Little sneaky sneak of Gareth & my shoot this week with Ashton Jean-Pierre. Full shoot on the blog on Monday.

Welcome to part two of this week’s Post It Notes – the businessy section…

Last week I spoke a little about comment etiquette, so I thought I’d continue the theme today with a few ideas on how you can get more comments on your own blog. We all like feedback and nice comments about a wedding I’ve shared always make me smile!

♥ Start a conversation and ask questions within your posts. People like to feel like they’re adding someone to a discussion or debate. I’m not saying try to start fiery arguments for no reason, but asking for people’s views and opinions should get the discussion flowing.  Ask questions within your blog posts so your readers feel involved in the conversation. Although it’s important to share your opinions and write in a way that is true to who you are, talking to yourself is no fun.

♥ Make it as easy as possible to leave a comment. There is nothing more frustrating that wanting to leave a comment but having to jump through a million hoops to do so. I’ll often just give up after a couple of attempts. Unfortunately Blogger is one of the worst for this (WordPress FTW!) Often you have to type in a verification code (annoying) or sign in with your Blogger account (I don’t have one.)

Also having to register to leave a comment is annoying and will turn people away – people don’t like giving away too much personal information online and there is always the worry when you have to sign up for something that your inbox is going to end up full of spam!

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Photography Credit: Nathan Russell Photography (full wedding to come next week)

I’m keeping it simple this week. You know this already but I do like to reiterate and repeat the fundamentals of the Rock n Roll Bride’s ethos occasionally.

Plan your wedding your way and forget what the rest of the world is saying you should (or shouldn’t) do. If you like something that’s ‘trendy’ in the wedding scene, who cares – rock it out. If you like stuff that would freak out most of the population then hell yes that’s got to be in your big day. If you don’t like ‘stuff’ at all then forget it.

Be you.

Innit…

If you have a website or blog which you link to your business, then commenting on other people’s blogs is a great way to make connections, get involved and (hopefully) drive people to check your site out too.

However there are certain unwritten do’s and don’ts when it comes to blog commenting and it’s sometimes hard to keep up. Apart from people purposely spewing out spam comments (luckily most of which get caught by anti-spam plugins) many of the ‘rules’ that are being broken are done so by people who simply don’t know any better. So here are a few simply tips to get you started…

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Photography Credit: Dixie Pixel Photography (full wedding on the blog next week!)

Sorting out the table plan can be one of the most stressful parts of planning your wedding (it certainly was for us) – knowing who’s going to get on with who and worrying that everyone will have a good time! The drama can be even more so if you have divorced parents or rowing relatives!

I asked my friend and wedding planner/blogger Kelly of Boho Wedding and Events if she had any advice on this tricky matter…

Table plans and seating arrangements can cause a complete headache when trying to do the right thing by all of your guests. In this instance, maybe the answer is to not have a seating plan at all? And let the guest fight it out (not literally of course!) between themselves. Lots of weddings I have worked on this year have had no formal seating plan at all, it gives a much more relaxed feel to your day and the guests really do get to sit with whomever they like.

If you are getting pressure of who to sit next to yourselves and who to put on the top table, why not forget the top table and have a sweetheart table instead? This way you and your husband/wife get to sit with each other on your own, and let the guests come to you. This way if there are any headaches with the whole seating plan then you never get to know about it!

If you do want to stick to the traditional table plan then try this piece of wedding soft wear from www.toptableplanner.com - it does all the hard work for you.

On a personal note, when I was sorting out my own table plan for my wedding,  I found using a photo of each guest really helped me to arrange the seating arrangements, instead of just a name.

Another way is to allocate guests to a table but not a seat and let them sort out who is sitting next to each other.

I love this last idea. Use ‘escort cards’ instead of a formal seating plan and just allocate everyone a card with their table number on. There are many cute ways to display these at your wedding too. Here are some of my recent favourite ideas…

♥ Wings at an airplane themed wedding Ashley Rose via Green Wedding Shoes
♥ Luggage labels & horseshoes Khaki Bedford Weddings full wedding here
♥ Navy stripes Glessner Photography via Wedding Chicks
♥ Oranges Lane Dittoe via Inspired by This
♥ Harmonicas (which can double up as favours!) Jesi Haack Weddings

This is a bit of a longer article than my usual Post It Notes but email is a bit of a nightmare isn’t it?! Therefore it takes longer to explain…Maybe you could write out like 25 post it notes and stick them all round your workstation instead?

I often get asked about my email management system so this week I thought I’d try to share my processes with you. First off I need to let you know that I am an email freak. Gareth often comments how I chew through emails like nobody’s business! I don’t by any means think my system is the most efficient; however it does work for me and the way my brain works. The key thing is that I actual have a system though. Finding one that works for you is imperative to staying on top of the dreaded inbox and keeping people happy.

There is nothing worse than sending an email and not hearing anything back for weeks (or not at all!) No matter how busy you are, taking forever to reply to your emails really does give a bad impression of you and your business (the people emailing you don’t know how busy you are) so I personally make it my number 1 priority after writing blog content.

Colour Coding

A nutshell, colour coding is your friend. Every morning I go through all my unread emails and mark them orange, this means they are unread/unactioned. Once I’ve read and replied to an email it then either gets filed in its appropriate folder (more on this further down the article) or re-coloured. If I have to do something in response to an email (ie create an invoice, find out some info) I mark it blue, this means ‘to do’. If something is urgent, (ie a magazine deadline has been brought forward or I have to edit something in a live blog post) I mark it red.

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Photography Credit: Devlin Photos (Full wedding coming soon!)

Arguably the most important part of your wedding day, but one that is so often overlooked until the last minute of your planning, the ceremony is the area I wanted to add some advice to this week. Enjoy!

Emma Smyth If your bridesmaids are going to walk in first make sure they give each other a second before the next so the photographer can get a clear shot of each one! Then Brides.. give yourself time too! It’s your moment!

Louise Liddy I read about a ceremony where all the children from the ceremony walked down the aisle in front of the bride waving flags and bells. I love this idea! So cute and involved all the children!

Claire Jackson add something unique to your ceremony with celtic hand-fasting (where the term ‘tying the knot’ originates from), lighting a candle together or including the ‘warming of the rings’ so your friends and family can make a wish for you both

Tillie Mabbutt Zone everyone else out, it’s just you & your spouse…

@candysnaps Check with your celebrant what the rules are regarding photography during the ceremony! Had couples before who found out at rehearsal that photographer is not even allowed in the room! They were gutted!

@paul_inskip Hold hands! you are there together so hold hands & comfort, reassure & be nervous TOGETHER

@elizacphoto Say your vows to each other, and not to the registrar. Makes it so much more special.

Just a few things I’ve been thinking about this week…

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Photography Credit: Rachel McCall Photography (Rachel bought her beautiful dress from an independent designer on etsy. More info when I blog the full wedding soon!)

This is a bit of a contentious issue with brides-to-be, but it is something I feel quite strongly about. I know you’re not all going to agree with me on this one, but just hear me out for a sec would ya? I understand how hard it is to plan a wedding on a budget, and I know know know a lot of you would prefer to DIY the majority of your big day than pay someone to do it for you – believe me, I was in your position once. I also love DIY weddings to the MAX and would never want to promote the fact that you need to spend a bomb on your wedding if you can’t/don’t want to.

However what does upset me, is when I see DIY brides copying the design of independent wedding suppliers and making their own version of it. Although you might not think about it (after all it’s your wedding right?…and you’re just one teeny tiny little person, who are you really gonna hurt?) but in the majority of cases that designer will have worked long and hard to come up with that original concept or design… and probably also works their butt off to make a living doing something they love (again, believe me, I know how hard it is to run your own business!) Do you ever wonder what might happen if no one paid them to do the work they were brilliant at?

If everyone did the same and just made copies of the things they saw but maybe couldn’t afford, where would all these amazing designers end up? Quite simply, they’d go out of business and all we’d be left with would be the soulless mass market shit. Boooooo!

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