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Wedding planning question:::

ame

Super_Ideal_Rock
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I had lunch yesterday with a couple vendor friends, and we had a really interesting discussion about this, because they know I am making some changes with my business's focus and just in general--losing weight, etc. Because of that, I am cleaning out my big book that I bring to appointments and trying to get it 1) more current and 2) less overstuffed.

This brought up the question of how much do I bring to show a prospective client since we're meeting either in their home or a public place, and not in my office (I don't want people in my home which is where my office is til it's finished being dealt with). When you are shopping for vendors: how many examples of something do you want to see? Example: you'd want to see an entire wedding from a photographer--start to finish, including any crappy shots. Several of those entire weddings (all the proofs, preedits) if at all possible, not just a few of their best shots from like 4 weddings, right? And you'd want to see a bunch of photos of florists works. How about stationers? You assume they do a variety of styles right? But how many of each style do you want to see from them? One of each? Two of each? Three of each? Everything that can be hauled in via wheelbarrow? With a wedding dress designer, you'd probably see what, 10 max in one shop that wasn't their label's shop?

So I am curious what you guys think.
 

PintoBean

Ideal_Rock
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Just enough to hand carry in a duffel or back pack!

My flower vendor brought an iPad with pictures of his floral arrangements.

My photographer had a bag with an iPad, and a couple of very fancy albums to give an idea of what the pictures are like, printed, even though what he provides you as an end product is high resolution, edited pictures, with no watermarks burned on cds that you can do whatever you want with.

I think that carrying a tablet loaded with pics can let you demonstrate more design options, above and beyond what you can realistically haul to the meeting.

Hope this helps.
 

CharmyPoo

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For stationary, iPad with photos (better yet - on your website first) and maybe 20 real life examples to see quality of work. Most of the ones I met with only showed about 10-15. But I find most stationary vendors are boring. In my years, I have only met one that impressed me. http://www.palettera.ca/landing.html
 

ame

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CharmyPoo|1372638615|3475029 said:
For stationary, iPad with photos (better yet - on your website first) and maybe 20 real life examples to see quality of work. Most of the ones I met with only showed about 10-15. But I find most stationary vendors are boring. In my years, I have only met one that impressed me. http://www.palettera.ca/landing.html
Yea I love them, but they're for only the most high end of budgets and most vendors have to be able to appeal to more budget ranges. A lot of brides see stuff like their work on Pinterest and in high-end magazines and don't have any idea how much that stuff costs to budget accordingly, or don't think it's worth giving up something else they want for their wedding to make it work.

One of the topics that was mentioned regarding the stationers was that if you bring an iPad or show your website and only a portion of your work, the client can't feel the paper used, and has no idea if it's high quality or if it's flimsy and a swatch isn't the same as a tangible item, where you can see the quality of a photograph, you can see the flowers and know they're amazing. But not carrying an insane amount of stuff would be a nice help.
 

smitcompton

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Hi,

Can't you just bring a half dozen samples of paper , letting your clients feel the weight. The rest(type) can be selected from your ipod or your laptop.

Annette
 

ame

Super_Ideal_Rock
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smitcompton|1372690692|3475339 said:
Hi,

Can't you just bring a half dozen samples of paper , letting your clients feel the weight. The rest(type) can be selected from your ipod or your laptop.

Annette
Kind of but not really. Many people cannot envision from a paper sample, they want the whole kit. So I am debating how many of each style to put in a portfolio to bring, and then Ill have paper samples from a few paper houses, and then probably an iPad. I am reworking my site, which will have a bigger gallery, but not like a slideshow I plan to do with as much as possible.
 

Rhea

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I wanted to see several examples of a variety of work. I would look at the websites ahead of time and only really needed to meet the final 1-3 people to get a gauge for personality and make sure I liked the work in person. I was mostly a DIY bride though.

For example, for photographers we only met one. I don't have the patience to sit through an entire photo album of one wedding, nor do I really care about any particular wedding that much. I'd rather see a variety of weddings and a few well done photos of each. It was helpful for knowing how the photographer was able to capture different seasons, colour themes, and feels of the wedding - a lake house wedding will be very different to a large church wedding.

Same with flowers, cakes, and stationary. I had a very small budget and if someone was only showing me photos or examples of the top of the range, even though they said they could work with my budget, I would be out of there. We really liked one cake vendor. Her cakes were beautiful and she came highly recommended. However, when we met with her it was clear that there would be a personality clash and that she didn't particularly want to make it our way. We went with someone who was a less talented cake decorator but after meeting her in person she clearly got our simple, square cakes made to look like presents thing...and was able to show us similar examples even if they weren't pride of place in her history and photo albums.
 

HollyDolly

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Sorry Ame, I have nothing to add but just wanted to say as its happened a couple of times in this thread: it's stationEry rather than stationAry. E for envelope, A for sitting on your ass!

I'll go back to lurking now, apologies but I couldn't help point it out, it's the only thing I ever ever feel the need to correct, mainly because I work in stationery and because the rhyme to remember it is fun!!
 

ame

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HollyDolly|1372718040|3475643 said:
Sorry Ame, I have nothing to add but just wanted to say as its happened a couple of times in this thread: it's stationEry rather than stationAry. E for envelope, A for sitting on your a$$!

I'll go back to lurking now, apologies but I couldn't help point it out, it's the only thing I ever ever feel the need to correct, mainly because I work in stationery and because the rhyme to remember it is fun!!
HAHA! I love how you put it. I am so stealing that.
 

diamondseeker2006

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Ame, no preedits of photos. We likes seeing finished albums when we chose a photographer for my daughter's wedding. That would be overwhelming to see all the dud pics!!!

However, I sent for a sample package of stationery from one company, and I'd say they sent maybe 30 samples of invitations on different types of paper, different styles, different font, etc. From those we were able to decide on the paper, font, type of printing, etc. There was more on their website as well. I had to see the quality of the paper and that couldn't be done on the computer alone.

As far as florist, cakes, and things like that, pictures on an iPad would be totally adequate. Get as much as you can on the iPad!
 

ame

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diamondseeker2006|1372800746|3476219 said:
Ame, no preedits of photos. We likes seeing finished albums when we chose a photographer for my daughter's wedding. That would be overwhelming to see all the dud pics!!!

However, I sent for a sample package of stationery from one company, and I'd say they sent maybe 30 samples of invitations on different types of paper, different styles, different font, etc. From those we were able to decide on the paper, font, type of printing, etc. There was more on their website as well. I had to see the quality of the paper and that couldn't be done on the computer alone.

As far as florist, cakes, and things like that, pictures on an iPad would be totally adequate. Get as much as you can on the iPad!
Now I am not a photographer, Ill say that up front, I have been a second or third shooter before but I am not a photographer by trade. I do find it fascinating that people don't want to see a full wedding proof set when selecting a photographer and only want to see their best finished work. What if only their best is 3 total images out of 3000 that they shoot your day? I would want the WHOLE wedding, because I want to see how good they are as a whole on that day vs just their editing and see if they're really decent at their job, or if they're really only going to get 3 good shots the entire day and then a bunch of mediocre shots or crappy ones. That's just me. I am paying them a lot to capture this day, and that's something you can't redo!
 

dragonfly411

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Ame
I feel like in the case of presenting from a planner's perspective I'd want to be shown these things:

Photos of previous weddings and brides - should be professional quality. This would be the most important thing to me.
Vendor Options - I'd want to see the information from each vendor, with contact information and if they DON'T have web locations, I'd expect images, but if they do, a website should be sufficient.
Location Options - Same as vendor
Price points.

Now if you are talking about one individual service, yes I'd expect images from multiple ceremonies, options in terms of details (I.E. individual flower options, or cake design options), as well as the price points, contact information etc.
 

ame

Super_Ideal_Rock
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I feel like I need to clarify what I specifically do, despite trying to be intentionally vague as to not advertise or make that obvious. I personally do stationery. When it came up, we were discussing one of the open houses Ill be going to in the coming months and how I am hoping my new website is finally done (I've been dragging on that for like 3 years at least) and I have a decent gallery going by then so I can bring my husband's iPad. I literally took photos of all of my work I didn't have professional shots of already, just to have that til I can get new professional images done. My hope is that if I have all this done, maybe I won't have to bring all of my books with my past work, (I don't bring "stock samples", everything is my own!) since they're big, heavy and cumbersome, and so many people who go through my books have very little courtesy to be gentle with the ones they remove from the protective packaging I keep them in and things get damaged. Not everything can be easily replaced so its not simply a swap it out kind of thing.

I was curious what people looked for when vetting a vendor, and how much they needed to see and touch before they knew this was someone they could work with (besides personality) before cutting way back on what samples I bring. I might go with the initial plan I had, confirm budget in advance and only bring hard copy of what would work in their budget but bring the iPad just so they can see photos of other options that might be reworked to fit their budget.

Sometimes I hate that things like Pinterest exist though, because it gives people a very unrealistic idea of what will work in their budget. They get their hopes pinned on something, like maybe from Palettera, and then they find out their budget will cover no part of that design and that adapting to their budget won't work for their dreams.
 
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