Weddingbee Blog

Sharon Naylor has written a whopping 35+ books on weddings, and she’s also the wedding expert for Nokia!  We’ve asked her to share some of her expertise with us, and we’re also giving away a Nokia 7205 phone for Verizon to one lucky bride!

Details on how to enter this contest are at the end of this post.  But first, please check out some of Sharon’s incredibly helpful expertise!

What are some creative ways that couples can cut back on their wedding budgets?

They can plan a destination wedding, but keep the distance to an hour or two out of town in a great little village, mountain area with family resorts, ski or shore town; some place with a nice array of things to do.
Especially if you live in a big city, taking your wedding to a different region can save you thousands of dollars, and of course it may allow you to cut down your guest list and avoid the 300+ person guest list that often happens at a hometown wedding.

Resorts and bed and breakfasts now offer terrific destination wedding packages and Romance Weekend Packages that work just as well, for 30% to 40% off plus freebies like champagne and strawberries, spa treatments, breakfast in bed, etc. Always look at a hotel or resort’s non-wedding packages to see if any work better for you and your group. I also recommend the evening dessert-and-champagne reception, at which you would serve fine champagnes with an array of chocolate mousses, chocolate-dipped strawberries, tarts, pastries, exotic fruits, the wedding and groom’s cakes, and other exciting desserts that guests will love — delectable bites they don’t get everyday. Guests tend to register “something different” as being more expensive than it is, and the dessert reception can cost 30% to 60% less than the standard beef-or-chicken wedding menu.

And get on the mailing lists at every bridal shop in your area, so that you’re contacted with VIP access to last-minute designer trunk sales and other events where you can get your dream gown, veil, headpiece, tiara, shoes and jewelry, for up to 70% off. Brides who have followed this advice tell me they have received these preferred-customer invites on their cell phones – sometimes for events taking place that very same day – and they were able to get super-elite access to designer trunk sale items that other brides couldn’t get near. Timing is everything, so when you sign onto lists with your cell number, the opportunities can catch you while you’re on the go. The savings are amazing, and at some of these sales, you get swag bags filled with fabulous beauty products and coupons for partner wedding vendors as well, so you might then save 50% on tux rentals or get an extra free hour of videography just because you were in the right place at the right time. We live in an era of the last-minute and one-day sale, a designer dropping in to a bridal salon with just a day’s notice, and other lightning-speed opportunities, and you don’t want to miss out.

What are some of your tips when it comes to negotiating with wedding vendors?

Brides and grooms have a ton of negotiating power with their wedding vendors, especially these days as competition among wedding experts is fierce for the weddings that are happening in your area. So many top wedding vendors are offering fabulous packages, and they’ve never been more willing to throw in some extra freebies, adjust a package to replace one expensive food station with two more moderately-priced ones, and so on. They want to make you happy so that you’ll recommend them to your friends, but there’s a certain way to negotiate with them to get them to want to help you.

In my book The Bride’s Diplomacy Guide, I talk about how today’s wedding vendors are far more likely to shower the nice, respectful bride with freebies and discounts, just because they’re so sick of the bossy, aggressive bride who talks down to them and treats them like servants. Wedding vendors have seen and heard everything, so they know when a bride is trying to manipulate them. My favorite story in this realm is the wedding coordinator who noticed that the bride didn’t want a sit-down meal and didn’t want a wedding cake. That, the vendor knew, meant the reception hall would have no way to keep track of a guest head count for the catering and bar prices. This bride was trying to get a 150-person wedding for a 50-person price, and the coordinator not only caught the game, he didn’t want to help her anymore. So she lost out on the many additional savings he could have gotten her… if he liked her.

We know you’re not as manipulative as that bride, so I highly advise you to work with each of your vendors with a genuine approach of gratitude for their help, respect for their time (such as not calling them ten times a day, expecting them to neglect their other wedding clients and make you their #1 priority), a sense of humor and the ability to treat them like a person. Ask how their weekend was, say ‘thank you’ when they complete a task, speak up when you’re not happy about something (and focus on the detail you want changed, providing clear instructions on what you do want), be clear and easy to work with. Think of vendors as someone who works with you, not for you. Wedding vendors deal with so many difficult personalities, they practically fall over when they get to work with a nice person, and that’s who gets the insider information on a great sale or a fabulous freebie. With your diplomacy skills, you’ll become a favorite among your vendors, and they’ll work hard to make you happy.

What are your favorite technologies to help facilitate wedding planning?

You can do no better than a great cell phone since being able to reach and be reached is such an essential part of wedding planning. Communication between your groom, parents, bridal party members, wedding coordinator and vendors, and others is so important a part of planning. You have to be organized, on time and on your game in order to plan a wedding in the middle of your already hectic life, so having one little portable tool that allows you access to everyone on your wedding planning team – plus an easily-checked record of when your florist called, when the gown order was placed, when your payment cleared at the bank, and so on – gives you a tremendous advantage and saves you a fortune when you can show a double-billing caterer that you already made that payment.

Brides and grooms without technology get ripped off a lot, and they’re way more stressed because they don’t have the details at their fingertips. It’s the unknown that causes stress, and when you have all of your planning details – and a quick way to ask questions – right in hand, you’re a more relaxed bride who makes better decisions, keeps her cool, and gets along better with everyone.

I also love GPS technology, since the trend is big for couples to book their weddings at unique locations such as botanical gardens or bed and breakfasts, scenic overlooks, relatives’ rustic mountain homes, and other off-the-highway locations. Knowing where you’re going is always going to save you time and prevent frustration, and being able to share your location with your groom for his approval allows you to book that perfect site before the other non-tech brides have a chance to connect with their grooms. I’m hearing about a lot of brides and grooms who ‘beat the competition’ by having the tools to send video messages to each other and to parents who might be paying for the wedding.  They are sending pics of flowers or venues for quick approval saving time and potential late booking costs. I also like webcams for destination weddings, so that you can share your big day with all of your friends and family.

You wrote a book called The Groom’s Guide.  What areas of wedding planning do you typically see grooms taking charge?

Grooms love their technology and their food, not necessarily in that order. And today’s groom is not the ‘tell me when to show up’ groom of years past. They may be happy to say, ‘It’s her day’ about your wish to have the day of your dreams, but they have definite wishes for the big day, they want their friends and family to have a great time, and they want to bring their own talents and skills to the table. Maybe a groom has excellent negotiation skills for working with the vendors, or he’s great at graphic design and wants to create the invitations on his home computer. Most grooms love to take charge of building a playlist for the engagement party, co-ed showers, rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself, and they also love to put together the video montage of themselves and their brides – those baby photos and the pictures of their vacations together, the engagement, etc. They’re also shooting new video and stills to include in these montages, so that the photos are not all bad-haircut school pictures but are instead more styled and intentional for public viewing at the big party.

Grooms love their food and wine and are more sophisticated in their tastes, so they want to be full planning partners in tasting and selecting the foods and drinks for the wedding, often using the Internet to research wines and find authentic cultural associations that provide ethnic foods and drinks for a wedding that pays homage to their heritage. Grooms are also big on arranging the personal wedding website, and building maps for the wedding weekend.

How did you become a wedding and etiquette writer/expert?

I started off writing for the women’s magazines about such fun things as cleaning your air ducts and removing red wine stains from carpet, and when my attention fell on budget wedding planning, I knew I had too much information for an article – so I got an agent at age 21 and wrote my first book. That agent advised me to stick with one topic, become a specialist in it, and almost 20 years later, here I am with over 35 books to my credit. To really last in publishing, you have to love what you do, because it is such a difficult, competitive field and it can be quite the sharktank. But when I look at the wedding industry, I’m thrilled to get to explore and report on all of my favorite topics: flowers, gourmet food, fine wines, designer fashion, shoes, music and dancing, photography. That’s one level of why I love this job and why I’m able to research the trends in every region of the country tirelessly and with excitement every time I find a great new trend or talk to an up-and-coming wedding expert.

The other level of it is my value of family, friends, togetherness, the importance of commitment, how important it is for families to gather together for something good in this world, spend time together, laugh, play, and connect. So in all of my books, you’ll see a huge emphasis on relationships… not just between bride and groom, but with parents and the future in-laws, long-distance relatives and friends you haven’t seen in years, even with friends who may be a little bit jealous of your good fortune. The wedding is one day – as we’ve all heard it said a million times – but the relationships that are formed from your union, they last forever. It’s not going to be a truly happy marriage if you’re not connecting with your groom’s family, if you distance yourself and choose to be the outsider. And yes, sometimes you have to nudge your way into their world, by showing them how much you want to be a part of the family. That’s why I advise calling your future in-laws as you work together on the wedding and to plan non-wedding outings like going for coffee or having them over for dinner. Do the same with your friends and family, so that you’re not all about the wedding. Being in the wedding industry, I hear all kinds of stories from brides who write to me for etiquette and diplomacy help, and it stuns me when I see people forgetting the fact that relationships are what’s most important, that a parent would even think to boycott the wedding if her boyfriend isn’t invited or if the couple doesn’t want to get married in a church. So I like to be the voice of reminder, that couples need to ease up on the ego demands, and parents do, too.

I’ve had the great fortune of working with so many wonderful people in the bridal media, and I love how willing wedding industry experts and editors, producers and podcast owners and bloggers are to spotlight and support their fellow wedding experts. It’s a fabulous world to be in, a fabulous focus to have, and when I get letters from brides, thanking me for helping them solve a problem with their parents or with the wedding plans, that just makes me beam.

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Thanks Sharon!

To enter this contest, please tell us why you need a new Nokia phone.  You have until 12am PST this Sunday to enter.  Good luck and have a fantastic holiday weekend everyone!