Life in Weddings

"Glee"-ful About Weddings

Confirming that this business drives us insane, I embraced my own special nuttiness Monday and published the following post. I know that more than one of you is a Glee fan, so get ready to decide who would make a better wedding planner...Rachel or Quinn and let me know what you think!

Choosing Your Wedding Pros - "Glee" Style

And don't forget: Tuesday is Prom Night!

Shayna Weddle Walker, Life in Weddings

Blogger's Day of Silence - For Japan, With Love

I'll be observing a Blogger's Day of Silence on Friday in support of Japan during this terrible crisis. You can read about my personal experiences with Sendai and the Japanese people, as well as the day of silence on the Weddlady blog: http://www.weddlady.com/2011/03/bloggers-day-of-silence-for-japan-with-love.html.

Shayna Walker, Williamsburg Wedding Design

Professional Courtesy: The Life in Weddings Guide to Acting like a Wedding Industry Grown Up

As a planner, I get to work with amazing professionals every day.

In turn, I get to work with some real choice (expletive deleted)s. Conglomerate experience with the latter over the past several years leads me to the following post. Consider this your official sarcasm warning, because this post is plenty full of it.

I Was Not Put on Earth to Ruin Your Day (Even If You Were Put Here to Ruin Mine)

Let me clarify some things about the way a professional planner works, and about minimum expectations by clients for the way all of their vendors will act:

The Event Timeline: contrary to somewhat popular belief, I do not sit around dreaming up timelines randomly, and very rarely do I get to craft a timeline specifically to ruin a colleague’s day (only at Christmas). In contrast, I create event timelines based on (in this order):

1. The client’s expressed wishes and our in-depth discussions of the feasibility of those wishes
2. A review of vendor contracts
3. The input of participating vendors
4. My professional experience

Really, if I want to ruin your day, I’ll just come out and ruin it (and not on OUR client’s time). My timelines are professional tools, not instruments of torture.

Note: you may wonder why I keep capitalizing the word “OUR”. For those who haven’t picked up on the subtlety, it’s because they are in fact “OUR” clients; not “MY” clients and not “YOUR” clients. We share responsibility for their happiness. What we do together (or to each other) impacts their experience.

A further note, especially to my planner colleagues – that’s one reason we have to be so careful about the way we communicate. If you shoot off a hateful email to a baker, and that baker decides to say “to He** with your client’s cake”, you better be darn sure that your client wanted you to take that route. Better to act consistently in your client’s best interest, even if someone sorely deserves to be called all of the names in the book – besides, it makes wedding planners as an industry look a whole lot more professional.

The “Here’s Your Chance to Disagree” Email: That email that I send that says “if you have concerns, changes or questions about the timeline, please don’t hesitate to contact me”…I actually mean that. So, griping that something isn’t to your liking because “I” constructed it that way is really lame.

If you’re unwilling to take me up on the opportunity to have a professional conversation that could easily end in doing things a little differently (perhaps even entirely the way you envision it), than you’re complicit in your own misery when the rest of us attempt to stick to the plan.

The moral is, the plan for an event is supposed to be collaborative. If you’re too stubborn to collaborate, though, then you’re going to have to go with what the rest of us devised. End of story.

Everything You Need to Know about Being Professional You Should Have Learned in Kindergarten: You have to be 5 years old to not get the “There’s No ‘I’ in Team” concept. Your role is NOT the most important in the whole wedding, no matter how critical your functions are. I don’t care who you are: planner, caterer, guy with the camera, lady with the cake…doesn’t matter. There are 2 people who get the title “VIP”: the bride and groom. Everyone else either acts as a team, or destroys the event.

When you take a diva-like (that’s not Diva with a capital D) approach to a wedding, and make it all about your shooting schedule, or your 15 appetizers that all have to be served individually in 15 minute increments, no matter how long a cocktail hour that creates (hint: 2 hours is too long!!!), or your 7-hour long “how they met” story that no one is listening to after the first 25 minutes, you’re screwing things up for everyone else around you.

• You’re making the client uncomfortable while she waits to see her friends.
• You’re making the caterer’s food cold, mushy or late.
• You’re making the guests super grumpy leading them to snap at the bartender, who snaps at the DJ, who snaps at the video guy who decks the planner who ends up suing you for being stupid.

 The point is, you have a job to do, but not at the expense of everyone else around you. If you can’t grasp that, weddings are not for you.

And as far as “but I promised the client that I would do x, y or z and by goodness I’m going to do it” – I expect you to be professional enough to present a plan to said client that works in harmony with the 9 other folks who also promised perfection. If that plan doesn’t work in real life, I expect you to work with the team to figure out how we’re going to remedy it.

Again – can’t handle it? Then maybe there’s another line of work, like Tyranny or Dictatorship or Narcissistic Self-Worship that you might be better suited to. I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.

I Don’t Have to Like You. You Don’t Have to Like Me. We DO Have to Pretend Though.

I try so hard not to work with people I don’t like, but the reality of this big, professional, grown-up world that we operate in is that it happens. I may question the sanity of the bride who wants to hire you, and you may do the same when they hire me. If we don’t fix it before contracts are signed, though, we have to pretend to get along.

That means we have to operate with professional courtesy.  From my side, I will do everything in my power to take into consideration your requests and requirements (until you become insane and unreasonable, of course) and in return, I expect you to follow the chain of communication that OUR client indicates is her preference.

In plain speak – if she asks you to get the info from me, get the info from me. Don’t undermine the process intentionally – it’s transparent and she will understand what you’re doing. I won’t even have to point it out…because I’ll be acting with professional courtesy. She’s smart enough to know the difference.

Furthermore, we’re going to play nicely on the wedding day (note that I’m not asking). I’ll do my best to stay off of your toes and out of your turf if I can. You can do the same for me. We won’t be bad-mouthing each other to other vendors, we won’t be shooting “I hate you glares” at each other from across the room, and we won’t be making snide remarks under our breath within earshot of each other either (I may text my mother about you, and I’ll grant you the right to text yours too if that makes you feel better).

My 1^st graders know better than that, and it is our mutual responsibility to our clients to act with more maturity than 1^st graders.

Heck. I’ll probably go out of my way to be courteous and polite to you. Maybe I’m killing you with kindness, but it’s what OUR client deserves and that’s how I roll.

Is This a Rant?

Yes. It’s a rant about no one in particular caused by years of experience dealing with stuff exactly like this.

The vast majority of the time we work with grown-ups; folks with priorities who can make the best of any bad situation, and who know how to work as a team. A benefit of working in the wedding industry is that we get a fresh chance every weekend (or with every contract) to make the experience better for all involved.

Unfortunately there are always a tiny handful of children dressed up like grown-ups who ruin it for the rest of us. For those people, I urge you to read through this guide (though I suspect you won’t) to acting like big kids in a big-kid world. If you can’t do it based on maturity, do it because your client deserves it.

If you can’t do it for the client, go to work in some other industry. Please?

By Shayna Walker

Warning: You Might Not Be Ready for My “List”

Professional wedding planners, especially established ones, are asked almost daily if they will put someone “on their list”. These requests come from experienced and new wedding service providers alike.

From the perspective of a planner, the decision to refer my client to a service provider is not one that is made at all lightly. There is so much more to gaining my confidence and professional referral than adding your name and website to a list. In fact, the issue is so multi-layered that one post could never cover it. Consider, for example:

• How an experienced, professional planner establishes a database
• How recommendations are tailored towards the needs of individual clients
• The product and service expectations a planner has of a vendor she has referred
• The potential liability exposure a planner has when referring a client to a service provider
• How providers and planners relate throughout the planning process and on the wedding day
• The vendor’s expectations of support and clear communication
• The planner’s expectations of support and clear communication
• How prepared a service provider is to work within the planner’s guidelines as far as communication and procedures are concerned
• What happens if the client is legitimately unhappy with the provider? What steps are taken to ensure fair remedy?

The “List” of “List Issues” goes on and on.

First, there is No “List”

The first thing I explain to someone who is asking to be “added to the list” is that there is no list. I maintain a database of contact information and details like performance results and communication history on providers in all categories. When I am working with my clients to match them with their vendors, I take into consideration their budgets, specific requirements, requests and needs.

If I send my clients a list (and certain planning levels warrant sending contact information over contacting the providers directly), it’s customized specifically for each couple’s unique situation.

What I’m Thinking

Here are the first things that I think about when approached by a service provider who asks to be added to my database of referrals:

1. Have we ever worked together before?
2. If yes, what was the process like and what were the results?
3. If no, have I ever heard of the vendor before?
4. If not, is someone really, really compelling and trusted referring the vendor to me?

I will freely admit that it is extremely rare for me to refer someone who has answered “No” to question #1.

The rare circumstance arises when I need to fill a need with someone who I do not know. In those cases I almost exclusively rely on referrals by trusted colleagues. Otherwise, to get on “my list” we have to have worked together before. You might be awesome, and that might be unfair, but it is how I protect my clients and my professional reputation.

There is always a chance that we will work together on an event by coincidence. That’s how great relationships in this business begin. Patience is a virtue.

If it seems impossible to get into a planner’s database…you may very well be looking at a good planner.

What are you getting yourself into?

Those service providers who I regularly refer have several traits in common:

• They are clear, effective and timely communicators
• They respond to my initial inquiries immediately and enthusiastically
• They go out of their way to accommodate my clients’ schedules
• They do not offer or pay commissions to wedding planners – if a commission structure is in place in their company, they offer it to my clients as a benefit of working with me
• They receive constructive criticism professionally and seek it out
• They respect my process and my methods for communicating with our mutual clients
• They resolve issues fairly and quickly
• They provide outstanding service at all times

In return, my providers know that they can expect me to:

• Regularly refer them to qualified prospective clients
• Defend their value
• Communicate professionally
• Identify sources of concern when they can still be addressed
• Act as a partner in our mutual success and mission to create outrageously happy clients

If you’re unwilling to embark on this kind of partnership with your planner at each and every wedding, no matter how hard it might be, then you’re not ready to be on “the list.”

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know:: Pro Edition

I freely confess that I am a bit of a conference junkie. Okay, I’m way over the top. I have frequently mentioned here on the Life in Weddings blog that I am actively seeking a career that allows me to:

a)      Attend every conference in the wedding and social media industry

and

b)      Stand behind a tradeshow booth at many of them (I love tradeshows).

“Sign on the Dotted Line” and “Make That Money”

So it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I found myself sitting in Linnyette Richardson-Hall’s seminars Sign on the Dotted Line and Make That Money this weekend. What was a surprise to me is how much more I enjoyed them and learned from them than even I expected.

Not that I ever intentionally underestimate the Diva and her ability to spellbind her audience! But I’m the kind of continuing education addict who would attend a class on determining your pricing…after having just published a pretty popular ebook on the subject, just because it was a class and I liked the instructor.

I could have attended, heard nothing new, and still found the experience valuable. But no. The Diva does not work like that.

Intimate, Interactive and Intense

Linnyette’s courses tend to be intimate, intense and tailored to the students in attendance. They are interactive. Students of all levels are respected, and the advice is sage, on point and completely relevant. That and the food; there are always massive quantities of really yummy food.

A powerful combination of enlightened, fiercely intelligent and purely entertaining, Linnyette’s presentations simply don’t allow for boredom. They are layered with levels of intricacy which allow a brand new planner to understand the material, and the experienced consultant to identify areas in her business that need change or could be even better.

If you don’t learn anything, you aren’t trying.

During the Make That Money class, I did my victory dance when I plugged my numbers into the equation Linnyette suggested and came up with my current hourly rate. By the end of the day I had a short list of policy changes to improve things like cash flow, client screening and even value-perception that I hadn’t expected to take away.

It was the Sign on the Dotted Line class, though, that really made me take a hard look at some places that I could make improvements in my 7-year-old wedding business that I had either not considered or had totally forgotten about. I marked up a contract that I have successfully used for years based on really solid, excellent advice and more than one eye-opening “you think you’ve seen it all, but you’re wrong” anecdote.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

In sharing experiences, one of the themes that I couldn’t shake during the whole weekend, was that the vast majority of planners, those on so many different experience levels, don’t know what they don’t know.  Those who don’t attend any educational seminars or conferences are the worst – they are operating on an assumption that what they’ve acquired through their limited personal experience is enough to save the day, when they may in fact be treading in some really unsafe water.

Those who do attend seminars have to seriously consider whether or not they are attending the right ones. If you’re on your 10^th class about using Twitter for business, but have never planted your tail in a class about event contract law, your priorities are skewed. If you’re leaving your seminars wondering if what the speaker said to do was ethical or right, you really need to make better choices.

There is plenty of good, and some kind of sketchy bad out there in wedding education today. Know the difference when you’re investing your time, money and future.

If you want to start with one of the good ones, the courses hosted by Premiere Event Management are sure-things.

Will I See You Next Time?

If you’ve never attended one of Linnyette’s courses, I would highly recommend you do so at the next opportunity – and I hear a rumor (okay, I may have started the rumor) that there are more classes coming soon on some topics you almost never see but really need.

Incidentally, I will pay dearly for making that claim…

What about you? Which conferences, seminars, courses and events will you attend to further your event education this year (I'd love to go to Eventology, Wedding MBA and LOVE Mexico this year, along with SXSW, BlogWorld and more)? Can I go with you?

Expert Online Marketing Tips with Brian Lawrence of Local Traffic Builder

Today’s post features some expert input from Brian Lawrence of Local Traffic Builder. It’s a hybrid guest post/editorial and I am grateful to Brian for his willingness to share some fascinating information about affordable online marketing opportunities.

I met Brian Lawrence at Wedding MBA 2010. He is author of "The Wedding Expert's Guide to Sales and Marketing" and the former long time VP of Sales and Marketing of the leading invitation brand Encore Studios.

Brian’s current venture, Local Traffic Builder, offers “elegant web design with unparalleled industry expertise”. I asked Brian to share some insight on online marketing opportunities, especially those that are more affordable and accessible, and he highlighted three that are definitely interesting and worth exploration:

Google Places is a free listing on Google but the key is to be ranked in the top 1-3 of the local results in your local area under the categories you would be searched for like "Wedding Planners Richmond". They will do a one-time local marketing boost to your local listings on hundreds of directories and guide you on how to be on top in your local area. "The important thing that most people do not know is that Google is starting to include local listings in their general search results meaning that if you are in Richmond, VA and a bride from that area types in "Wedding Planners", your listing can come up even without the bride typing in "Richmond".

Domain names can also help you rank better in search engines. Having a name that includes what you do and where you are like "WeddinginvitationsAustin.com” can help you rank for that exact search of those words. Local Traffic Builder can help find the right domain name and show you how to market it effectively.

While many businesses have created Facebook Business Pages, many do not realize that the page can be coded to have permanent graphics not only on the upper left had corner but right in the center. The graphics can match the look of your website and have a link to your site, or even include a coupon that the bride can download if she "likes: the page.

By addressing these items, and taking as many opportunities as you can to maximize your presence online, you can more effectively build traffic and convert that traffic to paying clientele. Understanding your options is the first step to making great change happen!

If you’d like help with any of the above options, Local Traffic Builder has affordable, accessible services with expert support and can help. Contact Brian at www.localtrafficbuilder.com for more information!

Disclaimer:  This is NOT a sponsored post.

Demand the Value of Your Traffic

There is always an uproar this time of year about industry “awards” that are issued by major advertising entities and lauded by individual pros on their websites, email signatures, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and blogs.

I have an opinion about these awards, and I’m entitled to it. You’re entitled to be proud of your award. I’m not going there, and I don’t hate you just because we disagree – difference of opinion and civil debate is good for a relationship. I’m cool with it and I love you anyway.

And that’s not what this post is about.

What it IS about is understanding YOUR value to the advertising agencies, asserting that value, knowing when you are being used and making a conscious decision to be okay with it or not. You are bright…my assertion is that you might not have thought about this in an empowering way before, so I’m giving you my take on advertising contracts, award and membership links, and what you’re not getting credit for.

(For the grammar mavens, yes, that’s a preposition at the end of the sentence. Poetic license. Cope.)

Why do you advertise?

This one is supposed to be stupid-simple my friends. You advertise to promote your business and gain paying customers. There are other benefits too, but the bottom line is: “I invest money in your website/publications/billboard/skywriting service/t-shirt wearing company” and in return I get paying clients.

You’re supplying the capital. The advertising entity is supplying the audience. The onus is on you to be successful and buy big, flashy ads. The onus is on the advertising company to reach the right people to tell about your product.

You exchange money for exposure to an audience.

When the tables are turned, then, and you supply an audience to the advertiser (who they then sell to other professionals, including your competitors, as their “circulation”, and promote as a reason to buy advertising) why don’t you charge them for it or expect something in return?

When they send you an award badge that says “I’m the Coolest Wedding DJ in the World”; and they encourage you to post it everywhere your hard-earned audience will see and click on it, and you generate traffic to a profile hosted on THEIR site, why don’t you send them a bill?

Is it because of the “I’m the Coolest” badge?

Really? 

Is a third-party company declaring you the coolest anything a reason to undervalue your exposure? Is the traffic that you’re sending to boost their stats worth the leads you lose when their site becomes overcrowded with your competitors?

By boosting their traffic, you’re giving them the marketing material to sell ad space to your competition.

So why aren’t you charging them for it?

Wedding pros are so quick to post anything shiny that anyone gives them hoping that it will persuade brides that they are the best. We simultaneously rally around “don’t undervalue your services” blog posts and speakers…and then we give away our online real estate and we don’t expect anything in return for our loyalty?

Is that good business?

The same is true of the badges that we post in exchange for “free listings”. We’re all about free. We use free testimonial gathering sites, pointing all of our traffic to them instead of to our own sites. We tolerate the fact that the site advertises our competitors on our shiny profiles because “you can’t expect more for a ‘free’ site” and then we send gobs of traffic via all of our links.

And then they use the traffic we send to sell more ad space to our competitors.

And we give them everything we need without demanding anything in return: “’Cause it’s free”.

Except it’s not free; your traffic going to someone else’s website is a commodity and something you invested in generating.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should monetize their websites and sell their traffic.

I am a huge proponent of sharing traffic, especially with other blogs. I not only write guest posts all year, but I accept them on all 4 of my blogs. I post badges to sites who I believe provide a service to brides, so I can build goodwill, make relationships, help grow other businesses and enjoy growth in return.

I make intentional choices about my traffic, its value and where I send it.

I am saying, though, that you need to have enough self-respect to say to your ad rep: “my traffic is worth a lot to you”. And if you know you send more traffic to their site than your competitors, why shouldn’t you ask for a discount on your advertising or better placement?

Or ask them to remove your competitors from your “free” site in exchange for the traffic you send them and the improved metrics you’re providing (from which they are profiting)?

I’m asking you to think before you post a button on your website.

• Are you gaining enough traffic that converts to paying business to sacrifice your valuable online real estate?
• Is your advertising conglomerate treating you with respect?
• Who benefits most from your “Coolest” badge – you or the ad company?
• Do you mind that the traffic you generate by posting their links and badges is then used as the selling point for your competitors to advertise too?
• Are you okay with generating the traffic for the site you are presumably paying to generate traffic for you?
• Does your paid advertisement yield real returns?

It’s possible that you’ve already thought about these questions, and have weighed the cost vs. the benefit. Maybe the answers all support continuing to pay for advertising and posting branded badges and links. That’s cool! I’m happy for you because you are investing your marketing and advertising dollars wisely and intentionally.

Or maybe you just never thought about it. Maybe you thought “brides will like the badge” or the award, or the fancy QR code, or the t-shirt or whatever the incentive is, but you never thought about what you were contributing to the equation. If you haven’t carefully considered the whole cost vs. the real benefit, though, you’re making uninformed decisions about your business. That, my friends, is bad business.

Please think about these things. Assign a value to your traffic just like you assign a value to your time and talents. Choose to advertise or choose not to - but make that choice based on careful consideration, not just the appeal of a shiny graphic.

And share your comments - I want to hear from you!

Shayna Walker, Life in Weddings

Life in Weddings in the New Year

Happy New Year fellow pros!!!

I like New Years. I will share that I haven’t felt all that hopeful going into January 1^st for the last 3 years. Not that I was all doom and gloom or anything. And there were things about which I was very optimistic…but hope has been in kind of short supply for awhile for this planner-blogger both professionally and personally.

Well that’s a-changin’!

I’m cracking down on fear and negativity in the new year, and am ready to kick some unholy *tail*!

Yes…I have had some caffeine this morning.

So, in order to keep this post from being an ebook of its own, I’m going to do a super-brief recap of 2010 successes and challenges, as well as a brief look forward. If you want to know more…well you’ll just have to keep coming back here to Life in Weddings or join me on Facebook and Twitter where my witticisms are rarely in short supply!

Looking Back to 2011

• Took this 3-month old blog from obscurity to…less obscurity! We’re not competing with Copyblogger yet or anything, but it’s nowhere near as unusual to get up to 150 views a day as it used to be! Baby steps to world domination.
• Launched the epic Bridal Show Tour. I’m going to have to change the description from 14-month, 50-state tour to a longer time period…it’s expensive and while I have a handful of AMAZING sponsors, until I find more, I’m funding this alone, so you’ll just have to extend your days of show-stopping with me!
• Visited 10 STATES on the tour. I have no intention of this taking 4 more years to complete so stick with me on this one. There is a lot of bridal show goodness to come, and I’m getting that book published in 2011! The Vermont recaps are next!
• Took part as a finalist in the Fairfield Challenge. I do know the results, however I am sworn to secrecy for the moment. That was some adventure, for sure.
• Contributed to tons of great blogs including OFD Consulting (where I reveled in “blowing up” Meghan’s analytics anytime I could) and the Wedding MBA Blog and even WedLock Magazine regularly.
• Attended Wedding MBA and both Illuminate workshops. I have every intention of showing up at more industry gatherings this year. I’ve literally built my schedule around The Diva’s (Linnyette Richardson-Hall) workshop and brunch schedule. When I find a job that will pay me to go expo to expo or tradeshow to tradeshow, I’m abandoning you all and living my dream life. Fair warning. ;)
• Made presentations to the Richmond Bridal Association, Hampton Roads Professional Organizers, The Peninsula Women’s Network and a networking group within the Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance.
• Published my first paid information product (an ebook titled Social by the New Year: Overcoming Fear of Social Media for Small Business) and my second, surprise hit “manifesto” “Why Do Wedding Planners Cost So Much” – which I encourage you to download (it’s FREE) and if you’re smart, share with at least one bride (if not every bride you come into contact with).
• And still managed to plan 14 weddings, assist with 4 others, manage 3 blogs, launch a 4^th, open a non-wedding consulting business helping other small businesses with early social media strategy, keep the twins fed, clothed and sheltered and not end up in an institution (yet…)!

So I’m taking 2011 Off – Kidding!

That was some lofty stuff! I achieved a lot of goals that I set (and shared) at the beginning of the year. I didn’t achieve others, but made progress towards them. And I made new ones along the way.

If you don’t take an annual inventory of your business (not just a financial one, but a deeper “where have I been, where am I now and where am I going” type inventory) I seriously encourage you to start. It’s hard to measure all the kinds of growth we go through without taking note of the benchmarks and planning for the future.

I am in the process of taking my inventory now, so I’m not ready to share my goals yet. But I do have a few things already on the burners for 2011…and I’d love you to send me some feedback if there are things you’d like me to do, places you’d like me to go (watch it!) or new goals you think I might want to pursue.

Some of What’s In Store for 2011:

• The Bridal Show Tour continues – for real. I am strategizing funding-wise, but this tour will continue and whether or not I achieve it on schedule, I’m hoping to get to the rest of the states this year. Some personal goals will help with that, so I’ll be focusing on them (one is my serious lack of transportation issue that hit me really hard at the end of the year). I have received 2 or 3 really wonderful invitations and I plan to give them priority if I can because, frankly, I like nice people.
• I have 7 weddings on tap as “planner Shayna”, which is okay for the start of a year, and pretty good considering the way I have focused my energy for the last year, and the fact that I did almost no marketing and no paid advertising other than my own guide. I expect to at least match last year’s numbers, and depending on how I divide my time (still being determined) I could even exceed that and get back to a more normal year’s 18 – 23 weddings. We’ll see though…more as I figure out exactly what 2011 will look like.
• Writing – I plan to do a lot more writing, both of the blog and paid variety. As part of the new business I am co-authoring and ghostwriting for blog owners in and outside of the wedding industry. I’m good at it and I enjoy it, so I expect writing to play a bigger role in 2011 than it has in the past. I also expect it to influence where I go with my business as a whole, so I’m defining some goals and boundaries for that now too.
• The Bridal Show Tour marketing book – a first edition will come out in 2011. Mark my words.
• Speaking Gigs – I have a bunch of these on tap. I have a couple of local ones in January already confirmed, and 3 or 4 in spring that are in the confirming stages. I will keep you up to date as I know where I’ll be and maybe you can stop in and say hi!
• Personal Fulfillment - If I’ve considered the last 3 years “recovery” (not from addiction, but from divorce, divorce-related financial ruin, weight issues (battle in progress), illness, and other kinds of yucky things).

I really am looking forward to considering 2011 a year of achievement. I want to slam the financial woe book shut, create some security for myself and my family, and (gasp) start considering myself a whole person again…with whatever might come with that.

The kids and I plan to take some long-overdue vacations. I plan to meet Mr. Wonderful (gotta plan for success…). I plan to do more of the things that I want to do and fewer of the ones I feel obliged to do both for work and at home. I plan to make people around me happier, and then enjoy their happiness with supreme selfishness and utter joy. I plan to ignore people who don’t fit into my plans.

I have surrounded myself with some of the greatest people I’ve ever met over the last year, and I am truly so excited about the next “things” that I can hardly wait to get the kids back in school (yippee!) and continue tearing down walls.

So that was epic – but that’s what I do. How about you? What kind of 2011 are you going to create? Where will you and I meet (both literally and figuratively) during our journeys? What can I write or do that will help you achieve mind-blowing success?

Share – in the comments, on Facebook, on Twitter…or send me an email even (Shayna{at}williamsburgweddingdesign{dot}com). And thanks for reading – without your eyes and hearts, I’d just be talking to myself a whole lot more than is truly socially acceptable. Love you for it.

Shayna, Life in Weddings

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Friends and wedding industry colleagues, I wish you the happiest and safest of Thanksgivings, and the brightest possible Engagement Season ever.

Thank you for all that you have done in support of Life in Weddings this year, and of me personally throughout the years. May I return that gratitude in the coming year a thousand-fold.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Guest Post on Integrity and the Wedding Business

I am so grateful to Dina Eisenberg of Positively Wed for the opportunity to guest post on her blog last week. Please head over to Shayna Walker Talks Integrity and if you like what you read, do me a favor and leave Dina a comment on her blog (you can comment here too if you like!).

You may not know it, but blog comments are not just a useful tool for networking, they are also an important gauge of a blog's dynamics and popularity. If you love your favorite blogger, be sure to post something thoughtful about what they've written!

Look for big news on Life in Weddings on Monday. This isn't hype, I promise - something very cool is happening. And look for the Bridal Show Tour to go all supercharged over the next three months. Think I can hit 12 states? That's the current goal!

Oh, and I'm off to Wedding MBA in just over a week. I'll be catching up with pals Wenda Evans, Linnyette Richardson-Hall and Fran Aycock, as well as spending some quality time with my fabulous friends from "the RVA" (that would be Richmond, to anyone outside of Virginia).

What exciting things are you up to this fall? I really do want to know, so go ahead, leave me a comment!