How are you using scent to enhance your event? In Preston Bailey’s Design for Entertaining: Inspiration for Creating the Party of Your Dreams scent can be used to add “texture” to your event. Preston describes texture as anything that tickles the senses or touch, vision, or smell. Scented candles, flowers, or even incense are ways to get fragrances for your event. Scent can inspire strong feelings and emotions. It can also bring back memories. So, the use of scent can definitely have an effect on your event’s mood.
So, how can you take scent to the next level? There’s actually a company called ScentEvents that specializes in creating the perfect scent for your event. ScentEvents has done a lot of high profile work including making the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood smell like chocolate for the premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They also made the premiere of The Last Samurai smell like cherry blossoms. And, they can also make your wedding smell like whatever you can imagine.
According to an article in Modern Bride, the famous wedding planner, Sasha Sousa, used ScentEvents for one wedding which she divided a room into four seasons each with its own scent (honeysuckle for spring, citrus for summer, autumn leaves for fall, and berries for winter). Other popular wedding scents are lavender, grass, ocean, and chai tea. Then for desert, chocolate is an all time favorite. The choices of scents are almost unlimited and the price isn’t too bad starting at about $300. Checkout their website for details!
Okay, I know I’ve only been at this wedding blogging thing for about 7 months and there are a lot of popular wedding blogs out there.But, today I’d like to share some of the things I learned about building my blog.There are lots of techniques out there having to do with search engine optimization, use of social networks like digg, myspace, facebook, sites like StumbleUpon, etc.But I’m going to focus on getting links!
For those of you who don’t know, links are like money, the more you get the better off you are.They not only drive traffic your way directly by people clicking on them, they also are used by search engines, like google to determine how important and relevant your site is so they can properly rank you in search results.
So how do you build links?Sure you can just ask another blogger for a link exchange.But, I think it’s much better to build friendships with other bloggers.This takes time, but it can be fun too!
So here are my top five ways to build your blog.
Contribute on other blogs in your niche.There’s lots of wedding blogs out there, take the time to find them.You can do this by clicking off of blog rolls on other blogs or using Technorati or another blog search tool to find them.If you find an interesting post that you can provide a relevant / helpful comment to then post a comment.Remember, don’t just spam other blogs with non relevant responses just to get your link out there, you need to actually provide some useful information.This might make some of their readers come over and check out your blog and you might just get some new followers.The other benefit is you will become known amongst other bloggers.This probably won’t have immediate payoff but it is planting seeds that may grow someday.
Help a blogger out.It is the plight of every blogger to come up with good, interesting content day after day.I believe most bloggers go through phases of low inspiration and other times when they would just like to take a break.So, don’t be shy about asking to guest blog on other blogs.I was lucky enough to guest blog on the famous “Style Me Pretty” when I first started blogging and that probably was the most valuable thing I’ve done in terms of building traffic.Weddingbee also accepts guest blog posts and you know how valuable that would be for traffic.It not only gets you an all important link it also helps your reputation.
Ask others to guest blog on your blog.This is something I tried to do a lot of last summer.This gets fresh content for your readers and it also helps build relationships with other bloggers and wedding professionals.
Link Love:Weddings are all about love so why shouldn’t wedding blogs show love too?Link love that is.I found there’s no better way to get incoming links than to link to others.Not only are my Top-5 Wedding Blog posts of the week interesting reading, since they make it easy for my readers to soak in the best posts of the week from around the wedding blogosphere, they are also great for getting other blogger’s attention and in many cases links!
Hold a blog carnival!This is something I haven’t done yet but it seems like it might be a good idea.A blog carnival is when a bunch of bloggers get together and write blog posts about a certain topic.One of the bloggers volunteers to host the carnival and posts a compilation post (similar to my Top-5 format) with a short summary of each post and a link to the actual post. As you can imagine there will be links generated all over the place during a blog carnival.I think it would be pretty cool to have all my favorite bloggers writing about a topic from their perspective.It would keep things interesting and it will also generate links!
So those are my humble tips on how to build your blog!
Want 101 more tips checkout this great book! It’s pretty cheap too!
Okay, yesterday we covered the chairs, today we are covering putting people in the chairs.
The Head Table:
The standard is to put the bride and groom in the middle and have the bridal party seated on each side of them.One alternative is to have no head table, just a sweetheart table for the bride and groom and have the bridal party dispersed at the regular tables.Anyone doing anything different for the head table?
The rest of the tables:
So who should you sit where?You want people to feel comfortable and you also want them to mingle.So, try to sit people with a few people they know and also have some people they don’t know.Typically, you will sit the close family near the head table or the sweetheart table.But, like most things, there are no strict rules.You can be creative!
Table numbers or names?How are you doing it?
Assigned seats or random?
If you are looking for a nice tool to create your seating chart, checkout toptableplanner.The seating chart shown above was created there.You can easily “build” the tables and lay them out as they will be in your venue.Then you can drag and drop names where you want them.It’s pretty neat, you can try it for free on their website.
I got an email from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia about the upcoming October 07 issue of Martha Stewart Weddings.
Here’s what’s coming to newstands on October 1st…
“The wedding reception is most likely the biggest party a couple will ever throw in their lives. We are here to provide all of the inspiration for this once in a lifetime experience – from the big picture (Reception 101, p. 248) to the smallest details (how-to cake calligraphy p. 288).”– Darcy Miller, Editorial Director
From soup (and centerpieces) to nuts (and nifty favors), 50 tips for throwing the perfect reception that will make planning easier.
Setting the table p. 258
Complete checklists for setting a gorgeous table for a wedding, or any occasion, whether your style is tropical, contemporary or old-world elegance.
Healthy bride p. 150
Top tips for getting into shape for the big day and beyond, including fitness and diet regiments that will help every bride look her best.
PLUS!
Tune into NBC next Wednesday, September 26 to catch the “Today Throws a Martha Stewart Wedding” series. And on October 5, watch as Jessica & Cody are married live at Rockefeller Plaza followed by the reception of their dreams at Tiffany & Co. in New York City – all planned by the experts at Martha Stewart Weddings.
- Over the weekend we will republish all our posts to our new blog.
- Next week we will have a notice that we moved to try to catch any stragglers.
- On September 15th if you try to go to this current address you will be auto forwarded to OurWeddingPlus.com then follow the links to the blog.
So please be prepared to update your links! And to our feed subscribers, please get ready to subscribe to the new feed next week!
For those of you who have been gracious enough to have us on your blogroll, please update your links. If your not on my new blogroll and you think you should be please send me an email.
We are moving from Blogger to Wordpress which is supposed to be a good thing for a lot of reasons, so hang in there for bigger and better things from Our Wedding Plus!
How are you using scent to enhance your event? In Preston Bailey’s Design for Entertaining: Inspiration for Creating the Party of Your Dreams
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