The Bride's Experience-In Her Words

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure that I am really living in my dream job. While it has had challenges, hard clients, mistakes, and great ops for lessons learned, I keep on keeping on because of the people/clients that make it truly rewarding and exciting. I am beyond thankful for the incredible events we have had the opportunity of being a part of. From the Not Wedding(aka..Big Fake Wedding), Biz Bang-Youth Entrepreneurs biggest Fundraiser, to the countless weddings. What an honor!!

For today's 4th post in our blog series, I have asked a few of our past brides to share their "been there, done that" experience with other brides-to-be! Brides! If you have more questions you want answered from other brides who have already gone through the planning process, we are launching a Bridal Mentoring program that is FREE. Please contact us and we will put you in touch with a past bride to be mentored and encouraged by during your very own wedding planning process. Email us at: ashley@myeventbyashley.com This is a great tool so make sure you take advantage of this opportunity!

Bride and Groom: Kelsey and Brandon Baker

Venue: Exploration Place

1. What is one thing that you have heard the guests remember most about your wedding? Our guests are still to this day telling us how awesome the reception was and how much fun they had.

2. What was the deciding factor when choosing your vendors? Some of it was recommendation from other brides, but I really took Ashley's advice as a planner who has dealt with so many vendors! If she recommended someone that's who I wanted!

3. Were there any unexpected trials your experienced during planning? There was no unexpected trials during the wedding planning process! It's crazy because I tell people that wedding planning was so easy and I was never stressed about anything throughout the whole year of planning. As a very anxious person, I had assumed my anxiety would be at an all time high, but I really didn't have any problems with it. The only issue I had was not realizing how heavy my dress would be and that it would fall so much making it a little long. Walking into the reception I kept tripping on it. I will never forget that Ashley and Amy were on their hands and knees pinning up my dress so I would stop tripping I loved my dress, but wish I would've had a short fun dress for the reception!

4. What element was most important to you for your ceremony and then reception? The most important thing about the ceremony to me was time. I hate when ceremonies take forever, so I wanted a 30 minute ceremony and one where the minister didn't talk forever. Our minister at East Heights was perfect and actually quite funny! At the reception my main goal was for us to have an awesome DJ so that it was fun! I wanted people to leave our reception talking about how fun it was and we definitely accomplished that!

5. What is most memorable to you? The most memorable thing was how much fun my husband and I had that day! We had a blast with one another and our closest friends and family!! We said we had so much fun we wish we could do it every year!! I also think part of that was due to the fact that there was no stress in the planning process! I didn't have to worry about anything and could just enjoy it all!

6. What piece of advice would you give to brides/future bride? My mom and I always say the #1 piece of advice we would give to any future brides is to hire Events By Ashley!! They make it so you can enjoy every part of your day and never have to worry about the small stuff! I know so many brides who weren't able to relax and enjoy the day because they were so stressed about all the little details that ultimately people don't care about! The day goes by so fast!! Hiring a wedding planner gave me the piece of mind to know that all those little details would be perfect and taken care of, allowing me to fully enjoy every part of the day!!

Bride and Groom: Isabelle and Rob Rotola

Venue: Abode Venue

1. What is one thing that you have heard the guests remember most about your wedding? The venue and decorations. They tell me it was simple yet beautiful and although I didn’t have tons of decorations the venue was pretty the way it is without having to add much.

2. What was the deciding factor when choosing your vendors? Price and also style. When we met with them we paid attention to how they treated us and how well they listened to what we wanted to make sure we could trust them to do what we wanted.

3. Were there any unexpected trials your experienced during planning? Yes!!! I had lots of questions, doubts and had a hard time making some decisions since there are so many details that we don’t realize when it comes to planning a wedding, no mater how simple it is. It was also hard for me since I am not from the USA and the culture and wedding traditions are not the same. I overlooked some things because I simply didn’t know that they were important and I wish I had known. Also there are so many options out there and it was hard for me to pick one of each and stay within budget.

4. What element was most important to you for your ceremony and then reception? We wanted our ceremony to be short and simple yet different. We wanted to include all of our immediate family members and close friends in it to share that special moment with them. The most important element for our reception was to make sure our guests had fun. We wanted the reception to represent what we like and who we are. We did that by serving our favorite foods as dinner, a candy table for the groom instead of a “grooms cake”, cupcakes and brownies instead of a wedding cake and played the music we like.

5. What is most memorable to you? How beautiful everything looked, how much fun we all had and how smooth everything went.

6. What piece of advice would you give to brides/future bride? I recommend getting a wedding planner first of all. I didn’t from the beginning and I wish I had someone to help me explore different options and be the creative side when I was blind, just trying to get things done and looking at ideas on Pinterest. Take your time when choosing every piece of your wedding, don’t try to rush and look at different options even if you are not sure if you like it or if you don’t think you can afford.