Wedding Gown... #2

My wedding gown is finished! SUPER EXCITED! The manufacturer sent me photos of my gown last night. Can't wait to get it! Stay tuned!

Online Free Stuff and Discount

I've been finding all these great stuff online. Some even for free! So I wanted to post and share with all of you.

La Vie en Rose V.I.P Event - 50% off May 3, 4 & 5, 2007














Clinique Happy Perfume Spray Purse Size - FREE









Travel w/ Coach Canada Montreal-Toronto-Montreal - $10!
Not sure what the terms and conditions are though, but if you travel back and forth Montreal/Toronto a lot, it's worth checking out the link "Seats from $10"








Photo Calendar - FREE







Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks - $14.99
Although I made the guy give this to me for free when I purchased my laptop a year ago, it was retailing for $79.99.

New Wedding Links Added

**1**
I found another great website for tips and ideas for the big wedding day and the days leading up to it. Getmarried.com has some great videos and articles to help the bride and grooms in their planning. They also have a new TV show that airs on WE TV at 9:30am ET/PT on Sundays. You can watch the first episode on their website to find out more about the hottest wedding gown trends from some of the world's top designers, celebrity photographer gives tips on wedding photography, Brian Littrell (Backstreet Boy!) talks about his wedding day and much more.

**2**
Many groom's involvement in his own wedding stops once he proposes. Here are 10 tips for the groom to make sure his role doesn't just end at the proposal.

**3**
And here are top 5 trends for bridesmaids.

**4**
For those of you looking outside of MCAC for professional help on any part of your wedding day, here's a list of Montreal vendors (link expires Jan 2008) that might be useful in your search. Bellus is under the Miscellaneous section. These are all vendors who participated in Montreal's annual biggest Wedding Show.

How's Your Business Coming Along?

People ask how my business is going and why they haven't seen me around lately.

I have been super busy trying to get my business started. Sometimes I just think I am crazy trying to run three businesses at the same time. There's Bellus to take care of and trying to get kick'n with CLP Invitations. I haven't done any advertisement for that yet, although it seemed like I've started since forever. But I was actually only working on the website since a few months ago, and it's still not done! I guess I'm trying to put too much on the website. I want to simplify it. And now that I am a certified Wedding Planner, I am trying to think of a name for that, I would like to keep it separate from CLP Invitations.

To add to CLP Invitations, I am also a Carlson Craft dealer. It allows me to offering my customers a wide range of products, from invitations, greeting cards, wedding/ anniversary/graduation/ bar/bat-mitzvahs/ baby accessories, favours, gifts to stationery, personalized, holiday products, and the list goes on.

I have another business plan for CLP Invitations to put into place by May 2nd. I will be going on my first official business trip to Ottawa on May 2. Super excited, can't wait! Mommy and Caleb are going with me too. Will let you know what this is all about once it is in place.

Right after I come back from Ottawa, Bellus has to set up at the Montreal National Women's Show at Palais des Congres on May 3. The show runs from Friday, May 4 to Sunday, May 6.

Show hours are as follow:
Friday, May 4, 2007 ~ 4pm - 9pm
Saturday, May 5, 2007 ~ 10am - 6pm
Sunday, May 6, 2007 ~ 10am - 5pm

There will be LOTS of goodies there including free samples to take home (beauty products, magazines, etc.), food tastings, make-overs, discounted women's fashion, tips for staying healthy, three stages for shows, dance lessons, home decors and much more!

Admission is $12, tickets available at the door and no advance purchases. I already gave out some free tickets on Sunday, if you're interested, I have more free tickets and 2 for 1 tickets if the free ones run out.

Rich Bride, Poor Bride

"When it comes to weddings, everyone wants a perfect day. But unless you have unlimited funds, it's 'I DO' but at what cost?"

I've been watching Rich Bride, Poor Bride on Slice, formerly Life Network, a Canadian cable television specialty channel with programs directed towards women with programming including talk shows and reality TV. It is a series that explores the human drama of what it takes to pull off the "perfect" wedding. Each episode follows the journey of one couple, their wedding planner and their goal to stay within their set budget (which is usually $18,000 to $30,000). Every time I watch this show, I am simply amazed at how brides sacrifice the more important things for the less important things such as a $450 tiara that will only be worn for 6 hours. Another bride wanted a real peacock at the reception. When she found out that during the season her wedding takes place, the peacock looses all its feathers, she wanted kissing lamas! Yet another bride wanted (and did) arrive at the reception hall by a helicopter.

All these brides (...and grooms, but the grooms are always the ones who are budget conscious in this show) end up spending $30,000 to 60,000+ for 150 guests at their wedding. Gosh, if we go with the average budgets of these weddings and if I can pull off my 450 adults, 40 children wedding with MY budget, it would be a miracle! FYI, an average Canadian wedding with 150 guests costs $20,000.

Watching this show really makes me wonder... whatever happened to being able to marry the man you love? All these brides emphasize on how big and grand and memorable their wedding is rather than on the meaning of marriage. I can imagine how some couples probably end up being in debt on the first day they get married. I don't want to be in debt on the day I begin my new life. Blowing all that money on one day... what about the rest of your life together? You CAN for sure still have a big, grand and memorable wedding without having a big budget and being in debt for years to come. I guess you just have to weigh it all out, what is more important to you.

One of the wedding planners featured in a couple of the Rich Bride, Poor Bride episodes is part of The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada (including myself, a total of 511 wedding planners across Canada were certified through this institute, but I can imagine that some aren't active wedding planners anymore). I guess this wedding planner featured on the show did enjoy it at first, but apparently the producers always wanted her to talk bad about the couples and she was always being watched hoping to catch her do something wrong. Because of these experiences she had, she already turned down three of their shows and will never agree to another one again. This is totally wrong, but hey, I totally think it's entertaining! Hopefully there are better wedding reality tv shows out there, I've really only seen this series.

If you're at all interested in this show, you can watch the full episodes of Season 2 on Slice.ca. Enjoy shaking your head at the brides!

Wedding Planner Certified!

I did it! Certified Wedding Planner!

Allow me to give a brief history of how wedding coordinators came about (from the 3rd Edition of the WPIC Certification Manual). Using today's definition, professional Wedding Coordinators have only been in existence for the last 30 years or so. Traditionally, weddings used to be planned by older married women in the brides' family. Whether it be the mother or the aunt of the bride, the "wedding planners" were within the family. The bride would wear her best dress and the reception used to be held in the home of the bride's family. They were intimate and involved only the immediate family and very close family friends.

During the Victorian Era, people started to earn more money. More people enjoyed an elevated social status and weddings gained even more importance as social outings. Receiptions were no longer just for the immediate family and the cloest of the family friends. A designated "Wedding Dress" was introducted. The colour white for this dress became popular because the bride, Queen Victoria, chose a while dress to be married to Prince Albert. As a result of weddings gaining social importance, certain upper class women were designated "Wedding Specialists." These women advised the bride and her mother how to conduct a proper social event and ensured that proper etiquette in Wedding Planning be observed at all times. This description of a wedding Consultant carried through until the 1960's and 70's.

The 1960's and 70's were a time of Social Evolution (or Revolution). This generation was rebelling against Society. The feeling of the time was all about banishing the rules, getting rid of formalities and ending traditionalism. People were not interested in weddings because they did not see the importance of socializing with their parents' friends. Couples of this time usually wanted weddings that were about peace and love, not rules and etiquette. So rather than getting married, the couples chose to just live together.

The 1980's brought with it a return of family values and an appreciation for tradition, formality and etiquette. The economy was booming. Young people were making lots of money. Social standing became more improtant to young people and as a result, big and formal weddings came back in style.

The social climate was once again different than before. Women were established in the workforce, they were building careers and they were not going to quit once they got married. Wedding Consultants were needed once again to provide advice on etiquette and tradition, but now they were also needed to Coordinate the event and save the bride time and stress.

Today, there is great emphasis on a couple's wedding and therefore a greater demand for Wedding Coordinators. Just look at all the reality shows on television, TLC/Slice dedicated solely to people's weddings. The industry is growing rapidly and couples are looking for more ways to have their dream wedding stand out above others and be a memorable occasion. Couples want this important day to go off without a hitch and that is why more people are turning to Wedding Coordinators than ever before.

Wedding Gown... #1

[pic on the left: sneak preview. haha, I know, you can't see much of the gown, what a preview, ay!]

I received my wedding gown (#1!) today. Not very happy with it. I've seen photos of it after it was made, before shipping, so I wasted no time and have already ordered my 2nd one (#2!) from another manufacturer two weeks ago. So I'm planning on selling #1 online... I wonder how many wedding gowns I'll to go through before I decide to keep one that I like... I can't wait for the second one to come!

You're probably thinking I'm crazy for ordering my wedding gown more than a year before my wedding. Well, even though my new years resolution is to gain weight to look better in my wedding gown, that is probably never going to happen. So I don't have to worry about the gown not fitting a year from now. I ordered so early in advance because LP and I are having our wedding photos taken this summer.

We will have the best MCAC photographer to take our wedding picture! Although he hasn't agreed to it yet, he is using us as an excuse to upgrade his camera, which he bought today from Futureshop.

Fly to Our Wedding with WestJet - 10% Discount

Another item on my to-do list, done!

We are pleased to inform all our out-of-town guests that we have arranged a 10% discount on your airfares should you choose to travel with WestJet to Montreal for our wedding. The airline is pleased to offer a 10% discount off their best available fare at the time of booking for our guests. Attendees must make their travel arrangements through the WestJet Specialty Sales Team and quote the QC#17824 (Lim-Yeong YUL-June 22) at the time of booking. Discounted rates are available for travel up to 7 days prior and 7 days after our wedding.

WestJet Specialty Sales Team
Telephone: 1.888.493.7853 or 444.2294 in Calgary
Mon. - Fri.: 6am to 7pm (MST)
Sat. - Sun.: 8am to 4:30pm (MST)