Monday, February 11, 2008

I am doing a lot more events now that I have started AshleysBrideGuide.com. (That’s the extent of my event planning to the left. All online!) In doing so, I’m learning a lot about myself, event planning and how to hire and manage help.

Here’s what I have learned:

1) To enjoy an event, a bride should hire a planner. So, when I took Nashville brides to see 27 Dresses event, I asked A Magical Affair to do the heavy lifting. That allowed me to “do me” - chat!

Now, I am busy preparing for the upcoming Nashville bridal show this week and I’m a total stress ball. No really, bridal shows stress me out completely. It’s not the attending part - because I LOVE chatting with brides, moms and wedding professionals. No, it’s the whole booth design and set-up thing. We have such little space - smaller than a bathroom really and we have to make it fabulous enough so that brides will come and chat with us.

So, all this week, I’ve been IM’ing Kat (Selah Style) and Hillary (A Magical Affair), both wedding planners, about my booth.

2) The “micro-manager” bride tends to prefer micro-manager planners. I am a micro-manager bride type. I didn’t realize it until today but now I am persuaded. Christine of Wedding Dish says there are two types of brides - a CEO and a micro-manager. In my mind, a CEO bride hires great people and lets them do their job. She then shows up and expects everything to go as she set forth. A micro-manager bride hires great people, but still likes to know whats going on, likes to be apart of the planning and wants to know every detail.

3) A “micro-manager” bride can work well with other planner styles too, she just has to manage expectations. A micro-managing bride appreciates overcommunication. For instance, I like to know the when, where, who, and how. When I work with planners with a diferent personality, I can freak out because I don’t know what the heck is going on. Like this week, Kat had everything under control for my booth (Thank God!) but I was freaking out. She understood and we hashed out every detail. I learned that I must manage expectations and let my event planners know that I need A LOT of info:) Kat was awesome about it all. She gave me a detailed run down of everything.

My girl Tiffany (also a recent Nashville bride, bride of 2005) is just the opposite. Tiff wanted to show up at her wedding after a couple of meetings with her planner and didnt care about what happened in between their meetings. “Need to know basis” is Tiff’s motto. She doesnt care for details.

So, regardless of your personality - just be sure to manage expectations. Let your planner know your preference and make sure you know your planner’s personality. We can all get along and make life fabulous, when we communicate our expectations.

Oh - Kat has created the most beautiful booth for me. She’s building stuff, sewing and designing something unique to me.

It’s going to be fantabulous. You’ll see it on Sunday at the PWG bridal show. We’re going to incorporate some Wonderful Graffiti monograms and logos into my design. I love them! I really wanted their “suckers for love”” but I waited to long to order them. But, you should definitely check them out for your wedding day. Their stuff affords any bride an elegant way to customize while adding neat details.

First 10 responses get the tixs. You must be registered, of course:)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 12:50 am and is filed under Ashley's Events, Wedding Planners, Bridal Shows, Daily Scoop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.