Jun 3 Flashback Friday: Wedding Pros' Event Day Irritants & Vendor Pet Peeves, Revealed

As our loyal WeddingIQ readers know, we eagerly solicit anonymous rants from our colleagues in the wedding industry, with the purpose of bringing other professionals' real feelings into the spotlight. Let's face it: sharing our real thoughts can be hard, especially when we don't want to jeopardize our referral relationships or make our next networking event even more awkward.

Collecting anonymous submissions from our readers enables us to bring up problematic issues and actions for discussion here on the site, and to determine what's important to the people who follow our blog. (With that in mind, we invite you to submit your own anonymous rant, or, if anonymity isn't your thing, email us directly with what matters most to you!)

Apr 22

Apr 22 WeddingIQ Retrospective: Why "Wedding Confidential" Should Make You Proud, Not Mad, Revisited

Guest Contributor

Wedding Industry, Ethics, Mindset

(Editor's Note: Our monthlong look back at WeddingIQ's most influential posts continues today, as Jennifer revisits her January 2013 article, "Why Wedding Confidential Should Make You Proud, Not Mad.")

If there's one thing I've learned in almost 20 years in the wedding industry, it's that the media will apparently never tire of not only vilifying wedding businesses, but also thinking it's original to do so. The January 2013 episode of the ABC News program 20/20, titled "Wedding Confidential," was no exception.

While the program link in my original article no longer works (evidently, ABC didn't feel the show was worth archiving anywhere - which is no big loss, trust me), my feelings on the program itself remain the same.

Apr 18

Apr 18 WeddingIQ Retrospective: Why We've Said "No" to Wedding Venues' Marketing Brochures, Revisited

Guest Contributor

Ethics, Wedding Industry, Marketing

(Editor's Note: We're just two weeks away from a BIG announcement for WeddingIQ! In the meantime, we continue our look back at game-changing posts from our past. On the docket today, Jen's May 2012 post, "Why We've Said "No" to Wedding Venues' Marketing Brochures.)

Boy, was I hot under the collar when I wrote this one. I remember so clearly how excited my former business partner and I were when our DJ company started seeing referrals roll in from our favorite venues. It was so validating, like all our hard work was truly paying off, and paying off in spades.

And then, the calls started rolling in. We went from receiving a few requests to advertise in our favorite venues' new marketing books - beautiful, photo-rich books, to be truthful - to receiving dozens. The quality of our referrals dipped. And after a couple of years of this, we said "enough."

Mar 18

Mar 18 Flashback Friday: Are You Honoring Your Own Contract, Revisited

Guest Contributor

Wedding Industry

(Editor's note: Today, we're rolling out a new semi-regular Friday post series, in which we revisit some classic WeddingIQ posts to see how our perspective may have changed over time, and/or to provide some updated insight and resources on topics that remain relevant today!)

This month on the blog, we've been sharing content on topics related to the legal, financial and operational aspects of your wedding business. Of course, these are perennial responsibilities that we as business owners have to maintain consistently (which, admittedly, is sometimes easier said than done). We were fortunate to have attorney Autumn Witt Boyd share her knowledge of the importance of effective client contracts earlier this week, and another of our attorney friends, Annette Stepanian, has created a great set of customizable contract templates (with an exclusive afflilate link for WeddingIQ readers here!)

Mar 7

Mar 7 Hire Character, Train Skill

Guest Contributor

Wedding Industry, Relationships

We’ve all heard the business adage "Hire character, train skill." But what does it mean? How do you do it? And, finally, how important is it when it comes to your wedding and event business? In this post, I’m going to be speaking entirely about independent contractors as opposed to employees, as the process is a little different when hiring for short-term gigs rather than full-time work with a company. So, let’s get started!