Drum Roll Please...

We are beyond thrilled to announce the long overdue re-launch of the Engaging Concepts website!!!! As all of you who have worked on your own website know - this is a very long and challenging process on so many levels and I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to Kathryn Arce who has suffered through every step of the way with me, Jen Reed - the 'oh so talented' web designer who puts up with my super controlling creative direction, the many industry leaders, clients and colleagues who contributed such amazing praise, the talented photographers who agreed to let me use their amazing work and of course, my family for their never-ending patience and cheerleading!

It is a whole new look + feel and creative direction but one we feel succinctly tells the story of the unique wedding marketing and strategic service we bring to the wedding and honeymoon market.

Thanks for checking it out - let me know what you think!!

Rebecca

WeddingBee in The New York Times!

I am so excited for my friend Bee - the now infamous "Mrs. Bee" of WeddingBee. She has just received a huge hit in the business section of The New York Times! Huge. Here is the section highlighting the boom in her brilliant blog:

Blogging Your Way Into a Business New York Times

Bee Kim, 28, was a hobbyist blogger while running a vocational school in south central Los Angeles. Blogging about her personal life and issues relevant to Asian-Americans, Ms. Kim amassed a few hundred loyal readers over several years. When she became engaged and moved to New York, her blog began focusing on the details of her coming wedding. She worried that she was losing the interest of her male readers, so she moved all wedding-related posts to a new blog called Wedding Bee.

As other brides-to-be started hearing about Wedding Bee, Ms. Kim began receiving requests to plan other people’s weddings. That is when she knew she was onto something. Slowly, Wedding Bee evolved.
“I went from being a regular blogger that just loved to share ideas and research to more of a professional blogger, where I watched for tone, libel, and even language,” such as cursing, she said. Previously, “if I didn’t like a vendor, I’d vent away knowing they’d never read my post. Now when I review a vendor, I know the vendor is likely to stumble across my post. So I check the facts, make sure the tone is balanced, and basically pretend to be a real journalist.”

By inviting other women to become contributors, Ms. Kim spawned a group of about 20 other co-bloggers from around the country. Ms. Kim, now married, still blogs under the name Mrs. Bee. Her contributors each use a blogger handle; married bloggers tend to be insects (Mrs. Caterpiller, Mrs. Firefly), while the future brides are heavy on fruits and candies (Miss Butterscotch, Miss Licorice).

With each change to the business, she involved her readers. In this post, Wedding Bee Tweaks, she wrote about the decision to accept advertising, offering the proposed design up to her readers for comments.

After moving to New York to be with her new husband, Ms. Kim dedicated herself fully to the blog. Now with about a million page views a month (and nearly 500,000 unique visitors), according to the tracking service Sitemeter.com, Ms. Kim says, Wedding Bee is earning enough from advertisements to cover a salaried part-time editor and cover rent and living expenses in their West Village one-bedroom apartment.

As most of you know by now - reading WeddingBee multiple times a day is a standard part of my day....every day. Love it and have been loyal from the very beginning. I learn so much from it on so many levels - I also know firsthand of many significant advertising successes from placement on the site.

Bee recently shared her new media kit/rate card with me and I recommend you contact her to get one (or email me at rebecca@engagingconcepts.com and I will forward you the pdf) - with a very STRONG recommendation to consider tapping into her loyal and ardent audience and watch your business soar!

Congrats to Bee and all the fabulous real bride bloggers for creating a unique voice and continuing to raise the bar for us all!

Fresh, New Creative for Sandals

Just back from an entire week in Jamaica conducting wedding-specific training for our long time client Sandals Resorts - thanks to all the participants who fully embraced the sessions and came away renewed and refocused and are committed to taking their roles to the 'next level!'

I thought I would start to share some of the fresh, new wedding/honeymoon creative for Sandals. If you have been in the wedding industry for any amount of time, you have surely seen the extensive advertising campaigns that they have produced over the years and will know that this is quite a departure from where it has been. This year, we have been very involved in working with their agencies to update the look + feel of the wedding/honeymoon creative and we are all really excited about the new direction!

More to come!

Wedding Style Guru Rebecca Thuss

The brand new style site by former creative director at Martha Stewart Weddings Rebecca Thuss is quickly taking the blog-world by storm! With good reason! She has started her own design firm providing wedding and event design, photo styling, set design & creation and more. Brilliant!!!

This spread was from an innovative promotion that the Puerto Rico Tourism Board did a number of years ago in conjunction with MSW and it has proved timeless. It was an 'out of the box' creative approach and very big idea that was flawlessly executed. There was a TV component as well - a perfectly integrated marketing and PR strategy that truly showcased weddings in Puerto Rico in an unexpected fashion. I have had the tear sheets in my inspiration books since then!

Enjoy the many spectacular spreads, covers and layouts on Rebecca's new site - each one better than the last!!

Thanks to the great blog {frolic!} for the info!

Borrowing the Bling!

We are thrilled to be working with a new client - AdornBrides.com - an innovative concept in leasing high end jewelry for your wedding! They received a huge hit in today's Wall Street Journal!! Add to that some fabulous press in The New York Times and In Style Weddings and they are well poised to 'own' this new market segment. With celebrities borrowing their red carpet bling, it is only natural for brides to adopt this trend in a big way. They are in the process of expanding their inventory and creating industry partnerships in order to take this to the market in a big way. Exciting indeed!

I will update you along the way - but we are looking forward to being a part of their talented team of advisors!

Bride-O-Rama Launches

My friend Sean Low, President of Preston Bailey Designs sent me the link to a brand new site from former executives at MTV, Nickelodeon and AOL called Bride-O-Rama. Sort of like a YouTube specific to weddings (once it is built out). Interesting new media concept - will surely be interesting to watch.

Understanding and utilizing emerging new media is critical to building any business and weddings are no exception. Let me know if you have had any specific success using new media to help in your branding and long term strategy - using MySpace, FaceBook, Podcasting, Blogging, YouTube and more - I would love to share your story with the other wedding professionals who read this blog!

You can email me at rebecca@engagingconcepts.com or add a comment below!

Inspired Weddings

For the past few months, one of my first morning blog reads is the FABULOUS StyleMePretty - for the style obsessed bride.

Just a brilliant concept with a spectacular and unique 'point of view' - created by invitation designer Abbey Jean - it has been so fun to watch grow. Shows the power of this blog-world. Abbey has been running her signature "Inspiration Board" contest all week and the response has been tremendous - you must check them all out. Over (32) brides submitted fabulous design/mood boards in a matter of days. And Abbey shared that she was overwhelmed with the responses and plans another contest soon in order to share all of the submissions received! No limit to where she can take this now! The *buzz* is out there and gaining steam.

Also a very interesting study in the increasing level of sophistication and design of weddings today. No matter the budget - these brides all have strong visions of what they want their wedding to be. These brides are not professional wedding planners or interior designers or graphic artists. They have powerful tools available to them all over the web and sites like Abbey's are encouraging them to think far, far out of the box in terms of just what they want their wedding to look and FEEL like on every level.

Smart wedding marketers will jump on this trend - let it help them truly get inside the mind of their clients - encourage their creative thinking and add to their inspiration. Weddings are not at all about the dates, rates, space, standard menus, packages, cookie-cutter offers, store policies, minimums, room rental fees, etc. that often rule our worlds. They are each truly UNIQUE, ever-evolving expressions of two very real people in love and what inspires them and the lasting, memorable experience they wish to create on this most special day.

In this increasingly competitive landscape - it is important to take time to remember this and get to know each couple for who they really are and what they want to express. Each and every wedding professional is an integral collaborator to help bring their wedding vision to life. What are YOU doing to inspire your brides and what inspiration are they giving to you in return?? Think about it.

Congrats Abbey - for inspiring us all!!!

New Wedding Media - Everywhere!

Wow - Lots going on in wedding-world media lately! Check out (3) brand new sites (most still in BETA) that I have been keeping my eye recently: ProjectWedding, WeddingWire and bridalhood. The awareness was raised recently with a series of posts/comments over on WeddingBee recommending each site.

So, what is a wedding professional ['vendor' as the brides call you - although personally I DESPISE that term] to do? There are over 111 bridal print titles in the US alone now (up from just 31 in 2001!!!) and new web opportunities popping up daily it seems! Totally overwhelming!

The good news is that many of these sites are in the start-up phase and are offering free listings and more to boost their sites up. Without wedding professionals/listings there is not much for brides to search for and so on. So, for now - enjoy the freebies - visit the sites and see if they are right for you, set up your profiles, ask your clients to review you - then track them closely on the back end. And please, drop me a line or add a comment about the results you are getting from these and other sites - I want to know what works for who and why!!

Picture-Perfect Weddings in Paradise

This is a copy of the new e-mail blast campaign that we created for The Cayman Islands to send out to a targeted list of interested brides. It was designed by the amazing creative agency CHOWDER who are a sheer delight to work with and totally *get* marketing and advertising to the wedding market on every level. Collaborating with them for the past 3 1/2 years has been incredible!

They also produced the new official Cayman Islands website including the Real Weddings Albums and the very robust photo gallery of hundreds of wedding images that have proven to be so popular with brides searching for the perfect destination to marry. Coordinating this is alot of work but has paid off in a very big way for all involved!

[REAL wedding photo by the oh-so-talented Rebecca Davidson]

Second [Classic!] Wedding Video!

The brides over on WeddingBee also found this one - Classic!!!

Hysterical Video!!!

You HAVE to watch this video from YouTube-hysterical on SO many levels!!!

PR Opp: The Knot Real Weddings!

Received this email from Real Weddings senior editor Christa Vagnozzi at TheKnot today:

"...speaking of Real Weddings, Rebecca Crumley, our photo editor, and I are actively seeking Real Wedding submissions for our regional and national magazines and website.

I know you mentioned earlier that you had some you would like to show us. We would love to see them when you get them together, and also please tell your clients to submit to The Knot as well! We put together and easy link that goes through all the directions for submitting:

www.theknot.com/weddingsubmit

So feel free to pass along. Just about any destination is eligible, as our magazine covers 17 regions and online we cover about 70 within the United States. Not to mention destination weddings around the world."

If you read this blog you know how I feel about the use of REAL weddings as one of the most powerful sources of PR in the industry today. It takes a bit of coordination but pays off in big dividends! Win-win for everyone.

Happy pitching!

Gorgeous Cakes...just because!

From time to time I have decided I am just going to post some beautiful wedding-related 'things' that I stumble across...just because who does not enjoy gazing upon all the fun, 'fluffy 'stuff? That is the reason that [most] of us got into the wedding industry in the first place - right?? Enjoy some truly spectacular images of wedding cakes from Chicago cake divas "TheCakegirls!"

Still More Real Wedding PR

We are thrilled that yet another gorgeous REAL Cayman Islands wedding has been chosen as a featured wedding on TheKnot! The wedding of Thara & Joel was held at the 100 year old plantation by the sea, Grand Old House and shot by the fabulous and super cool Cayman Islands photographer Rebecca Davidson. Thanks to Senior Editor (and faithful blog reader!) Christa Vagnozzi for selecting this wedding to share with TheKnot audience! Click here to see the entire piece.

Using Real weddings is one of the most powerful PR/marketing and sales tools today - they allow you to connect with your audience better than any staged photo [or worse - overused stock image!] ever could.

It is at the core of what we help our clients achieve...and pays off with very real results! Look for more coming soon!

Brides at Work

This graphic from Glamour Magazine [part of a series of of most annoying co-workers] says it all. In fact, I have always found it very interesting that the heaviest traffic time on BRIDES.com is on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 2pm-4pm. That is when most brides are [supposed] to be working!!! Any of you who have planned your own wedding, worked with someone planning a wedding or had someone working for and planning a wedding understand this all too well.

Wedding planning is all-consuming, all encompassing on every level - emotional, relational, financial, etc.

It is the single largest [i.e. most expensive] life event that most people will ever host or have hosted on their behalf. Be aware and respectful of the single focus most of these clients have - it really is ALL about the wedding for the months of planning - exciting, stressful and thrilling all at the same time!

Fabulous Hit!

Stunning! That is the best way to describe the Summer '07 issue of Weddings Unveiled. I have blogged about my love for them before but with each issue my appreciation grows! Even more so with the incredible 4-page feature in the latest issue on the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman - [which by the way was JUST awarded the coveted AAA 5-Diamond award status - one of only 4 resorts in the whole Caribbean]!!!!

I have mentioned before about the wildly successful bridal press trip that I hosted on behalf of our long time client, The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism back in April. The coverage has been out of this world and we could not be more grateful [senior writer and total hoot Lil Springer joined us]. So glad that those who experience this special destination and magnificent new resort firsthand feel the same way about it as we do!

Thank you and Congrats to the editors of Weddings Unveiled for yet another spectacular issue - we wait with baited breath for the Fall edition!

My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding

From VH-1 - set your TIVO's for the new series debuting this Thursday night at 10:00pm est:

"Get ready for some serious wedding bling! The Fab Life Presents: My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding is going behind the scenes of the most extravagant nuptials in America. These aren't celebrity couples, just average brides and grooms -- well, only if "average" means spending $450,000... on décor alone! From Manhattan to Maui, each episode will follow one couple's wedding planning process and will capture all the amazing details, tough decisions, and sky-high spending that goes into creating the most amazing celebrations. Whether it's scouring Rodeo Drive for the perfect diamonds or flying in hand-picked flowers from Ecuador, watch as budgets balloon up to one million dollars and beyond. My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding isn't only about money and excess. It's about the couples' passion for each other, their obsession with getting it right, and their willingness to spend whatever it takes to impress their guests and pull off the wedding of their dreams!"

The very first episode follows a couple throwing "the biggest wedding New Jersey has ever seen - costing over $1 million!" Should be entertaining to say the least...I just watched all (7) casting tapes for the featured weddings and must say that this series promises some real characters and truly 'over the top' weddings [the least expensive being $270,000 and most expensive in excess of $2 million!].

Tune in for some priceless insights into this [interesting] segment of the big-budget wedding market!!

"Industry Woos Asian Weddings...

"Industry Woos Asian Weddings, Even as U.S. Reshapes Them" from The Washington Post.

Very interesting article on the changing face of multicultural weddings, traditions and the wedding professionals who serve them.

A great read if you are already working with many cultures or if you you are looking to expand your market presence. Click here to check it out!

[thanks to the weekly round-up on WeddingBee for this!]

Bridal Emergency!

Wedding Day Emergencies! They do happen - it is inevitable. I highly recommend that every wedding professional have one of these on hand...not just wedding planners. Let's face it - when a bridal emergency happens anyone and everyone is in the line of fire to come to the rescue: catering manager, photographer, floral designer, etc...so don't be caught empty-handed! Saving the day is part of your job.

Two of our favorite "ready-made" kits to keep on hand are The Wedding DaySurvival Kit and the brand new kit from celebrity planner Mindy Weiss [most recently having planned Eva Longoria and Tony Parker's wedding!] available from her fun e-commerce website Shop Love Me. Both are reasonable in price ($49.95 - $65.00) and have just about everything you and your brides could possibly need to save the day!

PR OPP: Grace Ormond Wedding Style Magazine

We received this email today and wanted to pass it along - Grace Ormond Wedding Style is one of the most GORGEOUS, high end magazines out there today - what a fabulous PR opp!

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Feature Wedding and Miscellaneous Images

"As we begin our 2008 issues of Wedding Style and Wedding Style New England we are looking for submissions in the following areas:

- tabletops; Due: Friday, August 10th
- feature weddings; Due, Monday, September 3rd
- chuppas/ceremonial arches; Due: Friday, August 10th
- dogs; Due: Wednesday, August 8th
- children; Due: Wednesday, August 8th
- ice bars; Due: Friday, August 10th
- reception lounges; Due: Friday, August 10th

You may email submissions (no more than 5 MB per email) or send a CD/photos to either address noted below. Any image that you submit in digital format, at low resolution (72 dpi) must be available in high resolution (300 dpi) should we decide to use it in print.

Please check out our updated submission guidelines for full details on specifications on how to submit:

http://www.weddingstylemagazine.com/about-wedding-style/submissions.pdf

Thank you in advance for your anticipated submission. We always value all submission contributions."

Jessica Latimer
Managing Editor
T: 401.245.9726

Mailing Address:
PO Box 89
Barrington, RI 02806
jessica@weddingstylemagazine.com

Good Luck!

Raffles Canouan on Cover of Modern Bride!

Received my August/September issue of Modern Bride this week and was thrilled to see one of my all time favorite places on earth on the cover - Raffles Canouan in the Grenadines!!! Kathryn and I had the very lucky opportunity to visit Raffles last year on a luxury wedding press trip...and we were blown away. It is perfect in every way - from the 17th century stone church used exclusively for weddings sitting right in the center of the property to the opulent private villas, crystal blue sea, open-air Amirita Spa [quite possibly the most exquisite over water palapa spa experience ever!], stunning mountain top ballroom with sweeping terraces looking out over the sea, gourmet cuisine, impeccable service and the list goes on, and on and on...you get the point. This is one magical place. We have had the pleasure of befriending the fabulous Karen Ching, Weddings Sales Director for Raffles and enjoy time spent with her at any opportunity - she is one of the up and coming forces in weddings today and 'gets it' on every level! Kudos to Karen and her entire team for landing this cover - no small feat and impressive indeed! We are not surprised.

If you ever have the chance to visit this luxury tropical paradise - get on the next plane and stay as long as you possibly can. It is heaven on earth!

Weddings in New Orleans: More than Ever Before!

Just back from my very first visit to New Orleans! Hard to believe that I have never been there but we went up to visit my brother [see earlier post], sister-in-law and niece & nephew to kick off our sumer vacation. WOW. Loved it! So interesting and unique in every way. Nowhere in the world like it and I cannot wait to return again and spend some more time discovering the city.

I was surprised to learn post-Katrina that NOLA is the number #3 domestic wedding destination [behind Las Vegas and Hawaii]. Weddings are up there, way up. We see this again and again...weddings are the one industry that are truly recession and disaster-proof. This was true post-911, we saw it in Grand Cayman post-hurricane Ivan and now in New Orleans. From an article posted today in New Orleans City Business:

"New Orleans remains a wedding destination hot spot even post-Katrina. Mary Beth Romig, director of communications and public relations for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, said destination weddings have always been big in New Orleans but are even more important now. Wedding numbers held steady while general leisure travel, family reunions and international group business dropped post-Katrina. In the first six months of 2005, the NOMCVB worked on 38 wedding possibilities. For the same period this year, 61 leads arose. Read the entire article here.

There are so many great things about the wedding industry...it is pretty much the perfect market to be in: recession and disaster-proof, constantly re-generating, a milestone event, incredible word of mouth exposure, creates lifelong brand ambassadors and so much more!

[top wedding photo by Michael Caswell]

Wedding Overload

I recently came across this graphic...and it so perfectly illustrates how brides undoubtably feel at some point in their planning process.

Overwhelmed. Oversold. Over it.

There is really no other life stage event that has so many moving parts and critical decisions that ultimately fall on one very stressed out person to execute. As a wedding industry professional - it is always good to be reminded of where you fit into the overall picture. Of course, you view YOUR segment of the wedding as most important - that is only natural. But remember - while in your mind the catering is most critical or the honeymoon travel details or the wedding cake design & flavors or the floral/lighting/linen design or the photographs or the music or the gown choice and so on and so on...it is but one element of a very complicated puzzle for the bride & groom.

Give these clients a break - just touch base every once in awhile to see how they are doing - not to burden them with more questions/choices/decisions but just to let them know you are thinking of them and wishing them well.

Wow. They will be simply amazed and eternally grateful.

Watercolor Days

Nothing beats a week at the beach!! I travel to some of the most perfect beaches in the world and love them all for different reasons - but our week at Watercolor in the Florida Panhandle was the perfect family getaway! No airplanes - just an easy 6 hour drive from Celebration [that in and of itself is a huge vacation - as I sit writing this entry from the Admirals Club in Dallas-Ft. Worth in between flights not even 20 hours after our return home!]. We rented a huge beach house that was brand new and looked as if it was straight out of Coastal Living - and no one wanted to leave! The sugar sand beaches and gorgeous blue water evoke the Caribbean but with a southern, coastal feel. Sand dunes, wild seagrass, bike rides, porch swings, peel & eat shrimp, chilled mango scented towels, rum slush and perfect, lazy summer days re-connecting with cherished family [see a shot of my girls Annie & Gracie above!] and great friends! It was heaven.

Both Watercolor and Seaside are amazing destinations for weddings and boast top notch wedding professionals and stunning locations - we checked many of them out while there. It is very popular with couples from the southern states but offers a unique Florida experience that is dramatically different from any other area...a hidden treasure! Of course, it is really not a hidden treasure for many - in fact, Travel +Leisure Magazine recently named Watercolor the #1 Family Friendly Resort in North America, the #7 best overall resort in North America and #36 in the world!!

We are already planning our next vacation there...but for now - back to work!! Look for updates to this blog soon - so much happened while we were away (7-7-07, Eva Longoria Wedding, License to Wed and more) - lots to catch up on!

Taking a (much needed) break!

You will notice it is a bit quieter here on the blog this week and next...that is because Engaging Concepts is on summer holiday!! Will post about our experiences on Florida's Emerald Coast at Watercolor, Seaside [yes - where they filmed "The Truman Show!"] and Rosemary Beach when we get back!

Happy Summer!