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Alyse at her shower this past weekend.
Maybe this is my inner all-girls high school and sorority girl talking, but I love showers. I always have a great time catching up with family, friends, my friends’ parents and my mom’s friends. And now that my days are decidedly not filled with all-female themed events (but those were the days), there’s nothing wrong with a little girl time.
My shower was hosted by the family of one of my closest friends (bridesmaid and another bride-to-be!) at their house. When they asked me what I wanted for my shower, my response was something along the lines of “To have no part in the planning of my shower.” Just because I take things that I do plan very seriously does not mean that I want to plan them all. Besides, the hosts and the bridesmaids are more than capable of handling it, and I wanted to be surprised! The day couldn’t have been better. It was 80 degrees, so we could all enjoy the outside deck. The color scheme was yellow and the theme was birds (a wedding color and theme that never happened—so thoughtful!). It was all over-the-top perfect in a personalized and a general great-day way.
While there were no games, I did open my presents in front of everyone. I know that some brides forgo this, and at first I thought I might have an “eco” shower with no wrapping paper and a display of the gifts, but my mom was not having that. She wanted me to open the presents. I went along with it and thought it might be fun, or at least an experience. The bridesmaids set up quite an assembly line. The presents were brought in from outside, unwrapped, opened, card presented and gift recorded. All I had to do was hold up the gift and announce the name. Despite all of this efficiency, which usually gets me very excited, I got surprisingly overwhelmed. I have given speeches and argued in court with little incident, but opening presents at my bridal shower nearly made me pass out. I needed a few minutes to compose myself before I could join everyone for dessert.
So now, I have two concerns: First, my pre-wedding events have been nothing short of fabulous. My bachelorette party and the shower were so great and fun. I really hope the actual wedding follows this trend! Second, now that I learned that I get overwhelmed when there is personal (but not professional?) attention on me, I am afraid I am going to be one of those brides who passes out on the alter. Stay tuned for that one!
Were your pre-wedding events so awesome you worried they’d be a tough act for your actual wedding to follow?
An obscure designer has been bombarded by brides since she designed the wedding dress worn by Mark Zuckerberg’s new bride, Priscilla Chan.
The designer, Claire Pettibone, normally gets 1,500 unique site visitors a week but is now up to 26,000 since Saturday, Women’s Wear Daily reported.
Brides were lining up for the $4,700 laser-cut gown with matte sequins. Pettibone has received orders from at least 14 boutiques.The dress is lined in silk and has a simple chapel train.
And quick-thinking designers have already tried poaching Pettibone’s design. WWD’s Rosemary Feitelberg writes:
The company also heard from its Italian fabric supplier, Sky Between the Branches, Monday morning “to warn them that another designer wanted to purchase the exact fabric of Chan’s gown, but, lucky for Claire, she has the exclusive rights to that particular beaded fabric.”
According to Pettibone’s biography posted to her website, she is inspired by vintage fashions and started designing gowns in 1994.
Pettibone’s site showcases this dress, which looks very much like Chan’s and could show what the back of her dress looks like:
clairepettibone.com
and the back…
clairepettibone.com
22 MAY 2012
There are the reigning king and queen of Hollywood.
And in April, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie shared the happy news that they would, at long last, be tying the knot.
Ever since that moment, fans have been eagerly waiting to hear their plans for the big day.
CLICK ON PHOTO FOR FULL GALLERY
But they are going to have to wait a little longer, according to the groom, who has said the super couple are yet to decide on a date for their nuptials.
Appearing in Cannes on Tuesday, dad-of-six Brad revealed that he and Angelina are still in the early stages of planning, saying: “We actually, really, truly have no date.”
The youthful actor – who will be 50 next year – has arrived at the film festival to promote his latest venture, crime thriller Killing Them Softly.
And many had been hoping his future wife would join him on the red carpet on Tuesday evening for another show-stopping appearance in Cannes.
But Brad revealed Angelina is unable to join him at the festival because she is too busy, perhaps looking after the couple’s extensive brood.
The handsome actor attended a packed press conference and photo call on Tuesday afternoon sporting longer hair, a grey suit and white T-shirt.
He stars in the film as brutal mob enforcer Jackie Cogan, who is hired to investigate a heist during a mob-protected poker game.
The film – produced by Brad – also stars James Gandolfini, Ray Liota and Richard Jenkins and has been selected to compete for this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or award.
Brad and Angelina celebrate engagement in the Galapagos Islands
Brad spent a year designing Angelina’s engagement ring
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The Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) IPO was the most exciting news to hit Wall Street in quite a while.
The social network’s story has had it all – from its dorm room creation in 2004 to legal drama with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defending claims he’d stolen the idea, a 12-digit valuation (the company listed with a market capitalisation of $US104 billion) and a glitch on the Nasdaq that delayed trading in the company’s shares when they debuted on the exchange.
There was even a wedding thrown in over the weekend, with Zuckerberg marrying long-term partner Priscilla Chan.
Priced for perfection
Of course, the key statistic in all of the detail above is the mind-blowing valuation of a company that didn’t even exist at the end of 2003. It’s an extraordinary show of faith in the company and its founder, with Facebook only recording annual sales of around $US4 billion and profit around $US1 billion.
That’s right – Facebook listed with a price/earnings ratio in triple figures.
How could Facebook’s $US4 billion in annual revenues be worth $US100 billion when Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) nets just five times as much market value while producing 35 times as much revenue? Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) $US40 billion in sales is worth just $US200 billion in market cap.
And then there’s Renren (NYSE: RENN), China’s version of Facebook. The social-networking site is profitable and using Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN)-style tactics to milk revenue from its 147 million active user base, yet commands less than $US3 billion in US market value.
A $US100 billion network effect
There’s virtually no precedent for Facebook’s stunning valuation, but there is a theory. Yes, despite that enormous number, there are reasons to believe Facebook might just be worth the enormous price.
Metcalfe’s Law, which states that the value of a telecommunications network is equal to the square of the connected nodes is a theory credited to Robert Metcalfe, founder of Hewlett-Packard division 3Com and one of the originators of the Ethernet networking protocol we depend on as modern Internet users.
Describing the geometry of network effects, there’s value to the idea. Network participants create value when they interact with each other. Thus, more participants create more value, as has been the case at eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) throughout its history.
As additional buyers join eBay, the site becomes more attractive for sellers. As the number of sellers increase, more buyers head to the site to take advantage of the greater range. More buyers attract yet more sellers, and the positive cycle continues.
Facebook benefits from a similar dynamic. The larger the social network gets, the more valuable its data and advertising platform becomes.
Instructive, if not exact
Enter Metcalfe’s Law. According to the formula, Facebook’s 900 million active users compound to create a network worth 8.1 x 10 to the 17th power, or $8,100,000,000,000,000,000. Crazy, you say? Undoubtedly, especially since Metcalfe’s law was originally intended to describe the value of fixed cost nodes rather than human participants with varying behaviours.
Yet the number produced using Metcalfe’s law doesn’t have to be accurate to be instructive. The point is that, at the current price, the market believes Facebook’s 900 million active users are worth $111 each in market value.
Do advertisers see that as fair? I think so, especially given the millions spent annually on scattershot broadcast campaigns that – at least according to some executives – are nowhere near as effective.
Paying up for growth
The kicker for investors is that all of these numbers are based on historical numbers. Facebook will be working simultaneously on attracting more users, more advertisers, and more content providers (think Farmville games and destination pages for consumer brands, advocacy groups and community organisations). They will be looking to generate additional revenue per user, and have already trialled paid movie downloads from the site.
Facebook credits – virtual currency that can be used on the site to pay for games – are only a small part of the company’s revenue at present, but destined to grow. It isn’t too far-fetched to imagine to company allowing companies to sell products on Facebook in due course – and taking a couple of clips of the ticket on the way through.
Foolish take-away
Growth in revenue and an improvement in margins from some of those initiatives – and more that the company hasn’t yet unveiled (or even thought of itself) – could significantly lower the current multiple.
If I’m right, Facebook is worth every penny of the premium investors are currently paying, although it doesn’t come without its questions.
Are you looking for attractive dividend stock ideas? BusinessDay readers can click here to request a new free report titled Secure Your Future with 3 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks.
Tim Beyers is a Motley Fool contributor. The Motley Fool’s purpose is to educate, amuse and enrich investors. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691).
Instead of having rice thrown at them, four St. Louis area couples opted to plunge down a 290-foot body water slide at Six Flags St. Louis as their wedding ceremonies. The weddings will take place Thursday morning at the Eureka-based theme park to help debut Six Flags St. Louis’ new addition to its water park: Bonzai Pipeline, a six-story water slide.
The four couples won the privilege to plunge into marriage through local radio promotions. They will exchange wedding vows right before taking what’s being deemed “the Xtreme Plunge,” as they propel from the Proslide Skybox launching capsules at the top of the slide.
After the floor drops from beneath them, the couples will slide through 290 feet of clear tubing at up to 40 mph through a 360-degree “super loop”, and splash down at the bottom where they will be pronounced husband and wife.
This ride seems befitting of marriage ceremonies, in that the Japanese word “Bonzai” in general means living a happy, long, 10,000-years-old life.
The four couples reside in St. Louis, MO; Pevely, MO; Farmington, MO; and Park Hills, MO.
The Bonzai Pipeline water slide will open to the public on Saturday. Six Flags’ teams consider it the second new “Xtreme experience” introduced at the park this year, with Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast opening earlier this month.
Bonzai Pipeline joins the 12-acre Hurricane Harbor water park’s existing lineup of water attractions as the first looping body slide. All Hurricane Harbor attractions are free with theme park admission. Bonzai Pipeline is located to the west side of the wave pool.
• Designer Claire Pettibone received tons of calls, tweets, and e-mails from people looking for the $4,700 dress worn by Mark Zuckerberg’s new wife, Priscilla Chan. Pettibone’s website had 26,000 unique visitors yesterday, compared with an average of 1,500. [WWD]
• And it’s fall campaign time! Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott shot Versace’s fall ads, which star model Elza Luijendijk. [WWD]
• Here’s a better look at rag bone’s first handbag, which was featured in the brand’s fall show but just made it into the latest issue of Vogue. [Refinery29]
• Of the return of her couture line, Donatella Versace said: “Couture is really important for a house like Versace because it gives me the opportunity to show how my imagination works: Fashion without boundaries and commercial restraints, made using the skills of artisans who are wonderfully steeped in the history of hand-made clothing.” [Mr. Blasberg]
• Candice Huffine poses in the buff for S Moda, marking another cover or editorial featuring a nude plus-size model. [HuffPo]
• Carolina Herrera hit $1 billion in sales last year. [WWD]
So, by now you’ve probably heard that filthy rich Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got married over the weekend to longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan, in what could be described as the Royal Wedding of Silicon Valley. But completely unlike the 2011 nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, there was zero lead-up and anticipation for the general public. In fact, it sounds like even their closest family and friends, who were invited to the wedding, were caught off-guard, as they were told they would be attending a soiree for Priscilla’s med school graduation. Wonder if Zuck’s folks even knew the real scoop ahead of time?!
And if not … oh man do I envy these blissful newlyweds! That’s right. I’m not lamenting the fact that I didn’t just make bank like Zuck did on the Facebook IPO. Oh no. I am more envious of his spontaneous “I do”s!
That’s because my fiance and I have just over 11 months to go of migraine after migraine stemming from wedding planning drama. Upon looking for a suitable date to set, I wanted at least a year to plan — for various reasons unrelated to our families’ propensity to be overbearing and penchant for inquiring about all matter of minutiae. Like, why aren’t we registered yet? Have we thought about what kind of china we would like? And — wait, ZOMG! — what shape is the bridal party table going to be?! (Yes, that was seriously a question that turned into a heated debate yesterday.)
I just wanted a reasonable amount of time to get “fit to wed,” establish a spread-out pre-payment plan for the reception, find a flattering dress and have it specially tailored to fit my pear-shaped 4’11″ frame (which my mother once labeled an “expensive figure”), get to know the rabbi who is going to marry us, etc. Ultimately, I didn’t want us to feel rushed aka stressed.
But joke’s on me, because so far, I’m thinking having more time is just making for more stress! More questions, more frenetic or diva-like behavior, more miscommunications and meltdowns. Yup, wedding planning’s been a real picnic for us so far.
Now, I get why Mark Zuckerberg is the most successful Millennial on the planet. Sure, that whole Facebook thing was brilliant, but planning your wedding in private, keeping it a secret, then surprising everyone after they’ve totally missed the opportunity to DRIVE YOU INSANE FOR A YEAR? Now, that’s genius!
How did your family act while you were wedding planning? Do you wish you had made like Zuck and sprung it on them at the last minute?
Image via Allyson Magda/Splash News
NEW YORK
“MONDEWHAAAAT?”
The sarcasm was palpable in the one-word headline that appeared in The New York Post on the day after Kraft Foods revealed that it planned to name its new global snack business “Mondelez,” an interpretation of a mash-up of the Latin words for “world” and “delicious.” But that wasn’t the only dig.
One blogger teased that she would’ve been “stifling giggles” if she’d been in meetings to determine the name. A Forbes contributor suggested a trick for remembering how to say it: “Just think Bush Administration Secretary of State. You know, Mon-de-leza Rice.” Crain’s Business Chicago tittered that it bears close resemblance to a vulgar Russian term for a sexual act.
Michael Mitchell, a Kraft spokesman, said executives took all the joking in stride, and he’s quick to point out why the Crain’s observation didn’t alarm the company: “The name has to be mispronounced to get that unfortunate meaning.”
The made-up moniker, pronounced “mon-dah-LEEZ,” became a punch line after it was unveiled in March. On Wednesday, Kraft shareholders will decide whether to approve the name for the company’s business that sells global snack brands such as Oreos, Fig Newton and Cadbury.
The four-month odyssey of how “Mondelez” was picked — and how it was received — illustrates the great pains companies take to come up with powerful names for their businesses, products and services. For them, it’s akin to parents obsessing over a name for their newborn: it’s a moniker that sticks for better or worse, so it better be good.
“You have to generate thousands of ideas, even if it’s just for a cookie,” said Nik Contis, the global director of naming at branding company Siegel+Gale.
That’s just what Kraft did after it decided to split into two publicly-traded companies — one for its North American grocery business that makes products like Oscar Mayer and Miracle Whip and the other a bigger company to focus on selling snacks worldwide.
It was clear to executives at Kraft’s Northfield, Ill., headquarters that the name of the snack business would have to appeal to a global audience. After all, Kraft, the world’s largest cereal maker, has said its goal is to be as big in snacks as it is in breakfast foods worldwide. So the company started the arduous process of picking a name in November by soliciting suggestions from its 126,000 employees.
On its internal website, Kraft proclaimed that it would host a naming contest. The announcement included a “mood video” set to music and showing images of life milestones, such as a wedding and a baby’s birth. Employees were encouraged to make suggestions through an “Idea Kitchen” page, where they could see and build off of the suggestions of their peers.
More than 1,000 employees submitted more than 1,700 entries.
Discarded name candidates ranged from the cultivated (“Panvoro,” Latin for eating) to the not-so-cultivated (“tfark,” which is Kraft spelled backward) to the outright cryptic (“Arrtx” — the employee who suggested it provided no explanation on what the letters signified).
Once the suggestions started rolling in, Kraft’s global marketing team took the reins of the naming process. An outside branding firm from London was hired and a handful of top contenders were picked. (Kraft declined to reveal the finalists, noting that “there may be some value in those names” for other purposes down the road.)
The names went through two rounds of testing with native speakers in 28 different languages. Consumers in small focus groups were asked again and again if any of the names conjured up negative associations. “Mondelez,” a favorite among Kraft executives from the get-go, didn’t raise any big red flags.
Still, the company discovered that there might be a problem. Consumer testers flagged the possible misinterpretation of “Mondelez” for a Russian term meaning “oral sex.” But the issue was referred to Kraft’s Russian business unit, which in turn deemed it to be “low risk.” So the name was given the thumbs up.
It’s not unusual for companies to take a calculated risk with names. Even though they’re aware that the names they introduce could elicit negative reactions at first, experts say the snide remarks often subside as the brand strengthens.
After all, there were plenty of snickers when Apple Inc. unveiled the iPad, which critics said sounded like a high-tech feminine hygiene product. Now, the iPad is by far the No. 1 selling tablet worldwide. Then there’s the classic example in the 1970s of the Chevrolet car called Nova, which means “no go” in Spanish. Despite urban legend, a Chevy spokesman said the model sold well in Latin America because the term is pronounced differently there.
That’s what Conti, the branding expert, is guessing would happened if shareholders decide to vote in favor of naming Kraft’s global snacking business “Mondelez.”
“The sound and structure rolls off the tongue like a delicious treat,” he said. “The romance language is great because you want to eat the language itself because it’s so beautiful.”
If shareholders reject the name, the company will continue to be called “Kraft Foods Inc.” while the North American grocery business will be called “Kraft Foods Group Inc.”
But it appears that Kraft is confident that Mondelez will pass muster; the company already reserved the ticker symbol “MDLZ” and website http://www.mondelez.com.
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Follow Candice Choi at http://www.twitter.com/candicechoi.
