Wedding Planning Excellence
On the 2nd & 3rd of March the UKAWP held their 4th annual seminar. As training director WPE is my ‘baby’ thus I spent many hours organising speakers & getting partners on board to create the perfect mix of business vs industry specific topics. Each year WPE is getting bigger and more exciting though with 31 delegates we are still not at the level of the U.S conferences which attract hundreds of planners from across the world. Maybe one day we can hold WPE in the Cayman Islands instead of London!
I headed to London on the 1st March with my wonderful co-director Sandy Moretta so we could start stuffing the swag bags and work with 51 Buckingham Gate on the room set up. We were lucky this year to have so many fab suppliers on board for the bags.
We had cake (GC Couture) cake pops (NOTHS) bottle openers (iBarco) scented candles & massagers (51BG) magazines (brides & your London Wedding) greeting cards (cutture) cookies (the cake house) and of course chocolate (artisan du chocolat)
After a wonderful breakfast on the 2nd we made our way to the seminar room to greet Simon & Victoria from Euphoric Flowers and James from Wedding Creative who were our WPE partners. Between them they created a sparkly blue backdrop for the stage & a pedestal of flowers inc. some wonderful blossom. On each table Euphoric had provided small cubes of plants as we didn’t want anything high, it was a conference after all! We then placed some cute lasercut butterflies & schedule provided by Cutture into the displays.
When delegates arrived they were given a delegate folder before enjoying some tea & pastries prior to the seminar starting. It was so nice seeing friends and colleagues from all over the UK, with many WPE is the only chance we get to see each other like Andrea from Cheshire and Nikki from Yorkshire. In fact I did have to keep telling the ‘Northern planners’ to behave during the seminar as they were rather enthusiastic!
Over the 2 days we had 11 speakers, too many to summarise here, but I did enjoy…..
Lloyd Dobbie – who explained post processing and what a difference it can make to the end image. It was fascinating seeing the difference of before & after shots. I till can’t understand why he can’t make me look like Angelina Jolie when he takes my picture but that’s another story altogether!
Jules Cardozo-Marsh – explained the key things to remember when hiring a make up artist but also gave us some great tips on makeup for us personally as wedding planners. And the best bet? She decided I’d be her muse for the demonstration.
TT Tents – Andrew was very enthusiastic with his presentation, when I saw the number of slides I did think how will he cover it all but we were able to whizz through. His presentation style was very entertaining and I know the planners learnt a lot from him.
IBarco – I use Debbie for many of my marquee and barn functions and I have a lot of respect for her. I think we all enjoyed the Thunder toffee vodka shot at the end of day 1. Some planners more then others!
Ellie Sanderson Boutique – Ellie runs 2 wonderful bridal boutiques (wish one was in Essex) and she explained abut trends she is seeing for dresses and accessories. She split us into teams and asked each team to create a different look , my team had to dress the model as if the wedding was in a Helsinki Cathedral. We had fun building the look and didn’t agree with the judge’s low scores (I think Ellie agreed with us though!)
Whitney Wing Drake – I have been liaising with Whitney for a joint Dream Occasions and Wish Wonder Dream project, and was delighted when she agreed to present at WPE. It was fascinating hearing about trends in the U.S but also the different services offered to brides.
Photo Credit – Lloyd Dobbie