Wedding Ceremony Music

I was just "surfing" on Twitter and came upon pianists who are local to my state (Minnesota) but make fantastically popular piano music, including wedding music!

I played piano for 18 years and lucked out having an amazing pianist at our church who invented an impromptu Bridal March for me and played a ragtime piece for our walk down the aisle together after the ceremony. Ragtime - never would have thought of it but it was fantastic.

Great piano music here and if you buy anything through this link, you're also supporting our efforts at The First Dance to support and strengthen new marriages. Help your wedding (or nerves - they have really relaxing music for sale on MP3 download or CD's).

In fact this makes me want to email the piano brothers! I'll blog about it if I do land an interview with them! :)

Where to store wedding cards?

If you haven't joined Twitter you should. I met a fantastically creative woman named Marni on there and she's graciously answered some cool questions for us on what to do with your wedding cards.

I was really surprised how many cards I got at my engagement and then the flood that come by themselves (often with money, weee!) and always with a gift. Some of them of course just have a name, but some have great notes in them.

The nice thing about wedding cards is even if they're in a big plastic tote (ahem...) there is still time to sort through the ones you'd want to store in a more creative way. I'm all about making and keeping memories alive. I'm also into living in a beautiful space with art around. You can combine the two with a creative card box!

Happy card sorting!

The cost of doing business

I was just reading a wedding planner blog and found this fantastic paragraph that I want to highlight. The reason this caught my eye is:

1 - you can put yourself in the shoes of a wedding planner and see how many "HOURS" are put into the simple, 'day of coordination'

2 - you can see how their fee, worked backwards, pays them almost nothing

3 - you can then see why low fees mean you get low paid vendors, which means... you either get someone without a lot of experience (which is fine if you are aware of that), or someone who isn't really math saavy who may be overcommiting and going to get burned out real fast when they realize they aren't making enough money to survive and be passionate about what they do!

$8-9/hour, depending on where you live, is most likely going to be unskilled labor. Fast food, retail, someone who files papers.

If you want to get someone with tremendous experience at complex events like weddings you are going to have to pay well, with the idea that you are going to get a lot more for your money.

The paragraph is taken from this wedding planning blog.

Charge what you are worth. Take time to figure out how much money you want to make per hour then multiply it times 3. That is a very rough estimate of what your clients need to pay you. You will pay almost 30% for taxes alone plus all your business expenses before you can pay yourself. For example, if you charge $500 for wedding day coordination that includes the final walk-through, rehearsal and 10 hours on the wedding day plus a few meetings with your bride, creating time lines and confirming vendors, you end up with around $25 or so per hour before taxes/expenses. Take your taxes and business expenses from that and you make about $8-$9 hour. AND that does not include paying an assistant. Isn't all your hard work worth more than that? I sure hope so, even as a novice.

Amazing relationship technique

This is a technique used by many marriage counselors and by folks who have what I call a "high emotional intelligence." Many of us use this technique in a work setting without realizing it and without translating the skill to our personal life.

It goes like this:

Bride: "YOU DIDN'T CALL THE LIMO COMPANY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? We're a MONTH away from the wedding and I asked you to do this 11 MONTHS AGO?"

Let's process the reaction they're going to get. The groom is going to be extremely defensive, right? He's also likely to be pissed that he's getting yelled at. However he responses with those emotions varies from guy to guy. Some guys are going to just walk out the door. Some guys will get defensive, attack the bride back, or try to ignore the tension completely. She's going to take her current state of emotions and they'll jump 100x more forceful in response to his reaction.


Now let's think through our brides emotions, and simply shift our word choice, and our tone. Instead of freaking out about HIM and what HE DIDN'T DO, let's focus on the only thing she can honestly talk about: her feelings.

What is she feeling? Probably scared there will be no limos left for her wedding day. Vulnerable to the fact that she can't control everything. Frustrated and feeling distrustful that when her groom agreed to do something, he didn't. That leads to feeling helpless. If he can't even do something he agreed to, then she's really got to take over and that makes her feel sad and powerless.

Notice all those are about HER, not him? So let's change the conversation around.

"We don't have a limo? Oh my gosh. That makes me so scared there won't be any left. I'm feeling so helpless right now that I get a promise from you and it didn't happen. I need to you know that I'm SERIOUSLY FREAKING OUT NOW and feeling let down that you promised and didn't follow through."

Then STOP. That is the magic. Express yourself. Then STOP. Wait for his response. Don't keep the verbal diarhea going.

Now he's going to respond to your VULNERABILITY. He's going to hear you're scared, you're feeling let down, you're feeling helpess. This gives him an opening to express his vulnerability. He probably feels like a total jerk. He probably feels like a loser for forgetting or procrastinating. He might also be extremely frustrated that he had no idea limos book up and that he was supposed to do this months ago. And he might also now feel COMPLETELY HELPLESS on what to do and how to manage your emotions, plus his.

Once you hear his side, you've all put your eggs on the table and can work together, as a team, to figure out where to put your emotions and how to get the limo fixed. And hopefully in the process you've realized by never attacking, even if it's extremely tempting, you are guarenteed to get better results.

If you have tried this, or find you have the same fights over and over, reward yourself with some premarital counseling (or marriage therapy). We have fantastic counselors all over the nation that love to help strenthen the bond between two commited individuals. We also have books and an online inventory to help you two lay out your strengths and areas of growth opportunity. See our premarital counseling page.

The Last Name Change Dilemma

I have been mulling over, and finally wrote about the name change issue brides face. It's a "hot topic" because you can't say anything without offending someone. But underneath the various reasons people do, or don't, change their name, is the recognition that it isn't easy. Whether you chose to keep your own name and your inlaws refuse to acknowledge it, writing to you as "Mrs. Aaron Smith" instead of Jennifer Petra, or your feminist girlfriends are horrified that you've been taken over by a man, if you chose to change your last name, rarely do we find someone who isn't surprised at our decision.

What we at The First Dance care deeply about is the conversations that take place, first between bride and groom. Mutually listening to each persons vantagepoint, coming to a solid decision, both agreeing on that decision, and then holding firm, defending the choice against people who might have negative opinions. In the situation above, the groom, if he knows his parents are going to be wigged out by his bride not changing her name, must have a sit down conversation with his parents and get them to understand this is their decision as a couple and whether they like it or not, this is the way it is. It is not fair for a bride to have to navigate conflictual waters with her in-laws. Nor is it fair for her to be offended every time they address her with a wrong last name only to have her groom shrug and say, "why are you making such a big deal of it?" It is a big deal and he's got to take action.

As you'll read in the article, I felt strongly about changing my last name, but I also loved my maiden name. I know few friends who haven't had the emotiona struggles, even if they were as confident as I was in what I was going to do.

Wedding DJ Ideas and Wisdom

In our new routine of seeking out professionals in every aspect of wedding planning, we have a fabulous Q&A with an LA DJ company. I laughed out loud, I gasped at some stories, and all around I am much more informed, even though I've already gotten married and didn't think I could really learn THAT much more.

Take a look at the wedding DJ wisdom. Share any stories you have or just share that web page with your fellow engaged friends!