I am very blessed that my work happens to be in weddings since I can never get in trouble for perusing wedding blogs or tweeting interesting things I happen to read. But I wasn’t always in the wedding biz… in fact, when I got engaged and started planning my wedding, I was working as a business consultant. Even though I shared a cubicle on site, at the client, with half of my team, I still couldn’t resist the occasional (and sometimes not so occasional) perusing of wedding-related awesomeness. It wasn’t easy and a lot of times I would leave work with a guilty conscious knowing that I spent way too much time looking at wedding dresses when I should have been working on my excel model.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and since this is the start of a new year and a lot of couples get engaged over the holidays, I want to share with you some tips and advice I learned about planning my wedding at work.

1. Be mindful of your surroundings and prioritize what you need to do for work over what you want to do for your wedding. This one will be hard, but it is super important. Obviously you don’t want to be caught looking at wedding blogs when you are supposed to be doing something else, like taking notes in a meeting or putting together secondary research for your team. Work is work and it will still need to be there in good shape after your wedding happens. So take care to make sure you don’t tarnish it.

2. Give yourself “wedding planning time” as a reward for accomplishing a dreaded work-related task. Have you been meaning to put those expense reports together but just haven’t done it? Well, now you have an incentive. Once you’ve done the dirty work, give yourself permission to have a little fun.

3. Set a time limit for yourself and/or a single task. There are a million little and big things that need to be done for your wedding. You will not be able to get through them all in one sitting but if you don’t monitor yourself, time will fly by. What you thought was going to take 10 minutes has now taken over an hour and that presentation you were supposed to be working on is due on your boss’ desk in five minutes! Unfortunately, the excuse, “Sorry, I was looking at wedding venues,” isn’t going to cut it.

4. Turn the sound off on your computer. Nothing is worse than finding yourself in a quiet office with your colleagues working silently nearby when all of the sudden music/noise/whatever begins blaring from your speakers. Do yourself a favor and avoid the certain embarrassment and either always wear headphones or just simply keep your computer on mute.

5. Learn how to quietly and efficiently use Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Tab (I work on a PC so I have no idea what the equivalent would be for a Mac). These nifty little keys will help you shift between open documents you are looking at (Alt-Tab) or online pages (Ctrl-Tab). Go ahead, give it a try!

Bottom line, as much as you may want to, don’t let wedding planning interfere with your work. The dream wedding you are planning at work probably will need to be funded, at least in part, from the salary you are earning now, so don’t jeopardize that! If you are tight on time, stress, energy, etc. do yourself a favor and hire a wedding planner

Follow Nina Klein on Twitter:

It is a life-altering question and the pressure to perform often leads one to stumble and bumble through four little words — “Will you marry me?”

A newly minted event-planning company has crafted a creative solution — proposal planning services — to ensure the couple can set off on the path to happily ever after on the right foot.

“The proposal is something we wanted to focus on because a lot of times there is a mix of a bad case of the nerves and the fact that they’re really scared to disappoint the person they’re with,” Elegant Productions co-owner Lauren Martin said Wednesday.

“We’re here to work with them in advance and help them make it the right experience.”

Martin and business partner Katelyn Hipson are public relations experts, certified wedding planners and self-described lovers of all things nuptial. The “dynamic duo,” as Martin calls them, unveiled their event and wedding planning services company just two weeks ago.

For a fee, the proposal planners will help plot the scenario and help execute it so the special moment goes off without a hitch. Armed with a bevy of dos and don’ts and a plethora of research, the pair said no proposal is too wacky or complicated to pull off.

“We will get down to business to learn about the couple and what their story is and what they want for their engagement,” Martin said. “If they want to wow the crowd or do something fun like a flash mob dance proposal, we can incorporate that.” There are more than 20 wedding planners listed in the Halifax area, but Martin and Hipson are the first to offer services before “yes” is on the lips of a blushing bride or groom to be.

The proposal planning service is popular across the United States, with many planners charging up to $100 per hour for devising a plan. The proposal planning fee at Elegant Productions starts at free and moves up accordingly, and it is worth every penny for both the unsuspecting bride and groom, Hipson said.

“The wedding industry in Canada is a $2-billion industry per year, where most, if not all of the decision-making lies in the hands of the bride. The one and only time when men have all control is during the planning of the wedding proposal.”

(ccosgrove@herald.ca)

Many brides are stressed out during the weeks leading up to their nuptials. There are just so many details to work out, so many decisions to make – colours, flowers, food, decorations. The list is endless.

For Laura Weaver, of Brantford, Ont., her stress came from none of these sources. Instead, she was busy coaching family members and friends on how to get a passport and what to pack for a tropical vacation.

“Many of our guests hadn’t ever travelled; some had never flown before,” explains Weaver, who married Mick Montgomery in Cuba this past spring.

“The best part (of a destination wedding) is that it’s so stress-free. We had a little (stress) before, helping guests book and pack, but none when we were down there,” she adds. “I was in the pool with a mojito in my hand at 1 p.m. and got out, had my hair done and was ready to get married for the ceremony at 3 p.m.”

Over the past decade, there’s been a groundswell of enthusiasm for destination weddings. Faith Wishnie, director of wedding services for Karisma Hotels and Resorts, credits societal changes for this.

“Awareness of destination (wedding) options has really jumped. This is because of family and friends being spread across the world, people travelling more now, and the Internet has played a big part because it’s easy to do the research.”

Many couples seek the exotic romance of a beach wedding, making Caribbean destinations the most sought-after venues for nuptials. Combine this with potentially lower costs and an easier planning process and you have marital bliss.

“The trend is (for brides) who want to have the planning simplified and have everything taken care of,” says Wishnie. She adds that some of the same trends as traditional weddings are showing up at destination weddings, such as having colour-coordinated candy buffets and favouring cupcakes over big, tiered cakes.

Resorts answer this need by having dedicated staff that cater to the needs of bridal couples exclusively. The Karisma chain provides a groom’s room, so that both can get ready in privacy.

The Karisma chain has a staff of 12 wedding planners to guide brides through the planning process – mostly using email as the method of communication – for weddings at any of their three El Dorado (adults only) or four Azul (family-friendly) properties. There are 15 on-site wedding coordinators to execute the ceremonies and receptions.

For couples seeking stress-free preparation, DestinationWeddings.com recently opened a Canadian office in Toronto. According to Ed Cotton, chief operating officer, being able to talk to someone in your own country and in your own language is hugely appealing. With 250 wedding coordinators across North America, this company has helped 13,000 couples tie the knot in far-flung lands over the past seven and half years.

Nicole and Sean Kelly are one of those couples. They were married at the Azul Beach Resort near Playa del Carmen, Mexico, last January. This year they plan to celebrate their first anniversary in the same location, thanks largely to a $1,000 credit arranged for them through DestinationWeddings.com.

This was just one of the perks of using this particular service. Others included working with a wedding planner that had been personally recommended by a friend and having all their 60 guests’ travel and room arrangements dealt with by one person, ensuring the ultimate stress-free holiday they desired.

Weaver’s party in Cuba had 22 guests, and Kelly’s nuptials saw 60 travel to Mexico. Wishnie says that up to 200 guests can easily be accommodated. For guests who can’t travel – elderly or ill relatives – many properties offer a webcam service so they can view it live online.

Just like traditional nuptials, destination weddings can be as casual or as fancy as the couple wishes, but brides who have experienced the beauty of a beach wedding say that it’s an experience of a lifetime that they would do over and recommend to others without hesitation. “I’ve already recommended Destinationweddings.com to a friend who is marrying in Jamaica,” says Kelly.

“Everyone really enjoyed it and it was one of the most beautiful experiences of our lives,” says Weaver.

Do’s and Don’ts for destination weddings:

• Do gear your wedding attire to the weather, advises Laura Weaver. “I saw some brides with heavy traditional dresses sweating and their makeup was running down their faces. I felt bad for them.”
• Don’t check anything that you’ll absolutely need or want for the big day, says Faith Wishnie. “Carry your dress with you and/or buy anything there that you definitely want for the wedding.”
• Do use a smaller resort for a more intimate setting for your wedding, advises Nicole Kelly. “We went to a small resort that was partly being renovated and had the place mostly to ourselves. No waiting in lines. It was great.”
• Do have your hair done in a full or partial updo, says Laura Weaver. “The wind was blowing so hard on the beach that it would have been in my face in all the pictures if I hadn’t had the front pulled up.”
• Don’t bring party favours with you, says Faith Wishnie. “We can work with you to get favours or flowers and decorations cheaper (onsite).”
• Do let staff know of dietary restrictions, adds Laura Weaver. “I took a vegan cake mix along and went to the kitchen the day of the wedding. They were very accommodating in making both regular and vegan cakes.”