Wedding Planners: Saving Brides Time, Money and Frustration

A few weeks a we received a call from Michelle Burchett at the Progress -Index to give an interview on how to save brides time, money, and stress. Here is an excerpt from the article.

Wedding Planners: Saving Brides Time, Money and Frustration

By Michelle Burchett

PROGRESS-INDEX CORRESPONDENT

The perfect wedding is every woman’s dream. Don’t let the details turn it into a nightmare. If you’re struggling to plan your own wedding, just don’t have the time to do it all or you’re frustrated with the entire process, perhaps it’s time to consider consulting with a wedding planner. Most will provide the initial consultation free and will inform you of the various services they offer within your budget. “I don’t think it’s for the rich, but for the busy or for those who don’t have the knack for it,” said Andrea Lyons, President of All About Presentation event planning in Richmond . Planning a wedding can take a novice up to seven 40-hour workweeks, explained Lyons . “Working women have no time to plan,” she said, suggesting that brides seriously consider how much time they have to devote to planning and seek assistance from professionals. Click here to read the full article

Guess who we met? -- Eddie Ross

Last week, R-Home

(Richmond Home Magazine) hosted a holiday event showcasing area retailers and an amazing speaker, Eddie Ross.

Eddie Ross, who has an amazing list of credits and now owns his own lifestyle company, gave us such great advice like how to make your own wrapping paper, creating a holiday wreath from baby's breath, and creating an amazing arrangement with Poinsetta's. One of the key's to Eddie's success is that he is constantly innovating and refining. In his words "when designing, you can't be afraid to make mistakes, it happens to everyone". Check out Eddie online at www.eddieross.com

VERY REAL ideas to help ease the stress of hosting Thanksgiving

Whether you are a seasoned Thanksgiving host or newbie Thanksgiving traveler (or anywhere in between) here are three ideas taken directly from our event planning checklist to help you ease your stress this Thanksgiving.

Day Before and Day After Cleaning Service
One of the items on our checklist for parties that we plan in our client's homes is to suggest a house cleaning service to come in the day before and then the day after the event. Not only will a cleaning service get your house together (vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping, mopping and dusting), it will give you more time to do all the other things that are required when hosting people. For the day after service, we suggest adding the following chores to the cleaning list: taking out the trash, cleaning off all table tops and counter tops, and loading the dishwasher. Often, cleaning services will give you a FANTASTIC discount on the dual service.

Rent What You Don't Have or Don't Want to Clean

One of the things that we often do in the event business is rent flatware, dinnerware, tables, chairs, and linens. What happens when you have 20 guests and only 12 dining chairs? The usual result is a mix-n-match sort of thing. A few folding chairs, perhaps an Adirondack chair from the patio, or the chair from your home-office. Why not swap out your chairs and get 20 matching chiavari chairs from your local rental company.

The same goes for dinnerware and flatware. Also, rental companies provide some extraordinary linens that would cost you double the price if you purchase them yourself. If you're in the Richmond, VA area, we suggest renting from Classic Party Rental or Party Perfect.

Don't Check It - Ship It!

Alas! The busiest travel weekend of the year is here. Here's a little tip we've learned. Most major airlines charge $20 for the first checked bag and $30 for the second. If, at all possible, try not to check a bag. But, if you know that you will have to pack enough that will require checking a bag, consider shipping your items via USPS or UPS ahead of time. It may sound a little abnormal, but we just shipped a box of goods from Richmond to Detroit that weighed 25 lbs and it only costs $17.40. Not only will it be at the residence before us, but we won't have to wait in baggage claim or worry about it going through security.

We hope these three ideas help you take the stress out of your upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

Give Thanks Without Giving Away Your Wallet

Give Thanks Without Giving Away Your Wallet With Halloween behind us, it's time to plan for the next BIG event -- Thanksgiving. So, over the next few days we'll be providing you tips and advice that we use right here at All About Presentation to help us plan our events more efficiently and save our clients money. To kick-off the tips, this week, we're giving you tips on how you can "Give Thanks Without Giving Away Your Wallet".

Tip 1 -- Reduce: Okay, so, let’s just get it all out in the open. We are officially giving you permission to be extremely selective on your feeding and gift giving this season. We have yet to plan an event where the food did not amount to the largest percentage of the overall budget. As much as we all love to host and entertain clients, friends, and guests, there is no doubt that it can become very expensive, very quickly. So, do yourself a favor and take a note from Santa. Make a list and check twice. It’s okay to say ‘no’ or ‘maybe next year’ for guests that you’re on the fence about. Tip 2 -- Reuse: To decorate for Thanksgiving in your home (or office), spray paint your uncut pumpkins that are leftover from Halloween an antique gold, copper, or silver color. Place a few votive candles around your masterpiece and Voila!, an instant centerpiece! Tip 3 -- Recycle: This is a beautiful time to go for a short hike or, for the less adventurous, a stroll into the backyard and pick up fallen leaves, branches, acorns, pinecones, berries, and pine needles. Arrange them in a clear vase or bowl to create a seasonal feel in your home or office. Tip 4 – Re-gift: Let’s face it, we all receive items from companies (or friends) asking us to try their products that we will never use or aren’t really a good fit for us. Well, we receive a lot of free samples from our events and stockpile them. For example, one company sent us several hundred samples of their lotions. There is no way we could ever use that many so we give them away as gifts. Another example (speaking to the ladies here) is when you get a “gift with purchase” at the make-up counter. If the shades aren’t really your cup of tea, consider giving the gift to one of your clients, friends, or relatives.

Buy Enough without Buying Too Much

Did you know that there are hundreds of websites and recipe books dedicated to Thanksgiving leftovers? All of us have a tendency to overbuy just make sure that we have enough. One of the challenges for many people, besides buying too much food, is that we buy too many disposables. Can you relate?

One of the most common questions we get is how many plates, cups, napkins, and utensils should we buy. Well, just imagine how accurate you need to be when your dinnerware isn't disposable. At AAP, the majority of our events require china so we have to be really accurate on how much we need to buy to optimize our clients' budget.

So, we have a formula that we use that can help save you some money for your Thanksgiving gathering. Shout out to my girl Marley at The Party Goddess for helping us with this. Here's the standard formula to help determine how much dinnerware (disposable or china) you should have on-hand to be prepared for the Thanksgiving feast!

All you have to do is multiply the number of people attending and the item below. For example, if you want to know how many plates you need to buy, multiply the following:

If there are 18 people attending X 1.5 Entree Plates = 27 plates to purchase.

Now remember, nicer disposable plates are packaged in either 8 or 10 so even though we only need 27 plates, we may need to purchase 30 or 32 based on packaging.

Hors d’oeuvres Napkins: 2.5/person

Cocktail Napkins: 2.5/person

Entrée Plates: 1.5/person

Entrée Forks: 1.5/person

Entrée Knives: 1.5/person

Dessert Plates: 1.25/person

Dessert Forks: 1.25/person

Coffee Cups/Saucers/Mugs: 1/person

Coffee Spoons: 1/person

Napkins: 1.25/person

Now, these numbers aren't bullet proof but it is a fairly good place to start and we hope to save you a few pennies while you're shopping.