Grandma and Auntie always need ANOTHER BAG!

Do you find yourself searching for last minute wedding destination favor with a month to go before the nuptials? Is the struggle real???

Some of my typical go tos are candles, wine stoppers, labeled bags for the candy bar, personalized letters written by you on luxurious stationary and keychains...

But have you thought about luggage tags? Decently nice ones with all your personalized ish on them?

What about a canvas or vacation tote...personalized. It can say as little or as much as you want and are willing to pay for. Options are truly endless and you know Grandma and Auntie always need ANOTHER BAG! It could be a big emblem Letter...just the 1st letter of your new last name and that's it for the simple look as well as the low low in price. If you wanted a bit more...You could keep the personalized info in a smaller font which saves your coint but also makes the bag user friendly to a lot of people. It doesn't have to say PAULETTA (needed a random name and Denzel and Pauletta are on my bedroom floor on the cover of Ebony lol) all big on it where folks would say, "it's nice but I can't use THIS"...you can have Denzel weds Pauletta 2015 until forever blah blah real discreet on the bag somewhere.

You could even put together a travel kit inside of the personalized tote. Sometimes I encourage brides that have several out of town guests to put together lil kits. Your kit may include sun screen and lip balm etc...of which you can personalize alllll that jazz too.

What about putting notes in a bottle...kind of like a SOS that would typically be found in the ocean. You could roll up a letter that has your engagement pic also...it can be nice and generic or written specifically with each guest in mind. Engrave the bottle if you're really about that life. Gone head...do it up.

Stuck on the candy bar?? Engrave a cute lil box for the candy bar. Make sure it's a pretty sturdy one so that people can use it to hold their candy at the reception instead of that dreaded white paper bag...that box can be used for something else when they get home. Multipurpose.

You can pretty much get anything engraved and it could serve as your guest's trinkets or paperweights. A flip flop, a cruise boat, beach towel, palm tree etc. TOTALLY ENGRAVE-ABLE. For the more discreet approach, flip the item to the back and engrave Denzel and Pauletta 2015.

Wanting to step it up and CASH OUT?  Try glasses. Your guests will be toasting with your favor for years to come...or until they drop. Is that just me? I don't have a full set of anything because I stay breaking something. lol.

Don't be the couple that grew tired by the time favors were discussed and just dropped the ball. You can get a lot of stuff done locally and quickly. There's always time...

~Peace

“You ready Bey?” “Let’s go get ‘em.”

Greetings

Last year strategically placed me in amazing standing for 2015. You never know who is watching you work or whose ears are free of wax and waiting to hear how you’re developing.  Last year in Boston, during what I consider the BEST concert of all times… one of my faves THE Mrs. Karen Clark THE Sheard  reminded me of this very scripture, “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him in front  of  great men” (Proverbs 18:16). Okay so this is not going to be a Holy Ghost filled post…but ahhh DASSIT! Powerful stuff.  I’m quick to forget that I have been empowered to make room for myself. My gift (which encompasses so much more than “talent”) will open doors of opportunity if I continue to delight myself in the ultimate giver…the one that gave his begotten son.  I could probably spend a few pages on that…but I won’t. lol.

So I’ve been doing an extreme amount of venue and vendor consulting. I arrange the interviews, we pick the lucky winner, and I’m out. This works well 90% of the time. My top 3 favorite events  since I’ve blogged  have been an 80s themed party, an 1 year olds lady bug themed party, and an engagement party.  The 80s themed party had real life break dancers and printed pics as favors. The 1 year old actually had onesies made that read “LENA BUG” over the cutest graphic of a black and red lady bug; her name is Elena. The engagement party was enchanting…from the candlelight to the amazing words spoken by those closest to the couple. It’s always my honor when people entrust their events to me...it’s like a quick marriage where I spend the majority of my time proving I’m worthy of their love.  Oh but once it’s proven…I’m in there forever and they refer me to their loved ones. That’s the BEST place to be.

I recently hired a vendor for my own 30^th celebration based on a reference. It was going good until the increased price. I ate it because, well, I was on limited time and at the time I thought it included more things than it actually did. I was excited to give this particular vendor a chance because I knew I needed some new blood in this line of work. CAN YOU SAY I was handled awfully? I’d shown myself polite in doing a favor, as I often do, because in real life I provide a service and it’s hard to put a value on every single thing you do until the very end. Not everyone understands that tipping for a service is customary, so you do favors here and there because you know you’ll get it back in the end. Pay if forward if you will. Well honey…after receiving some rude texts and some things I could have probably gotten out of…I paid in full and concluded to never use this vendor. How unwise it is for a vendor to mistreat a client…you don’t know their reach. Everybody is on their hustle and references are golden.  Who I won’t work with again is…well…you get the point. The world turned and as life would have it some newborn blood did recently develop in that same month (insert praise hands). I’d take a less experienced person with raw talent ANY day. In fact, that excites me. They work that much harder…they’re HUNGRY. Grrr. Heck I’m hungry too so let’s get these stacks together. “You ready Bey?” “Let’s go get ‘em.”

~xoxo