WANT TO SHOW PEOPLE ONLINE YOUR SHEFFIELD CRED? BECOME A BADGE OWNER TODAY!

Looking for a way to add some flair to your website while proudly proclaiming your affiliation to the storied Sheffield family? Look no further than the Sheffield School badge! To get your own, simply go to the to the Sheffield site badge page and copy-and-paste the embed code into your HTML where you would like Sheffield badge to appear. Sheffield Badges come in three sizes: 125px X 125px, 150px X 150px, and 200px X 200px, but can be customized to fit your specific needs by manually changing the dimensions. Get your free badge and become a proud member today!  

For more information about the badges and the school itself, check out our website at sheffield.edu. 

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

How To Take Charge Of Your OWN Time...

As wedding and event planners (or any entrepreneur for that matter), we are always on the go.  We have very little time for ourselves away from our business.  And now with the beloved (or not) iPhone, we get away even less...always checking email, texting clients, answering every call that comes in, checking email again and again.  Clients have gotten used to instant access to us also, which makes it even more difficult to carve out time for ourselves.  They expect that we see their emails, texts and voicemails immediately and should then respond instantly.  Here are a few things to get you you thinking about taking charge of your OWN time.

1. Do you get inspiration from outside of the wedding industry?  For me, I play tennis, read, snow ski, build forts with my kids and have a standing Barbie dress up date with my oldest and block building (well building and demolishing) with my middle love.

2. Do you converse with friends and family and NOT mention work?

3. Did you know that you can temporarily turn off email on your iPhone?  Do it, even for an hour.  I try and turn mine off in the evenings and for some time over each weekend.  If I don't see the emails, then I don't feel the need to immediately return them.  

4. Do you set limits on client request that can take up precious time?  I have a lovely client whose wedding is coming up very soon and she literally wants to chat at least once a week.  We also email at last 10 times per week in addition to our chat.  So, when she wanted to schedule yet another phone conversation for this week, when I was taking the whole day away from work to just be with family, I had to politely say no.  It felt liberating to say no.  It wasn't rude or mean or nasty, but just a firm no.  Ahhh...

 What do you do to take charge of your own time?

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

From Inspiration to Reality - Wedding and Event Styling

Recently, I wrote a blog post on the new trend in weddings and events, the Styling aspect. Above is a great video on transforming your inspiration into a reality.

The Barn at Walnut Hill is a post and beam barn with attached farm house, built in 1887 and restored in 2009 to serve as a wonderful wedding location nestled in Maine.

Film by Meg Simone Wedding Films - megsimone.com

Style Me Pretty's "From Inspiration to Reality Challenge." (This board is all about that picture perfect, Farm-inspired wedding that is full of super-chic details.) 
Meagan Gilpatrick of Maine Seasons Event Planning - maineseasonsevents.com 
Sara Fitzgerald O’Brien of Griffin-vites Stationery - griffin-vites.com 
Photography by Brea McDonald Photography - breamcdonald.com 
Flowers by Dawn Kelly of Soiree Floral - soireefloral.com 
Barn located at: 655 Walnut Hill Road - North Yarmouth, Maine, 04097

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

Styling - The New Wedding Trend

Styling...it's the newest trend in the Wedding and Event Planning world. Ten years ago it was mainly full planning. Five years ago the new push was for the DOC (or Day of Coordinator). And now, it's styling. With the onset of the DIY bride and blogs like Style Me Pretty and 100 Layer Cake, the wedding stylist was born. I have personally seen a boom in my business with clients wanting me to style their wedding.

By style, I mean take their 500 pins from Pinterest and turn all of those ideas into a cohesive look. It is awesome! I love it...it is so much more creative than just being the DOC, and I really get to work with my clients on a one-on-one basis to make their wedding ideas come to fruition. Here are a few examples of weddings I have styled recently.  

Photos courtesy of Matthew of Cly Creations

 Photos courtesy of Dante Williams Photography

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For more information on Wedding and Event Planning, please visit our website at the Sheffield School.

Katie is the Wedding and Event Planning Student Advisor and owner of Sara Kate Events.

Five Ways To Make Your Wedding A Nightmare...(or things to avoid)

Two weeks ago I had the wedding from...well, I don't want to write the word here but let's just say, imagine Dante's Inferno and multiply it by 100.  Seriously...I'm not kidding...seriously, it was the worst experience I have ever had in seven years of planning weddings.  So I am now here to give some tips on what to avoid when planning your wedding so that it doesn't end up like the afore mentioned lovefest (can you sense the sarcasm here??  I hope so because I'm laying it on pretty thick).

1. Hiring a caterer who is not really a caterer

By this I mean a restaurant or friend who swears they can handle the food for your 175 person wedding. Let me clarify that this does not mean that all restaurants (and friends) are terrible caterers...quite the opposite, some are amazing!  But for this wedding, they were horrendous!  They were supposed to arrive at 3pm and when I spoke with her at 5pm, they were in the Bronx instead of Liberty State Park and the cocktail hour started at 5:45pm. I almost had a heart attack right there on the spot.  For those of you who are not from New York, it's WAY too far away to even hope to arrive in time.  At 7:15 pm the caterer then sauntered (yes, you read that right sauntered in - I would have been sprinting like I was Usain Bolt into that wedding) into the kitchen prep area...mind you there was absolutely no food for the cocktail hour and we had to delay the start of the reception by an hour because we were waiting for her arrival.  

2. Ignoring ALL advice given by your experienced planner (whom you hired for her expertise)...

Now, I do not profess to have seen and/or know everything regarding weddings, but I certainly think I have a lot of knowledge about how successful weddings are run.  With that being said, when the couple (in this case, Groomzilla) questions everything regarding the run of show for the day and every suggestion I am trying to give, then I have hit a wall.  As a planner there is only so much I can do to make an event successful before I can do no more.  If the couple doesn't want to listen then you hope for the best and plan for the worst.  

Planners and Day of Coordinators are hired for a reason; let us do our jobs so that your wedding can be the best day ever.  

3. Choosing a venue that is only accessible by a boat...

OR a very small staffing bridge that is guarded by Federal Marshals with bomb sniffing dogs that leave at 4pm for the day no matter what.  Please refer to tip # 1 to see why that would be a major problem...

I am all for fabulous, unique venues but sometimes that can make them a logistical nightmare.  If even one vendor is running late or the weather is bad then you as the planner start into major damage control mode.  Again, please refer to tip #1 for why this was a major issue at this particular wedding.

4. Waiting until two weeks before your wedding to hire all vendors

OR hiring a first round of vendors and then either firing them or they quit and run screaming for the hills when they realize that you are nuts.  This was the case for me at this wedding...except that I was in the dark about the hiring of an entirely different set of original vendors.  Why didn't someone clue me in?

5. Be a major jerk...

OR verbally abuse everyone including the new bride (and myself and entire staff) and have a guest physically assault one of my staff members because apparently the entire wedding was totally nuts.  I am again not kidding...I so wish I was.  I don't really have too much more to say about this except it stunk big time.

Now some of you reading this may have chuckled a few times and said to yourself, "This can't be for real"...I am here to assure you that it was and that I am still having nightmares, thank you very much. Others of you may just want to give me a hug and still others may be thinking that I need to get over it, I was paid and it's finished now...to those in the second group I am sticking my tongue out as you (trust me I am even though you can't see me).  And to those who want to give me a hug, I say, "Yes, Please!" After that wedding I need a hug...

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For more information on Wedding and Event Planning, please visit our website at the Sheffield School.