How to be a Non-Bridezilla, Part 2

In part 1, we went over 5 tips for the new brides to be. To view them, click here:
http://awm-ny.blogspot.com/2012/09/non-bridezilla.html

Here are 5 more:

6)  Run your wedding like a team.  In light of football season, I will use this analogy: You are the quarterback.  Your job is to call the plays.  The groom, your bridesmaids, your groomsmen, and your family are all willing to help make your wedding day perfect.  If not, they should be kicked off the team.  Use any expertise that you can gather from your team, but remember one important detail: You are the quarterback.  By all means, take any input that you can get.  However, the final decision is yours.  You will be the one held accountable by your guests, so take all of the information into consideration before polishing off your decisions.

7)  Wedding coordinators may be an unnecessary luxury.  This ties into the team concept.  Find out what a wedding coordinator will exactly do for you.  Once your bridesmaids and families are tapped out in terms of their duties, then you would have to decide what other holes need to be plugged.  As mentioned in Part 1, many of our brides work.  Thus, it is impossible to attend to many of the details required for planning a wedding.  In some cases, a good coordinator is definitely worth it.  However, the bulk of their duties are performed on the actual wedding day.  In these instances, your banquet manager will have direct contact with you and will also be there on the wedding day, creating a definite overlap between duties.  Sometimes a coordinator will think it's a good idea to put this here or that there, and the banquet manager has already done it.  Sometimes a coordinator will plan something without discussing it with the banquet manager, the DJ or the florist, and it just becomes impossible to do without the proper preparation.     

8)  Always consider an off-peak option.  Everyone wants to have their affair on a Saturday evening.  However, you can find significant discounts if you choose a Friday, Sunday, or  Saturday afternoon.  Most places, including ours, will offer anywhere from $10 to $15 less per person for simply choosing an off-peak day.  Depending on your guest list, this adjustment could save you thousands of dollars.  That's a car; a few months rent; or a payment for a house.  In addition, the month can also matter.  For example, May and June are always more expensive than January or February.  All of a sudden, you are spending almost $20 to $25 less per person than a Saturday night in June.

9)  Try to opt for professional wedding DJs.  Almost everyone has a relative that can say that they are a "DJ." Almost everyone can put together an Ipod playlist.  However, that is only part of the job.  A professional wedding DJ should have insurance, in case anything goes wrong.  Due to the high volume of lawsuits, most catering halls do not allow a DJ to play unless they have insurance.  In addition, a club DJ or a house DJ may know how to play the music that you want, but may not know how to do a wedding "performance".  Getting people up on the dance floor and performing on the microphone for the introductions, cake, garter, and bouquet, are all skills that do not translate to clubs or house parties.  Not to mention that we have seen some DJs work with jeans and sneakers on.  There is nothing tackier than seeing everyone in gowns and suits, while the person in the corner is wearing their "party" jeans.

10)  Spot-check the venue.  Come and take a peek at your room during the weekend when there is a party going on.  Perhaps the best time to come and view the room is about an hour before a party starts.  This spot-check would give you the opportunity to see the room when it is fully decorated.  It kind of gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the party when you are not in a frazzled state of mind.  It is likely that when you originally went to view the room, the room was not decorated, or when you were attending a party in full swing.  If you see a venue during set-up, you can answer many of your lingering questions.  Is the staff professional?  Is the food hot?  Is the level of detail what you expected?  If you then see something you don't like, feel free to address it to the managers.  They will definitely take your concerns seriously.

Hope this helps....

More to follow.

Other photos for a sweet 16:

How to be a Non-bridezilla, Part 1

Looking for our website? http://www.awm-ny.com/
Looking for our Facebook page? http://www.facebook.com/pages/Astoria-World-Manor/206579248175?ref=hl

This area will be dedicated to all of the hard-working brides that celebrate their important day at Astoria World Manor.  We do not cater to the Trump family and the like, who are ready, willing, and able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for their fairy tale wedding at the most exclusive Banquet Halls.  We cater to the people that work for Trump and the like, as well as teachers, soldiers, firemen and policemen. Are they not entitled to have their dream wedding at an affordable cost? We maintain our elegance while offering affordable prices. Our customers come from Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, or Long Island, among others, just to take advantage of our unique combination of extravagant ballrooms, fine international cuisine, excellent service, and bottom-line pricing.

Today, we are having a wedding for one of the sweetest brides you could ever meet. We will call her "A".  Whether we have two weeks, two months or two years to prepare, we can make your dream wedding come true. However, we need help from our customers. Based on Bride A, as well as many others, we have come up with some tips to make your wedding day go as smooth as possible.

1) Ask your questions before you leave any money down: Write down a list of questions of the things you are curious about. I promise you we will take the time to answer each of them. We may not come up with the answer that you want to hear, but we will be honest from the beginning. This business survives on reputation and recommendation.  It is better to have all of your worries put at ease before your wedding than be surprised on your wedding day.

2) Come to our food tasting:  Why not? There are over 100 items on our menu, we will not have them all available, but you will definitely get to sample a lot of them. You will also get to sample our service. So, to put your mind at ease, at the end of the day, you can go into your wedding process with a comfort level about the quality of the food, the quality of the service, and price you are paying. You have plenty of concerns about your wedding day. Why not put several of these questions to rest before you have any real obligation.

3) Stick to your guest list.  Not everyone has gone through the experience of being married.  Not everyone knows that you will be charged by chair.  Not everyone is considerate of the stress level that you will experience.  Our advice is to come up with your guest list and don't let anyone add to it.  You will have cousins that want their friend to come.  You will have mothers that want to invite everyone from work.  You will have friends that come out of the woodwork.  Nothing can make a budget explode more than a ballooning guest list.

4) Stay on top of your RSVPs.  Set a deadline for your RSVPs and remind everyone again of the deadline.  There is nothing more annoying than having a friend or an entire family show up on your day that you didn't expect.  It may seem rude.  Or it may seem pushy.  But there is nothing wrong with giving your guest that did not respond a call to confirm whether they are coming.  Flights or work may interfere with some of these people not responding until the last minute, but I guarantee that you will find someone that says, "Oh, I'm definitely coming.  I just forgot to send the card in."

5)  Leave as little as possible to do for your last week before the wedding.  With relatives coming, fittings to attend, rehearsals to plan, and just general running around, your last week is going to be hectic.  There is always something that comes up.  The less you have to do, the less stress you are going to have.  You are going to be pulled in 10 different directions.  No amount of breathing exercises is going to help that.  But the less you leave for the final week, the better.

These are 5, stay tuned for 5 more....

Photos from our non-Bridezilla: