Introducing: My Kate Parker Wedding
My Kate Parker Wedding (MyKPW) is a new inspiration and utility website that sets out to revolutionize how weddings are planned. The website is founded by the creative genius Kate Parker, a well-known, sassy and talented New England event designer and planner. Jubilee Events is very excited to be apart of the launch of MyKPW, which just happened on January 1st! MyKPW is currently focused on brides and grooms in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island. The most amazing thing about MyKPW is how personalized it is to every bride and groom’s wedding. It seeks to point you in the right direction after determining key factors like your location, budget, style, and color scheme. We love how intuitive it is!
Among the many features on MyKPW, brides and grooms can track their budget and spending, contribute their ideas and thoughts through their own personal planning blog, find vendors in their area that are geared toward their budget and personal taste, view real weddings, create inspiration boards, read advice from vendors in the MyKPW family, and SO much more. Take a look below at some of the amazing features!
find vendors in your area, like us, geared toward your budget and style. Vendors have been hand selected for their creativity and talents
view real weddings by your color scheme, style, or season. above is an incredible wedding we did in september and photographed by our friend Carla Ten Eyck
read advice from real vendors and industry experts on everything from event design to how to choose the right photographer.
We invite you to sign up for a free account on My Kate Parker Wedding and explore how fabulous it is for yourself! We’re so thrilled to be apart of it and love how interactive it is. Be sure to read our series on how to begin the design of your wedding. I’d love to tackle a topic that is of interest to YOU, so please, leave a comment on this post to suggest what our next featured advice should be on MyKPW!
xoxo
Blogs YOU should be reading!
A few days ago both Jaime from It’s a Jaime Thing…, Tracey from Las Vegas Wedding Concierge , and Juliet from Green Orchid Events gave a shout out to our blog as a “blog they love.” It is always so WONDERFUL to hear that people love what I put out there — so thank you Jaime, Juliet and Tracey — you guys rock! In the good spirit of passing on links I admire, here are some blogs that YOU should be reading, in addition to the three I mentioned above.
RJT Pictures
Robin Dini Photography
Carla Ten Eyck Photography
raw photo design
Orchard Cove Photography
Justin & Mary Marantz
Fresh Picked Weddings
The Wedding Planners’ Fabuluxe Blog
Totally Tabletops
Swanky Tables
Ritzy Bee
Design is Everywhere
By Your Side Events
Use the Internet to Save Money on Your Wedding!
I’ll admit it: I’m frugal, to a point. Yes, I may own a Louie Vuitton, but if my shampoo isn’t on sale, guess what — I’m not buying it!
I learned a long time ago to make my dollar go farther and I want to share with you some websites and resources that I use on a daily basis. I don’t leave my house without checking these websites. The markups of clothing, furniture, and housewares can be anywhere from 40% to 700%. Not only that, but why should you have to pay full price while “preferred” customers or internet savvy ones get discounts because they have a coupon? Well, I don’t think you should! Save your precious dollars for that fabulous fashion photographer, or the splurge worthy Christian Louboutin’s you want to wear on your wedding day.
1.) Retailmenot.com – Okay, so this is one of my favorites, even if J. Crew gave them a cease and desist order to take off their coupon codes! But there are hundreds of other retailers on here where I can guarantee at some point you will spend your precious wedding dollars. For instance:
Victoria’s Secret: Wedding night nighty? Check. Plus free shipping and 10% off.
Borders.com: New books for the honeymoon flight? Perhaps some journals for your ‘maids as part of their gift? CD’s, DVD’s… what about that wedding binder you’ve been thinking about buying? 30% off!
Michaels.com: These may come in the newspaper every week, but I’ve never seen a 50% off coupon on one single item. So do not fret – your DIY wedding project just got a little cheaper!
Here are some other known sites worth mentioning: Wedding Paper Divas, My Wedding Favors, Beau-Coup.com, Banana Republic (hello fabulous rehearsal dinner outfit!), Piperlime, Amazon.com, Expedia.com, tons of other travel websites for your honeymoon and your out of town guests… I mean, the list is endless. And they do boast that they have 85,000 coupon codes!
2.) Free Printable Coupon Codes – This is my favorite of the two, I have to admit. I always score killer printable coupon codes here which means I can print them out on my computer and bring them to the store. I love to shop online, but for certain things, you have to see it before you buy it. Here are some current noteworthy coupon codes available:
Home Depot / Lowes: 20% off coupon for all your DIY projects that require a little bit more than cardstock and a glue gun!
UPS: $10 off coupon for all your shipping needs!
Staples: $40 printable coupon to recharge your ink cartridges. Get those place cards printed!
Rag Shop: 40% off a regular priced item (admittedly, I have never been to this store, so I’m taking a wild guess here that it has some DIY project supplies!)
Jo-Anns: 40% off a regular priced item. Awesome!!
NY & Co: $20 off your purchase. New jewelry, honeymoon clothes, something special for your ‘maids?
Victoria’s Secret: $10 off coupon the VSX line.
… and the list goes on, and on, and on!
The point of this post is to encourage you to scower the internet before you buy and make sure you can’t find the best deal. You might be surprised at how much you end up saving over the course of the year as you plan. It’ll make it that much easier to save up for your dream florist or wedding planner.
If you have any super fabulous similar websites that you’d like to share, feel free to post a comment.
The Blogosphere: Tips & Tricks For Using the Internet to Plan Your Wedding
The internet is such a resourceful place, especially when you’re planning a wedding! There are so many blogs and sources of information out there and because the internet is so vast, it can be hard to digest and utilize all the info that’s available to you. Trust me, I know. As a part of my job I read dozens (and dozens) of blogs and visit a lot of sites daily to see what’s going on in the wedding industry. It would be nearly impossible for me to keep track of all the latest trends, news, and ideas without a little bit of help (and I imagine the case is the same for you!). There are a lot of ways to save and utilize all the information you read as you scower the internet for a tablescape idea and the gown of your dreams. I’m going to share with you some information to make your wedding planning a lot easier!
My first recommendation is to subscribe to your favorite blogs. I have no doubt that as a bride, you’re reading a lot of blogs and magazines. Whether it is weddingbee.com, stylemepretty.com or wedconnecticut.com (that’s our blog in case you didn’t know!), it can take a lot of time to go through your favorite blogs for new postings. How do you “subscribe” to a blog? Well, it’s pretty simple! The easiest way is to have the blog entries delivered right to your Microsoft Outlook (or Thunderbird for all you Mozilla junkies). Almost all blogs have a link to their RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed (to learn more about RSS visit its Wikipedia page). Look for the RSS icon on a blog page for a subscription link, or, they may have a link that says “subscribe to an Atom feed.” Once you click the link it will immediately set up a folder in your outlook, thunderbird, or email program to receive the author’s blog posts. So, every time the blog author(s) write a new blog, it will be delivered to their very own folder in your email program!
Sometimes while you’re browsing the internet you come across a great idea or picture that you’d love to use for your wedding. Our instinct is to usually bookmark it in our browser or save the image to our hard drive. The problem with that is it can be extremely difficult to find these links and files later. Also, a lot of times you forget that you’ve even bookmarked them! The solution to this is to use an internet bookmarking system which a.) allows you to bookmark any page you come across. The beauty of it is that it’s saved to an internet website that you can access from ANYWHERE (aka your 9-5, home, and your MOH’s house), and b.) you can categorize your links with tags. So, if you come across a picture of a beautiful invitation design that you just love, you can bookmark it and tag it with “invitation.” Later, when it’s time to discuss with your Wedding Coordinator and stationeries the ideas you have for your invitations, it’ll be so much easier to sort through your bookmarks and find the invitations you loved!
There are a ton of internet bookmarking sites and they all offer the same advantages. I use delicious and love the versatility it offers with no unnecessary frills. I also use Firefox as my browser, and there is a delicious extension available which adds it to your toolbar for super fast bookmarking and tagging. Even if your bookmarking system doesn’t have a browser extension, many blogs and websites have little icons (like ours) at the end of a post that quickly allow you to save and tag the post for future retrieval. Besides delicious, you may want to check out digg, stumbleupon (one of my other favorite tools), and technorati
I hope that this post helps you in saving all the information that the internet has to offer. There are so many talented professionals, writers, and designers out there who have blogs worthy of subscribing to and bookmarking. Be sure to check out some of our favorites on the right hand side. If you have any questions about configuring these systems on your computer please leave us a comment!
Monogrammed Cocktail Napkins
Yesterday afternoon my UPS driver delivered customized monogrammed napkins I had made for a client of mine who is throwing a surprise “69th birthday celebration” in August. I ordered them from ForYourParty.com, and I have to say, I’m impressed with the quality of the napkin and the stamped monogram! The guest of honor has a definite style, and is very particular about things. From what I understand, every suit, shirt, tie,… even his shoes have his monogram somewhere on them. So, I suggested that we carry that theme over into his celebration with small and inexpensive touches like the napkins (which were totally affordable!).
Update: Alphabet Tags
I received an email from Stu at Three Potato Four regarding the alphabet tags I wrote about in yesterday’s blog. The good news is that you can special order the tags in the letter(s) you want for .50 a tag! What a bargan!
Dressing Up a Table
I love designing table scapes, especially for intimate dinners and parties. I’m always looking to acquire unique and beautiful vases, pitchers, and other containers to use on the table and as interactive pieces for dinner (I love best when things serve a multipurpose!). I have a closet full of greatly shaped containers in a variety of different textures. While surfing the ‘net this afternoon, I came across this darling website called Three Potato Four. They are based out of Virginia where they run their self-proclaimed “mom and pop shop.” What I love most, besides almost every single item they sell on their website, is that they’ve taken the leg work out of finding unique vintage pieces. They have a wealth of items to browse, but my favorite was their array of unique, delectable and colorful pitchers, containers, vases, whatever!
I first fell in love with this milk bottle carafe that looks so beautiful with a single flower, a bouquet, or just filled with your mornings orange juice. I love the shape of it and the thickness of the glass. It is a unique piece that I can’t wait to use!
Of similar ilk is this vintage water bottle that also looks wonderful with just a single bloom. My mom use to have these types of vintage pieces that she would occasionally pick up at tag sales or estate sales. She especially loves medicine bottles.
My most favorite item is their alphabet gift tags. I’ve emailed them about personalizing the order to just include a set amount of one letter. I doubt it is possible unless they are vintage inspired pieces, but if they can offer that option, these would be wonderful as favor tags and in other elements of a weddings design. And because they are black and white they can appeal to a variety of different decor palettes. Either way, I’m ordering myself a set. For $8.oo, how can you go wrong?
