Shoes & Bags for your Wedding $19.99

Yes, you heard me right. $19.99 for any shoe and bag in the Shelley George collection.

Head over to www.shelleygeorge.com before October 30th and find yourself a great pair of shoes and a bag for your wedding or special event.

I personally LOVE these.

So what are you waiting for? Head over there now! If you can't find "the shoe" consider their flip flops or wedges as great comfortable dancing shoes

Recession-Friendly Wedding Planning

As you all know we offer a fabulous package for Photo, Video & DJ services for $3600!! How recession friendly is that??? But there are many other vendors offering fabulous recession friendly products and services. What better way to learn about it then with a

Recession-Friendly Wedding Planning Event
click on the photo for a larger version

Dates: June 13 & 14 2009
Time: 10:00 am – 1:00pm
Location: Sweet Revenge 62 Carmine Street (Bedford & 7th Ave) West Village

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS:

Marlo Scott / Sweet Revenge:
Sweet Revenge, the upscale and world-inspired cupcake beer and wine bar, opened in the West Village in July 2008. Marlo made her artisan cupcakes and discussed her unique cupcake beer and wine pairings menu on The Martha Stewart Show in January 2009 and on Fox5's "Good Day New York" in February 2009. Sweet Revenge won Time Out New York Magazine's prestigious 2009 Eat Out Award and was the magazine's "Critic's Pick" and in its "Top 100 List" in 2008. Marlo has been featured in Bon Appetit, the Feedbag.com, CupcakesTakeTheCake and New York Metro, among others.

Robin Goldsmith / Scissor Paper Stone:
Scissor Paper Stone designs wedding invitations for today's modern bride - stylish, cool and totally fabulous. Available in a range of formats to suit every budget, from luxurious handmade invitations wrapped in tissue and ribbon to cool and funky postcards. The invitations are fully customizable, including print specifications, colors, designs, typeface, and personal photographs. Already a leader in the UK, Scissor Paper Stone is pleased to announce the launch of its US office and website. Contact us via our website: www.scissorpaperstone.com or at (718) 313 0139.

Peta Takai / KoruDesigNZ:
KoruDesigNZ sells New Zealand-inspired jewelry, clothing and art using natural raw materials from New Zealand (e.g., merino wool, paua/abalone shell, mother of pearl, greenstone, pearls, and river stones). Peta's stunning and stylish pieces reflect the inspiration she draws from her native New Zealand's natural resources, multi-cultured people, and landscape and the energy of her life in NYC. With a passion for travel, people, surfing and cycling in places all over the world, Peta brings it all together in her striking line of jewelry, hip and versatile clothing and dazzling artwork.

Joshua Freiwald / Joshua Freiwald Photo:
Joshua Freiwald is a freelance photographer based in New York with 15 years of experience. His clients include Estee Lauder, the St. Regis Hotels, Unicef, film producers, and art directors. Josh’s photographs are held in private collections in over 15 countries. He combines a documentary approach with a background in fashion and editorial photography, capturing all the love, humor and joy of a wedding day as it unfolds naturally. Revealing authentic emotion and human interaction, his photos are beautiful, fresh, spontaneous and modern. Full of truth and beauty and of moments large and small, Josh's work reflects all the complexity and richness of the emotions experienced during one of life's most precious occasions.

Courtney Kern / events beyond:
With 10 years of experience in the arts and event planning industry, a career at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and a passion for perfectly executed events, Courtney Kern founded Events Beyond in 2007 to provide clients with innovation, style, and seamless and flawless event management for special occasions. Offering a full spectrum of services, from idea development to total event planning and management, Events Beyond turns visions and dreams into reality. Check out www.eventsbeyond.net for more information and ideas.

Denise Fasanello / Denise Fasanello Floral Design:
Denise Fasanello Floral Design is a boutique events company that specializes in stylish weddings for the modern couple. With over ten years of experience working with leading New York floral designers, a BFA from The Cooper Union, painting studies at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and exhibitions of her art in New York and Paris, Denise brings her artistic passions and experience to life in every floral arrangement she designs for her clients' special occasions. By establishing an overall design aesthetic based on the individual's needs and vision, Denise incorporates color, scale and texture to create unique arrangements that are truly works of art.

Janelle Funari/Orangia Collection:
Orangia ties the knot and launches eco friendly bridal collection for destination weddings. The birth of Orangia Bridal occurred when duo Janelle Funari and architect Rodrigo Londono were commissioned from brides all over the world to create custom one of a kind creations incorporating the same Orangia concept - comfort, elegance and exclusiveness for unique global destinations. Each Creation is custom made one of kind and is softly fabricated using natural, organic laces and cotton, silks, hemp and custom prints,and embroideries. The launch of the bridal division in April 2009 has been outstanding with press coverage from Brides.com, The Knot.com, Project wedding.com,and Better Bridal magazine.
Every piece is hand crafted by artisans in the U.S.A fabricating each design with love. The brand was created for the customers to feel the contentment and harmony from the clothing, and know that at the same time they are doing something good for the Earth and for humanity. Modern bride look no further, if you are looking for an atelier to give you a unique piece incorporating function, art and love Orangia is the place for you.

Marni Gold/ Creative Custom Card Boxes
When planning her own wedding, Marni sought a card holder that matched her theme without breaking the bank. She found that the options available were either too gaudy or tacky and were very over priced. She and her mother Linda decided to create a custom painted card box to match her color scheme and theme.

The mother-daughter team behind Creative Custom Card Boxes works closely with each of their customers to create a card box that is perfectly in tune with her wedding or party theme and decor. The boxes start at just $40, which is absolutely amazing, considering the time and effort that goes into creating such beautiful finished products. Creative Custom Cardboxes recently recieved the prestigious Brides Choice Award from WeddingWire.com for 2009!

Linda and Marni of Creative Custom Card Boxes create hand crafted and hand painted gift holders, cake table "I DO and WE DO letters, and monogram caketoppers which can be completely customized for weddings and other celebrations. Check out www.creativecustomcardboxes.com for more information!

Thrifty Tuesday - Ixnay on the Wedding talk

I was browsing blogs the other day and I ran into a piece of advice I have heard before in reference to disc jockey's especially. This grand piece of advice...

"don't tell them your event is a wedding. Get pricing for a non wedding event as it will be cheaper"

This always befuddled me. Yes, I agree, it will be cheaper. No question. But there's 2 things that I don't understand about this. First, how can anyone hire someone to DJ their wedding under the impression that its not a wedding. It's just almost impossible if not entirely inappropriate. Second, how is it hard to comprehend the reasoning for the additional cost. A wedding is far more involved then a regular party. There are music needs, MC'ing needs, expectations to be accomplished. It is a different animal all together. But that's a post that needs to be made onto itself.

I'm here to tell you that the advice isn't necessarily wrong. Now I'm not telling you all to go out there and lie to your vendors. Nope. I'm looking at the same phrase and using the words a bit differently. Get pricing at non wedding related places and it will be cheaper. For example. I love Costco and how many of you know that they have a great floral department. Not only for buying in bulk for you do it yourself-ers BUT they actually have a wedding floral division that can get you bouquets and boutonnieres for less then $500. Most times that's the cost of the bridal bouquet alone! They even do centerpieces.

And beyond that they actually do invitations, jewelry, honeymoons and photos. Check out the Costco wedding page. The only catch? you have to pick them up yourself. But you know, I've seen Costco bouquets and they really are beautiful. And it goes beyond Costco. Some ShopRites and other supermarkets do wedding cakes. I know as I picked a beautiful and delicious wedding cake up myself for a wedding last fall and transported it to the wedding location. So think outside the box, away from the wedding advertisers and you're bound to find a great deal.

Thrifty Tuesday - Saving money on your wedding video

One of the first things to be cut off the wedding vendor list when money is tight is the wedding video. I have heard the notes made to justify not getting one and I will admit that I agree with many of them

• unnecessary expense for something you watch a very limited amount of time and largely gathers dust
  
• disillusion on having seen all the cheesy wedding videos in the past
  
• general discomfort with a video camera around
  
• the thought that wanting to see yourself on video or having others watch it is vain and egocentric
  
• etc.

But at the other end of the spectrum, when you step away from it all there’s a different perspective to take. A perspective that is hard to sometimes really grasp until the day has passed and the moments are gone. The day flies in a whirlwind of activity and bliss. The moments that are most cherished become cemented into your memory and you battle with memories going forward for the space in your brain. The ability to relive the details diminishes over time. People who were of great importance leave this universe. Sure, the pictures are there and they are beautiful and detailed, but have you ever watched an old movie, especially and old family movie and marveled at the voices, the actions and the ‘reality’ of the person on the film.

That is what video helps to capture: The hiccup of nervousness upon saying your vows, the emotion riddled speeches in the toasts made in your honor, even the general craziness you might not even want to have recorded let alone remembered now but which will bring smiles and giggles in the future. But how do you manage to capture that when your budget just doesn’t afford for it?

Most logical answer here would be to ensure that someone is recording it. Now, I see you all expecting me to tell you that you should stay away from amateurs and family using their personal camcorders since we offer video. I’m not going to do that. If that’s your choice between having and not having a videographer then go for it. I’ll admit that is what Rob and I did. It didn’t work out smoothly. Much to my dismay our ceremony wasn’t taped (timing logistics didn’t work out for the person doing it) and our reception is taped from a tripod on the stage (i.e. far away) but we have something. In hindsight I wish we had someone actually manning the camera at all times, but it’s hard to ask that kind of dedication from a friend or family invited to the celebration when you want them to enjoy themselves too.

What other option is there. RAW FOOTAGE. Did you know you can hire a videographer JUST to shoot? No editing at all. Did you know that the price of this is significantly less. You can even negotiate to just have the ceremony taped, or to have only the first part of the reception taped.

You know we at Colorblind Productions offer this option right? We offer 2 camera coverage for the day in our raw footage package. When all is said & done, we not only give you the actual tapes of the footage so that in the future you can edit your own, but we also give you all the footage burned onto a DVD for you to watch at your leisure. We’ll even offer you the option of a short highlights DVD if you wish that generally condenses your entire wedding into a convenient music video. You can even come back to us a few years later and decide to have your video edited.

There are options out there that are inexpensive or even free. Do what you can to make sure there’s a video of that day. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

GIVEAWAY

We are giving away one custom fotomural on the blog Everyday Celebrating. The contest ends tonight and the winner will be announced tomorrow so if you haven't done so already, now would be a great time to head over there.

Pricing for the fotomurals is now available on the website. We have some very creative folks asking us for some interesting pieces so we'll have some new photos to add to our gallery soon.

Colorblind Productions is gearing up for a great year of weddings, sweet 16's and special events so expect a great number of new concepts highlighted.

Tomorrow will begin our new blog segment Thrifty Tuesdays, giving advice on how to have a the wedding you imagined without breaking hte bank. Stay tuned.

Don't forget to vote for aFotomural for the 2009 Leading Moms of Business. No registration necessary, just a simple click on the VOTE FOR ME button.

Weddings & Events in a recession - Bartering

It seems that watching the news, reading the paper or even just talking to friends lately is peppered with saddening stories of jobs lost, businesses closing and economic downturns. It’s downright depressing but a reality of the society which we live in. It effects every individual aspect of our lives, from our hairdresser to our favorite lunch shops. Everyone is spending less, trying to save more and sacrificing luxuries.

With the air of negativity that seems to permeate everything, it’s especially interesting to be in the wedding and special events business. You feel the purse strings tighten and the number of people who look for some discount seems to increase. It seems in weddings, the first items off the list to help with a budget seems to be the planner and the videographer followed by larger photography & entertainment packages and extra items like candy buffets, cigar rollers and independent performances.

Yet it is at these times that you can find deals that are out there if you research enough. Creativity runs to extremes and can save you lots of money and make your wedding so much more personal because the decor and details are totally and uniquely yours. I will elaborate on more in future posts about other things but today’s is dedicated to Bartering.

BARTERING.

Have you ever considered what your skills are worth and if they can in fact be used as a payment method? I meet with clients all the time and most times I don’t’ even know what their profession is. They might offer a service which is comparable in price to the items they are looking for. So don’t be afraid to offer your services in lieu of payment. One of my favorite blogs recently mentioned Bartering for your Wedding and we recently joined Big Day Barter . So those of you out there that are…

• accountants, now would be the time to offer tax services
  
• lawyers are usually always needed
  
• painters, plumbers, handymen and contractors - a house always needs a little something
  
• marketing & graphic designers – advertising is always of importance to businesses
  
• bloggers – yes you can even capitalize on this if you have a blog with a large enough following.

Colorblind Productions has had success in this in the past and are open to doing it in the future. Have you visited our home offices and notices as you walked up the walkway the great cobblestone stamped concrete and stairs we have. Well, you guessed it the reason we have that is because we did the wedding of the owners of Novacrete (which I cannot recommend enough for not only great work but the speed and efficiency of it) We had our driveway, front walkway and a patio built in the backyard in exchange for a full wedding package including DJ, plasmas, photo, coordination and video services. Basically every service we offer with the exception of Karaoke. Do not underestimate the power of bartering.