Saturday, August 22, 2009

New Ceremony and Welcome Dinner Site

WOW! I walked down to our new event site on the waterfront today and it...is...spectacular!!!!

The area is on the water, looking out over the harbor, can be covered with tents and represents all the dreams of an island wedding.

We'll have photos soon of the view...stay tuned!

Surfacing for Air

I gotta say, August is a hard month. We have 28 events in 31 days. That's about as much as you could ask for if you want to give yourself a heart attack. (Muddling 15 gallons of mojito mix a few weeks ago, I thought, "Wow. I could actually cause physical harm to myself with how much pressure we're under.") The amazing part of it all is that our team is fully capable and 100% successful each time we host an event--wedding, meeting, retreat...what ever.

We had a bride say a few weeks ago that we're a "wedding factory." I had to laugh. On some levels, she's right: we do have the opportunity to host a lot of weddings. And what constantly amazes me is our ability to treat each one like it's the only wedding we'll work with that year. We don't "do" 60 weddings a year...we host one wedding 60 times a year. The subtle difference is what sets us apart.

This week we have seven weddings in ten days. Our front desk staff knows the name of the bride and groom for each wedding, and what day they're getting married. Our event planner, Laura, is tirelessly working to ensure each one exceeds expectations. Our banquet chef, Steven, can tell you the details of each event for each day, down to the special Vegan or allergy requests that we have for individual events.

We've heard from some wedding coordinators that other places struggle sometimes under the pressure or lose that personal touch on the day of the wedding. It struck me as odd to hear that...failure isn't part of our culture. The team is so tirelessly dedicated to the bride's wishes that it's too important to think of that as an option.

I go into this part of the wedding business because we want every bride, groom, mother-of-the-bride to know that you are the most important person we work with on any given day...and that all of our capable resources are working to exceed your expectations when the wedding arrives.

Now, I'm going to sleep. We have another wedding to prepare for tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Nicole and Preben Martin

We had a fabulous wedding last week, one that grabbed the attention of everyone on the resort. Nicole and Preben Martin have been working with Roche Harbor for more than 17 months on their wedding, and last Saturday finally arrived the big day. It couldn't have been better weather, with a more elegant set-up, or filled with nicer people.

Here's a video clip from Mindcastle, a mind-blowing group of professionals that shot this video and then edited it during dinner and played it back to the wedding reception at the end. Wow.

http://mindcastlestudios.squarespace.com/blog/2009/8/3/prebennicole-sdefrom-past-to-present.html