A CHANGE SHALL COME...

I must say, my team and I have had a pretty good year. We've learned a lot, grown a lot and enjoyed some wonderful weddings. With growth some change must come. 

Beginning January 1, 2009 Andria Lewis Events will undergo a rate increase. For all you awesome potential brides who currently have proposals, we encourage you to keep this date in mind. Also, remember the Fall Special that is currently in place. What is the Fall Special, you ask? Well, you only learn about that during your complimentary, one-hour consultation. If you would like to book your consultation, call us today at 901-210-1458 or email us at consult {at} andrialewisevents {dot} com.

Don't dilly-dally (we are so Southern). As you know, we only accept a limited number of wedding clients per year. That includes full-planning, partial-planning and month-of-coordination clients. We'd love for you to be one of our 2009 brides!

I'd like to send a special, special thanks to all my 2008 brides for helping us have a spectacular year!

WEDDING PLANNING AT ITS BEST! JOIN US FOR THE VIRTUAL SOIREE

I have been honored with a request from the fabulous Terrica Skaggs, who owns Fabuluxe, Inc. and is the brain behind the Cocktails and Details wedding blog. Terrica has invited me to be a part of her virtual soiree! Let me give you a little background on what's taking place.

A select number of brides will be chosen to participate in the virtual soiree. These brides will have personal contact via this soiree to ask questions of the best of the best wedding planners. I will be amongst the likes of Liene Stevens of Blue Orchid Weddings and the Blue Orchid Blog and The Smart Planner. Also joining us will be Katasha Butler of K. Sherrie + Co., Saundra Hadley of planning...foreverevents, Aletha Vandermaas of Pearls Events, Isis Petrie of Posh Events and Emilie Duncan of Emilie Duncan Events. These ladies are truly the Who's Who of the wedding industry. They are innovative, creative and dedicated wedding planners who are offering their advice and ideas free of charge to brides with weddings planned for 2009. The participating brides must have either a wedding website or a blog.

If you would like to pick our wedding brains, all you have to do is email Terrica at blog {at} fabuluxeinc {dot} com to receive an invitation.The first session will take place December 4 at 8:00 p.m. EST. Don't wait because only a limited number of brides will be able to join us. I would love to have brides who are planning weddings in Memphis, Mississippi or Arkansas to be with us.

This wedding planner session will be beneficial to you even if you already have your own wedding planner or day of coordinator. It can be especially beneficial if you are planning your wedding on your own and could use a little creativity in your color choices, venue selections or if you are in need of floral ideas. The skies the limit when it comes to the Virtual Soiree.

I hope to see you there!

{in the plans} Fiddlehead Ferns

TAGGED!

The effervescent, talented, smart and funny Saundra with planning...forever has tagged me. I love these games. Here we go...

Four things I did today:
1. Had lunch with a news columnist to give my input on themed party planning. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant. I have to say, not a big fan...
2. Met with my trainer to discuss the 15 week nutritional coaching I'm about to begin. I'm so excited to start!
3. Attended my Wednesday night gym class, The Ultimate Ab Lab. Love it!
4. Watched the presidential debate.

Four things on my to-do list:
1. Call this weekend's wedding party to let them know the important start times for Saturday.
2. Find three more chocolate pintuck 120"s for this weekend. For some reason, I only ordered 19. What was I thinking?

3. Start on Christel & Chris' timeline for November 15.
4. Shampoo my hair...

Four of my guiltiest pleasures:
1. Reality shows. Sorry! I can't help it. I Love New York was SUCH a guilty pleasure. I'm so embarrassed!
2. Lying in bed on a rainy Saturday watching movies that don't require my mind to work while eating Blue Bell Banana Pudding Ice Cream! Yippie!
3. Shoe shopping. I feel guilty with each purchase...
4. Ignoring my cell phone...

Four random facts about me:
1. The number 4 is my all-time, favorite number!
2. I was a radio announcer (DJ) from ages 15-19. It was a country radio station in my hometown.
3. From answer #2, I love country music. For some reason, people are surprised about that...
4. From answer #1, I don't care for odd numbers. At all!

POVERTY: IT CAN BE CURED

Poverty, is it a disease? Is it a choice? Is it ignored? As a part of Blog Action Day, I am participating in the global discussion on poverty. I was actually excited to learn this was the topic when I signed on to this project over the summer. I have always been especially touched and have had a heart for those less fortunate than I am.

I worked with a lady once who thought that homeless people were homeless by choice. She, therefore, had no sympathy for them. I saw her view as quite tunneled. Because she had grown up not wanting or needing for much, she could not fathom that everyone was not like her. Isn't that just how it is? Don't you just pick yourself up and keep going if you face hard times? No, not always. 

There are so many factors that play into poverty and its source. Some see it as spiritual. That it is a generational curse that can be prayed away. Perhaps.  I believe it is definitely a learned behavior. A behavior that can be turned around, cured and eliminated through education. People don't have because they are not taught to have. They do what their parents did and their parents before them. 

Financial responsibility (and irresponsibility) is all around us these days. The plunging DOW. The governmental bailout of Wall Street. The mortgage crisis. None of this had to happen if people were educated. None of this had to happen if people were to do what I call 'playing the movie out'. Often, not just financially, when we imagine how things could be we only imagine up to a certain point. That point being where everything is rosy and happy and you are skipping through the dandelion fields. But, if we all learn to 'play the movie out' and really look at all the possible endings, we would all be in a much better place. If those approved for mortgages twice what they should have been approved for had stopped and taken time to think about what they were doing, they might not have foreclosed on their home. If the big guys on Wall Street had played their movie of greed out, they may have foreseen the massive stock plunges that were the norm last week.

For certain, poverty is a relative term. There is always someone below your income level who can be considered in poverty. What do you do for those people? Do you help them? Do you laugh at them? Do you throw a dollar into their cup and wave them off as you shake your head in disgust? My choice is to volunteer in shelters. My choice is to raise a son who is financially responsible in hopes that he will pass those lessons to others. My choice is to continue to educate myself so that I am better financially.

Every cure begins with one person. Individual drops in a bucket will eventually fill the bucket. And if the drops continue, the bucket will overflow. There will be more for others.

Be a drop in the bucket...

THE WEDDING CAKE THAT ALMOST WASN'T...

This cake is not in anyway associated with the following story. Photo Credit: Cake Wrecks Blog

First things first, Robyn and Andrew were married yesterday in a beautiful ceremony. The wedding and reception were held at the Pink Palace Mansion in Memphis, TN. Robyn cried and Andrew smiled widely.

This is not a complete recap of the day, just an incident that could have consumed the day, but did not. Robyn and I have been working together about eight weeks pulling together the last details of her wedding. She has a great sense of style and knew what she wanted for the day. All of her vendors were chosen when we came on board. From this point on, I will tell this story as a story. Because, for the life of me, I can't believe it actually happened. It must have been a fairy-tale. We begin this story three weeks before the wedding day...

The bride tells the wedding planner, "My baker is known for being notoriously late to setups. She wants a range of time to be there."

Well, of course, the wedding planner spoke with the baker who, after some time negotiation agreed to an 11:00 a.m. setup. 

Forward to wedding day.

At 11:27 a.m. when the baker had not materialized, the wedding planner called her.

The baker says, "Oh, I just don't feel well. I was up all night having to re-bake a cake of mine that someone broke when they took it to store in their freezer." 

With her lips a bit pursed, the wedding planner replied, "I'm so sorry you don't feel well. Tell me again, what time will you be here?"  

"Well, you know, I just can't give you a time. I need to take a nap and have some coffee and see how I feel." Looking at her watch, it is now 11:45 a.m., the wedding planner replied, "I will call you back at 1:30 p.m. to see how things have progressed."

Immediately after this phone call ended, the wedding planner goes to the lead person for the wedding caterers. Having worked with them several times before, she knows they think quickly on their feet. The wedding planner asks if someone from their company could go pick up the cake from the baker. Darnit. Insurance issue. Now, they start to look at the wedding planner going to pick up the cake, to which she is game. Once the cake arrives, the caterers can have one of their baker's assistants come to the venue and complete the beadwork on the cake. Sounds like a plan. The idea is tabled until 1:30 p.m.

Wedding planner asks, "Hi! How are you feeling?", to which she is replied, "Well, I do feel better." 

"I'm so glad. What time will you be able to arrive? Setups need to be complete at 3:00 p.m." 

"Well, if you'd stop calling me I could actually get some work done." 

A bit puzzled as to why the cake was not ready at 1:30 p.m. when it was initially supposed to arrive at 11:00 a.m., the wedding planner repeats the pickup idea to the baker. "Oh, no, I'm not going to do that to Robyn. I will be there." "Great! What time will...", the baker hangs up on the wedding planner.

At this point, the wedding planner has to inform the family as to what is transpiring. She goes to the bar, has them make a drink for the bride and treks upstairs to where the bride, groom and their wedding party is getting dressed. (NOTE: It's a good idea to get the bride a little liquored before delivering potential bad news.) After arriving upstairs, the wedding planner realizes the bride's mother has made it back to the venue from an earlier errand. Perfect. She finds the MOB and details what has been going on. MOB asks wedding planner to call the baker and let her talk to them. The baker's husband answers the phone and will not let the MOB talk with the baker. The baker will only speak with the bride. Good thing she was liquored up ten minutes prior. The bride is pulled from the makeup artist's chair and after a ten second briefing, takes the phone to speak with the baker. The bride asks the same questions the wedding planner has been asking for the past three hours. She gets the same responses. The bride asks can someone come pickup the cake. THE. BAKER. HANGS. UP. ON. THE. BRIDE.

A collective, three-way sigh from the bride, the MOB and the wedding planner is made.

The wedding planner then tells the bride of the alternative cake idea and lets her know the ball will start rolling on that plan.

"Okay", says the bride with no tears and no look of frustration on her face.

Wow! Rum really works! 

Fast forward to 4:03 p.m. (three minutes after ceremony start time). The wedding planner's phone rings.

"Hi, Andria, this is the baker. Is someone coming to pick up the cake?"

"Uh, no. We have another cake that just arrived."

Smartly, "Well, thank you for calling me and telling me. You had me doing all this work for nothing."

"Well, Mrs. The Baker, I'm a wedding planner. I sometimes have to come up with a Plan B. And I can't let Plan A go until I know Plan B will actually work."

"Tell Robyn she will get all her money back."

Doesn't that go without saying?

Anyway, this is the end of our story. Of course, there were other tidbits that were not included. Like the wedding planner getting the groom liquored up to tell him his Chicago Cubs specialty cake was not going to be a part of his wedding. By the way, the caterers decorated his groom's cake with a Chicago Cubs logo. And they decorated the brides cake with the exact ribbon she had spent months looking for, but couldn't find.

CAST:

Caterers aka The Lifesavers: Draper's Catering of Memphis

The Baker: Wouldn't You Like To Know?

I told this story, not to fault my bride by any means for her choice of bakers. She wanted a product she had seen and tasted before and she loved it. I do tell this story to encourage all brides to hire vendors that perform their services as their primary source of income. Somehow, but not always, it makes a difference.

THE END