Gay Wedding Show Rocks San Francisco

March 4, 2015
Gay Vanity Wedding Show Feature Pic

Gay Vanity Wedding Show, launched in San Francisco last year, is the country’s first wedding show fully dedicated to serving engaged gay couples. This year, this “Stylish Gay and Lesbian Wedding Event,” which spotlights the top gay owned and gay friendly Bay Area businesses, returns to San Francisco’s gorgeous and newly renovated Bently Reserve on Sunday, April 19th.

 

Frederick Sullivan and Jaime Botello

The dynamic duo behind Gay Vanity Wedding Show are the founders of Sullivan & Botello Events, Frederick Sullivan and Jaimie Botello who were also recently married. We got a chance to catch up with Fred to find out more about their innovative show.

IDOPR: What inspired you to create the Gay Vanity Wedding Show?

FS: We felt that there needed to be a connection between the LGBTQ community and the wedding industry. We also wanted to highlight LGBTQ businesses and allies after doing several wedding shows where the same sex couples just seemed to be ducks out of the water.

Did you encounter any obstacles when you first started?

FS: Our biggest obstacle was that we had no tenure when it came to doing a LGBTQ wedding show. Another issue was bringing on our strategic partners and vendors as well as gaining their trust along with the LGBTQ community within the San Francisco Bay area.Vendor

What surprised you and what did you learn from your first event last year?

FS: Our biggest surprise was the huge response we got right away with the outpouring of exhibitors and attendees and how wonderful they felt to be a part of this epic event. Our biggest learning curve was developing relationships with our locally owned LGBTQ business and strategic partners.

What should we look forward to seeing this year?

FS: This year is going to be absolutely over the top! We are challenged because of the amazing show we did last year and how do we top that? Well, you will need to come to the show and see because I can’t spoil the surprise….Wedding Dresses

How do you pick vendors to participate in the show?

FS: We have reached out to LGBTQ owned businesses. Also, as a sitting board member of the Golden Gate Business Association (America’s oldest and first chamber of commerce) I had direct access to pull from this group as well as reaching out to Gay Allied companies.

Different Vendor

Have you thought about bringing the show elsewhere?

FS: Yes, we are currently working on taking the show nationwide. This wedding show experience truly is a far cry from the traditional wedding expos.

You also have your event planning business. Do you ever sleep?

FS: Sleep? Who needs that when you have so much to share making a couple’s dream day come true!

Don't be tardy to the party
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Best Buy Launches Wedding Registry

February 16, 2015
Best Buy Wedding Registry

While mega retailers like Nordstrom, Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath & Beyond have had a wedding registry for years, electronics giant Best Buy is finally entering the game with its own Wedding Registry!

That’s right, folks. This month, Best Buy launches its wedding registry in hopes of attracting more couples to its blue and yellow awning. And with today’s popularity of tech gadgets, we think it makes a lot of sense.

Though known for big ticket items like flat screen TVs, the electronic retailer sells a lot of household items perfect for the modern couple’s wedding registry needs. From blenders and espresso machines for that new kitchen to super-awesome Sonos speakers for entertaining to cameras for the honeymoon, there are plenty of items to choose from. Plus, did you know Best Buy sells luggage? I bet not!

 

 

Best Buy Wedding Registry consumer electronics

Best Buy’s Wedding Registry has indispensable features like group gifting, which will help wedding guests spend the amount they want to help you get bigger ticket items and of course free shipping with no minimum purchase.

Though the latest industry trend has been moving toward online wedding registries like Zola, MyRegistry and Wanderable, the majority of today’s couples still go the traditional retailer route. I think Best Buy has all the right components for entering the wedding registry game if it’s able to overhaul the popular notion of its restrictive selection. It will be interesting to see how couples take interest in the upcoming 2015 wedding season.

* Sponsored Post *

The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free
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Common Mistakes On Wedding Websites

February 10, 2015
Wedding Business Websites
Brenda CadmanBrenda Cadman of Wedding Business Websites has been developing websites since 2000 for local and national businesses. A former professional organizer, Brenda has just launched her latest project: Wedding Business Website DIY, a 3-part video training series for wedding professionals to helps improve their websites. We asked Brenda to share a few of her tips for creating better wedding websites. 

Your website is your “front door” online, so to speak, so it is critical that you make that great first impression to entice wedding couples to learn more about how you can help them create their perfect wedding day.

While working with the professionals in this industry, I began to notice many businesses were making the same set of mistakes over and over, so in our e-book we address 10 of the most common errors we see and provide some quick tips to fix them on your own website.

In this post I share two of those mistakes, and you can download the full e-book for free at Wedding Business Websites.

Your Website Looks Outdated

Modern couples expect their providers to be up to speed with the latest trends, and having your website be described as “outdated” is not the impression you want to leave with wedding couples.

Here are 5 things that will automatically make your website look outdated:

1. Using default web colors like blue and purple links. Instead, choose colors that work with your brand’s color palette and avoid those default color shades.Screen Shot 2015-02-05 at 12.51.58 PM2. Avoid old school fonts like Times New Roman or Comic Sans. Instead, use Google Fonts for a free and easy way to add modern, attractive fonts.

3. Give your site a look right now… do you have any blinking or flashing elements, such as mail icons, banners, buttons, or a rotating logo? Get rid of them. It’s completely outdated to use them

Banner

4. Website visitor counters are a thing of the past. You should be using a robust, behind the scenes analytics tool like Google Analytics.

5.  Skip the neon. Fluorescent yellow or hot pink (and so on) look highly dated, especially against a black background.

 

You’re Using a Personal or Free Email Address

If you’re thinking of using your Gmail address (or Yahoo, Telus, Shaw, etc.) as your contact email address on your wedding business website – STOP!

You should always use an email that shares your domain name (e.g., in our case, we use hello@weddingbusinesswebsites.com), not your personal or free email address. Making this one change on your website will contribute to raising your credibility and professionalism. Most domain services let you set up a professional email for free or inexpensively. Alternately, there are some great email hosting providers such as Google that are highly affordable.

Google Apps for Work

For more great tips, check out Brenda’s full and Free (!) e-book at Wedding Business Websites.

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Winter Wedding Events in New York

January 26, 2015

In the wedding industry, engagement season means wedding pros gets a bit of a break from planning events and have a chance to get together for networking, exchanging ideas, sharing wedding industry news and of course, letting loose!

During one week in New York, we got to network for good at Wish Upon a Wedding Bene-Fete, work with our client Bows-N-Ties at the Martha Stewart Weddings Show, and meet pros of the travel industry at the New York Times Travel Show.

Here are a few highlights:

Our week started with a bang when we attended Wish Upon a Wedding Bene-Fete, a fundraiser gala for this incredible national organization that grants weddings and vow renewals to couples facing terminal illness. The gala was hosted at The High Line Hotel’s impressive church ballroom, where we saw many of our industry friends, including Nadia D Photography, The Knot, How He Asked et al:

Photo Jan 28, 5 16 37 PM

Wish Upon a Wedding Bene-Fete with The Knot, How He Asked, I DO PR

Ladies from The Knot, How He Asked, I DO PR

The I DO PR team of ladies couldn’t pass a chance to squeeze the king of cakes Ron Ben-Israel (whose feats, among many we already wrote about, includes owning the domain www.weddingcakes.com)

I DO PR with Ron Ben-Israel

 

Martha Stewart Weddings and The Wedding Library invited Bows-N-Ties to fly to their annual New York wedding show to present its 2015 line of wedding ties and bow ties in the Grooms’ Corner. The sold-out show saw 1200 attendees at the gorgeous Gotham Hall and attending brides got a discount code to use toward their wedding.

Bows-N-Ties at Martha Stewart Weddings Show

Several wedding industry celebrities also attended the show, including this cute pair of event planners: Annie Lee of Daughter of Design and Matthew Robbins with his pooch.

Wedding planners Annie Lee and Matthew Robbins

We also met our friends from Joanna August who flew from Los Angeles to show off their beautiful collection of bridesmaid dresses at Martha Stewart’s Wedding Party:

Joanna August at Martha Stewart's Wedding Party

Between the shows, we met with a few key fashion editors to show off Yael Designs and Bows-N-Ties Spring/Summer collections. Here we are at the office of Town & Country:

Yael Designs at Town & Country

The last stop of the week was the annual New York Times Travel Show, where we met several industry leaders and learned top trends for travel as it concerns popular destination wedding and honeymoon destinations including Mexico and the Caribbean.

New York Times Travel Show

 

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San Francisco’s New LOHO Bride is in a League of Its Own

December 18, 2014

LOHO Bride, a free-spirited, non-traditional bridal shop just opened its doors in San Francisco’s design district and is already getting a lot of buzz. Despite limited outreach, the salon booked over 80 brides before opening, and already sold a dress to the newly engaged editor of San Francisco Refinery 29.

LOHO, which stands for “League of her own,” features an array of hard to find designers including NYC-based (and extremely trendy) Houghton, Australia’s Bo & Luca and New Zealand’s A la Robe. The salon pegs itself as a place where the unconventional, free spirited bride, who has a strong sense of fashion, but has never really dreamed about getting married can feel comfortable and find a dress she truly loves.

LOHO Bride Dresses

We met with Christy Baird, the founder and creative director of LOHO Bride, who said that she attributes her initial success to being able to fill a much needed niche among San Francisco’s brides. It also helps that Christy is no stranger to the bridal industry. She cofounded the extremely popular Daughters Of Simone and even during a few years of working in mobile advertising, always had an eye for discovering talented designers and an affinity for working closely with brides, both of which are a major priority for LOHO Bride.

Christy Baird

Unlike most bridal shops, Christy’s approach with LOHO is to feature a larger selection of collections by a limited number of designers (most of which are exclusive to her shop). This decision not only benefits the bridal clientele who wants to see a variety of options from a designer they love, but also fosters great relationships with the designers themselves. LOHO Bride hosts trunk shows for independent designers from as far away as France and New Zealand. Its current wedding dress selection averages around $5000 and comes with an array of additional ready-to-wear designs for rehearsal dinners and other pre-wedding events (or intimate, alternative weddings).

LOHO Bride

With its elegant, intimate salon and a visionary entrepreneur at its helm, LOHO Bride is not just a must stop for San Francisco’s brides. It is a bridal salon that is truly in a league of its own.

For more information, check out LOHO’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (with 10K followers already!). And be sure to look for them in 7×7‘s January Wedding issue as well as at their next trunk show, January 28-February 1.

 

 

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