Friday, December 21 2007

A beginning

Posted by Jessika Brooks    Tags: weddings

This first entry is always a difficult one to write...because you don’t know where to begin. Tonight my website designer Jason called to say the site was going to be going live and I needed to write my first Blog entry. Conveniently, Fred is off playing Santa Claus to his neighborhood kids as he does every year. This leaves the full responsibility of writing something both meaningful and witty in our inaugural entry, solely on my shoulders. Sadly, you will most likely read more entries written by me over the course of the next 3 months(during tax season), than you will read of Fred's. But that role will reverse as wedding season approaches. Fred is a far more entertaining writer and he has a male perspective on this wedding planning process…which I imagine many of you will find refreshing. That should make the reading far more interesting sometimes. You will also hear from our vendors in this Blog and get their input and perspective on how this event is evolving.

I am very excited about working with our arsenal of amazing vendors. I reference them with the word “arsenal” because this wedding planning process can be likened to a war. The mission is to tackle the biggest targets(details) first and eliminate these unknowns. This process continues until all unknowns (the enemy) are decimated! I know this sounds like a harsh approach to what should be a sweet, gentle, process, but we don’t approach any obstacle that way here at FP. We face things head on and beat them down to a pulp. We do this by working with the best comrades(our partnered vendors) we can form allegiances with.

We have been lucky to work with some of the best of the best since we began. The high-end wedding market in New England is changing so quickly and new providers crop up all the time. We will be expanding our great list of allies over the course of this upcoming season by working with some of the newcomers. With our wedding specifically, many of the vendors we have worked with regularly and have gotten to know quite well. Others are new to French’s Point. We are using our own wedding to try out some new vendors as opposed to using our clients as guinea pigs. Beyond that, we are excited to try something new on our wedding day and know that will lead to a new result in the end. Each wedding that takes place at FP is always unique, but we want this event to have a fresh feel for even the seasoned FP wedding veterans who will be at the event, including Fred and I.

We have seen a lot of weddings at FP…a ton to be exact. Fred knows more about weddings and all aspects of them, than any man should. He is very involved here at FP…in all aspects of the business. He would love to tell you that on any given Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, he is “five steps ahead of me” checking things off the “To Do” list. He knows the industry. He can tell you what works and what doesn’t. He can tell you where there are gaps in plans and what will really make an event memorable. You could say he is a connoisseur of weddings. Not many men would admit that to their buddies, but it is very true here. This business has educated both of us. We began dating before we reopened The Retreat. He has seen it all right along-side me. In a lot of ways, this makes our planning process easier…as long as we agree on all the points. But you will see over the course of time, we are very different and we WILL but heads occasionally. But we will settle on something eventually.

We wanted to create the RWM website so you could have the opportunity to take a birds-eye-view of the wedding planning process here at FP and experience a unique event… a wedding planned by the bride, who owns a reception venue and is the event planner for clients of FP. Hopefully you will learn something helpful and/or interesting and we you may even get some ideas for your own event. Then there are those of you who will simply find comfort in knowing that you are not alone. Even a wedding planner has the same daunting task ahead of her that many of you do…planning the ideal wedding without letting challenges effect the end result and maintaining your vision.

Send us an e-mail with your thoughts and questions. We would love to hear what you think. We all need a little help, so we are open to suggestions and novel ideas as well.

We know this event will be amazing even if something goes terribly wrong. That's because we love each other, we know we can’t control everything(but will do our best to do so), and we are doing it our way.

My next few Blog entries will fill you in our each of the vendors we are working with. If you take a look at the “Featured Vendors” page, you will see we have selected many of them…but there are many more to come.

Happy Holidays from FP. May Christmas and New Years bring all you ladies with empty ring fingers, just what you have been dreaming of!

Jesse