Vendors You Need to Know About Archives

Sep 19, 2012

19 Sep 2012

Vendor You Need to Know About: Fab Fête

It was one of those weddings. The type that appears in your Facebook news feed and you click on seconds later, unable to complete any further tasks until you have gazed upon each and every picture. Blue Manolo Blahniks, check. Aerial performers, check. The most insane chuppah you’ve ever seen, check. This was my friend Michelle Garber’s wedding, which I knew was going to be major as soon as I saw her twirling around in Pnina Tornai gowns on Say Yes to the Dress. Yes, I’m talking about that Michelle. She also happens to be the sweetest, most down-to-earth girl you could ever hope to grab coffee with, and has been since I first met her during my sorority days (hi Delta Pi!) When I learned she had become a wedding planner, I wasn’t surprised. It seemed like a natural progression after pulling off one of the most epic weddings of all time.

Just over a year later, she is the owner and principal planner of Fab Fête, a wedding planning boutique that already has Toronto brides babbling. With a coveted 5-star rating on WeddingWire, 50% of Fab Fête’s clients come from referrals. It’s easy to understand why. In an industry long over-populated by mason jars and mismatched centerpieces, Fab Fête offers an unapologetic glamour puss approach to wedding production. Her work speaks for itself: with details such as donut machines, shoe-shiners, photo decals and dangling crystal ice sculptures, Michelle’s specialty is undeniably statement events. She produces the same types of soirees you’d expect from Toronto’s most seasoned wedding professionals, sans the attitude that often tags along (and I spent my childhood in the Midwest, so I care way more about manners than most people. In fact, I have literally refused to write about vendors with icky personalities, no matter how outstanding their work is). Fortunately, in Michelle’s case, her work is just as wonderful as her personality.

“I’m newer in the industry, so I have that drive to exceed expectations,” says Michelle. While she may be a newcomer to the wedding scene, she’s no stranger to event planning. After earning a business degree from York University, Michelle continued her education at George Brown College, where she received a post-graduate diploma in Event Planning. She is also a certified wedding professional through WPIC (Wedding Planners Institute of Canada) and produced several non-profit events before her foray into weddings.

Some of her favourite Toronto wedding venues include the Trump Hotel, Arcadian Court and Hazelton Manor, where Michelle celebrated her own Big Day. Her immediate transition from bride to planner has provided some valuable insight: “I spent a lot of money on things that I didn’t need. I thought they would make a bigger impression than they actually did,” she explains. While Michelle has a discerning eye for detail (“I really love the small things,” she gushes), she also guides brides to getting the most bang for their buck throughout the entire wedding planning process. With extremely reasonable rates (starting at $950 for day of coordination), Michelle manages each wedding from start to finish, with no overtime charges or unpleasant surprises.

“I always put brides ahead,” says Michelle, who has built friendships with each of her brides, and unsurprisingly so. After all, Michelle is not only a committed professional but wedding guru in her own right and really, just extremely nice (even by Midwestern standards). She’s also met Randy Fenoli (“He is so cute, exactly like he is on TV.”) Need I say more?

Michelle answers

1. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend!

2. Black tie or bow tie?
BLACK TIE

3. DJ or live band?
Depends on the style of the wedding. Either one is great!

4. What’s the best thing you’ve ever done/seen/heard at a wedding?
I recently helped plan a wedding where the bride did a “Backstreet’s Back” dance with her dad. It was the exact dance from the music video and it was a hit. So creative!

5. What wedding trend do you think it’s time to shelve?
Well it’s not really a trend but I think that people need to stop thinking that there is only one way of doing something. There is no right way of doing a wedding. Breaking a few traditions and adding some new ones work! The couple needs to make the wedding theirs’ and not worry about what others think.

6. Brides should spend less on the _____ and more on the _____.
Spend less on the tiny details that will not be remembered and more on the larger details that will be seen and experienced by everyone. Try to spend money on one big ticket memorable item like a late night gelato bar in ice or a food truck. Make your wedding stand out from the crowd!

7.Favourite celebrity wedding
I LOVED Carrie Underwood’s wedding. I thought it looked like a whimsical enchanted forest yet so princess like. I thought it was breathtaking.

8. If you could bring any person, living or dead, as your plus one to a wedding, who would it be and why?
Wow, that’s a toughie. I think I would bring Michael Jackson. I know it sounds so cliché but I think he would be such a fun guest and I would persuade him to get up on stage and get the crowd going. It would not only enhance my time at the wedding but it would be a ball for the guests and couple as well!

9. Dream wedding venue to work with
I would LOVE to plan a wedding at the Plaza hotel in NYC. Everytime I go into the ballroom I get shivers and I could just do so much to enhance the elegance of that venue. It is breathtaking

10.Favourite blog/s aside from Wedding Style File!
Preston Bailey’s blog

BONUS ROUND

11. Words you live by
“Do what you love and you will never work another day in your life.” –Confucius

Fab Fête
In a Nut Shell: Big-style events with a boutique approach
Pricing (Approximate): Day of Coordination, $950-1250
Full Event Planning, $1950-2400
Piece of Advice: Don’t skip the traditional speech. “Your guests came to the wedding and need to be thanked,” says Michelle.
Website: www.fabfete.ca

For more information, check out Fab Fête at www.fabfete.ca.

Filed Under: Cultural Variety, Eatables, Event Design, Vendors You Need to Know About, Weddings Leave a Comment

Feb 20, 2012

20 Feb 2012

Vendor You Need to Know About: Honey & Dear

When I first landed on Honey & Dear’s website and took a peek at their work, I instantly regretted not having the entire afternoon to spend, with a tea in hand, watching every last video. Crisp and clean without being stark, artistic without being overly stylized, Honey & Dear is a meticulous fly-on-the-wall, capturing everything from the bride’s lipgloss shade to the groom’s cufflinks. They don’t merely reveal the details; they revel in them. They know how to spot an endearing moment in a crowded church or delightful close-up in a massive banquet hall. Most of all, they know how to make killer wedding videos.

It was no surprise to discover that Honey & Dear has enjoyed tremendous success so far in the wedding industry. They’re a member of The Wedding Co’s coveted List and Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book. They also have two consecutive WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards to their name. Founded in 2009 by husband and wife team Andrew and Emily Sorlie (who are truly delightful, as anyone who follows them on Twitter already knows) Honey & Dear has shot over a hundred weddings, and steadily counting.Their work has been published on Style Me Pretty, Green Wedding Shoes, The Wedding Co. and Toronto Wedding Society.

By the time I finished poking about their website, I decided I had found a kindred spirit and had to know more. I got in touch with Andrew Sorlie and was thrilled that he agreed to answer what turned out to be a barrage of questions. Here’s what I learned:

“Videography” is over.

Andrew was kind enough to indulge me in a little history lesson on wedding videography: “The term Videography is actually an old-school term and it generally comes packaged with cheese. A new breed of wedding filmmakers (as we like to be called) have been surfacing over the last two years and you’ll sometimes see the term ‘cinematography’ used as well.”

Filmmakers does seem a more appropriate term to describe Andrew and Emily Sorlie, as anyone who has seen their work can attest.

Your cintematographer will become your new BFF.

“You will spend more time with both your photographer and your videographer/filmmaker/cinematographer on your wedding day than you will with your groom or bride, so make sure you meet the people you are going to be working with and make sure you like their personality as well as their work.”

For Honey and Dear, connecting with couples before the wedding is paramount: “Our business is based entirely on our relationships with our couples. We do our best to get to know the couples that we work with well before the wedding so that we know what matters to them.”

It’s not nice to torture your friends.

Forget those eight-hour wedding epics capturing every single angle of the Big Day, even the ones you don’t particularly care to see. Where cinematographers of weddings past may have simply set up station and let the camera role as your 250 guests file into the ceremony, Honey & Dear knows that creative impact matters a lot more than the frame count.

“Our Main Feature wedding films are 15-20 minutes in length and although that may seem short just reading it in a sentence, they are long enough to give you a great taste of the wedding day while being concise enough that your friends won’t run away screaming when you invite them over to watch your wedding video.”

It’s a tough job.

Being the cameramen behind the Big Day is not without considerable difficulty, especially when the wedding is on another continent. While the majority of their weddings take place in Ontario, Honey & Dear have traveled as far as Australia and Singapore to create their remarkable films.

“I would say it was challenging to put together a two-day Same Day Edit being in Singapore for only 54 hours. We had to fly on a red-eye to Singapore, get through customs, check into the hotel, get set up and prepared to start the next morning, rely on taxi drivers who didn’t speak our language, and then do our same quality job that we would do in Toronto over there.”

And you thought choosing your colour palette was hard.

You get what you pay for.

Good wedding cinematography in Toronto is expensive and likely to set you back at least $4,000. If that’s not in your ball park, it’s better to buy a quality video camera and enlist a friend to film. “That way, at the end of the day, you’ll end up with a great video camera and some decent wedding footage,” advises Andrew. “Hiring a cheap videographer will only ensure you get a cheap wedding video and nothing else at the end of the day.”

Smile, you’re on candid camera.

Andrew’s favourite thing to film is people when they don’t realize they’re being filmed. “We love showing our Same Day Edits or our Main Feature wedding films and see our couples react when they had no idea we were filming this or that person. It’s a lot of fun!”

Love never fails.

“Our favourite weddings are the ones where you can feel the absolute joy between the bride and groom and the excitement about starting a new journey together. It makes for a much better experience for everyone involved and those are the stories we want to tell.”

Book early.

Andrew recommends brides book their wedding photographer and cinematographer as soon as they lock down their date and venue.

The proof is in the pudding.

Honey & Dear not only makes exceptional videos; they film exceptional weddings at some of the Toronto’s most enviable venues such as the Steam Whistle Brewery, Thompson Hotel and Royal Conservatory of Music. Here’s a peak inside the later, where couple Jesse and Sam were married in a contemporary Jewish ceremony surrounded by hot pink peonies and the city’s finest architecture.

Honey & Dear is currently accepting inquiries for 2012. Pricing begins at $5,900. For more information, visit www.honeyanddear.com.

Filed Under: Cultural Variety, Vendors You Need to Know About, Weddings Leave a Comment

Nov 9, 2011

09 Nov 2011

Vendor You Need to Know About: Rescue Chocolate

Rescue Chocolate

As a wedding blogger, I view hundreds of weddings, and having somewhat (okay, really) finicky taste, it takes a lot for me to bookmark a particular blog or website. I decided it was time to pay a little respect to the special few out there in the bridal blogosphere who really knock my socks off. I also wanted to gush about my latest vendor crush Rescue Chocolate, who I am delighted to induct into the Wedding Style File in the first installment of “Vendors You Need to Know About.” If you follow me on Twitter, keep up with me on Facebook or have met me for more than 30 seconds in real life, you know that I am crazy about animals. Needless to say, when I read about a chocolatier in Brooklyn who donated 100% of their net profits to animal rescue, I had to know more.

Rescue Chocolate was founded in 2010 by Sarah Gross, who came up with the idea on a morning w-a-l-k with her rescued pit bull Mocha. Teaming up with Jean Francois Bonnet, executive chef of Tumbador Chocolates, Gross developed a mouthwatering mélange of flavours to raise awareness for various animal welfare causes: “Peanut Butter Pit Bull” to counter the negative public image of pit bulls, “Pick Me! Pepper” to promote animal shelter adoption over pet store purchases, “Foster-ific Peppermint” to encourage animal fostering, “The Fix” (dark chocolate) to address the importance of spaying and neutering and “Mission Feral Fig” to highlight TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) as a humane solution for feral cats. All chocolates are 100% vegan, certified Kosher Parve and locally handcrafted. As for the net profits, each month, a different beneficiary is selected; animal welfare organizations across the United States and Canada have already been assisted by Rescue Chocolate, not to mention Haiti and Israel.

Rescue Chocolate also provides the opportunity for animal lovers with a chocolate habit to sweeten their celebrations with charitable chocolate favours. With gorgeous packaging to boot, Rescue Chocolate’s bevy of bon bons, chocolate hearts and chocolate bars are easy to envision attached to escort and place cards, tucked into napkins or thoughtfully delivered to the hotel rooms of out-of-town guests. Couples can choose any combination of Rescue Chocolate flavours and even opt for customized labels with their names, wedding date and pet’s photo. Couples can also designate their favours to a specific animal welfare organization.

For brides who are following a “flower dog” down the aisle, have kosher relatives to feed or simply looking to incorporate a little kindness in their wedding day, Rescue Chocolate is a no-brainer.

$350 for 100; $25 for label customization (orders of 100 or more). For more information, visit www.rescuechocolate.com.

Will you be giving charitable favours at your wedding? Comment below or tweet @RachelCravit.