Although Rachel and I don't get to chat often, but when we do, she always has so many experiences and stories to share with brides &grooms and also fellow wedding planners. For this reason, I will split the interview into two, part I and part II! Here are goes the first part of the interview and some fun photos of Rachel, her husband and partner, Chris and some of their clients. Enjoy!
How did you get started in the wedding business?
Years ago I worked in Hotel Management specializing in Conference & Banqueting which is where I fell in love with Weddings. There after I used to dream of owning my own wedding planning business, but back in the early 1990’s it wasn’t big in the UK…but I continued to plan weddings part-time and when I moved to Canada in 2003 I started developing my ideas to launch my own wedding planning business full time.
How many years have you been in the wedding business?
4 Years in Montreal, 7 Years in Hotel Management and part-time over 10 more years (gulp that makes me old)!
How do you prepare for the wedding day?
Extremely organized, everything is packed and ready to go the night before - triple check all details on the morning and get very excited and motivated for the couple!
What inspires you?
Everything from shop window designs, celebrity planners, European trends, house & home magazines.
What website or blog do you frequent often?
Preston Bailey, Colin Cowie, Martha Stewart… the usual, but I also like reading locally what my peers in the wedding planning business are doing, planners, photographers, the Montreal Buzz etc
What do you love about weddings?
Just the overall joy in seeing the vision and creation come together on the day – it gives me butterflies. I am very fortunate that I have worked with some great clients and my group of friends gets bigger every year!
What do you hate about wedding?
Vendors who clearly don’t have the same passion and care about the wedding as I do – ‘some’ forget that the couple have never done this before and how special it is to them. I don’t ‘hate’ this about weddings but I do feel disappointed when I know the couple getting married are having the pressures of their family and are being pulled away from what they really want for their day.
What is your favorite memory from a wedding?
4.00 am with half dressed, very ‘happy’ groomsmen trying to run and jump over a 5-tier, $3000.00+ wedding cake to see who can miss!!!! Ahhhh
What is your favorite hobby?
I am very interested in Tarot Cards and read them a little from time to time – this year I want to learn how to play Chess & Poker!
What is your favorite food?
CURRY!!!! I love Indian Food and since moving to Canada my favourite Canadian food is ‘Smoked Meat Poutine’ and I am proud of it!!
What are you reading right now?
Oh no this is probably really sad but I have just started reading book one in the ‘Bride Quartet’… Vision in White by Nora Roberts
What are you listening to right now?
The James Blunt new album.. Some Kind of Trouble.. I just loaded it onto my iTouch yesterday!
What would you do with $1 million dollars?
It really would help kick-start our log cabin project in the Eastern Township and I would also set up a Wedding Planning Studio in Old Montreal.
One goal you have for 2011:
Spending more time focusing on relationships in my life.. believe it or not the only thing that is of real importance are the people around us.
Stay tuned for Part II of the interview with Rachel!
Photos courtesy of An English Rose.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment