Congratulations to Lori and Richard!

We recently had the honor of working with Lori and Richard. The couple exchanged vows on April 3 and celebrated their wedding at the beautiful Manor in West Orange. Our very own Melissa worked closely with the couple to help them coordinate their elegant dream wedding. Colors were subtle hues of spices with touches of callas for beauty! Special thanks to www.laurelwoodesigns.com for the beautiful flowers and Vito from www.jasminephoto.com for the amazing pics! We had such a great time working with Lori and Richard and wish them nothing but the best!!!!

You Love Us!!!!

We just recently heard exciting news. PBW was chosen as one of NJ's "best of" in the wedding planner department on projectwedding.com! Brides voted for their faves and we are so excited they love us! Thanks to all our wonderful clients who gave us such fabulous kudos. We couldn't have done it without you!

It's time for spring wedding design reveals!

We're always looking for new and fabulous wedding design concepts. It's one of our favorite aspects of the job! It seems recently however, we've been getting a good number of requests for black and white damask tablescapes and designs. I love the pattern...and love a good design challenge. Melissa and I turned to our go-to floral guru Lisa at Touch of Elegance and we had an intense brainstorming session. After hours of meetings and two parking tickets in the NYC garment district...(ugh) we hit the jackpot and found our inspiration!


Our clients wanted over the top, elegant, unique and drop dead gorgeous. Their only wish...make sure there's purple and some damask. I think we hit the nail on the head with this one! Lisa created a one of a kind, amazingly tall lamp shade design with damask fabric, hanging crystals, internal lighting...the works! We complimented with pink and purple peonies and roses, smoky purple linens, bengaline cushions, silver beaded chargers, room lighting, damask treatments on napkin and candles and custom stationery by Cam Turner Designs.

We unveiled the design to the client last night in our studio and they were BEYOND thrilled!!! We love that!!!! So now we are overly anxious to unveil this design at the wedding next month at the Liberty House (there's alot more to it...a total of 3 different centerpiece styles that all compliment each other!!!!) It's gonna rock!

Wall Street Journal article - Something Borrowed, Something Green

I recently had the pleasure and honor of being interviewed for an article in the Wall Street Journal (hits newstands today). The controversial topic focused on whether or not couples should ask for money instead of tangible presents at their weddings.

Personally, I feel it's NEVER ok to ask for a gift, be it money or a new set of steak knives. I'm sorry if you have 2 blenders, 4 cutting boards and zero counter space. It's NEVER classy to ask for cash!

So to all the brides and grooms out there who may be tempted to include a small line that reads "monetary gifts preferred" in their invitations....DON'T DO IT!

Love Jenny

Enjoy!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123904284494693893.html

Beautiful Drama!

We recently had the pleasure of working with a wonderfully creative couple, Canella and Adam. When they came to us over a year ago, they asked for our help in creating an over the top theatrical and dramatic wedding design that was unique and reflective of their love of the arts. By using deep rich colors, lush florals, designer masks and special entertainment like professional belly dancers and contortionists, we were able to help the couple have a beautifully dramatic wedding unlike any other! Special thanks to Terrace on the Park, Touch of Elegance for lighting, florals and linens, Magic Moments for the amazing music, Jar of Ideas for the gorgeous stationery, Screaming Queens and Bellytrancegroup.com for entertainment, and of course the incomparable Josh Lynn for photography. Canella and Adam, we loved working with you and wish you all the happiness in the world!

New Episode of WWIIA airing May 19th!

Hello WWIIA fans! We have a new episode coming out soon! The wedding of Divina and Aaron will be airing Tuesday night May 19 at 10pm on the Style Network. This episode is sure to please for several reasons:

1. The couple is simply fabulous...great personalities, outgoing, the works!

2. The design/theme of their wedding was so original...stemmed from the place of their first encounter... "Barnes and Noble."

3. I was 7.5 months pregnant while filming (I apologize now for my HUGENESS and LETHARGY!)

Enjoy!

Jenny

Wedding planners, Professionalism and the Puffer Fish

I typically rely on blogging as a means to share news, trends and exciting accomplishments with our readers. But I'm taking a different route today...offering some insight into something that I feel is definitely worthy of blogging.

It’s not often that PBW gets to mix wedding planning with marine biology. Unless, of course, you count ocean-themed weddings! But that’s a topic for another blog entry.

We’re sure you’ve seen pictures of the pufferfish – the big, round, intimidating critter – right? Well, it turns out that the pufferfish is, in fact, a pretty clumsy, slow, puny member of the underwater kingdom who needs to puff itself up with air and water to appear bigger and meaner to ward off potential predators.

Well, people tend to puff themselves up too – in job interviews, online dating profiles, and lots of other situations involving exaggerated self-promotion. It’s called puffery and while we at PBW don’t condone any exaggeration of credentials or accomplishments in the wedding planning industry, we can understand why some planners may feel the need to do so.

We are alarmed, though, about a disturbing trend that a number of brides-to-be have alerted us to where mere puffery has morphed into something entirely different and more distasteful.

It seems that the wedding planning business is not immune to the type of badmouthing, devious plotting and outright lying that you expect to see on primetime reality TV programs like “The Apprentice” or “Survivor.”

We’ve heard stories about planners making personal attacks against not only other businesses, but individual planners as well, including unfounded statements about physical and mental health, as well as other outright fabrications.

Maybe it’s the state of the economy and a fiercer competition for a limited pool of clients. Maybe it’s a lack of good business acumen or principles. Perhaps it’s just general cattiness. Or maybe something more…psychological.

Whatever the root cause may be, the good news is that this type of talk seems to have the opposite of the intended effect. All of the brides-to-be who we’ve spoken to say they found such comments off-putting and considered it a factor in deciding against using that particular planner.

We here at PBW take great pride in our reputation and professionalism. We don’t badmouth other planners. We don’t need to. We let our success, rate of referrals and the overwhelmingly positive comments of former clients speak for itself.

Chances are if your prospective planner spends time talking about their competitors instead of focusing squarely on their own abilities, services or accomplishments, they may not really have great confidence in those services or their ability to provide you with the wedding of your dreams.

PBW encourages all of its prospective clients to meet with several planners before deciding whose services to use. In fact, we are so confident in our wedding planning philosophy and abilities that we want you to meet with us last. We guarantee that we will do our best to exceed any comparable package or services.

And that’s not just puffery, that’s a fact.

Jenny