Jason Weible on Lighting Design for Your Wedding

Today we bring you a post from one of our favorite Betrothed’s Bros, Mr. Jason Weible of Blackbird Theatrical Services.  Jason and his wife Kelly got married in Brooklyn last year, and ended up working with several of us here at BB, and they’ve been great supporters and friends ever since.  So here’s his piece on the importance of proper lighting for a wedding. Super useful stuff!  Read on, and be dazzled!

(More) Tips for Staying Sane on Your Wedding Day

Hone the art of acceptance:

Your wedding day, like any other anticipated special occasion, is going to be flawed.  You’re real people, not plastic toppers on a cake, and therefore, life will happen.  Little and big things will go wrong.  Expect them.  Not in a pessimistic, why-is-life-so-unfair? way, but in a way that allows you to be fluid through the beauty, the highs, the quiet moments, and yes, even the disappointments.

Shift your expectations:

It is a day so anointed, so dreamed about and coveted, entire magazines revolve around it!  The pressure is enormous. “THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE” is the not-so-subliminal newsfeed that wraps itself around your celebration.  If it truly is the best day of your life, mazel tov!  And if it’s a beautiful and messy and meaningful day that is like no other you’ve experienced, that’s not only okay, that is normal.  Expect anything and everything, and know that what you end up with is a kaleidoscope of memories that is *your* wedding.  One that is yours (and your spouse’s) alone.

Remember the endgame:

Stay connected to your partner and to what married life means to you.  What do you want married life to feel like?  What rituals do you want to create as newlyweds?  What makes your relationship unique?  Keep these goals alive and present.  Create a vision board of your life as newlyweds or start hosting a monthly game night.  Build the life that is yours – yours and your beloved’s; the one that stands strong long after the band plays its last song and you board the honeymoon flight back. Know, when you look at your mate, that you got the best gift of all.

xo,

Sam

Photos of Wedding Crashers 2013

Tags

Event, The Green Building, Venue

Ask an Expert: How Do I Not Hire a Wedding Vendor Without Offending Anyone?

Q: How do I not hire my florist’s daughter, a wedding photographer, without offending anyone?

Planning a wedding without offending someone is a feat next to impossible!  In an ideal world, friends, family, and in this case vendors, would have only one goal: to support you and your fiancé in creating the wedding that reflects what matters most to you.  Unfortunately, it rarely works that way – at least one person’s feathers will be ruffled along the way.

So how to handle an awkward situation with your florist?  Thank her/him for letting you know their daughter is a wedding photographer and if you already have a photographer lined up, say just that (or if you haven’t, “stretching the truth” to avoid hurt feelings is completely acceptable) and that you’d be happy to pass the photographer daughter’s info along to other engaged couples you know.  That is truly all you should have to say; hopefully your florist is professional enough to leave it at that. If you’re still feeling pressured, recognize it as her/his issue, and do your best to let it go.

There are plenty of opportunities to be stressed in the wedding planning process – thankfully there are also plenty of opportunities to be have fun and celebrate along the way.  The more of the uncomfortable situations you nip in the bud (no floral puns intended), the more you can enjoy the beauty of what you and your spouse-to-be are creating.

xo,
Sam 

Myth Debunked: Hair & Makeup People Are The Same People

These are not the same tools, and neither are the skills needed to use them. Let me ‘splain the deal.

1) Cosmetology = hair. I know, it’s misleading, because the word sounds like “cosmetics.” Damn you, Latin! Anyway, yes that is correct. However, cosmetology is a training course that focuses on hair. I haven’t gone to cosmetology school, but from what I gather, the vast majority is hair (cutting, coloring, and styling). I believe they spend about 1 week on makeup and 1 week on skincare, and that’s it. And at the end of the program, you get your cosmetology license, which allowing you to conduct hair services in the state in which you were licensed.

2) Aesthetics = skin. An aesthetician is the lady that gives you facials, or other spa treatments. A laser technician at a medical spa will most likely have trained as an aesthetician. They are proficient in skin treatments, body treatments, and hair removal. And the same thing applies – at the end of your training course, you’ll be a licensed aesthetician.

3) Makeup = makeup! And what most people don’t realize is that there’s no license to legally become a makeup artist. Much like a painter doesn’t necessarily have to go to art school to become a painter, same with makeup. There are plenty of makeup artistry schools out there. Some are great, some are not, but none of them are able to provide their students with anything legal. Just a certificate of completion.

Some makeup schools focus on beauty, while others lean more towards special effects for film and tv. That’s a very small, competitive field, where you have to join the union to even be able to work in Hollywood at all. And in both Beauty and FX makeup, a more common practice is to become a master artists’s apprentice, and learn your craft that way. No license involved.

So… this is why, in my experience, hairstylists that also do makeup tend to do it poorly. And makeup artists who do hair do that poorly (that would be me!). It’s kind of like the difference between painting and sculpting. If you’re awesome at one, you probably aren’t great at the other. Or, you’re mediocre at both. Which is why I always suggest people hire specialists. :)

xoxo,
Anni

At Real Weddings, S#*t Like This Happens.

I vomited in my wedding dress. And I wasn’t even drunk. Like, not even a little bit.

And it was TOTALLY FINE.

We all want our wedding days to be special, fairytale, magical perfection. But when does life really work like that? I’m gonna say never. And weddings, no matter how much planning or money you throw into them, are no exception to this rule.

So let me tell the story of me puking in my dress. It was right after the ceremony. Chris and I had just done some post-ceremony pics with the photographer on the beach and around the pool, while the rest of the guests descended a few yards down the beach to the restaurant for the reception. When we arrived at the reception, my brother-in-law decided to give a welcome shot to the bride. So he asked the bartender for one.

Now, I don’t know if the bartender was trying to be mean, or just not thinking, or, wanted to see a sloppy American bride, but, his poison of choice was Bacardi 151. Which is different from regular Bacardi in the sense that it’s 75% pure alcohol.

So, Aaron hands me the shot. I down it, thinking it’s maybe a lemondrop, or something fruity and innocuous! When the sensation of what I was expecting lined up with the reality of what had just gone down my throat, my body just said, “NO WAY.” I calmly put the shotglass on the bar and said, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” Went to the ladies room, opened my mouth, and like a delicate flower, eliminated the foul liquid from the base of my esophagus. And returned to the party like nothing had happened.

Some brides would be mortified by this story. I love that it happened. My dress was fine, my mood / health / everything was totally fine. It was just one of those things you don’t expect is going to happen.

So if there’s any advice I can give, it’s this: Weird shit might happen. And that’s the shit you’re probably going to remember, and those memories will be cherished way more than what kind of dessert fork you ate off of.

xoxo,
Anni