Bliss Blog’s Big Move!

blissweddings — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:00:26 +0000

Please visit our new blog here. All of our new content will be published in this new location. Bookmark it, change your google readers, make a reminder… do whatever it takes to make the change! Thank you!

New Design, New Outlook, New Bliss!

blissweddings — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:58:30 +0000

Well, after long nights and crazy mishaps, the new Bliss Weddings & Events site is finally up and running! I owe a HUGE “Thank You” to Alison Bates from Bates Photographic. She has come through in a big way and has literally been my superhero!

With this new design comes many other new things! A new logo, new specials, new packages, and a brand spankin’ new outlook on how Bliss will be run. This means so many great things to our clients, both current and potential! This is the best and most exciting time to be a member of the Bliss family. Thank you all for being patient while the website was down and for supporting us in the million ways that you all have. I am so excited about what is to come in the future. I can barely contain myself! If you want more information, please feel free to email me!

The next week will be a crazy one! I will be heading out to Grand Rapids tomorrow for a special visit with Aletha, of Pearls Events, and a few other special vendors. MWEP is growing by leaps and bounds, so I will be focusing a lot of my time on getting everything in order and planning our upcoming meet-up. The Pay It Forward giveaway has become a giant undertaking, but with the help of so many wonderful wedding and event companies, I know it will be a great success. Keep an eye out for our video all about how you can enter to win the wedding of your dreams. It is going to be BIG! I honestly couldn’t do this wthout Nicole Ladonne Photography, Jamie Honce Productions and Gina’s Bridal.

In the last few weeks, we have booked some really great couples for 2009 and 2010. I can’t wait for their big days and to post all of their beautiful details and pictures here on the Bliss Blog. They are seriously amazing! You will love it!

Now onto the blog, I know I haven’t posted much, but if you could see my Outlook Calendar, you would understand why! We are adding to our staff this week, so you can expect to see some new material very soon. We also moved our blog to a new location. So loyal readers, add it to your google reader, change your bookmark…. do whatever you need to do to see our newest posts and information. This is going to be a big move!

Bride’s Choice 2009!

blissweddings — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:28:13 +0000

I woke up to a wonderful surprise today, I was chosen as a “Bride’s Choice 2009″ winner through Wedding Wire. I know you have heard me talk about my love for Wedding Wire in the past, but I can’t say it enough. This website is great when you are searching for the perfect vendors to round out your Wedding Day Dream Team. If you are already married, make sure you leave soem reviews on your vendors’ Wedding Wire pages.

WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced that Bliss Weddings has won the 2009 Bride’s Choice Awards™!

In its inaugural year, the Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and honors vendors from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. This year’s recipients represent the top three percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which includes over 100,000 wedding vendors from across the US. That means Bliss Weddings is one of the very best Wedding Planners!

Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through surveys and reviews.

“We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community,” according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.”

Bliss Weddings would like to thank our past clients for speaking on our behalf and helping us win the 2009 Bride’s Choice Award!

Happy Anniversary! (and updates)

blissweddings — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:54:55 +0000

First of all, thank you all for being patient while we undergo our big redesign! We will back to normal posting as soon as things get settled. It should be very soon! (Hopefully!)

Secondly, I wanted to let you all know that today was our one year anniversary! I am such a lucky girl to have an amazing, supportive and loving husband. He really is outstanding. He puts up with my long hours, random meetings and all of the craziness and chaos that is my life. One year later and I still feel the same as I did on our wedding day. Just seeing the photos reminds of how special our wedding really was. I am filled with lots of warm fuzzies today! Big props to our fab photographer, Amanda Williams.

Oh, and if you haven’t yet, get some dinner at The Melting Pot! We went to the one in Ann Arbor, on Main Street, and it was fabulous! I HIGHLY recommend it. Romantic and delicious!

Pay It Forward: the giveaway!

blissweddings — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:33:23 +0000

We are working on running a special giveaway right now for one lucky & deserving couple. I am in the middle of building the project, but so far we have a photographer, stationers & DJ giving away their services on top of the wedding planning package I am personally giving away. We are looking for a venue, honeymoon, cake, and anything else we can find!

I would love to offer prizes for second and third place couples also. So if you want to offer up a free engagement session or free programs, discounts on services, gift certificates…. everything is welcome!

The other big surprise will be a Swag Bag filled with really cool items and gift certificates that the couple can use. I am thinking jewelry, makeup, gift certificates for a future photo session… again, we will take whatever you have to offer!

We will be choosing a couple based on their need. The wedding must take place between Dec ‘09 and March ’10 and be located in the Southeast Michigan area. Right now, we are thinking of having people enter by submitting a You Tube video explaining their lives and why they think they deserve this wedding. We are encouraging them to include family & friends and elements of their personal lives. I personally love the idea of asking the couples to “pay it forward” in their own way and record it in their submission video. We really want to get to know these couples as much as we can before we make the decision.

Our plan is to launch the giveaway on Valentine’s Day. We are hoping to get a local newspaper/TV station involved, also. Anything we can get for this giveaway would be great. If you are interested, or know anyone else who may be interested in participating, I would really appreciate it! Please email me for more details and information. Amanda@yourblissweddings.com

If you have ideas or offers, please let me know! I would love to open this up to as many companies as I can. Everyone involved will be included in our digital flyer and possibly newspaper/TV ads. I look forward to hearing from you!

Update: Bliss Weddings Site is down!

blissweddings — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:36:14 +0000

Just wanted to let you all know that our website is down until the end of the month. We are working very hard on our redesign and promise to have it all finished as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience! If you would like more info on our package and service options, please email amanda{at}yourblissweddings.com. We even have a few special offers for those of you who email before the redesign is complete!

Eventology 2009: Mark Your Calendars!

blissweddings — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:50:32 +0000

(Taken directly from the Eventology 2009 Blog)

Are you ready to take your wedding business to the next level?
Are you looking for ways to leverage your brand and increase your company’s reach?
Do you want your business to thrive regardless of the economy?

I am proud to present Eventology 2009, an intimate, collaborative and intensive business conference designed especially for wedding professionals. Eventology 2009 will bring you real-life, applicable marketing and business information to use to enhance your wedding planning business.

Three highly successful and renowned wedding planners will be discussing their insight and perspective on how to create and cultivate a prosperous wedding business. Chat with Saundra Hadley of planning forever events on How to Close the Deal: Sales Methods for the Wedding Industry. Discuss how to Turn Brides into Fans: Nurturing Your Relationships with Clients with Terrica Skaggs of Fabuluxe, Inc. and iWed: International Network of Wedding Designers. Lastly, learn how to Leverage Your Brand to Reach Today’s Bride: Marketing in a Post-Modern World with Liene Stevens of Blue Orchid Designs and The Smart Planner.

You do not want to miss this educational and networking workshop! Learn the science behind running a successful wedding business, as the reality is if you’re not running a profitable business, it’s just one big expensive hobby.

When: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 to Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Where: Indianapolis, Indiana at the Omni Severin Hotel

Cost: Early Bird registration is $150 and includes networking event on Tuesday night and breakfast and lunch on Wednesday. A select amount of rooms will be available at the Omni for the special Eventology rate of $115+tax per night. Space is limited for this conference.

Please sure to look for future announcements regarding the official launch of the Eventology 2009 website http://www.eventology2009.com/ and blog http://www.eventology2009.blogspot.com/. To be included on the email list for Eventology 2009, please send an email to hello{at}eventology2009{dot}com with Mailing List in the subject line.

A very special thanks to Tifany of Gourmet Invitations for the logo design!

New Personal Blog

blissweddings — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:36:33 +0000

I am pleased to announce that things have gone personal! I started my very own personal blog to give you all a little sneak peek into my everyday life. Feel free to visit it and leave me a comment! I started my very own 101 in 1,001 list, so be sure to keep me in check!

Best & Worst of 2008!

blissweddings — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:59:45 +0000

2008 was a fabulous year here at Bliss Weddings! We had so many wonderful clients, fantastic happenings and even a few minor snafus. To top of the list, I brought in the New Year in January by marrying my sweetheart! It was an amazing day, shared with family and friends. In February, we started our busy wedding season with lots of paperwork and preparation. March and April didn’t hold back either. I took over as the owner and lead event manager of Bliss Weddings and made some really great changes, including our fun filled blog. The summer months were filled to the brim with the most unbelievable weddings and clients and the fall kept the momentum moving with events every weekend. To keep warm in the winter months, we surrounded ourselves with even more fantastic family, friends and functions. We even met some brand new members of the Bliss Weddings clan and welcomed fresh new faces to the staff as well as some great new clients for 2009. I even started a few new projects!

I couldn’t have made it through this year without the support of some of the area’s best vendors and venues, our close friends, ridiculously adorable clients, smiling staff and more love and romance than I could ever have imagined!

We had weddings that went smoothly and weddings that were a little more trying. Fun first dances, tears of joy and tears of sadness, memories of loved ones who had passed, glances of adoration and tons of intimate details rounded out some of my favorite moments of 2008. We also had tomato sauce on dresses, missing ring bearer pillows, crazy photographers, late limos, shattered cake toppers and I can’t even count the number of broken shoes. With each year, we are given the opportunity to share in a couple’s special day. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is a ton of work, but I personally left each event with a smile on my face and feeling completely content. You never know what you are going to get with a wedding, but I know that being surrounded by so much love, it is impossible to forget why I am there. I think the same goes for each passing year. We may have a few uphill battles, but the greatest part of it all is not knowing what will happen next.

I want to take this time to wish you all a very safe, prosperous and happy New Year and may 2009 bring you all you could ever wish for and more! Thank you all for being such a big part of my life. I am really looking forward to seeing what the coming years bring for me and for Bliss Weddings!

XOXO- Amanda

Purple is the new black!

blissweddings — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:30:28 +0000

I know that nothing can really replace the elegance and the sophistcation of the color black, but I have had more requests for purple inspired events than any other color for 2009. Below are two brand new baords, inspired by two of our very own readers. I hope you enjoy them!

Photo Credits: http://www.exquiss.co.uk/images/purplecourt.jpg; http://www.mypersonalartist.com/autumn_fall_wedding_invitations/fall_invitations.jpg; http://photos.weddingbycolor.com/p/000/004/972/m/20498/p/thumbnail/59923.jpg; http://www.flowerpowernetwork.com/newsletter/data/images/115543bouquet_purple_red_2.jpg; http://wedding-trends.blogspot.com/2007/03/wedding-bouquets-mango-and-plum-calla.html; http://ellarissa.blogspot.com/2008/01/purple-eggplant-or-gold.html; http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r157/weezermonkeyrules/Wedding/Labeled062.jpg

PhotoCredits 2: http://i1.iofferphoto.com/img/item/664/898/46/SQa6FY7pHSzdkW6.jpg; http://soleshebang.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chinese-laundry-dazzling-plum.jpg; http://www.modcloth.com/store/images/060408_06_L.jpg; http://www.beourguest.cceasy.com/pics/EasiestWeddingPics/Dealer/TGN51PWlr.gif; http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.banquetevent.com/wedding/misc/bande/uploaded_images/buckle_bouquet-781928.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.banquetevent.com/wedding/misc/bande/labels/Trends.html&usg=__Z6p21G6epM8kJpIXjsnEVYl-2=RhudQCiAi5CvKNHZDHTbeQ&tbnid=Dz5dkyacAmJ3UM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=133&ei=gVdeSb4vi-o0-L_wvwk&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dplum%2Btulip%2Bbouquet%26start%3D40%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN; http://www.weddingstylemagazine.com/;