with your bride before going too far. 
5. Once you found what you want be sure to book the tuxes and put a small deposit down to hold your tuxes. Nothing is worse than thinking you can just show up the week of the wedding and not get what you initially hoped for because the inventory has all been outsourced. A good tux shop will help you with this process.

Tonight I helped Alex outfit him and his party in one of my favorite tuxes. It is a subtly stripped black tux with and great contrasting vest and stunning orangish tie. See the pic. We are still debating between that and a straight black. See the picture, chime in and vote! Which is your favorite? Please vote on our facebook page.

Oh my! My first post! And my fingers have just been itching to get a few words in since I started last Thursday! First of all, I would like to say what an honor it is to be working with Michael. To all the lucky brides who get to work with him, I know that you won’t be disappointed when you start making your first plans with him as your wedding planner.

I had the honor of tagging along with Michael to meet with one such bride today, Kerstin. Kerstin wants her hair long, gorgeous, and curly for her wedding in October, so the three of us, along with one of Michael’s oldest and dearest friends, Rachel, headed for a hair extension shop, Hair We Are. The stylist, Melissa, did us the honor of explaining clip in extensions and matching a color to Kerstin’s already beautiful color.

Afterwards came the best part though. Kerstin announced her official engagement with her beautiful ring! We all oohed and awed as it sparkled in the afternoon sun. There is nothing better then the glow of a bride as she shows off her big rock! Kerstin was not any different.

It was a simple afternoon meeting but a special one. Congratulations, Kerstin!

Sorry all my followers I haven’t written in a few weeks. Goodness. I might make up for it all in one night though, cause there has been a lot on my mind.

I had some fun tonight going to get a cake with my new coworker. Recently we hired Kara Lower as our newest Junior Planner. I, personally, am very excited about her contributions. She is very organized and detail oriented. Aside from that she’s a hoot. Kara is pulling double duty though cause she is engaged to a hilarious guy name Brandon. We got to hang out the other night as we prepped center pieces for Sydney’s upcoming wedding and watched Ocean’s 11 (one of his favs.) Anyhow…back to the main story. Kara invited me to come cake shopping with her tonight. She had picked Cake-a-licious to do her cake. She found her at the La Caille bridal show. I haven’t had a personal experience with her, so I was excited to tag along. We got to taste like 8 different cake flavors and icings. I actually had a sugar headache later on! lol! It was good stuff.

We went through 18 or so books of cakes, but nothing was catching Kara’s fancy. We started customizing cakes by taking this part and that and trying to find a style that worked. We talked about roses, lilies, vines, all sorts of creative fun stuff to go with her princess wedding idea. I finally took a pencil and paper and started doodling out an idea in my head. She loved it! We made or two modifications (took off the bows) and talked logistics (how to make it work). It is truly a one-of-a-kind cake creation. I hope it looks as beautiful and imaginative as we all think. I won’t publish any pictures. We’ll leave that as a surpise for Kara’s guests.

Kara…you’re on your way!! Congrats girlfriend!

This Saturday, July 17, UtahBrideandGroom.com is holding another great bridal show at La Caille in Sandy, UT. Admission is $4 (I believe). They will be awarding a $100,000 wedding to some lucky couple. I’m so very excited to find out who that couple will be, because they will then become my newest couple. YUP, that’s right. All Things Included is sponsoring this event by providing them with our great wedding coordination services. We will work with this new couple to help them coordinate the decorator, music, photographer, caterer, venue, honeymoon, hair and make-up, plus all the little things that go on behind the scenes that are rarely remembered and highly needed.

As an added bonus, I’m giving away a FREE cake and knife set through a drawing. This is a great set, valued at $50, and purchased from one of my favorite dress shops, David’s Bridal. So, if you get the chance come visit me from 11-5. I will be in the atrium. And good luck to all of you who will be entering to win.

Knife Set

Though it seems to happen more than it should, I’m saddened every time I hear the words, “I canceled the wedding.” You can tell there’s strain in the voice, and it wasn’t a very happy reason. Today I informed that one of August weddings were canceled due to infidelity.

Why is it that I find more and more couples my age and younger are disregarding commitment and trust? One of the many movies I keep in my personal library is “The Family Man.” During this show Nicolas Cage’s character suddenly finds himself in unfamiliar territory, and has to rely on the counsel of a new friend to help him find himself. He said something to this effect, “The bank of fidelity and trust is a hard lender. If you make a deposit somewhere else they just don’t suspend your account but they close if FOREVER. You have the most amazing woman. Their isn’t a man on this block that wouldn’t give up [everything] to have what you have, but you want to go and screw it all up.”

So to all you engaged and married couples out there. Stick to your guns and stay the course. Most of all…Good luck.

Utah presents some great weather and locations for outdoor weddings. Most recently I designed and coordinated an evening backyard wedding that turned out amazing. See my last blog post for Linnea and Joe. Though I’m planning and coordinating 4 weddings in August, I’m excited to be planning a night wedding. It will be under the August night stars and hopefully will turn out as amazing as I imagine. We’ll be doing a tropical theme though we don’t want a laua or similar party scene.  We’re currently in the preliminary stages of planning. I just finished the detailed budget and now waiting for approval. Even though it’s only a few weeks away. I’m getting a late start because I was just brought in on the wedding this past week. Stay tuned for pictures and details.

Linnea and Joe were married Thursday! What a great day. Everything went smooth and everyone had a fantastic time. Family and friends came by the dozens. I was personally amazed by the amount of people that stayed for a long period of time. At one point I counted over 100. It may have been the amazing icecream sundays I contracted from 2 Hearts Catering (a new outfit from Spanish Fork), or maybe it was the yummy cupcakes from Granite Bakery, it could have been the great music and stunning lit dance floor too. But, more than likely it was due to the remarkable bride and groom.

The theme for this shindig was hot pink and black. We tried to keep it light and fun rather than sophisticated. To do this we used big bright gerbers and poka-dot ribbon as happy accents. Every Blooming Thing did a fantastic job, again, with the bridal floral set. Check out the pictures! I’ve put more pictures on my facebook portfolio, once I get the good pictures back from the photographer I’ll place them on the website.  All in all I put in 67 hours in on this project, that’s not including the time bride and MOB put in. But, all that sweat turned out great results.

Comments like these are really flattering to hear. And I appreciate them so much. It was great working with this family. They were all so lavish with praise.

• “Michael…thank you for making this the most perfect day ever. I couldn’t have done it without you!!” — Linnea 
• It turned out amazing! It looks sooo great. You have really done a fantastic job. — MOB
• I’ve planned and decorated four of my daughters weddings and have another coming up. I’ve never done anything like this. This is beautiful! How did you get the lights and lanterns hung? And that dance floor is stunning! — Guest of the bride

Shopping with the boys has such a different dynamic than shopping with girls. Girls I’m sure you’ll get what I mean. When girls are out looking for the right thing racks become suddenly empty as they take arm fulls of every color and size back to the dressing room. Of course when their are twice as many dressing stalls for women too, with larger special made mirrors that make you look at least 5lbs thinner (wishfull thinking). Men on the other hand are a bit different. Men look at a rack and say, yeah that’ll work. Pick up the article check the size to make sure it’s right and off they go. “Duuude…that was easy! Let’s go get a drink or eat something.” Then on the way out poke fun at how this or that style would look.

The other day I went tuxedo shopping with a groom. It was a good deal of fun, joking about the groomsmen and fathers and we first dressed them in something completely stupid or against their personality. We laughed as we thought of what they would say.  Eventually we settled on the right style vest, tie, and colors that would look good in a photo setting. Afterall, the photos are what remain. As the wedding planner I tend to help grooms, and brides too, remember the end goal.

Now girls…I know all of you sitting at home reading this are thinking, there is no way I’m sending him to pick out his tux or clothing alone! But, turns out guys have a serious side and most even have good style. They just hide it from you. I think every man has a ‘gay’ side to him (e.g. they know how to dress when it counts.)

Oh pictures! Here’s what we decided on for this super summer wedding. Bridesmaids will wear matching dresses to the groomsmen.

I should plug Men’s Warehouse here. Having not been a big fan of them in the past, I’ve decided to change my mind. Although you can easily find less expensive tuxes elsewhere, if you have a sizeable group of groomsmen you are outfitting this is the place to go, simply because of the perk. After the 5th rental you get the choice to either get your 6th rental free OR you can pay for the 6th and get up to a $400 suit free. Impressive perk Men’s Warehouse, thank you! This easily makes up for the $20-$30 dollars per rental you can save elsewhere.

This past weekend I was in Pocatello visiting cousin-in-laws. We had a great time. During the visit I was talking with a bunch of them about weddings (of course), and I learned realized one really big thing—gratitude for location.  We are a lucky bunch here to have so many resources at our finger tips. We have more than 2 dozen set venues (not including all the amazing outdoor locations) to choose from that are within 30 minutes driving time from nearly anywhere in the Greater Salt Lake Valley. There are literally 100s of photographers and dozens of dress shopes to choose from and tons of everything else. As a wedding planner all these vendors make my job so much easier.

However, having said this. Even though you may have an abundance of chapels and not many venues other than hotels, there are still a host of decorating ideas that you can do to dress up a hum-drum boring room to make it magical. And, you’d be surprised at how affordable these ideas may be. Contact me at All Things Included about your wedding and we can discuss your chapel or cultral hall wedding/reception. Don’t feel beat because your budget is less than $5000. I have done several weddings on tight budgets, and they all look impressive. Below are a couple of shots from my last wedding which was done on a tighter budget. Let me sit down with you and your parents and together we can work something out that will give you the magical/romantic/playful atmoshere you desire and fit within the budget your parents require.