New FTC Guidelines-Why Should YOU Care?

Image found at: http://businesscoach101.blogspot.com/

This day, December 1, 2009 is a BIG day in the blogging & world of Social Media.

Today, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) that is in charge of overseeing the world of blogs, websites and social media has put in effect new laws that 1)"incorporates several changes to the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers." You can read the complete new guidelines here. Many of these guidelines are almost 29 years overdue!

Basically that means that ALL bloggers must disclose any relationship they have with a company on their blog/website beyond paying for a service or product of their own wallet. It also includes any endorsements, testimonials, sponsorships, etc. made on any kind of Social Media site and that also includes Face book, Twitter, My Space, etc.

What does that Mean to Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge: Well, when it comes to endorsing or recommending fellow wedding professionals and venues to my readers and clients, it means I keep on doing what I have always practiced; Never participating in ANY referral fee or commission program to endorse (or pay to be endorsed) another wedding professional or venue. I have always believed that by recommending professionals based on their talent, professionalism and the trust I have in them ensures your best interests as my clients and readers is always highest priority. It is one of the hallmarks of my business practices and a standard of the professional wedding associations I am a paid member of.

What it means for my blog readers is that you will see even more transparency here. If I recommend a product or book or website where I have received a complimentary copy you will know about it in the blog post. If I have written an editorial or appear as an "expert" resource for a blog or wedding website or magazine that I pay to advertise with, it will be disclosed. If you see a "Preferred Planner" or "Best of" award from a blog, vendor, venue or wedding website of which I pay to advertise, it will be disclosed. If I win an industry award from an association of which I am a paid member, it will be disclosed and so on....

Why Should YOU Care?: You should care...A LOT!! It's about TRUST and INTEGRITY. As a wedding consultant it's everything to me and the very core of what I have to offer you as my clients. It's why I hope you read my blog and have confidence in what I have to say and why I believe my clients come to me to plan their most important wedding celebrations and life events.

Many of my industry friends have made reference to this very important development on their blogs too. Here is a small selection.

Style Me Pretty Backstage Blog (*Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is a preferred paid advertiser with SMP).

The Bridal Bar Blog

The Business of Being Creative by Sean Low

Think Splendid Blog by Liene Stevens

I welcome these new changes in the spirit of transparency, trust, honesty, integrity and fellowship among my wedding industry colleagues and fellow bloggers.

What do you think of these new guidelines as a wedding planning couple, a reader of blogs (this or any kind), as a blogger or as a company? I would love to hear your thoughts?

Celebrate Your Day with LOVE, LIFE & STYLE!

*1) Source: FTC Website: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

Style Me Pretty & Crate & Barrel $4K Registry Giveaway!!

When "Style Me Pretty" starts talking in superlatives, you better pay attention!

The unbelievable contest to celebrate their new website launch has just been announced and it is truly deserving of the superlatives. Ready for this?

They are giving away, in partnership with Crate & Barrel a $4,000.00 Bridal Registry Gift Card to one lucky "Style Obsessed" couple. 

WOW!!

Below is all the important 411 you need to know to register and enter directly from StyleMePretty.com. Best of luck to all of you. Hmmm, makes Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge want to get married all over again:)

********************

Every two weeks, we’ll be filling you in on our favorite four products from the Crate and Barrel brand (I have a deep love affair with all things Crate and Barrel, as they were the home of my own wedding registry, so this is more than exciting for me). We’ll then be gifting one of our favorite products to YOU at the end of that week!

But here’s the best part. Sign up for a Crate and Barrel registry through Style Me Pretty and you’ll be entered to win – wait for it – a FOUR THOUSAND DOLLAR Crate and Barrel shop card. Yep, you read that right.

By simply creating your Crate and Barrel wedding gift registry through Style Me Pretty, you’ll have the chance to win a ridiculous amount of money towards Crate and Barrel, along with a huge handful of pretty incredible products. To see full rules and regulations for the shop card giveaway, click right here.

Check back in a bit to hear this week’s favorite four! To create your registry and enter our incredible giveaway, click right here!

* * *

Please note: You must use the link above to enter the giveaway. If for some reason you have trouble opening the link, just cut / paste this url into your browser:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/jump.aspx?t=7&a=1070&bid=1007861bid

Have a Stylish Day!

Style Me Pretty Gets a Makeover; Gorgeous New Site Launches

Style Me Pretty has a pretty new Logo too!

Great news for all you "Style Obsessed Brides"!

Style Me Pretty, one of the most fabulous and popular wedding blogs, announced the launch of their brand new website today and yes, they managed to make it even prettier than before!

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge loves the clean new layout & site design, the adorable new logo and of course, love that blue & white color scheme:)!

The new and improved SMP is always going to have tons of gorgeous real weddings, fun and fabulous DIY projects, amazing inspirations boards, super-cool contests and tons more exciting new features so make sure to visit often. You can also visit SMP on their facebook fan page and follow them on twitter.

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is proud to be a part of Style Me Pretty as one of their exclusive Little Black Book event professional resources and as a featured article writer on the Little Black Book Blog this past March. 

Read Part I & Part II of my article, "Your Las Vegas Wedding Style is Showing!"

Enjoy & Have a Stylish Day!!

Wedding Concierge Attends Your Wedding Day Magazine Event in LA on 4.22.09

Image is the home page of the Ebell Club, Los Angeles' website

 C

Composite of the Your Wedding Day Magazine Party Invitation

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is off to Los Angeles, CA today and Thursday to attend what I am sure will be an incredibly fabulous, stylish event celebrating the beautiful Spring 2009 issue of Your Wedding Day Magazine. 

The party will be "An Evening of Pure Imagination" held tonight at the historic Ebell Club of Los Angeles and sponsored by their Catering Director Melissa Allen (who is a Las Vegas native by the way!) and Your Wedding Day Magazine as well as many other incredibly talented wedding professionals in LA and Southern California. One of those is my good friend Jeannie Ward of Wedding Jeannie and I am so excited to be there to support her and see what magic she has created for this event.

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge has another BIG reason to be attending this fabulous event with a very special announcement of my own regarding an exciting new partnership with Your Wedding Day Magazine  so please stay tuned within the coming week. I know you are going to like this!!!

Have a Stylish Day!

Get Your Dose of Daily WEDDING Candy!

One of Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge's favorite daily must-read blogs is Daily Candy; a great lifestyle focused site & newsletter to find all that is new in food, fashion & fun to make your life...a little sweeter:)

They have editions for many major cities like New York, LA, Miami and an all encompassing "Everywhere" version. 

Now life got even sweeter for those planning a wedding with their launch of a new section to the site; Daily Candy Weddings!

Just like the classic "Candy"; you can select local content to get all the wedding goodness on wedding trends and news in your city or region or the scoop across the country.

Enjoy savoring the Candy!

Wedding Concierge Picks Top 10 Wedding Blogs on Blogs.com!

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is honored to be selected by Blogs.com as one of their featured "Top 10 Lists" authors. They asked for my top 10 wedding blog daily reads that every bride should go to for information, education and inspiration before your celebration! 

 "The Las Vegas Wedding Concierge's Top 10 Wedding Blogs"

The blogs are were listed in alphabetical order and you can also find them in my "Wedding Concierge Favorite Reads" links on the left sidebar of my blog! 

• Bridal Bar
  
• Brooklyn Bride
• Elizabeth Ann Designs
  
• In Style Wedding Blog
  
• It's a Jamie Thing
  
• Southern Weddings
  
• Sparkliatti
  
• Style Me Pretty
  
• Wedding Bee
  
• Wedding Chicks
  

Let me tell you that this was HARD! I have so many wonderful blogs that I read daily that inspire me but since it was directed more to what brides are reading most, I felt this was the best cross section. I look at it as my "Basics List" on iTunes. Hopefully they will have me back to share some more insightful "Next Step" and "Deep Cuts" lists-like for you like my "Top 10" wedding photo blogs, design blogs and picks for wedding professional inspiration. 

Blogs.com is a new service from blogging company Six Apart that helps you discover the best in blogs. You can quickly and easily find blogs by category and topic or read daily blog roundups of some of the best blog content around the Web. Top 10 Lists from celebrity bloggers and influencers also help you discover new blogs, and everyone is invited to create their own Top 10 Lists to share with the community.

Wedding TV Must See: Get Married TV Interviews "The Bachelor"-3.2.09

SET YOUR TIVO'S LADIE'S!!

The much-hyped proposal on this season’s The Bachelor will happen this Monday evening on the season finale.  I wanted to give you a heads-up that DeAnna Pappas will be doing a live video chat this Monday, March 2 @ 11pm ET on www.GetMarried.com immediately following the show in which she makes an appearance.  Here’s the link where you can tune in:  http://www.getmarried.com/deanna/livechat/

As the co-host of Get Married airing weekday mornings on Lifetime Television, DeAnna will chat about what she’s doing now and give us some insight about this season….as well as her season on Bachelorette.  Tune in to see what she has to say and see if she answers your questions, and check out her blog on Get Married’s www.BloggerBrides.com.  

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is proudly affiliated with Get Married.com as an advertising sponsor. 

ENJOY!

Seeking Your Help for a Better Blog/Website Experience

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge's friend and fellow wedding planner, Emilie Duncan of Emillie Duncan Events  in Ohio has put together a short questionnaire about what attracts you, as a reader, to our websites and/or blogs. Is it the content, the images? We want to know the answers so we can better serve your interests and needs for getting the information you seek in researching quality wedding professionals for your event. 

I am looking forward to hearing the results of this survey and encourage you to take part. I am currently in the stages of redesigning and upgrading my blog and these results may certainly help in guiding me in creating the best and most productive site experience when you visit the new blog and my website.

So, thank you in advance for your participation and please do let your friends know about this to help get a healthy amount of quality feedback.

Tracey

*****************************

I promise, this will only take a minute of your time!  If you wouldn’t mind, please click on the link below and answer 9 quick, easy questions about different design aspects of wedding vendor’s websites.

Wedding Vendor Website Survey

We won’t record anything about you other than what state or country you are from - we don’t even ask for your email address so no spam or anything like that.

You will likely see this link on lots of other blogs and sites - this survey is being shared all over the blog-o-sphere so please take the survey only once.

If you have additional comments on the subject, please feel free to email me with those and I will share them with the other wedding vendors who are participating!  We can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

(If you are a wedding vendor and would like to participate, just copy this post to your blog and email the link to emilie {@} emilieduncan {.} com - I will send you the results once we have closed the survey in March)

Las Vegas Wedding Concierge Featured on The Smart Planner Blog!

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is so excited because I am featured today on the Meet the Planners Series of one of my favorite blogs, The Smart Planner.com. 

The Smart Planner Blog, is written by my friend and wedding planner colleague Liene Stevens, in Scottsdale, AZ; owner of Blue Orchid Designs and the fabulous Blue Orchid Blog. 

I had the pleasure of meeting Liene in Scottsdale this past September and we had a great time talking about weddings, our businesses, etc. It was wonderful to meet the very smart, savvy, creative and passionate young lady behind these successful blogs.

The Smart Planner is one of my daily MUST READ blogs and a great resource guide for wedding & event planners to help us grow professionally, creatively and run a successful business.

If you are a wedding and event planner and you don't have The Smart Planner on your list of daily reads, as well as the Blue Orchid Blog (great ideas for planners & brides), I encourage you to do so as they are both habit forming!

Have a Stylish Weekend!

Las Vegas Wedding Concierge Joins "Your Wedding Day" Magazine

Ooooh, you know any day is going to be a great day when you get a fabulous new wedding magazine delivered to your door. Well, I guess it is if you are a bride and groom planning a wedding or a Wedding Consultant who loves weddings that is:)

Well, I had a great day yesterday because the beautiful (and I MEAN BEAUTIFUL) new Fall 2008, 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition of "Your Wedding Day Magazine" arrived and I am just in love with this magazine.

I love it so much actually that I am proud and pleased to say Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge has been invited (and I accepted of course) as a "Preferred YWD" Member in their Platinum Wedding Directory. 

I first discovered this magazine while attending the "Special Event Show" convention in Los Angeles in 2007 and it was mainly a Southern California, Santa Barbara based publication. I remember opening the cover and flipping through the pages and was just mesmorized by the images; they were gorgeous. Yes, that is the word, "gorgeous"!! I sent in my subscription information as soon as I got home.

I am proud to be amongst some of the finest and creative wedding professionals in the business in this magazine from California to New York and I am so excited for you to visit the site and see the beautiful "YWD Preferred Feature Profile" about me and my business and all the beautiful resources, images and articles they have to offer online & in print.

The magazine will be in Barnes & Noble Bookstores nationwide in August & you should definitely get yourself a copy, grab yourself a delicious coffee and take some time to enjoy all the "gorgeous", stylish and inspiring images.

Have a wonderful and Stylish Day.

I'm in "Style Me Pretty's "Little Black Book"!!

One of my favorite wedding inspiration blogs that I check on daily is Style Me Pretty.com, written and designed by Abby Larson.

Abby definately has specific and distinctive taste and the weddings and details she features on her blog are creative, stylish and of course inspirational to brides (and their Wedding Consultants), who are looking for great ideas to bring their "Wedding Style" vision to life.

Style Me Pretty is one of THE MOST popular wedding blog sites amongst "Style Obsessed Brides" in the country and has many celebrity fans including Ms. Martha herself!!

So, I was totally honored when "Style Me Pretty" invited me to head up their "short list" of "Event Planners" for their newly launched Las Vegas "Little Black Book" of Very Important Vendors directory upon the reccomendation of my friend and now fellow Las Vegas "L.B.B." photographer pick, Ashley Bartoletti Photography (Thanks once again Ashley!)

The short list has a pretty high stanard of criteria and each category has only 3 wedding professionals who are pre-screened for references, quality and the "Style Me Pretty" aesthetic; so that is some exclusivity (I'm the only one in my category).

I hope you will all stop by to check out their fabulous blog, check me out too in the "Little Black Book" and stay a while to get some great creative ideas.

Have a Stylish Day!!

We are Going Platinum-Grace Ormonde Platinum for 2008!

So how does it feel to be invited to join one of the magazines that you you have been inspired by; that you read cover to cover and save each issue for the past 5 years and is considered one of the most influntial trend-setting magazines in the wedding business?

Well, it feels REALLY, REALLY GREAT!!!

Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge is delighted to announce that we have been invited to join the prestigous Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine's 5 Star Platinum Listing for 2008!!

Grace Ormonde has recognized Las Vegas, NV as a wedding market and destination with great style and incredible resources for hosting luxury weddings!

Being invited to this prestigious list puts us in some pretty good company along with Colin Cowie, Mindy Weiss, The Wynn Las Vegas Resort and The Bellagio!!

Look for us soon under the "Wedding Consultant" category in the Nevada Resource Section at Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine Online and in the "5 Star Platinum Listing" of the upcoming Spring/Summer 2008 Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine.

Other News...

To celebrate this great news, Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge offices will be closed from September 11-18th. Just kidding!

Well, sort of...We are closing for the week due to my celebration of the the Jewish New Year and I will be heading home to visit my family in Toronto, Canada (I actually had this trip booked before the other news, really!).

In addition to being home with my family for the holidays, I was informed that I would be invited to a cousin's wedding while I was in town!!!

Go figure! A Wedding planner attending a wedding on her time off!! I just get a chuckle when I think about it because I guess it would seem I live and breathe weddings all the time, LOL!

Truthfully, I am so excited because living so far away from most of my family in Canada, I miss out on a lot of weddings and celebrations that were so much a part of my fond memories of growing up in my family. It will be such a pleasure to be a guest at this wedding and be there for my cousin. I am sure people will be looking at me and wondering if I'm judging the flowers or picking apart the ceremony in some way, but I won't be, I PROMISE:)!

I will see you all when I return on the 19th and have a Stylish week!!

Dear Wedding Concierge-Do You Know of any good Planning Software?

Well, as a matter of fact, dear reader, "I Do", as in "I Do Wedding Couple Edition" wedding planning software.

What I love about this particular software is it's user friendly interface and integration with WORD, Email, Excel and the web. It is very intuitive and it will keep all your digital wedding files happy and that in turn will make you happy..which will make your wedding planner...VERY HAPPY:)!!

As a matter of fact, Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge also says "I Do" to the Wedding Professional version of this product to keep all of her weddings in check, on time and organized and her clients stress-free, secure and thrilled with an organized and beautiful wedding day as a result.

Whether you are working with a wedding planner (it makes it real easy to share information on the same software platform), or planning on your own, this software has all the tools from vendor contacts and management to keeping up with your tasks, RSVP's and meal selections to your timeline and wedding budget management.

"I Do" Couples Edition has been rated 5 stars by countless download sites including Download.com and Tucows.com

Here is the best part, because Your Las Vegas Wedding Concierge wants you to be a happy and stress-free couple, I have the ability to offer you a promotional code for a 10 % discount off the software when you order with the code "LVWC" at the "I DO" website. The regular retail price is $29.95.

"But wait, there's more" (I can't believe I am using that line, LOL!)

Elm Software (very nice people who also want you and me to be happy stress free planners and brides), have another product called PrintJobs that makes it a snap to create envelopes, cards, labels, etc. with the "I Do" software and M.S. Outlook. Even long after the wedding is over, it's a great tool to have on your computer for doing your holiday cards, or any other printing tasks. This is also regular price of $29.95

You can get "such a deal" when you use the same code above for both products. Yes, I know I sound like a sales person here, but it strictly is passing on good information that I would pass to a friend...and you are a friend if you are visiting, right?

Ok, NOW, you can go ahead and hug your Wedding Planner and Have a Stylish Day:)!