Bridesmaid Dress Dilemma

It's the time of the year when brides and bridesmaids are shopping for their dresses.  Here's a fairly common question that I receive from bridesmaids:


I'm a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding.  She chose the bridesmaid dresses, and mine looks terrible on me.  Can I tell her I don't like it?

 There needs to be a bit of compromise on both sides here.  First off, brides occasionally give bridesmaids a choice of dress styles or colours, as long as all of the bridesmaids’ dresses complement one another.  If this is not an option, the bride should see each of the bridesmaids as they try on her chosen dress.  She may have chosen a dress that is not right for your body type, and hopefully when she sees the dress on you, she’ll reconsider.  If not, there are two options:  If you simply don’t like the dress, buy it and wear it with a smile.  It’s only for a few hours and it will make your friend happy.  However, if you feel very self-conscious in the dress (for example if you have eczema and the dress shows your whole back, or you’re uncomfortable about your weight and the dress is very skimpy), bring your case to the bride. Perhaps you can wear a shawl or alter the dress.   Remember that the bride is your friend and she cares about you – she wants you to feel comfortable and beautiful and will likely hear your concerns.  Likewise, you are her friend and arguing over the bridesmaid dress probably isn't worth the added stress.

Take a Seat - Chair Inspiration

My favourite photo below is the the second from top on the left.  I love the idea of adorning each chair with a little something.  Happy Friday!

Giving Back Around the World

I have been encouraged by several stories of people and businesses who are doing remarkable things in the world, so I want to share a few today:

I walked into Ten Thousand Villages last week on Thursday, and found items from Haiti prominently displayed, a video playing about Haiti, and they have generally made it really easy to support Haitians by purchasing their products.  In case you're not familiar, Ten Thousand Villages is a program run by the Mennonite Central Committee.  The MCC is a relief and development organization that helps after natural disasters among many, many other things.

This necklace is made by Ugandan women, from recycled magazine pages.  Right now, half their proceeds are going to Haiti.  This is amazing - Uganda is a poor country, and Ugandan women (who could likely use the funds) are giving a portion of their pay to help Haiti.  That's a beautiful sacrifice and is challenging me to think about how (and how much) I give.

Eco-Beautiful Weddings, which is one of my latest favourite blogs, is written by a woman named Katie Martin.  Katie used to be a missionary and has led many work teams to impoverished countries.  At the end of March, she is taking a team to the Dominion Republic, right across the border from Haiti (thousands of Haitians are fleeing to the DR) to do a work project.  I'm halfway SO excited for the team that is going, and halfway SO jealous that I'm unable to go.  Either way, I'm totally excited for the people that will be benefiting from this trip.  By the way, does anyone want to give me $500 to get me to Miami?  I can do the rest from there.  Ok, thanks:)

Toms Shoes is a shoe company in California, which was founded by an American traveling in Argentina.  Noticing that Argentinian children weren't wearing shoes, he started a really cool company - for every pair of shoes you buy, another pair of shoes goes to an Argentinian.  This pair is my favourite.

On the note of giving back, Welcome, Tía also has some good news coming soon. 

Anyone else seeing neat stories of giving?

Vintage Bling at the Golden Globes!

This past weekend, Vintage Bling was at the gifting suites at the Golden Globes.  Apparently celebrities and stylists loved the jewelry, and you can see photos of celebrities wearing her pieces at the awards if you go to Dayle's website and click to her facebook page.  It's fantastic to see Winnipeg represented at such a huge event, and all the better since Dayle is a wonderful person and absolutely deserves to have her work appreciated!

Happy Monday!

Green Inspiration

Today I was on Style Me Pretty playing with their Style Boards, and came up with this...it's really making me look forward to Summer!  I love the garden-y feel of the flowers and I love using fresh fruit to decorate.  Happy Friday!

Wedding Speeches

I have sat through many wedding receptions.  Speeches are my favourite part, partly because it's usually my chance to eat supper, and partly because I love learning more about who my clients are.  I have sat through funny, rude, embarrassing, thoughtful, awkward, well-planned and not at all planned speeches.

I have two favourite speeches.  The first was from a brother/best man of the groom, who talked about the silly games they played when they were little, how proud he was of the man the groom had grown up to be, and how excited he was to have the bride as his new sister.  It was humorous, obviously well rehearsed, and had a pang of sadness for days gone by mixed with excitement for the brother/groom.  Perfect.

My other favourite speech was from a groom who talked about how his new wife had practiced walking down the aisle with her dad when she was a little girl.  The brides father had passed away, and the groom said that he would always treat the bride in a way that would make her dad proud.  Tears.  The whole room was in tears.  It was beautiful.

If you have never given a wedding speech or toast before, it can be really overwhelming.  Here's a few tips:

1.  Shorter is better.  About 2-3 minutes is perfect, no longer.
2.  Tell stories that the audience can follow.  Long winded stories, embarrassing stories, and especially drinking and ex-girlfriend stories are off limits.
3.  Remember that the speech is about the bride/groom.  If you are the hero in your story, pick a different story to tell.
4.  Acknowledge the other partner briefly.  For example, a toast to the groom could say "I have never seen Jim so happy as he has been since meeting Steph, and I am excited to welcome her into the family..."
5.  Write it down.  Even if you don't read off the page, writing it out beforehand will help you focus your thoughts.  If you want to, have someone read over the speech (I have done this for clients, and just hearing that someone else thinks your speech is good gives you confidence to present it).
6.  Do not drink (too much) before your speech.  I have hid drinks on people who were overdoing it before speech time.  Nobody wants to hear you slurring about how you wish the groom had chosen you.

Happy writing!

Welcome, Tía - Gift Boxes For Out Of Town Guests

Happy Monday! I'm excited to tell you about Welcome, Tía, which is the latest offering from With a Flourish.  As an event planner, I help clients plan thoughtful ways to make the wedding special for wedding guests.  Often, we put together welcome baskets and leave them in the hotel or guest room, for guests to open and enjoy.  I've been suggesting these since With a Flourish started in 2008.  Back in Fall, I was informed that Weddingbells magazine (which I advertise in), would be giving away various wedding products and services to their readers.  Of course, I jumped on board.  Unsure of what to give away, I remembered the popular out of town welcome basket, and decided to give away five welcome baskets.  Over the past few months, through talking with brides and developing the product, we moved from welcome baskets to welcome boxes.

Our gift boxes include: a bar of natural soap, luxurious hemp washcloth, wooden pen, notebook, four cookies, and one bag of coffee.  Each box also comes with a card, so that you can write a personal note to your guests.  Boxes ship closed, wrapped in coloured twine and embellished with a paper flower.

We're happy to take custom orders, and would love to help you personalize your gift boxes.

I hope you like them!  I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who gave feedback on the product, and to Nicole who designed the logo and Sam who put together the website.  Please send me an email and let me know what you think!

A Wedding & A Surprise

We are very excited and very busy this week.  Our first wedding of the year is tomorrow, and we are working on this project:

Have a great weekend and check back on Monday to hear more about Welcome, Tía!

New Year's Resolutions

Above is a photo of my Christmas tree. It's cuter in person, although the flowers are slowly falling off the wall.   And that's about as Christmas-y as it gets in our house.  Did I mention I love red and turquoise?  I love red and turquoise.

Below is a list of my goals for 2010.  Today, I am thankful for 2009, and in many ways thankful that it is over.  It's been a huge amount of work, most of it mental, and my brain is tired of thinking about it.  I've been looking backwards over the past month and thinking about what went well last year, what didn't go well, and analyzing everything from my business to my marriage.  I am thankful for the lessons, and I am ready to look forward.  I'm ready for you, 2010!

1.  Learn some Spanish.  According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.  At the rate I am currently going, I can be a Spanish expert in about 166 years.  In light of that sobering statistic, I've decided that being half an expert is good enough for now.  To become half an expert in one year would take about 14 hours a day...so this is more of a long term goal.  I would like to be able to carry on basic Spanish conversation by next year this time.

2.  Find a type of exercise that I enjoy and can do year-round.  Currently running is my sport of choice, but I'm not really a treadmill runner and I'm definitely not a winter runner.  I also don't prefer to drive to the gym to run around in circles once I get there.  Any ideas?

3.  Eliminate the words "kind of", "like" and trailing off sentences from my vocabulary.

4.  I did pretty well with my goal to read to Miles every day last year.  It helps that he hands me books, sits beside me and pushes the back of my head so I'm facing the page.  This next year, my goal is to take him to the following places:  I've got the Aviation Museum, Zoo, children's museum, swimming, sledding, a concert, and a sport's game on my list so far.

5.  Also with Miles: We received a huge amount of art supplies for Christmas that we need to use up.  One art day a week, coming up!

6.  Eat healthier. I buy a lot of healthy food, but honestly most of it is eaten by my husband and son who are happy to eat carrot sticks for breakfast.

7.  Go on dates with my husband.  Monthly. 

8.  Business goals: We're well on our way to hitting our goal of 15 weddings for 2010.  As a boutique wedding planning company our big picture goal is to provide couture wedding services to a limited number of discerning couples per year.  Oh, and talking with Adrienne yesterday we both mentioned we wanted to travel to Ireland.  Brand new business goal: Destination wedding in Ireland!

9.  Blog regularly.  About everything.  This blog is the only written account that I have of the business and my life right now, and even though I run a business, this isn't just a business blog.  My readers are clients, friends, family, Winnipeg business owners, far away wedding planners, potential clients and people that happened to google something I've written about.  This is a good place to note that I am incredibly grateful to have readers, particular regular followers that check back.  Thank you.

10.  Launch a new product.  Why not?  In fact, check back January 11th to see what it is!