Martha Stewart Luxury Wedding Expo – Live Blog

Good morning!

I thought, rather than do a review afterward, I’d try my first ever live blog/twit(“livetwit”?). You can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/lizcoopersmith

Let’s see, now how does this work…

8:56am – Entering seems to be a snap. If you already registered, you just enter your email address. If you’re not already registered, I’m not sure why since I’ve been bugging you about this for a couple of weeks, now! Anyway, I’m not your mother, so you can just register right now if you haven’t already.

8:59 – There are four different “store fronts” – Wedding 101 videos, Bridal Boutiques, Inspiration from Experts and Prize Salon. Let’s hit Wedding 101 Videos first…

9:09 – Went to “Defining Your Vision” first, hosted by Martha Stewart Wedding Editor-In-Chief Darcy Miller. Videos are about 7 minutes long. This is great information for a bride just starting out, and really, for a bride that’s maybe a little stuck, too. I was disturbed that there wasn’t a pause or fast forward “button” on any of these videos, but it comes up if you put your cursor on the screen. Whew! Martha Stewart perfection restored.

9:10 – Moving on to “Choosing Your Color Palette”. Darcy and contributor Matthew Robbins. Darcy: “Thank you Matthew Robbins for being here to help me talk about color” Robbins: “Absolutely, my favorite thing.” Darcy: “Well, you can’t have a wedding without color.” Um…Cough. Okay, fine, I’m just going to go ahead and laugh. The rest of the video is very good – Darcy and Matthew discuss how to find your color palette, where you can “bring it in” in your wedding, if there are any “rules” (only one – maybe don’t bring in too many colors, maybe), and what colors are popular these days.

9:43 – Sorry, had to take a phone call. I’m hitting one more video – “Sticking To Your Budget”, because I would LOVE to hear what Martha Stewart, inc. has to say about that. This time it’s Darcy and Anthony Lucca, special projects editor. They start out talking about online resources you can use in the place of stationery. Darcy is a little hesitant about sending out wedding invitations online, though, which doesn’t surprise me. I, however, don’t think you should have to choose, and am all about Pinng for that, too, because you can send a combo of email and print invites. Anthony also mentions the site as a Save the Date alternative, too. The video is worth looking at, definitely. What I thought was great is that, as much as people tell you stuff like, “put labels on wine bottles for table numbers”, “use seasonal flowers all in one color for your bouquets and centerpieces”, etc., this video shows you what all this money-saving stuff looks like, and it looks pretty good. Lots of groovy stuff your you DIY-ers out there, including an interesting way to combine placecards and wedding favors, and how to dress up your wedding cake, which may or may not be entirely made of actual cake. Now, I’m not sure how much money you’re going to save on serving a signature drink if you also get customized stirrer sticks for them (!!), but it’s the thought that counts. The thought being that you don’t want to feel cheap, so here’s a way to look luxe, but you’re gonna need between 3-4 of those per person. I’m just saying. Oh, but the clip art and stationery templates they talk about in the video? Here you go.

More coming up…