Only 3 days to go so I hope you're all concentrating on enjoying the festivities and have put majority of your wedding plans tasks 'on ice' for at least the next few days?

We'll be sending out our last wedding planning email newsletter of 2008 before Christmas Day with some tips for putting to good use the odd hour or two over the next few days so, if you aren't already a subscriber, please just click here to add your details and we promise to get the newsletter out to you (and never to pass your details on to anyone else!)

It's been another fabulous year for Magic Dust and a real privilege to work with so many fantastic couples, and wonderful suppliers. The list is too long to name-check everyone but, if magicdust have been involved in your wedding planning this year - be it in a big or a small way - we'd like to say an enormous thank you to you for letting us do what we love, and in doing so, to help you enjoy the ones you love without worrying unduly about everything going to plan!

I'd also like to thank those budding wedding planners who have attended our Magic Dust Wedding Planners Master Classes this year. It's been a real joy to meet so many of you and I'm delighted that, by launching the magicdust Mentoring Programme in January 2009, I'm going to have the chance to work with a number of you as you set up and develop your own fabulous wedding planning companies. I'm also looking forward to meeting many more of you in 2009 as we take our Master Classes nation-wide for the first time.

I'd like to send out an especially big 'Congratulations' to Kim and Emma - Magic Dust's final couple of the year - who are tying the knot on Sunday 28th December. It's been an absolute joy to work with you both and I know you're going to have the most wonderful day - don't worry about a single thing except enjoying yourselves!

All that remains is for me to thank you, our regular blog readers, for following our progress through these missives over the year. I hope that they've given you a real insight into the daily work of a magicdust wedding planner, and that you can see our 'refreshing, simple and invaluable' approach to everything we do for what it is - a way of life and second nature to us!

I look forward to working with more fantastic couples during 2009 - to those already booked in, it won't be long until we start talking about your wedding being 'this year' (how exciting!); to dealing with more splendid suppliers - and working with some old favourites; to meeting and inspiring more budding wedding planners, and to keeping in touch with you all through the blog, our email newsletter and our 'Ask A Wedding Planner A Question' service.

Above all we are looking forward to continuing to ensure that every couple we work with can relax, enjoy the planning and preparation of the most important day of their life (as well as the day itself of course!), and look forward to a long, happy and healthy marriage, unmarred by the stress and strain of trying to do everything themselves!

The Magic Dust offices will shut at lunchtime on Christmas Eve and we'll be taking some time to recharge our batteries, enjoy Christmas with our family and friends, and in the spirit of Magic Dust, celebrate our own wedding anniversary in style!

The office will reopen on Monday 5th January (the blog will return on Friday 9th January) and we will be checking both email and voicemail during the break so, if you'd like to see if we're free on your wedding date for 'On The Day' wedding co-ordination so you too can relax and enjoy every second of your day and the run-up to it, or you would like to book a place on one of our 2009 Wedding Planners Master Classes or you simply have a wedding planning question that's keeping you awake at night, please get in touch with magicdust - we're here to help!

Until next year,

Labels: becoming-a-wedding-planner, supplier

There's only one supplier I can talk to you about this week and that's because I'm still agog and aghast that a magician has managed to win me over!

I've never been a fan of the smug, self-satisfied attitude of some magicians and, as a self-confessed control freak, I've never been able to truly enjoy magic! But, and it's a huge but, Sam Strange has won me over. Funny, friendly and, most importantly, absolutely fantastic with close-up sleight of hand tricks and other such nonsense (!), I'm delighted to have found a magician that I can honestly recommend without inwardly wincing. Sam, you have found a fan in magicdust. Check out Sam Strange's website here - the quote on his home page could have been written by me!

Three weeks time and Christmas Day will have come and gone. So, why not have one last blast at your wedding planning tasks over the next few days, get ahead of yourself, and then take a well-deserved break and enjoy the festivities.

I'm working with a number of couples at the moment who are struggling with perhaps the most difficult decision of all - finding the perfect wedding venue. If you're struggling with the same decision, here's my advice.

Bite the bullet, put in the leg work and go and visit a few more venues before Christmas. Chances are they'll be set up for parties and you'll get a good idea of how they could look for your wedding celebration, or at least an idea of how you wouldn't want them to look!?

There's nothing better than knowing you're ahead of yourself with your planning, giving you the opportunity to stop thinking, talking and worrying about wedding planning over the Christmas and New Year period - your friends and family will love being able to talk to you about other things and you can take time out to remember exactly why you're getting married. That's never a bad thing to be thinking about!

If you'd like to see if we're free on your wedding date for 'On The Day' co-ordination so you too can relax and enjoy every second of your day, or you would like to book a planning session to kick-start your wedding plans or you simply have a question that's been keeping you awake at night, please get in touch - we're here to help!

Until next week,

ps - you can get regular wedding planning advice from magicdust's regular newsletter, simply click here to subscribe (and don't worry, we don't give your details to anyone else - we'll only use them to send you the newsletter)

Labels: supplier, tips