First Blog Post

For many months I have been thinking about starting a blog, but I didn't know how to start and what I should blog about. There are so many things on my mind, I just don't know where to start.

I decided to add my blog to my wedding Web site after hearing from many other wedding industry professionals that this is great for potential clients so they understand you as a person and not just a vendor.

As many of you know, I started Elegant Affairs back in 2005. My vision for this company came out of my own wedding in 2003 to Steve my college sweetheart after planning my wedding after an 18-month engagement. Yeah, I know that is a long time, but if you know me, I am a perfectionist and I wanted everything to be perfect no matter how long that would take me. I figured it took Steve long enough to ask me to be his wife, I could take my time in sealing the deal.

I loved planning every single moment, from generating a wedding Bible full of ideas both realistic and unrealistic to a list of vendors I wanted to work with to every single piece of material related to the wedding industry.

Finally, after dating for nearly six years and nearly a two year long engagement the big day finally was here. Now, of course there were things I would love to differently like finding a better photographer to having a limo that had a working air conditioner (yes, in Washington in June it got up to 90 degrees), but to this day more five years later, people are still talking about how much fun it was to come to my wedding, some have admitted to me it was better than their own.
Now, that is what your wedding is supposed to be like and when the idea of Elegant Affairs was born.

My first adventure into this business came from a couple that Steve worked with. They met in June, engaged in September and married in December. My task was to plan an economical budget with a bride who lived in Alaska and had no idea how to plan a wedding. It was a very intense three months, but the day of the wedding couldn't be sweeter, everything came off without a hitch. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great reception and I couldn't ask for a better wedding.

I learned a lot from that first wedding and knew with Grant (my oldest son who is now 3 but at the time of that wedding was only six months old) that trying to be a wedding coordinator full-time was out of the question. I was a new stay at home mom, finally leaving my job at the Peninsula Gateway after four years. That was my first job right out of college and working as a reporter was a dream of mine. But the reason why I left is that I didn't want Grant growing up in daycare, that is not the kind of mom I was.

So, I decided to wait on Elegant Affairs and I came back with a vengeance in September 2007, only three months after having Jackson. A sorority sister of mine was getting married and posted a bulletin on Myspace looking for a wedding coordinator so I jumped on the chance to work with a bride I already knew. They were a great couple to work with and so much fun to be around, which made my job easy. Their wedding was in May and they have lived happily ever after.

After that experience, I knew that both boys were old enough I can really focus my energy onto making Elegant Affairs what I always dreamed it could be. My first advertising adventure will be next month, September 13-14 at the Tacoma Bridal Show.