I think I have mentioned before that certain couples or brides get nick names. This is my Mac Book Pro couple. I really, truly call her my Mac Book Pro bride. Their real names are Joel and Steffanie. They came to me right about the time I was converting over to Apple. They love MAC’s so much that the bride and groom on their wedding cake will actually be holding little APPLE computers. We are also doing something very clever for Joel’s boutonniere. I asked Miss Mac Book Pro to share with you how they went about finding vendors.  These too are super savvy, and I am impressed with how clever they are. Their wedding is going to be beautiful, and I think they have a lot of great advice. So without further adieu, here are words of advice from my Mac Book Pro bride:

There is one skill that I am glad I developed before planning our wedding, knowing how to research. I have been told multiple times by our planner that I have researched vendors, prices, and so on more than anyone she knows. Why? It’s simple. We want a nice, formal wedding but on a small town Indiana budget (where I am from).  I actually started planning our wedding 6 months before we told our families so I could research all the vendors we would need.  Obsessive? Yes. Worth it in the end? Totally.

First, I started with my trusty pal Google. From there I discovered the grander of wedding blogs. OH, how I love wedding blogs. They introduced me to things like envelope liners, pin-tuck linens, and lots of things that were not in my budget. They are great sources of inspiration; at the time that is all I expected to get from a blog. I eventually stumbled onto DC specific blogs and “met” lots of the local wedding community this way.

What I really found useful was how notable planners would link to vendors they love working with in their posts. At first, I thought most of these vendors were out of my price range. To feel like I was “their Bride” I did what all sane people do, I became a blog lurker. I started understanding who is known for what qualities and thinks outside the proverbial box. It was a way to see who was flexible, executed the couple’s vision and see if I could work with them.  My Fiancé teases me that I am not going to need a RSS reader after the wedding because it is full of wedding blogs. 

For the fun of it (I am a Bride after all!) I decided to contact a few of the vendors I had found through the blogs. I had prepared myself for a bit of sticker shock. It turns out that many were willing to work with my budget. I never thought I would be able to afford some of the levels of vendors that we have booked for the wedding. Yes, it helps that the economy is down and some couples postponed their weddings from 2009 to 2010 and later. We were able to meet with a few vendors that were open minded, willing to help, and genuinely excited we chose them which is what we were looking for. 

I didn’t rely on the blogs alone. Of course I asked married friends for advice and their suggestions. I also went on weddingwire.com to read reviews. I didn’t necessarily rule vendors out if they had a bad review but I did look for themes in reviews. There was one vendor that we met with that had enough reviews saying they forgot to provide their service that we had strategic questions to ask at our meeting. After the meeting I didn’t feel comfortable signing a contract with them because I kept thinking, “what if that happened to us”? This leads me to my best piece of advice; go with your gut feeling. 

What planning and finding vendors has come down to for me, is figuring out what qualities are important to us. Yes, I want a grand wedding just like I see on Platinum Wedding but I know it isn’t feasible. There are qualities in those weddings that I can adapt to our budget easily, such as following through on your theme, how to stage the room, and so on. Knowing what impressed me about these weddings also helped us prioritize our budget.  These small insights helped us pick the perfect vendors for our own version of a platinum wedding. 

The above image was taken by their wedding photographer Maria Vicencio
I have two more posts to add to Miss Mac Book Pro’s advice. See you soon.