Lovely... why yes you are

I'm a big perfume fan. Nothing better than spritzing your favourite scent to lift your mood. And who doesn't want to smell fabulous on their big day?

It's not a new fragrance but one of my favourite fresh, summer scents is SJP's Lovely. 
It's one of those scents that's not overpowering but not too sickly sweet. And a good spritz lingers too.

Sarah Jessica Parker Beauty

And the fact you can purchase 30ml for a mere £12.99 makes it a wedding day staple I reckon.

What about you lovelies, what's your favourite perfume?

Analyse this

 No not this dodgy film, your website. Analyse your stats peeps.

You may well have heard about Google Analytics. Chances are if you run your own business or update the website at your place of work, you'll at least be familiar with the term.

You may also (like me, I have to admit), be more familiar with the fact you should be familiar with the term than with the concept itself.

Confused yet?

Yep, me too.

It's important in life to admit defeat. Thankfully people are good at different things. And the lovely Janina over at Handpicked Hotels is definitely knowledgeable about this murky, grey area otherwise known as 'who looks at my website, and how can I use this information to my advantage'.

For part one, the intro on Google Analytics see Harlequin & Romance (and then pop back here for part 2).

Take it away Janina:

Google Analytics:
The simple guide PART 2
By Janina Downey, guest blogger, e-commerce specialist and lover of helping others.

Now the simple explanation is out of the way and what a great response from
you all that own a www. Now for the exciting stuff and analysing what lovely
online visitors help make your business succeed and how to build upon this!

Who are these people and how to get more…

In part one we established ‘what is Google Analytics’ and just how simple it is
to use this FREE tool to look at your website.

Looking at your website more in depth will help you to understand which
marketing efforts have paid off and which ones; not so well. Running your own
business or department is time consuming enough so being pro-active and
using the strategies that worked can help manage your marketing time more
efficiently.

Using the interesting features such as the site overlay which visually shows
you where web users click on your pages and also how many times is
interesting to placement and content.

Google Analytics gives you the big picture about your website which in turn
helps you interpret your site and add to your advertising needs. Following the
trends and patterns will help you engage more customers and focus on what
works allowing you to in turn increase awareness and sticky content to your
site.

You can also use Google Analytics to determine which of your ads are
performing (when used in conjunction with Google AdWords, Google’s Pay-
Per-Click advertising). Google Analytics also provides shorthand information
for the non-techy user and much more in-depth info for those who are a little
more of an expert on web analytics (after all my articles you will be!).

Any questions setting up or understanding your data please just contact me,
but now I hope you are all using and understanding your website data to its
maximum potential!

Props to Janina for trying to explain to us laymen how this shizzle works. And keep your eyes peeled for more hints both here and over at H&R.

You can do it put your back into it...go on, make your own cake stand

I found this over at Betty Bee and thought it might be worth posting and linking to because good quality, affordable cake stands can be a challenge to source sometimes.

Although I haven't tried this myself yet it looks reasonably straightforward and if you can find plates cheaply at a car boot sale or charity/vintage shop you should be able to do for under £10.

Head over to Betty Bee for the full how-to guide and if you do make one let me know how it goes. As in, is it as easy as it looks?!

Black wedding dresses

I salute anybody brave enough to rock a black wedding dress. In fact I wish more brides wore black at their wedding, it's so dramatic and glam.

Crystal Clear Imagery via Style Me Pretty

Technically this is an engagement shoot, but it's pretty enough to be a wedding dress so I'm including it.

 Sarah Yates Photography

Vera Wang shot by Jose Villa via Once Wed

When I looked into it though, it seems it's pretty tricky to find black wedding dresses that aren't gothic. Surely there's a market for them? I know Vera Wang does a splendid black wedding dress but unless you're got that kind of budget there doesn't seem to be a lot out there. Certainly not in the UK. 

So designers are you listening? We need some classy, elegant, fun, sexy, whatever, black wedding dresses. As much variety as with the white dresses please.

Thoughts? Am I alone in this? Is this why there don't appear to be many decent black wedding dresses out there? 

Do I exist more online than in real life??

 This picture has no relevance to this post, just using it because I'd like to be 

at the seaside today because the weather is glorious.

I have to admit, before I became a wedding planner I pretty much avoided being online. Okay so I had a Facebook page but that was about it. I certainly couldn't imagine ever that they'd be a time where I'd be 'connecting' with people through so many different mediums. At the moment my online presence includes about 7 different mediums. All of which are business related (except for my personal Facebook page and instagr.am although I imagine this will become about self promotion too).

So now a large part of my day starts with the checking in of all this social media forms. Which is good because it is nice to connect with people when you're technically a freelancer and work alone.

But it does make me wonder whether it's all going to implode in on itself or whether we're just going to get more and more things to sign up to. Which I generally want to because they're quite exciting, (at least at first).

If this is what we have in 2011 I wonder what will be on offer by 2015 say, not just in terms of tools for promoting our small businesses but just generally.

Currently I exist on the following sites:

Website
Blog
Pinterest
Twitter
Facebook
instagr.am
Google +

Phew, exhausting. Is there anything else I've forgotten? What's your favourite online resource/tool? I think if I had to pick, it would be Pinterest, just because it's full of pretty images. It's also a useful resource for brides seeking inspiration. Kind of like the best of all the blogs.

Ridiculously easy floral photo-booth backdrop

I really dislike blogs that post D.I.Y ideas and claim they're so easy. Then when you try, and find it not so easy, you feel like a big fat failure.

This floral backdrop/wall decor really is so easy, I promise.

I saw this idea somewhere ages ago and thought it would work just as well jazzing up some dull wall space in your wedding venue or better still, as a photo booth backdrop.

This cost me around £8 to do and took about 10 minutes. Ideally you need flowers that won't wilt, especially if you're going to keep them up the duration of the wedding.

 

But as they're so easy to set up (literally a bit of tape, I used waterproof cloth tape), you could assign one of your 'maids, (or wedding planner) the role of holding and taping when you're ready to get your photo booth going.

I used a white wall but they'd work just as well against a variety of backgrounds (I'd like to try against brickwork one day).

And you don't need to worry about 'styling' them properly. Just bung them up in whatever haphazard way you like.

What do you think? Simple but effective, no?

For another photo booth backdrop idea see Fanning around.

Wedding cinema

from oh, hello friend

One of my brides is having a wedding at home and she mentioned the idea of showing movies late into the evening. Then I found this image and realised we have to try to make it happen.

The later part of weddings can be exhausting for guests, (and the happy couple), all that merriment takes it out of you. And what better way to unwind than by reclining and watching your favourite films under the stars.

I won't mention how vital a balmy summer evening would be for this to work. Let's just pretend London weather is as sunny and reliable as say, L.A for the purpose of this post yes?