The guests need to eat. Buffet or plated dinner? Decisions, decisions....

One of the many decisions couples have to face is.........buffet or seated dinner?  Sheesh.  This is a polarizing issue.  Some people are absolutely opposed to having to get up and get their food, and others want more choices and control over how much they get to eat.   Things get interesting when there is one of each in the marrying couple!  One of our last weddings, the bride hated buffets and the groom hated the limitations on plated dinners.

Years ago, the decision was usually a financial one.  Nine times out of ten the buffet was less expensive than the plated service.  Brides and grooms were able to have more guests and feed them all while still staying in their budget.  However, with the amazing buffets and action stations that many couple are opting to make a part of their wedding, often the costs are comparable.

So, what are the factors to consider when making this decision?  It is a big one to be sure.  

Buffet Pros:

1.  Amazing variety of foods and choices.  Gone are the days of plain chicken, grayish brown mystery meat with mystery sauce, and green beans in water.  Today, buffets can be creative, trendy, and fantastic.  Of course, carving stations are always a hit (at least with all the meat eaters).  However, now you can have action stations, where chefs create anything from hand rolled sushi to stir fry to customized pasta.  

2.  It is All You Can Eat!   Your guests can eat as much or as little as they like.  No one will be left wanting more.  If someone is in love with your gratin potatoes, they can sneak more without the embarrassment of asking the server for another plate of potatoes!

3.  More guests in less space.  On a practical note, the dinner tables can be slightly closer together than with a plated service.  If space is a concern, or you want a longer guest list, this can be a consideration.

4.  Your guests will get up, move, and mingle.  Your guests will see more of the other guests, more of the room, and more of you decor and personal touches.  Sometimes, when you have plated service, some guests "take root" in their seats and settle in for the evening.

Buffet Cons:

1.  The long, long, long line.  Please try to avoid this at all costs!  Have the DJ or the band announce tables to go up one at a time for crowd control.  Keep the line so that there is never more than three to five people before your guests reach the plates.

2.  Cold food, or food that runs out.  Make sure as you work with your wedding planner that the caterer is excellent at managing the temperatures (both hot and cold) and amounts needed to keep everyone happy.

3.  Carrying it all - plate, glass, napkin, flatware.  Consider your guests - make sure that getting their food is an easy, relatively effortless endeavor.  Just the plate, thank you.

4.  Mystery foods.  For both your picky eaters AND your foodie friends, make sure that your foods are labeled, or that your program has a detailed menu for them to peruse.

Plated Service Pros:

1.  There is a natural sophistication and elegance to plated service. Your guests feel as if they are being taken care of, and being served.  

2.  Better time management and crowd control.  It is easier to do toasts during dinner after everyone has been served (and are hopefully nibbling happily).  This is tougher with a buffet because people are focused on getting their food.  This can allow for more dancing after dinner!

3.  The Bride and Groom will actually eat!  So often at weddings, the bride and groom do not really eat dinner.  Having a plated service gives the bride a groom a chance to catch their breath and actually eat at their own wedding!

4.  You can express yourself!  You can choose both of your favorite dishes, and make it a part of personalizing your wedding reception.

Plated Service Cons:

1.  More expensive.  Even thought this is a smaller margin than before, the plated service usually still costs a little more than the buffet due to the need for more wait staff.  

2.  Still may not be perfect!  By the time it is served, the food may be cold.  Or vegetarians may accidentally be served meat.   Or, if you have children at your wedding, they may turn up their noses at the beautiful presented masterpiece.

3.  The guests just get what they get.  Their choices are usually more limited.  (I know of one wedding where the guests had nine main entree choices for the plated service!)

4.  Another item to track.  If you are having the guests send in their preference with their RSVP, make sure that your wedding coordinator has simplified how you will track who is eating what and sitting where!

A few more thoughts - if there are children at the wedding, it is easier for the parents to just make a plate from the buffet of food they know their kids will eat.  however, some of your other guests may get nervous about kids being near the food being served!  (Sometimes, it seems like a no win situation!)  Buffets do allow your guests to make their food the way they like it - sauce/no sauce, more veg/no veg, shrimp feast/no seafood.  Plated service adds a touch of elegance to a wedding that is undeniable, and makes crowd control a little bit easier.

One last note about buffets - please still have drink service at the table, and please still set the tables beautifully.  No wedding guest should risk spilling food and drink all over themselves and/or someone else trying to wrangle everything at once to their seat!

Ultimately, working with your wedding planner to make sure that they know what is important to you in terms of food experience, ambiance, spacing, and options is critical.  Then, having a masterful catering company to execute your dreams is crucial.  The reality is that both can be amazing, and both can be horrible.  As for the divided couple that had opposing views?  They ultimately had a fantastic buffet, with a carving station, and gourmet choices with an excellent caterer to pull it off with style!

What do you think is better?  And for those of you that are already married, which did you choose?

Kids at the wedding? Or no kids at the wedding?

Romantic visions of girls with charming dresses with bows and sashes being chased across a lush green lawn by tuxedoed boys, bow ties askew, with gorgeous grown ups looking on holding champagne flutes and knowing grins on their faces.....that is the dream of kids at your wedding.  And this moment might happen.  Other moments might happen too - a child crying right during the exchange of vows, and no one beyond the first two rows can here you.  Toddlers and young children taking over the dance floor.  Temper tantrums.  Tipsy teens (inadvertently, of course).  Sugar crazies followed by sleeping sugar slumps. And, this is tough to say but true, spotlight stealers.  

Absolutely, your own children and your fiance's children should be there and when it is right for the kids, be a part of the proceedings.  But how do you decide on other people bringing their children?  If you do decide to have "No Kids", at what age are they able to come?  How do you address this in invitations and addressing of invitations?  And, worst of all, how do you handle it if you are having a "No Kids" wedding and someone shows up with their kids?  Argh.  

First of all, let me assure you that this is a choice that you and your fiance can make confidently and based on your desires entirely.  Do not allow anyone else to pressure you one way or the other.  The two of you need to decide privately, and then stand behind your decision.  In all likelihood, you will be spending somewhere between $25,000 to $40,000 (if not more) on this ceremonial life changing event.  You get to decide, and either decision is fine.  Your 6 year old nephew will have no lasting impact on his life one way or the other if he attends your wedding or not.  And the new parents that just cannot imagine leaving Junior or Junette with a sitter at just 9 months old - they will either get a sitter and thank you later, or they can stay home and you and your love will still get married and have an awesome time.

Second, if you dream of being surrounded by lovely children like an Estee Lauder perfume advertisement, you can do that too!!  You run the risk of having people get upset that children are there.  Too bad!  This is one issue where, as mentioned above, you and your fiance decide to suit yourselves.  So, your Uncle Herbert might leave the reception early because of all the young hooligans, or you may hear chatter that the kids are interfering with the dancing.  Oh well.  If you have the feeling and photos and ambiance you want, then that is all that matters.

So, here are some thoughts to consider while making the decision:

1.  Wedding days are long - even for adults.  

2.  The time of day and your venue may help make the decision.  An outdoor daytime wedding will handle the presence of children with less impact on other guests than a formal evening with dinner and dancing in a banquet hall. 

3.  Guests want to hear the vows and the ceremony (usually!).  Babies and children can interfere with this in a significant way.  Work with your wedding coordinator to have a separate room or area with a video feed so that parents that need to leave with a crying child can still watch the proceedings without ruining it for other guests.  Let your guests know that you have set up this special lounge for them.  

4.  If you are having your wedding at a hotel or a banquet facility, arrange a daycare room, and provide a Red Cross Certified babysitter for your guests to use as needed.  This can be a godsend for the parents of babies and toddlers, especially if they are traveling from out of town and have to bring their kids with them on the trip.

5.  If you are not having children at the wedding, include information regarding babysitting services in your area to your out of town guests.  Many hotels have recommended and approved sitters that will come right to the hotel.  Or www.care.com and www.sittercity.com have built good reputations for having skilled and reliable sitter services.

There really isn't a right or wrong answer regarding this issue.  Make your own choice.  Remember, as W. C. Fields said, "Never work with children or animals".  However, I believe he did both!

Let me know if you have any questions, or additional ideas on this issue!

Wedding Pitfalls to Avoid

Everyone has such high hopes for a perfect day at their wedding.  However, guests are sometimes left scratching their heads in wonderment at planning pitfalls that make it less than wonderful for them!  Of course, everyone wants the bride and groom to have the day of their dreams, but guests want to have fun too! Oh, you are planning your wedding, and just want it to be perfect.  The perfect time, the perfect place, and perfect experience for your guests.  Here are some common pitfalls in wedding planning that may look good on paper - that usually do not translate well for the attendees of your wedding: 1.  A long gap between the ceremony and the cocktail hour or reception.  This might be convenient for the wedding party, as it gives them time to take photographs, catch their breath now that the "main event" is over, and it is sometimes created in order to meet religious requirements for the time of the wedding and the type of reception desired.  It is hard to match up Roman Catholic Nuptial Masses (usually before noon on Saturdays) and a dance party reception long into the night!  As participants in the wedding, the bride and groom, ushers and bridesmaids, and family really will not plan on doing anything else on the wedding day.  however, most local guests have their regular life going on.  It can be difficult to attend the ceremony and then wait for hours to go to the reception.  Try to avoid this if at all possible. 2.  A long distance between the ceremony location and the reception.  (Especially for Los Angeles weddings!!)  You may have your heart set on the church near the home where you grew up, and the Country Club 50 miles away.  This creates stress for nearly all of your guests!  They will do it because they love you, but believe me, they will be grumbling about it to each other!  If you are in a metropolitan area, such as Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles, or New York, this can create a logistical headache with real consequences.  Traffic can tie up guests and cause events to start late, out of town guests can get lost, (sometimes very lost - we had a guest go east when she should have gone west from LAX and she ended up an hour and a half away.  She says Pasadena is lovely!!), and people may leave your event early to get home at a decent hour.  The out of town guests will debate about where to stay - near the ceremony or reception.  You may lose out on the opportunity for visiting with out-of-towners due to running the roads.  Give this serious consideration! 3.  Not enough space during the cocktail hour.  Some brides and grooms, when wedding planning, give short shrift to the cocktail hour.  DON'T!!  Guests love the cocktail hour!  It loosens them up and gets them ready to party and have a good time.  Many times, it seems that venues will try to squish people into a hallway, or a space that is too small without enough seats or tables for people to set down their drinks.  Your guests have gone out of their way to come to your big day - let them relax in comfort after the ceremony! 4.  Long Lines at Cocktail Hour.  We work with our caterers to ensure that there will always be either a signature cocktail, red wine, white wine, and/or champagne passed on trays as guests enter the cocktail hour area.  If someone wants beer or a different drink, they will wait in line at the bar.  This one strategy alleviates so much congestion and makes so many people smile!  Sodas and non alcoholic drinks will be on a table ready to grab and go as well.  Don't make them wait! 5.  Not enough or too much food at the cocktail hour.  Think hors d'oeuvres at the cocktail hour, and make sure that your caterer knows how to gauge for an adequate amount of food for your head count!  By the same token, there has been a trend lately to have food which is more like a dinner at the cocktail hour.  Some guests eat so much then that they are not hungry for your main event!  No one needs two dinners!!  (And the ones that want two dinners will eat so many hors d'oeuvres, you don't need to worry about them!) 6.  Too many speeches at the reception.  We understand that most of the people at your wedding have known you and loved you for a long time, and they want to share their fondest memories of you and wish you well.  Please realize that the amusing family anecdotes which warm your heart can be a giant snooze fest to your guests!  Even other relatives!  I guarantee that someone in your family will roll their eyes and say, "Oh no, Uncle Herbert has the microphone" under their breath at some point.  Work with your wedding coordinator to prevent the talkers from taking over the show.  We have several creative ways to let the talkers talk without putting half of your crowd to sleep.  (On a side note:  sometimes the bride or groom may not want the story shared with the group to begin with....) 7.  An Outdoor Wedding without a Backup Plan.  Trust me - this is best for you too!  If you are planning an outdoor wedding - anywhere - please have a secondary plan in case of inclement weather!  This is one of the many instances where having a wedding planner at your side is invaluable.  Make sure that the Backup Plan will accommodate as many guests as you expect.  There are few things worse when going to a wedding to have bad weather, then no place to sit whilst being crammed against others in a hot room with wet shoes.  Review the wedding insurance options with your wedding planner.  There are many options that can be in place, ready to execute at a moment's notice.  Remember that tents cannot usually be put up in the rain!  Stay one step ahead of the game. There are more pitfalls to avoid, but these are some of the most annoying.  While working with your wedding planner, every once in a while, put yourself in your guests shoes.  See how they fit!

Encore Brides. Really?

Really?  The phrase for people getting married that have been married before is now an "encore bride and groom"  or an "encore wedding".  I am not so sure this is an accurate use of the word encore.  Are they suggesting that someone who has been married and (for the most part) are now divorced are being requested by the audience to get married again because they did such a great job on the first one?  Surely, (and yes - this writer is an "encore bride") that is not the case in my life! And doesn't an encore suggest that the same characters who performed that evening would come out again to perform again?  Wouldn't "encore" be a more appropriate word to use to describe a vow renewal?  Then, at least, the same cast of characters would be involved. Regardless of the accuracy of the term, there are an awful lot of encore weddings going on.  And many people have strong ideas about how they should be.  Should the bride wear a full, white gown?  Should there be bridesmaids and ushers?  What elements of a first wedding are now deemed wrong for the second?  Or the third?  Or, if you are going Elizabeth Taylor style - the seventh? This is a mystery to me.  If two people are in love, and they want to celebrate their union and new life with a wedding, why should they diminish the event just because they married the wrong person (and yes, they may have been the wrong person for the other as well) in the past?  In many ways, I almost feel that the second, or third, or seventh wedding should be grander than the first!  You are boldly proclaiming that you believe in the institution of marriage and the ritual of a wedding in spite of any previous experiences!   Of course, some people may say that I feel this way because I plan weddings, and that I just want people to spend more money on their next wedding.  This is not quite true.  When I looked at my third husband, and we were planning our wedding, I told him that I love him more than I have loved anyone else in my lifetime.  I did not want to dilute our wedding plans, or wear less of a bridal gown, or have fewer flowers than I did at my first wedding. I am more excited and confident entering into this relationship, and wanted to show our friends and family this feeling through our celebration. Some of my clients that are encore brides do want a smaller, or more subdued wedding because they realized that all of the extravagance was not really their style, or it did not make they day or the marriage more successful.  That is fine too! The beauty of it all is we live in a time when you can plan the wedding of your dreams, the day you desire, whether you have been married before or not.  Just let yourself create a memory for you and your groom that suits your style.

Which venue should I use for my beach front Santa Monica Wedding?

Where should I have my Santa Monica wedding?

One of the last weddings that we planned was at the beautiful Annenberg Community Beach House in the Marion Davies Guest House and Courtyard.  http://www.annenbergbeachhouse.com/plan-your-event/celebrations-and-weddings.aspx?s_kwcid=TC-1025855-8859924092-bb-813764189

The venue for a Santa Monica wedding was perfection.  The Marion Davies Guest House is a historic charmer overlooking the beach and the ocean.  The bride and her party get ready in a private room upstairs with an ocean view balcony and windows to spy on the pre-wedding activities.  The wedding ceremony takes place at the edge of the beach in a sunken courtyard.  This is ideal – you have the feel, the scents, and the sights of the beach and the ocean without the sand in your shoes and wobbly chairs. 

The cocktail hour is held inside the guest house as the courtyard is transformed into the dinner and reception area.  There is a “bar room” as well as a great room with a fireplace for your guests to lounge about drinking and noshing on hors d'oeuvres. 

The reception area can accommodate buffet style or sit down dinners, and the Annenberg Community Beach House has a list of preferred caterers for you to select.  Back to the Beach Catering did a fantastic buffet for this Santa Monica wedding! 

When you book this facility, they assign and “Event Coordinator” for your party.  This may sound like you are getting a wedding planner or wedding coordinator for your special day; however, your Annenberg Event Coordinator is mainly your contact person for the facility and all of the insurance, parking, and security aspects of using this venue.  They are a great resource and do a wonderful job, and work very well with your wedding coordinator to produce a phenomenal wedding or event!

As soon as we have clearance from the photographer to publish photos from the wedding, we will post them.  For now, to get a closer view of the facility, check out the website by clicking on the link above.

At An Amazing Affair, the Annenberg Community Beach House is one of our preferred venues for any type of celebration, and we would be more than happy to guide you through the intricacies of booking your Santa Monica wedding or celebration there!

Contact us and we will be happy to give you a guided tour of the facilities and options! 

Top Ten Reasons to hire a Wedding Coordinator

Here are our Top Ten Reasons why you should hire a wedding coordinator soon after your engagement!

1.  TIME

      Planning, shopping, comparing, deciding, tasting, reviewing, negotiating, creating, listing, writing, calling, driving, finding, reference checking, inviting, placating.....it all takes an enormous amount of time.  If you and your fiancé both work, the challenges of the time organizing a wedding can be daunting.  Whether it is a large or small wedding, many of the tasks involved take the same amount of time to complete.

2.  MONEY

    Weddings - especially in the Los Angeles area - are expensive.  Many brides and grooms have to eliminate whole elements of their dream wedding because they cannot afford to "have it all".  At An Amazing Affair, we have relationships with local talent and vendors for your wedding at the BEST price.  This allows you to have the wedding you desire without sacrificing what you want.   Many of our clients make up the difference in hiring us in their flower bill alone.

3.  SANITY

    We all have our family and friends to rely on during the entire wedding process.  However, there are times when it is wonderful to have an unbiased third party confidant to help with tough decisions, offer honest advice, and to be a liaison if tensions arise among the wedding party or families.

4.  DREAMS TO REALITY
     Do you have visions of fairy lights suspended over on open courtyard?  Personalized Photos for place card holders? Transforming a "banquet hall" into a magnificent woodland grotto?  AND - do you want it to look lush and beautiful rather than like a prom hall from the '80's?  We sit with brides and grooms and actually make sketches of their visions.  We then work with our talented production and lighting specialists to turn your vision into reality.

5.  ALL THE EXTRAS

    Did you want an Engagement Party, but never got around to pulling it off in time?  Did you think about writing a special letter to each bridesmaid to give her at the rehearsal dinner but forgot?  At An Amazing Affair, in addition to all of the "regular" wedding coordination services, we have thought of the sentimental extras that add depth and emotion to your engagement and wedding.  

6.  MESSAGE DELIVERY

    With our full services, we offer a 30 minute phone consultation with the Maid of Honor and the Best Man.  During this consultation, we let them know the responsibilities of the position, as well as delivering any requests and wishes regarding Bachelor and Bachelorette parties.  

7.  DO-IT-YOURSELF or LET-US-DO-IT-ALL

    At An Amazing Affair, we work with DIY brides and grooms as well as clients who wouldn't know a glue gun from a Bedazzler!  It is a misconception that DIY brides do not need a coordinator! 

8.  ENJOY THE WEDDING - ONE AND ALL!

     While your friends and family may offer to help with the day of the wedding, why not let everyone have the day off and just enjoy the moments, enjoy the time with you, relax into the ceremony and reception.  Let An Amazing Affair do the heavy lifting.

9.  DECISIONS

     Theme or no theme?  Kids or no kids?  Large party or small?  Buffet or family style or sit down dinner?  Open bar?  Wording on the invitations?  Daytime or evening?  Religious or secular?  DJ or band?  Champagne toast?  Favors or a candy bar?  Photo booth?  Lighting specialist?  Fascinator or veil?  We will give you the information you need to make the right decision for you and your family.

10.  PERSONALIZATION

    Yes, personalization.  Believe it or not, oftentimes more of your personality and your fiancé’s personality will shine through the rehearsal, ceremony, cocktail hour and reception when you turn over the planning to us.  Make the day your own......let us help.

 www.anamazingaffair.com