When I got a text from Roo just before Christmas saying “erm…I think we might have to cancel our wedding…our wedding venue is being shut down” my heart skipped a beat. You know when people say “oh I know exactly how you feel…” but actually, really, they don’t? Well in this case I could reply those words with utmost sincerity. Our wedding venue pulled out of our wedding just three months before our day. That’s a story for another time, but I did have 100% confidence in my reply “Roo, everything with be OKAY. You won’t have to cancel your wedding”…

Photography Credit: internet k-hole

You know that phrase “rollercoaster of emotions”? I hate it. It’s up there with countless other overused phrases that initially sound incredibly profound, but actually they’re just unbearably hollow and totally meaningless. When you have a hatred for something that burns as deep as mine does for this, then you can imagine my turmoil when suddenly, out of nowhere, I found that it actually applied to me. A bitter taste, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Now, I won’t be offended if you’re sitting there and thinking what on earth is she rabbiting on about? – because really, I get that all the time. So I’ll tell you: after all the fussing and fighting of finding our wedding venue, we all sank comfortably into the cushions of wedding planning bliss, and looked forward to enjoying a real family-orientated Christmas before we thunder-bolted into the new year with the rest of our arrangements.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how you always remember where you were when you received bad news? It was a dull afternoon on December 2nd, 2011, and I had just come home to show Lamb some of the Christmas gifts I’d managed to pick up. My phone chirruped with a text message from my friend and bridesmaid, Rea, and I glanced to read it almost absent-mindedly (my attention span is mortifyingly weak) until I saw what it said. Simply, “have you heard about the CUC?”

You know when you just know? Well I just knew. My fingers sort of became haunted with this ghost that wanted to text back and ask the question that I already knew the answer to: what about the CUC? – but the truth is that I already knew in my heart of hearts that what it was about was that it was no longer our wedding venue. To read her reply, “it’s closing down” was no more illuminating than my intuition, which had supposed that our gorgeous venue had either been washed away by a flash flood or had been completely overrun by mean and scary ghosts – two perfectly understandable reasons for closure that I absolutely could not have argued with no matter how much I was crying. And I was crying a lot. Buckets, you might say. Rea told us to look online, and sure enough in black and blue it was there for all to see on their website:

 “CUC TO CLOSE ITS DOORS 3RD JANUARY 2012

They cited public sector cuts as the reason for their closure, but as a bride on the receiving end it did not compute; all I could see in my mind’s eye was that room; flashes of that iron spiral staircase and those Chesterfield sofas and how we cried when my dad put our wedding deposit down because we realised that we had actually set a date. The Contemporary Urban Centre was not just a wedding venue to me, it was the wedding venue that had helped us over the hurdle we felt we’d fallen at, it was the wedding venue that finally made our wedding seem real – it was our wedding venue, and now it was gone, and it didn’t matter how many times I read it or re-read it – it just didn’t make any sense to me.

Contemporary Urban Centre

It also didn’t make a blind bit of sense to me that this press release had gone public without us being notified first. I had the CUC on redial, ready for a kick-off, when eventually their wedding co-ordinator, Adele, returned my messages. I started to spit out my complaint when I heard that she was crying, just like me – not only had we lost our venue that morning, she’d lost her job, too. It suddenly became apparent that it had been an absolute shock announcement, with 28 other couples in the same position as us – some of them due to hold their wedding just days after the closure date. Adele insisted that she’d tried to speak to us all before 12pm when the press release was published, but that it had been impossible. We started to understand, but it was by no means any easier. Things had already been so hard for us and now we had to face it all over again, in even more of a daze.

Contemporary Urban Centre

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Paul & Hayley planned their wedding in just four months! They were engaged in July and wanted a winter wedding but the didn’t want to have to wait a whole year…so a speedy engagement it was! They were married in November at Vauxhall Farm in Suffolk.

“We decided that we wanted to decorate the reception ourselves and bring in caterers so Vauxhall Farm was perfect, ” Hayley told me. “It was essentially a big empty barn in the middle of some fields! Our thoughts for the venue styling was lots of colour and lots and lots of fairy lights!! We found lots of vases and lanterns and filled them with fairy lights and strung more lights across the ceiling as well. Our table names were pubs that we love. So we painted the inside of photo frames with chalkboard paint and wrote the names on there, we then gave our guests chalk so that they could wipe off the table name and have some fun!! Someone said that our tables looked like children’s party!”

The couple were lucky enough to have loads of talented friends to call upon to help them with various parts of their wedding. “The band at the church was made up of very talented friends,” Hayley continued. “Paul’s friend Dave Webster is a professional musician so he sang whilst we signed the register, which was beautiful. A friend of my parents made us a 3 tired Carrot cake, with dinosaurs on top! It was so yummy. Another friend did the flowers for us. I wanted a wild, small posy with a mixture of the flowers that my bridesmaids had in theirs (each bridesmaid had a different bouquet to match their outfit!) Our DJ was an old family friend, who actually also did the disco at my parent’s wedding 29 years ago. He was great, the dance floor was literally packed all night!”

Even their amazing wedding photographers o&c Photography, we’re friends of the bride beforehand. “I’ve known Charis for years and the o&c Photography blog has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I always knew that if I ever got married I’d want these guys to capture the day. So when we got engaged before anything was booked we checked their availability! We couldn’t of asked for more perfect photos, they capture our amazing day perfectly. We had so much fun climbing over stiles and running in fields, it didn’t really feel like we were having our pictures taken. They also appear to have spoken to lots people during the day, as so many of our guests have mentioned how lovely they are.”

“We were so blessed by people’s generosity, from giving time to help decorate and make invites, to putting up guests, doing flowers, cake etc. We had a lot of fun making and preparing so much ourselves, it made the day so much more personal. One of my favourite bits was our table plan. We painted a board in chalk board paint and then stuck pegs on it; which held a piece of card with the names of those at the table. It looked really cool! We also asked women to consider wearing hats of fascinators. I LOVE it when I see people wearing them at weddings and therefore wanted lots of people to be wearing them at ours. I think there were only a handful of people that didn’t wear anything in their hair in the end, it made me very happy!”

“If you’ve got the time and energy, do as much as you can yourself!” Hayley concluded. “One fun idea we had was to do with bottles on tables. We’ve been to so many wedding were everyone on the table likes red wine, but nobody white, or nobody is drinking the soft drinks, but they’re still there! So we decided to paint pegs, and use it as bottle currency! Each table had 5 pegs which they could swap for any bottle during the night. People loved it, and it also got people talking on tables were they might not have known each other.”

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This Week’s Love List…

♥ Overcoming my Skype phobia ♥ plans plans plans! ♥ shoots shoots shoots! ♥ having a full week at home – I didn’t have to go to London ONCE! Bliss… ♥ kitties crazy on catnip ♥ slanket snuggles & cuteness ♥ having my hair all cute again - beautified by Elbie ♥ all you can eat sushi!! ♥ blog love ♥ thinking about feminism & business…and missing Megan (but getting excited that I’m going to see her again SOON!) ♥

Best of the Rest…

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I love this super adorbs fabric bow-tie tutorial from Chloe Adlington of Adore by Chloe. I think they would be perfect for your fiance, his groomsmen… or even your pets to wear at your wedding (check out the sweet doggie photo at the end of the post!) Plus, once you’ve mastered the making the bow, why not use them to make something for yourself? You could add it to a headband, attach them to a belt, make it into a brooch… The bow-y possibilities are endless! Have fun!

Over to you Chloe…

My other half loves pattern, bright colours and has a quirky sense of style. Even if he’s required to wear formal, black tie he will find a way to bring his own style to it.

We faced said occasion over Christmas so I pulled out my fabric stash and made him a few different bow ties… nothing to offend his boss over dinner but still ‘him’!

They’re fairly simple to make if you can use a sewing machine.

Supplies Needed:

♥ Your choice of fabric – Two pieces which are 50 x 8 cm (for the bow & collar) and one piece which is 8 x 10 cm (for the bow centre)
♥ 2x 5cm strips of Velcro
♥ Sewing machine
♥ A needle and thread
♥ Scissors
♥ Ruler
♥ A pen

Method

Step One: Firstly, we’re going to make the bow. Take one of the pieces of fabric measuring 50 x 8cm and fold it in half, with the wrong side of the fabric showing.

Step Two: Sew along three edges (leaving one of the short ends open for turning) and snip the very corners off, this makes turning out neater in the corners!

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Photography Credit: Chennergy Weddings (full wedding here)

I put a shout out on my Facebook page to ask if any of you we’re struggling with anything wedding planning-wise and if I could help. A couple of you mentioned wedding traditions, namely how to decide which to include and which to scrap altogether. I have a few ideas on the subject…

Remember, it’s your wedding

There is a recurring theme throughout nearly all of the weddings I feature – that the couples wanted to have a wedding that was a true reflection of themselves…their likes and dislikes, their relationship, their personal style, their life influences. I believe that deciding which wedding traditions to include or ignore should also be totally dependent on you and what you value as being important to your wedding day.

Make a list, check it twice…

I’m a huge fan of the list. If ever my mind is going crazy about something I always physically write my thoughts down in a notebook. This really helps me to de-clutter my head and think things through properly without screaming “AHHHH I CAN’T COPE!”

I encourage you to give this a go if you’re struggling to make wedding decisions. Try writing down the traditions you’re struggling with and making a pro/con arguement for each section. Talk about it with your fiance and decide together if you want to have them in your wedding or not and why.

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I arrived at the party, having had my hair blow dried and a coral pink ruffled dress picked out especially for the occasion. The doorman walked up to my black cab, opened the door and welcomed me to The Dorchester. I made my way up to the very top floor in the opulently decorated elevator and, after having my coat taken care of, was offered a glass of bubbly. I was to brush shoulders with the ‘Best of British’ that evening. This was a party hosted by none other than Mark Niemeirko, the UK’s top wedding planner, in honor of Darcy Miller the editor of Martha Stewart Weddings. A selection of the best UK bloggers where there too, including the lovely Kat of course, as well as florists, hair & make-up artists and best of all the big name bridal designers.

This is networking at it’s finest ladies and gentlemen!

How did I get here? I can tell you that it wasn’t just down to spending every waking moment in front of my computer. While, of course, I’ve worked hard to get here, one of the best things I did for myself and my business last year was to not do everything myself.

In the first two years of my wedding photography business I did absolutely everything myself. I found it hard to let go. I felt as though I was the only person who could ever possibly work on my on RAW files. I thought nobody else would ever be able to design an album for me – even if I guided them through the process. I worked as a high end retoucher for years and it has only recently dawned on me that those fashion photographers would not be where they are now if they had to sit and work on each and every image that they have shot themselves! Do you think Mario Testino would have the time to travel the world, shooting front covers for Anna Wintour and worldwide advertising campaigns if he was shackled to his desk with a pen and Wacom tablet permanently attached to the end of his arm? I think not. You have to have the time to network and meet people in the industry in person and not just from the safety net of a twitter handle.

I eluded to the topic of avoiding burn out in my round up/end of year blog post. 2011 was my third full year in business as a photographer and now, at the start of 2012, I feel very happy with where I am with my price point and how I am progressing my business. I would like to share some of what I’ve done to get here with you all. I hope my advice can span any business and that this article is not only useful for photographers, however most of my examples in this piece are specific to what I did in my wedding photography business.

My basic lesson is this: life is short and working into the wee hours of the night, not having a break and feeling overwhelmed is why people ‘burn-out’ or loose their passion for something they once loved. After all most people start their own businesses to get away from working in a job that stresses them out!

“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right” - Steve Jobs

Outsourcing

Begin with the easy things and then work towards the ones that are harder to let go of.

Accounting
Firstly I don’t do well with numbers, so outsourcing my accounting was a no brainer and the first thing I did back in my freelance retouching days. No way was I going to sit down and fill in a tax return or enter a bunch of receipts and expenses into Excel (which is not a program I am familiar with – my background is graphic design and I just never had the need to learn it). I used to hand over a big bundle of paperwork to my poor accountant and he had to sift though everything and make sense of it all. However now file everything myself into subsections for each type of expense (i.e. album printing, travel, consumables, gear etc etc).

Bookkeeping
The second thing I outsourced was bookkeeping. I know I need to have a running total of my turnover in order to keep an eye on the VAT threshold. Remember to keep in mind that if you go over the threshold in any 12 month period (not just the tax tear April to April) that you have to start charging your clients 20% VAT. This includes future wedding clients, even if they booked you before you had to go VAT registered! It is super important to plan for this.

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I discovered Nubby Twiglet around the same time as stumbled across Gala‘s blog. I fell in love with her enviable personal style, and like any good internet stalker I loved her daily blog updates – from the clothes she wore to the pretty fonts she designed. Then in 2010, when I decided to rebrand Rock n Roll Bride, I knew there was only one graphic designer I wanted to work with. Luckily for me she was able to squeeze me into her crazy-busy schedule and the rest, as they say, is history!

Since my logo and website overhaul we’ve also worked together on my media pack as well as Rock n Roll Bride Magazine…and yes, we are working on issue two right now (sneak peek at the end of this interview). AND in just 3 weeks time she, Gala and I just happen to be in Las Vegas at the same time so we’re going to hang out in (OMG) actual real life…AND do a photo shoot together (squeeee!)

Jesus, I must get my fan-girlness in check before that happens…

Hey Nubby, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business. What’s the ‘Nubby Twiglet story’?

Hello! I’m a graphic designer and blogger based in Portland, Oregon. My main focus is in branding but I am also very passionate about web and editorial design. I’ve been blogging since 2001 (back when Live Journal was all the rage!) and launched my personal blog in 2007. I am a self-proclaimed aesthetics junkie and have always been passionate about sharing the world around me with the hopes of inspiring others. The one defining characteristic readers usually notice right away is that I don’t make a clear division between my work, wardrobe and surroundings; it’s all visually interconnected to form a distinct lifestyle. This is the vision I share on my blog, which can be quickly summed up as “Design, Marketing and Style Magnified.”

What about your name? Where did ‘Nubby Twiglet’ come from and why did you decide to use a pseudonym online?

Nubby Twiglet originated from a combination of nicknames I had back in high school. It was a way to separate my online and offline lives when I started blogging 10+ years ago (at that time, people rarely used their real names online). My legal name is Shauna and I actually like it! But what happened almost instantaneously is that my online existence so closely mirrored my offline life and people couldn’t easily separate the two. When I began meeting people in person that I’d first known online, they referred to me as “Nubby” so I embraced it. It’s that simple!

You’ve managed to land yourself some pretty impressive design contracts - notably Solestruck and Forever 21.  How did those come about?

I was lucky that these connections came about quite organically. Forever 21 knew about my blog and contacted me directly about designing their blog and accompanying logo a few years back. For being such a large company, they were incredibly friendly and open-minded, giving me nearly complete creative freedom. Solestruck is a Portland-based company and if you haven’t noticed, I am totally shoe-crazy. We’d known about each other for a long time and it was only a matter of time until we joined forces! They’re another company I love working with because they trust designers to do their thing and extend an amazing amount of creative freedom.

Advanced warning of a serious fan-girl gush right here…I have no words to describe how I felt when I first discovered your blog and saw your work. I love its bold and daring nature, the strong colours and your incredible use of fonts! When you first designed my logo for example, it was literally like you had gone inside my head and pulled out what I didn’t even know was there!

What inspires you, and how did you use this to develop your own design style?

Thank you! I’ve always been a very visually-driven person and even before I became a designer, I was always on the lookout for inspiration in fashion magazines and on the web. Really though, inspiration is all around us and this is partly why I carry a camera everywhere. Inspiration can strike at any moment, in the form of a menu or a subway map or a business card at your favorite boutique.

When I’m working with a new client, I first have them fill out a questionnaire and show me what inspires them. I also collect my own inspiration and include this in the initial presentation to make sure we’re on the same track. Every designer has their own process and mine has come out of years of trial and error. It’s definitely an ongoing, evolving process.

When and why did you decide to start a blog to support your graphic design work?

I started blogging in 2001 over on Live Journal because like many people in their early 20s, I felt the need to share my personal stories and surroundings. This was way before I became a designer but even back then, I’d say that my aesthetic vision was pretty clear. Having my own business was always very important to me (I actually presented Nubbytwiglet.com as my senior project when I majored in Business) and I knew that if I stayed consistent and kept pushing forward, all the pieces would fall into place.

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Confession: I’ve been trying to write this article for a while, in fact ever since we launched The Green Room at the beginning of the month. However I keep putting it off because it’s a difficult subject for me to actually to get my head around, and an even more taxing matter to try and explain my jumbled up thought process to you…In fact I’m 99% sure I will come across as a bit of a douche – hence the article-writing-hesitation.

I basically want to talk a little bit about web design, and specifically about making your website design different, but more than that – a challenge to the people visiting it and why I think this is a positive thing. This is probably a subject that, on first inspection, the majority of you will decide that I’m clearly mental, and be of the opinion that it’s best to make our websites as clear and easy for visitors (and potential clients) to navigate as possible. Well maybe yes, however let me explain why I’m teetering on the other side of the fence right now…

Image Credit: Braid Creative

When we came up with the The Green Room concept, specifically the sliiiide function, I was initially dubious. I’d never seen another blog using a horizontal navigation within a relatively standard blog format and I was worried that people wouldn’t ‘get it’.

Within the first week or so of the launch I was being asked the same questions over and over by people struggling to figure out the functionality of the sliding tab. Whilst I could have easily got annoyed and/or spent 23 hours a day explaining and re-explaining how to make the damn thing slide to everyone that asked, for the most part, I decided to let people figure it out for themselves.

Weirdly I was actually kind of pleased that some people couldn’t work the slide function out. It sounds very unorthodox, but I liked the fact that entering The Green Room was a challenge to some people and it really didn’t bother me if some people gave up and couldn’t get it. Why? Well first of all, it was an experiment. We didn’t know if people would even like the concept of a wedding blog simultaneously blogging about business stuff, and if it did fail, I was actually OK with it (I’d just go back to having much less writing to do!)

Also, the people that didn’t ‘get in the room’ failed a pretty simple intelligence test (and one that only really required people to take a little time and have a play around if they couldn’t figure it out right away) and in many ways I think the people who couldn’t be bothered to make that little effort don’t deserve all the amazing free business advice that’s hidden within this secret room of ours!

I spoke to a number of my industry friends about this matter, in particular wedding photographer Lisa Devlin who went through a similar thing when she re-branded her website two years ago. She purposely wanted to make the design different to all the other wedding photographers out there, not only to make her stand out from her competitors and make her website memorable to brides who will potentially looking at a whole bunch of wedding photographers at the same time, but also in order to set up a bit of a filter. She explains,

“Two years ago, I decided to overhaul my business including re-branding to a look that I felt reflected both me and my work. I also set out to change the website. I’ve have had a website for my wedding photography business since 2000 and apart from some tweaks along the way and a colour change, it had remained in its original format since then. By 2008 it was doing nothing to help me stand out from the crowd.”

“After meeting with some web developers who said my initial ideas wouldn’t be possible, I found Michael at This is Deliberate whose portfolio was really creative. My big idea was that when you arrived at the site, it was a collection of squares with no visible text apart from the logo. My previous site had a fair amount of text but from the questions I was getting, it was obvious it wasn’t getting read much. I wanted the images to do the talking but was told that you needed an obvious navigation bar. However Michael ran with the idea that it could be done away with. I also wanted the blog to be an integral part of the site. The blog is the bit which gets updated the most and I’m not sure if going forward people will have static sites now that blogging has progressed so much. It was obvious after looking at some existing templates, that my site was going to have to be built from scratch but as I was after something innovative, this was a cost I was prepared to pay. Sadly there is so much blatant copying that goes on in our industry that I thought it would be no bad thing to create a site that would be difficult to emulate and obvious if someone had done so.”

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Today’s post had a dual purpose. Firstly to announce that my good friend (and filmmaker extraordinaire!) Richard of FX Films and WedFilm Academy is teaming up with the guys at Reel Vision and Jeff Wood Visuals to put on a day long workshop for aspiring wedding filmmakers. On 27th March, they’ll be descending on a beautiful Haythrop Park in Oxfordshire to put budding videographers through their paces at Bridezilla Bootcamp! Watch the video below for the full drill and what you can expect from the day…

The full day workshop is just £295 per person. For more info and to book your place simply click here.

Secondly, I’ve been tasked with finding them a real couple to model for their video shoot portion of the day. Wouldn’t it be awesome to send them a kick ass Rock n Roll couple? I think so! You’ll need to be available on the 27th March and be able to get yourself to Oxford, and in return you’ll have a seriously fun day as well as receiving a copy of a beautiful video of the two of you to keep (which, by the way, I’ll probably feature on Rock n Roll Bride too if I’m allowed). If you’re already married but didn’t have a wedding film made, I think this would be an awesome excuse to dress up in your wedding outfits again and get a free video!

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I really enjoyed my professional work in 2011 but committing to a personal project was undoubtedly the best thing I did for my photography and myself last year. It constantly surprised and helped me in so many ways, and the very first (and being truthful, the only!) successful resolution I made as 2012 arrived was to start a brand new one.

Towards the end of 2010, after a crazy year of throwing myself headlong into setting up the business and taking on as much photography work as I could, I’d become increasingly worried that my photography was becoming stale and uninspired, in a weary creative rut, and I’d almost completely stopped shooting for pleasure since doing photography professionally full time, which really bothered me. If I’m being completely honest it had started to feel like photography, my long-time love, was becoming too much hard work and too few rewards. At the start of 2011 I noticed that a number of other photographers were starting 365 projects (a photo a day for a whole year) and so following their good example, I unashamedly jumped on the bandwagon and began my own personal 365 project, hoping I could rediscover the old passion and have a bit of fun along the way. It did both and a whole lot more, and was one of the best decisions I have made for a long time.

I truly believe personal projects are a crucial part of any creative business and that anyone, whether a photographer, videographer, designer, stationer, florist, dressmaker, blogger, jeweller, musician, stylist or any other creative, can benefit immeasurably from them, both professionally and personally.

So what is a personal project?

Quite simply, a goal or project devised and undertaken by yourself, purely for your own pleasure. Ideally it should not be part of any paid work or business, not done for financial profit, and not at all influenced by what other people like or want. Whatever your official day-to-day ‘job’ is, your personal project is an opportunity to forget what you’re paid to do, have fun with your art and completely please yourself.

Sounds great… Only then you start to think, as I did, hmmm….. how can I justify doing this? I have work coming out of my ears, piles of admin beckoning, a to-do list the length of my arm, an increasingly messy house to keep, a hyperactive child to care for and entertain… A ‘fun’ project just for the hell of it is surely a bit of a luxury… There need to be some clear benefits. Well the good news is, there are LOADS! Here are some I discovered along the way…

Why personal projects benefit you professionally

You improve your skills
A personal project gives you the freedom to experiment with new and more challenging techniques and ideas without worrying about failure or disappointing clients. True progress can only come with moving outside your comfort zone and challenging yourself, and paid jobs can be a risky area to push this. As a consequence, it’s easy to relax into ‘safe’ mode in our regular day-to-day work and miss opportunities to improve and move forward. In this year’s 365 project I practiced on a daily basis using a new lens that I had been too scared to use in weddings, always reverting to my old ‘comfortable’, reliable ones. Thanks to this practice, it’s now one of my staple professional lenses, has really helped to hone and improve my pictures and now feels as comfortable to me as my own eyes.

You become more creative
Often creative juices dry up. No-one likes to admit it but it happens to everyone. You start to feel like you’re churning out the same things and feel unoriginal and uninspired. A personal project injects freshness into your art, providing new sources and channels of inspiration and opening up new and exciting approaches to explore. My 365 project forced me to think differently about how I approach my subjects and this in turn affected my professional work, making me see familiar scenarios through different eyes.

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About The Green Room

The Green Room is the backstage area of Rock n Roll Bride, a quiet place to read about and discuss all things related to running your own wedding-related business.

I strongly believe that the most important thing in any business is being your own person, standing out, having a different outlook or opinion and giving your clients a reason to invest in you. This is what I want to achieve with The Green Room - to give you a place to figure out your personal path in a non-judgmental and friendly space.

Each week we'll discuss topics related to running your own business as well as read interviews with some of the most inspirational people I know.

So sit down, grab a cup of coffee and lets muddle our way through together!

Find out more...