So this week, as the country celebrates its independence, it’s a good time to celebrate the independence of the small business owner, too.
And if you are a small business owner, celebrate your own independence. Give yourself a high-five. Starting and growing your own enterprise is challenging to say the least. But you—as with all entrepreneurs—are an independent thinker and visionary who enjoy building something on your own.
Remember, our country was founded on the spirit of entrepreneurship. Our ancestors who came to America did so with a vision of freedom and a desire to build a better life. Today that spirit continues to thrive in our country. Owning your own business is for many—the American Dream.
See the link below to read the entire article…it’s not very long…
My favorite part? “…Give yourself a high-five.” So, go ahead…do it! You deserve it!! 🙂
When it comes to music, there are a few options I like to suggest. Here in sunny Southern California, Spring Wedding usually means ‘garden wedding ceremony’ or otherwise ‘outdoors’ (could be beach, park, patio, etc.). To add to the ‘garden’ ambiance, I like to suggest a Harp ensemble (Harp Trio with Cello & Flute is lovely), or a Guitar ensemble (Guitar & Flute/Sax Duo gives you some nice flexibility if you’d like to incorporate Jazz/Pop repertoire).
Saying yes to the marriage proposal and setting a date is basically the starting phase of planning a wedding. From the gown to the bridal hairstyle, the food to be served, the number of guests to invite – these are just some of the small and big details about the wedding that you need to decide on. As much as possible, give yourselves plenty of time to iron out all these details. Hire a wedding coordinator if you want, although you can also be a hands-on bride and coordinate with the suppliers yourself.
What if You’re Planning a Spring Wedding?
Setting a date for the big day means that you already know what season of the year, and probably the time of day when the ceremony and reception will be held. What if you’re planning a spring wedding? In terms of color and theme, there are plenty of pretty ideas that you can come up with.
Let’s start with a few tips on how you can have a beautiful ceremony and reception when saying your “I dos” during springtime:
Go for sweet pastel colors.
When thinking of a theme for your wedding, it always pays to go with the season of the year that the wedding will be held. Since spring is when flower bloom at their most beautiful, use sweet pastel colors as inspiration for your wedding. Pale pink is a classic pastel color which can be seen in most wedding receptions and venues. For 2012, an emerging trend is to use greenish blue as a theme. Complementing hues include teal and sunshine yellow. You can mix these all with tan or emerald green and you’ll have a beautiful rainbow of sweet pastel colors on your big day.
Be one with nature.
If the groom would not like something that’s too feminine for the wedding reception, go for rich, earth tones which also somewhat remind people of spring. Golden yellow, brown, green, burnt orange are some of the shades that you can play with.
Wedding Gown & Bridal Hairstyle Ideas for Spring Weddings
Now, when it comes to wedding gowns and bridal hairstyles, what are the hottest trends for the spring bride? Two-tier gowns are definitely hot for 2012, as well as gowns with illusion necklines. Instead of seeing too much skin, you can still feel sexy yet ultra-elegant wearing gowns which are made with illusion necklines that have embellishments. As for the hairstyles that brides and bridesmaids can have, the elegant updos and romantic down hairdos are still very much in style.
Spring Weddings: It’s All About the Flowers!
Finally, you can incorporate spring flowers in every aspect of your wedding. If you want, you can have the bridesmaids wear fresh spring flowers on their hair. The wedding cake is another thing which can be designed using spring flowers as a theme. The center tables in the wedding reception can be decorated with spring flowers, as well as the aisle that the bride will be walking through – be it a church or garden wedding.
As you can see, there are plenty of wedding planning aspects where you can incorporate spring colors and flowers as a theme, so have fun with it!
If you are looking for ideas on how the bridesmaids hairstyles, wedding reception, gown and all the other aspects of the wedding can be planned, always consider the time of the year when the wedding will be held. For springtime, pastel or earth colors and beautiful spring flowers can be easily incorporated in the theme while planning the details for your big day.
As many of you are either in the beginning stages or are well ensconced in your planning process, one question that we get often is about what Love Songs are popular for Weddings this year, 2012.
We did some poking around, and here are a few ideas.
Thanks to YouTube, you can check all of these out at any time!
TOP 5 FIRST DANCE SONGS
1. At Last – Etta James
2. Can’t Help Falling in Love – Elvis Presley
3. Marry Me – Train
4. You and Me – Dave Matthews Band
5. All My Life – K-Ci & JoJo tied with Lucky – Jason Mraz, The Way You Look Tonight – Frank Sinatra and Then – Brad Paisley
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It’s interesting to me to see such a wide variety of the old classics along with the new contemporary selections. Message? That you can pick a song from any era or genre and you’re ‘in’ with the crowd!
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What are the newer, more contemporary love song favorites thus far this year? Here are some ideas:
Lady Gaga – You and I
Devlin ft Labrinth – Let It Go
Taylor Swift – Back to December
Rihanna – What’s My Name?
Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream
Nelly – Just A Dream
Serge Devant – Addicted
Shontelle – Impossible
Eminem – Recovery
Eminem – Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna
Kesha – Your Love Is My Drug
Justin Bieber – Baby ft. Ludacris
Lady Gaga – Alejandro
Trey Songz – For The Sake Of Love
Lloyd feat Trazz – Internet Love
Chris Brown – So Cold
Joey Notez – Invisible
Here’s another list of suggestions:
01-Adele –- Make you feel my Love
02-Alanis Morissette –- Head Over Feet
03-Alicia Keys -– Fallin’
04-Corrs –- All The Love In The World
05-Counting Crows -– Accidentally In Love
06-Dave Matthews Band -– You and Me
07-Delta Goodrem -– Out Of The Blue
08-Dido –- Thank You
09-Barenaked Ladies -– It’s All Been Done
10-Beyoncé –- At Last (Remake of Etta James)
11-Bruno Mars –- Just The Way You Are
12-Bruno Mars -– Marry You
13-Carrie Underwood -– Look At Me
14-Christina Aguilera -– Beautiful
15-Creed –- With Arms Wide Open
16-Colbie Caillat -– Bubbly
17-Ashlee Simpson –- Pieces Of Me
18-Avril Lavigne -– I’m With You
19-Howie Day -– Collide
20-Rascal Flats -– My Wish
What song(s) are you considering for your event? Let us hear what you’re doing!
As we begin a new year of Wedding Planning, it’s interesting to see what the “trends” are for 2012 – here are a few tips by Estate Weddings & Events, Mike Steffens, and The Knot:
Playful Themes
Playful wedding themes started picking up steam in 2011, and the trend will intensify in 2012. These types of weddings have whimsical ambiances, so they are perfect for couples who prefer less formal affairs. From pirate-themed weddings to ceremonies in offbeat locations, playful themes will be all the rage this year.
DIY: Personalized Weddings
By default, every wedding is personal. In the past, however, the majority of the decorations and party favors were purchased from wedding supply companies. Due in part to the economy, many couples are creating their own wedding favors and decorations. This helps to keep costs down, and it has the added bonus of producing a more personalized look and feel. If you are crafty by nature, this is one wedding trend that you’ll want to explore.
Mismatched Dresses and Decor
In an effort to create more organic and natural ceremonies, many brides and grooms are opting for dresses and decor that encompass different aesthetics and textures. To keep things from looking too disjointed, a single color palate is used to unite the decor elements. The end result is a purposefully mismatched look that puts a chic, modern edge on any wedding day. This trend is easy to incorporate and can help keep costs low too.
Green Weddings
Eco-friendly weddings are more popular than ever. People opt for green weddings to help protect the environment and to save money. There are many ways to go about planning a green wedding. You can incorporate as many green touches into your big day as you’d like, so this theme is easy to customize.
Musical Trends per Mike Steffens:
Per Mike Steffens, Owner/Executive Talent Manager of Essence Entertainment, he sees the trend for 2012 towards simplification – for example, a Musical Solo or Duo rather than a larger ensemble. He sees ‘glamor’ and ‘elegance’ replacing ‘flashy’ and ‘showy’. He’s also seeing a trend towards still using traditional wedding ceremony ensembles (i.e., Harp Trio, String Quartet…), but playing mostly contemporary repertoire rather than the traditional classical pieces. For more tips on choosing music for your event, View Ask Mike! videos on Youtube!
Here’s a video about 2012 Trends for Wedding Dresses:
What new trends are you seeing or using for your upcoming affair? Please comment and let us know!
Can you believe we’re already ensconced into the year 2012?! Time just keeps flying by…faster and faster… !
In order to take full advantage of every passing hour, day, week, and month, setting goals at the beginning of a new year is a popular pastime.
However, setting achievable goals, keeping track of what it will take to achieve such goals, and setting a deadline date by which each goal is to be completed, are tasks not regularly accomplished.
I’m guilty of not being clear and concise with my goals, and have rarely attached a hard ‘Must by completed by’ date. I have the tendency to set large goals without thinking about the different steps it will take to achieve the goal, i.e., creating smaller, incremental steps/goals towards the larger goal.
I have been doing a lot of self-improvement training over the past year, and from a webinar with John Assaraf, I learned about the successful ways to set and achieve goals.
Here is a link to a short video (less than 3 minutes) by John, talking about the basic steps of goal setting. He encourages us to have goals in all facets of our lives (i.e., health, relationship, career, business, spirituality, charity, etc.); to write them down (being very specific about what you want to achieve); attaching a ‘completed by’ date; and then write down the steps needed to achieve each goal (i.e., what can I do today towards this goal, this week, next week, next month…towards a 1 year goal, a 3 year goal, a 5 year goal…you get the picture).
I encourage you to think about the short and long term goals which are currently swimming around in your head, take the time to write them down in detail, and then list the smaller steps needed to get to each goal. These smaller steps are generally easy to achieve, and will provide you with reasons to celebrate your success more often! It’s like eating an elephant – one bite at a time. The idea of a large elephant sized goal can be daunting, but writing down what you can do “tomorrow” towards achieving the goal is much more palatable.
Here’s to your success in writing down your goals and completing the first few baby steps towards each goal. Be sure to allow yourself to CELEBRATE each and every success!!
I’d love to hear about your goals, your steps, and your successes – and I look forward to supporting you and helping you with your steps/goals along the way!
Be sure to write a comment, share this with friends and family, and keep us posted on your progress.
In this public forum, I commit to writing down my goals by this coming Sunday – you can help hold me accountable! 🙂
Essence Entertainment Talent Agency 