Wedding Registry Direct Blog

Welcome

1. Gaining extra
2. Getting a leg up on the competition as couple’s make their choices on who to hire
3. Building your reputation and incoming referrals.

If you and your sweetie have just gotten engaged, you will soon find questions from friends and family come at a breakneck pace.  People will want to know where the wedding will take place, what kind of wedding you intend to have and, perhaps most importantly, the date.

• Sentimental dates – Mull over dates that are special to the both of you as a couple. Perhaps you might want to get married on the anniversary of the day you met or maybe the first time you said “I love you.” Sentimental dates can add even more of a romantic flavor to an already romantic occasion.
• The desired venue – If you have an idea where you’d like to get married, finding out upcoming schedules is never a bad idea. If you’re sold on a place, its schedule could very easily narrow down the options for you.
• The guest list – Consider who you intend to invite to the wedding, how far they will have to travel from and the work schedules involved. If having certain people attend is vital, giving enough notice for travel and vacation days is always smart.
• Seasonal considerations – If you’ve always dreamed of having a winter wonderland wedding, speak up. Narrowing down the desired season is a great way to cut out three quarters of the days on a calendar!
• Conflicting dates – Pay attention to conflicting important dates that might impact friends and family. While it’s your big day, your desired maid of honor, for example, might not be able to fly across country on Christmas Eve.

It’s a simple fact that the wedding industry is big business for companies. It doesn’t matter whether you specialize in flowers, cakes, dresses, planning or something else entirely, one well-executed event can make your star rise. The referrals that can come in and the repeat business that might be enjoyed can easily serve as the backbone on which to grow and venture and help it thrive.

Everyday it is becoming more and more common for couples to finance their own wedding, and with the rising costs in the wedding industry, budgets quickly run out. With Wedding Registry Direct, you will now be able to register with your photographer, florist or dance studio for products that will help you have the wedding of your dreams. In addition to the traditional registries at department stores, you can now register with your wedding vendors for items such as flowers, additional photographs or even dance lessons. As a newlywed myself, I found that the wedding industry has grown a lot and before I knew it, my budget quickly became more and more limited. I would have loved the option of registering with my florist for extra reception flowers or with my photographer for additional prints or camera time. With Wedding Registry Direct and the help of your friends and family, you can now plan and have the wedding of your dreams without going into debt. It’s also a great way to have your friends and family be an active part of your wedding.

Most couples are just starting to establishing themselves financially. With the high cost of a wedding, their budget is not as generous as they would like it to be. They’re starting out with the engagement ring expenses, maybe a new mortgage and now a wedding. Thanks to Wedding Registry Direct, couples can now register directly with their vendors and expand their budget. In addition to the products that they are able to afford themselves, couples can now have the option to register for additional items that would enhance their dream wedding. Friends and family can choose to help the couple pay for items they could not afford on their own. This option benefits everyone! Not only does the couple receive help for their dream wedding, but friends and family can actively be part of the wedding and the vendor has effectively increased their source of revenue per couple. Now vendors are able to work with the couple's budget in addition to the financial support of those attending the wedding.

I am really excited to share Wedding Registry Direct with you and hope that you find value, whether you are a vendor or a bride-to-be. Please let me know how we can improve this service, we are constantly working on making it better.

This blog is going to provide tips and tricks to be a better wedding vendor. These will include many aspects of the wedding business--today we will talk about invoicing. Specifically about a wonderful invoicing site called FreshBooks.

Concerns About Online Invoicing

I can hear you now:

Online invoicing? That sounds complicated and expensive, and plus I've already got invoicing taken care of the old way, and that has worked well for me so far.

Today's online invoicing applications are no longer complicated, nor expensive, and there are some good reasons that you might want to consider moving that direction.

Good Reasons for using Online Invoicing

Not that long ago, people didn't know their www from their http. However times are changing. The average age of people getting married in the United States is around 26 years old. This is a very important number because every year, you can look back and see that 26 years ago computers were more and more embedded in culture.

2008 - 26 = 1982

When people born in 1982 were in middle school, the web was already an integral part of their young education. They were buying books on Amazon and writing reports on their Macintoshes.

Every single year, more and more couples getting married are increasingly computer literate. They not only are as familiar with the internet as their parents were with radios, but they come to expect to use the internet more and more. They use the internet to buy shoes (http://www.zappos.com/), groceries (http://www.safeway.com/), and crafts (http://www.etsy.com/).

Couples these days also in larger and larger numbers are funding their weddings themselves, so the invoices go directly to that young, internet savvy couple. What better way to present yourself as the modern wedding vendor than to present them with a modern internet based invoice.

Online Invoicing is no Longer Expensive or Complicated

Many of you probably tried to use online invoicing at some point but found it hard and expensive. With the advent of Web 2.0, this has all changed. Web 2.0 has been an internet revolution that has created an immense wealth of better websites that are focused on being more usable and more affordable.

Two of the best of breed invoicing sites that have emerged are Blinksale and FreshBooks. Blinksale is a little bit easier and cleaner to use, but FreshBooks is more powerful and more flexible. Both of these sites have free trial accounts that let you have a limited number of free clients or invoices to test the system out.

FreshBooks even has the option to "snail mail" an invoice through their system automatically. This would work great for your clients who's parents are paying for the wedding and who you expect would prefer a snail mail version.

Features of Using Online Invoicing

Some of the benefits of using online invoicing include being able to have the system automatically send reminder notices for delinquent payments, being able to track and send invoices from the road or in internet cafes where you might not have access to your regular expense tracking applications. Plus, all of the data from the online invoicing sites can be imported into your regular expense tracking applications very easily. You can even accept payment through your merchant account or paypal through FreshBooks.

Conclusion

It is important to distinguish yourself and stand out to your clients. Making good impressions goes a long way to improving reputation and client referrals. I hope this information helps as you think about how to become more competitive in today's market. Good luck.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to a series of tutorials on how wedding vendors can make more money by accessing a brand new audience. Before the advent of Wedding Registry Direct, wedding vendors had one source of income: the couple getting married. Some times the parents pay, some times the couple pays, but either way you were limited to the pocket book of one person.

Wedding Registry Direct allows any wedding vendor to set up their own registry services. Now as a wedding vendor you are not only paid by the couple getting married, but by the guests to their wedding too.

This series will show examples of how you, as a wedding vendor, can increase your income, improve your reputation, and create a better referral service.

Overview

As a photographer, there are many ways in which Wedding Registry Direct can help you. For example:

1. Sell extra products
2. Gain an edge against other photographers during the couple's decision making process
3. Increase reputation and referrals

Sell extra products

Many times, a couple is interested in some of your higher-end products, but can not afford them or is not sure if they can afford them. Especially if the couple is funding the wedding themselves.

After discussing various package options to your client, it is an optimal time to bring up the fact that you offer wedding registry services. Many couples are familiar with wedding registry services from places like Macy's, but let's assume that they do not know about registries. Here is how a conversation might go.

You: Now that we have gone over the packages, you should also know that I offer wedding registry services. Do you know about those?

Client: No, what is that?

You: You mentioned earlier that you are interested in a leather-bound photograph book, but that it might not be in your budget at this time. If you would like, I could sign you up with my service and you will receive an email with a link that you can add to your wedding website or invitations. That way, your guests could buy you the leather bound photograph book filled with your own personal photos instead of kitchen shears and a tea kettle.

Client: That sounds great? What does it cost to set that up?

You: Nothing, it is included with all of my wedding packages. Here are some other products you might be interested in as well that we can add to your wedding registry.

 Here are some other photography products that might be good to add to a wedding registry. 

• Extra photographer on the wedding day
• DVD digital copy of the prints
• A full set of high quality prints
• A personalized calendar

Gain an Edge

In addition to selling extra products, by using Wedding Registry Direct, you are increasing your chances of gaining clients. If you are the only wedding photographer that offers wedding registry services, it may not tip the scale for your potential clients, but it certainly will stand out. This offering will definitely be on the short list for many of your couples when they are trying to decide between you and your competition.

Increase Your Reputation and Referrals

The benefits of using Wedding Registry Direct go beyond the short term in extra sales. When guests come to Wedding Registry Direct to buy your products, they will be introduced to you, they will know your name. This gives you a chance to make an impression. People will remember next time they are asked if they know a good wedding photographer. They will remember the cool photographer at John and Mary's wedding that let them purchase a fun wedding calendar for their friends instead of a forgettable cheese cloth.

Conclusion

 I hope this gives you some ideas and something to think about. Good luck!

The first thing you need to do is set a budget. Sit down with whoever is helping finance the wedding and set up a well-planned and thorough budget. You need to establish what is most important to you and allocate the funds accordingly. There are many, free online sites to help with your budget and planning. For example, marthastewart.com/weddings has many useful tools for budget, timeline, checklists and much more.

The next two important things are finding a place and getting a dress. These are the two most time sensitive things. Be sure to research online or take some time to visit your local visitors center to pick up brochures for possible venues in your area. They often have a wide selection of brochures for museums, art galleries, parks, outdoor spaces and historical sites depending on your location. They have a lot of information. A quick perusal might give you some ideas on possible venues.

Once you have established a budget and venue, start looking for a caterer, music, photographer, florist, baker, and stationer. Often venues will offer catering or have a list of preferred vendors they have worked with in the past and will not allow you to use other vendors. If you already have a caterer in mind, be sure to ask if they will allow you to choose the caterer of your choice.

When calling or meeting with possible vendors be sure to take a list of questions. With the excitement and wide array of information being provided, you might forget to ask some of your questions that were not answered. Possible questions include: date availability, how far will they travel, discounts for Sunday weddings, payment plans and deposits.

When sitting down to discuss food and alcohol, determine your options. For example, do they offer a formal dinner, buffet style, cocktail style, etc. Also, ask if you are allowed to bring in your own alcohol. This can be a big money saver. Call around to your local grocery or specialty stores and get prices and shop around. You also need to decide how to allocate your alcohol: pay for one drink per person, pay for example $1000 worth of drinks and then when that's gone guests pay the rest, or you pay all or guests pay all, or you provide wine and guests pay for hard drinks. Remember that this is your wedding and your budget and do whatever you and your budget can handle!

Finally and most importantly, remember to enjoy the day to its fullest. Everything bad will seem to disappear when the time comes.