One excuse: Wedding season! Okay, there’s no excuse! We’re back and ready to blog! Over the next few weeks we’ll be blogging about a few fabulous Central Oregon Wedding Vendors [FINALLY], some gorgeous real weddings [the reason we haven’t been posting as often as we should!] and a little update on how my personal wedding planning is going!

As I’m working on details for clients, emails, blogging and phone calls I can’t help, but wish I had a plate of something sweet! Though I won’t get to have any of these sweet treats today, I have to tell you about Bend Cookie Company! Bend Cookie Company creates custom designed cookies for all life’s celebrations!  They create personalized, hand-decorated cookies for your special day.  Each of their sugar cookies is made with care, each batch made from scratch and hand-decorated one cookie at a time.  They also offer a full line of gourmet cookies.  Let Bend Cookie Company make your celebration even sweeter! Read on to see pictures of some of their delicious treats and learn more about their company!

Champagne: How did Bend Cookie Company begin?

Bend Cookie Company: “...we should open a cookie company…”

Those words were spoken on the street outside a small bakery in Cotacachi, Ecuador after eating a not so tasty treat. Our time in Ecuador was part of a 2 year adventure, taking us to 8 countries and 12 U.S. states, traveling with our 2 school aged children. The trip was part of a lifestyle change that ended corporate careers and re-focused our lives on those things that are important.

After returning to the states, in the middle of a recession and in a new city with few job opportunities, we decided to start a small business that would be fun, allow us to work together, and provide an opportunity to personally connect to our customers…something our corporate careers did not provide.

So, Bend Cookie Company was born.

Champagne: What sets your company apart from others?

Bend Cookie Company: We provide personalized, hand decorated cookies for all life’s celebrations. Each of our sugar cookies is made with care, each batch made from scratch and hand decorated one cookie at a time. We pride ourselves on the personal connection we make with our customers, and how with the customer’s input, we can create customized, one-of-a-kind cookies just for them.  We also carry a full line of delicious gourmet cookies, each one made by hand using only the finest all-natural ingredients without preservatives, baked fresh for each order.

Champagne: Besides cookies, what’s your personal specialty?

Bend Cookie Company: For us, it’s all cookies, all the time!

Champagne: Can you ship your cookies?

Bend Cookie Company: Yes!  We ship nationwide.

Champagne: What’s your favorite part of Central Oregon weddings?

Bend Cookie Company: Our favorite part of working with the bridal couple is to create that one-of-a-kind wedding cookie that completely reflects their personality and style, and allows their guests to take a little piece of their wedding day home with them.  We are also seeing a trend developing where the couple is opting for “Groom’s Cookies”  instead of a Groom’s cake, and where the parents of the groom are providing a rehearsal dinner cookie favors as well. 

Champagne: What’s your favorite dessert?

Bend Cookie Company: Our Toasted Toffee Pecan cookie - when I took my first bite, I heard angels sing!  Our kids second that!

Champagne: What inspires you?

Bend Cookie Company: As the cookie artist, I get my inspiration everywhere: nature, fashion, pop-culture, art, and fellow artists.  As the baker and flavor developer, Sean likes to mix it up and gets his inspiration from traditional, eclectic and international flavor profiles. 

Champagne: What has been your most unique request for cookie design?

Bend Cookie Company: I would have to say the cookies for high-tech gadgets:  Playstation controllers, iPods and cameras.  I also created a “Naughty Negligee” cookie tray for a bachelorette party that was adorable!

Champagne: What do you do when you’re not doing what you do?

Bend Cookie Company: We spend time as a family enjoying all the activities that Central Oregon has to offer, in addition to watching our kids’ sporting activities. 

Champagne: Anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Bend Cookie Company: We are a local, family-owned business dedicated to bringing beautifully decorated and delicious cookies to everyone.  We would love to make cookies for your next special event or celebration, big or small!  Check out our website or see a more complete picture gallery on our Bend Cookie Company Facebook Fan Page.

Champagne: Thank you, Gina, for sharing more about Bend Cookie Company! We can’t wait to have more of your cookies soon!

Cheers,

Mandi, Rachelle & the Champagne team

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again and again, your wedding day flies by and having a videographer to capture the moments that you may have missed or want to remember forever is necessity! Having a professional photographer is one thing you can’t go without, but when you want to go back and hear your vows and the sound of your grandmas voice, there’s nothing that preserves that better than a professional videographer. Ambient Sky is sharing with us today a little about why video is so important and some to die for samples! Enjoy!

Champagne: How would you describe your videography style?

Ambient Sky: Highly stylized, artistic with a cinematic flair.  Engaging, heartfelt and timeless.

Wedding Day Highlight

Champagne: How did you get into videography?

Ambient Sky: Our backgrounds are pretty varied.  Between the two of us we have extensive experience in Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Event Planning, Photography, Audio Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Music Theory and Composition.  About 8 years ago Scott decided to go back to school where he studied Multimedia, Graphic Design and Filmmaking. Amanda’s love of weddings and events lead to the idea of creating wedding films.  The more we got into it the more we realized it was the perfect blend of our talents and our passions and we love working together.

Wedding Trailer

Champagne: Often times we have people tell us, well my parents have never watched their wedding video, I doubt I would. What’s your response to this?

Ambient Sky: Wedding video as an industry has evolved incredibly fast in the last 10 years from virtually unwatchable home video, fly on the wall style wedding videos, to a true cinematic experience like we offer with our Couture Wedding Films™.  With our films, the days of the wedding video that never gets watched is over.  Our clients regularly rave about how many times they watch their wedding film.  We pride ourselves on the timeless experience we create for our clients and their families.  We spend a great deal of time and effort on each wedding film making sure it’s something that they will want to watch again and again.  Our advanced style of shooting and our engaging edits make our vision of a wedding film unlike anything most couples have ever seen before.

Same Day Edit
The short highlight of the wedding day that we show at the reception.  One of our most popular offerings.

Champagne: What sets you apart from other videographers?

Ambient Sky: Everything!  Our creativity in storytelling, in shooting, in editing.  Our sense of the moment, and capturing the really important ones when they present themselves thru-out the day, then weaving these together with the rest of the days events into a feature style wedding film.

Being the trend setters of the wedding film industry in the area, it is somewhat flattering to see our style and techniques show up in the work of many of our competitors.  However, it’s our internal drive that keeps us always learning, evolving and pushing the envelope in our wedding films.  We are always looking for a better way to shoot, to edit and to tell our clients stories in a more engaging way.  We introduced the Portland/Vancouver markets to the concept of a highly stylized and enthralling Same Day Edit video shown on a big screen at the reception.  It provides the couple, their family and friends with an entertaining vignette of the days events that is unparalleled.  We were even the first wedding filmmakers in Portland to blog!  Check ours out often, as we are proud of every film we produce which means we are always filling the blog up with our latest and greatest.

All aspects of our company focus on the style and elegance that we portray in our films.  You won’t see pictures of our cameras or our gear in our advertising.  The majority of couples we work with simply want a great wedding film.  While we do use some of the most advanced visual and audio capture equipment in the filmmaking industry they are all just tools that help us create better wedding films.

Our expertise in showing our brides in the most flattering and elegant way garnered us a WEVA Creative Excellence award in the highly competitive Bridal Spotlight category, making us the only studio in the Pacific Northwest to ever win this incredibly difficult category.  WEVA (Wedding and Event Videography Association) is an international organization that is the most prestigious in our industry to win an award from.  It’s basically our Academy awards. We’ve also won a variety of other awards including a Telly for our Fashion Style Video of Miss Oregon 2007, Kari Virding.

Bridal Elegance Film

Champagne: What do you do when you’re not doing what you do?

Ambient Sky: Try to keep up with our 3 year old daughter who is quickly becoming a force of nature.  Spend time with our friends and family.  Discovering new music and watching movies (but that’s “research” for us)!  Dancing and playing Hockey (not at the same time)!

Engagement Film

Champagne: What’s one tip or advice you have for couples as they plan their wedding?

Ambient Sky: Don’t skimp on preserving your memories.  You put so much time, money and heart into planning your day and it goes by in a flash.  Photography plays an important role but it serves an entirely different purpose in the moments it captures.  The truth is, people rarely have the emotional connection to a photo that they do to our finely crafted wedding films.  It’s not uncommon for couples visiting us to tear up while watching one of our previous clients wedding films.  And it’s not often, if ever, that people do the same looking at wedding photos of people they don’t know.  We always recommend to couples that they should prioritize both photography and a wedding film in their budget.

Champagne: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Ambient Sky: Our overall professionalism, passion and creativity that we bring to each wedding and event we shoot comes thru in the experiences our clients have with us and in the final movie they get to enjoy.  We are also a husband and wife team and we have great respect for marriage and family.  Having been married for 10 years now with our wedding a very distant memory, we have a very intimate connection to the value of what we provide to our clients.  Needless to say we don’t have a wedding film from our wedding because there was no one in the area creating anything worth paying for when we got married.  We don’t remember our vows, we don’t remember Amanda’s father’s performance during our ceremony, we can’t remember the toast my brother gave that brought us to tears.  If we could somehow go back and shoot and edit our own wedding film with all the experience and knowledge we have now, it’s value would easily be priceless to us.

If you are unsure about videography for your wedding day, simply watch our work and we would love to talk with you more about creating a timeless wedding film for you!

Champagne: Thank you, Ambient Sky, for sharing more about videography and your company with us! We look forward to working with you soon!

Cheers,

Mandi, Rachelle & the Champagne team

With wedding season among us, many brides for 2010 have done most of their planning, but may be trying to decide whether hiring a month of coordinator would be worth it. Being wedding planners, we, of course would say, “YES! Don’t hesitate! Hire a professional wedding coordinator to ensure your wedding plans are taken care of the day of so you, your friends and family can relax and enjoy!” Make sure to find the right personality match to work with you on your wedding day! Here’s an article that we posted a few months ago about the different types of coordinators that’ll be a part of your wedding day to help you decide if hiring a Month of [Day of] coordinator is right for you! Enjoy and if you have any questions- please don’t hesitate to ask!

With the title “coordinator” used so often in the wedding and event industry, it’s no surprise that the duties of these different people can get a bit confusing. We were talking about this recently with other vendors, and it is clear that people have a lot of questions about the different types of coordinators that might work with them on their wedding day. We’ll unravel these different terms for you!

Catering Coordinator: This person works for your catering company or as a manager at a venue that offers catering.
Your catering coordinator will make sure:
      o your menu selections have been made
      o plans for your bar and beverages has been arranged
      o receive and maintain your payments for the catering
Many catering companies offer rental items such as dinnerware, linens, and glassware. Your catering coordinator may assist you in selecting those items. On the day of your wedding, the catering coordinator manages the timeline for food preparation and food service. The catering coordinator will also oversee the serving staff.

Venue Coordinator: This person is employed by the venue, and knows the inner-workings of the space. Your venue coordinator will most often do a walk-through with you and point out typical layouts for your floor plan.
Your venue coordinator will know answers to questions, such as:
      o “what time can our vendors start setting up?”
      o “Where are the power outlets in the building?”
      o “How many chairs and tables do you have, and do you provide linens?”
      o “Am I allowed to use candles?”
      o “Where can vendors park for loading and unloading?”
      o “When is our final payment due?”
Some venue coordinators are on-site during your wedding day for part of all of the day. Make sure you ask them what their role with be on the day of.

Church Coordinator: If you are marrying in a church, you might have a church coordinator.
Your church coordinator will:
      o schedule your rehearsal time
      o advise you on etiquette of that specific church as well as its rules
      o run your rehearsal (for example, tell you how you should line up/walk into the church)
      o refer cantors or musicians through the parish
      o your church coordinator will be there on your wedding day to guide you down the aisle

Wedding Coordinator: A wedding coordinator/consultant/planner is one and the same.  A wedding coordinator differs from the afore mentioned coordinators because he/she is hired directly by the bride/groom/family which means their first and foremost job description is to provide to you the services that you need to make your wedding planning experience enjoyable. He/she can not only answer questions about your venue, rentals, catering, and church customs, but can also aid you with subjects such as design, budgeting, vendor selection, timelines, and etiquette. A perk is that most wedding coordinators receive discounts with vendors that get passed on to the client as a savings, rather than marking them up and costing the client more money. This comes from the experience that a professional wedding coordinator has, as well as the extensive research and networking that he/she maintains on a regular basis to continue to learn about the vendors that are available to their clients.
Most wedding coordinators offer day-of coordination in their list of services. When hiring a Day-of Coordinator they manage the details of your wedding day for you.
This includes, but not limited to:
      o preparing a timeline and ceremony processional/recessional sheet
      o organizing day of information details
      o communicating details between all vendors making sure they are on the same page
      o running the rehearsal or assist officiant and church coordinator
      o set up and clean up
      o trouble-shooting any and all situations throughout the day
Many day-of coordinators offer packages that include meetings to prepare for the wedding day and more.

If you have a coordinator at your venue, church or catering company that uses the title wedding planner/ wedding coordinator/ wedding consultant please inquire about all of the different things that they plan to do for you on your wedding day, as well as throughout your planning timeframe, so you are not left disappointed on your wedding day. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. Every company is different, so some coordinators may vary from the above description.

Happy planning!

Cheers,
Mandi, Rachelle and the Champagne team

Local event:
Eco-friendly wedding event! Portland:
Monday, June 28
6:00- 8:00 pm
New Beginning Salon Spa
503-645-2950
http://www.nbsalonspa.com

You’ve heard us say their names, but they have yet to be introduced! Danielle and Amanda are two of our wonderful lead wedding and event planners! All four of us sleep, dream, live wedding and event planning thoughts! I can’t remember the last time I went somewhere and I didn’t think about whether or not it had event space potential! haha! With wedding season in full swing, we wanted to help you get to know Danielle and Amanda a little better! Enjoy…

Meet Danielle:

Dayna Schroeder Photography

How did you decide you wanted to get into wedding & event planning?
Danielle: I decided to get into wedding and event planning at a very young age, if my friends Barbie and Ken doll wanted to get married, I was the one they would bring them to. I would beg my mom to buy me wedding magazines even before I could read! Wedding planning has always been my dream job and I am so blessed to be doing it!

What do you love about weddings?
Danielle: What I love about weddings is the magic that fills the venue and the groom’s eyes when the bride walks down the aisle, seeing a couple’s vision turn into the wedding of their dreams. I love every planning moment from a blank piece of paper with a bride spilling her ideas to the moment when the last guest has left…and of course cake : )

How would you describe your dream wedding?
Danielle: My dream wedding would be a winter wedding in Banff on Lake Louise with sleigh rides and a hot cocoa bar.

What do you like to do in your free time?
Danielle: In my free time I like to read, kayak, do yoga, and try new restaurants with my boyfriend.

Fun tidbit:
Danielle: I only eat Kraft mac and cheese if the noodles are shaped like characters.

Meet Amanda:

Dayna Schroeder Photography

How did you decide you wanted to get into wedding & event planning?
Amanda: After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, I got a job working for couture bridal designer, Monique Lhuillier in Los Angeles. Hearing the brides talk about their engagement and planning the details, I became infatuated with weddings! To me, it’s not a job, I look at it as hobby. I have so much passion about each wedding or event I am involved in.

What do you love about weddings?
Amanda: What’s not to love about weddings!! I would say the number one thing I love the most is the first step the bride takes down the aisle. It’s the big moment we both have worked so hard towards for the last several months.

How would you describe your dream wedding?
Amanda: My prince charming hasn’t road in on his white horse yet : ) but when he does my dream wedding would be candlelit at this beautiful church in Bel Air, CA. It’s on top of a hill that over looks all of Los Angeles and is absolutely breathtaking. For the reception, I would love to have it in a indoor/outdoor venue in Santa Monica or Malibu. Photos on the beach are always amazing and so peaceful.

What do you like to do in your free time?
Amanda: I love staying active by hiking or going to a pilates class as well as spending time with my family.

Share a unique/fun fact or two about yourself:
Amanda: I have my own jewelry line that I hand make, Simply Jo Designs and I have an obsession with Christian Louboutin shoes.

You’ll love working with Danielle, Amanda and the rest of our staff! We are so excited for wedding season to be in full swing and to be a part of your special day!!

Cheers,

Mandi, Rachelle and the Champagne team

The best things in life are free? I think it’s most definitely true! That is why we offer a no obligation, complimentary initial consultation where you are able to get to know us and tell us more about your wedding plans, as well as learn if hiring a wedding planner is right for you! We offer packages from day of to full service planning! Planning your wedding day should be as fun and enjoyable as you always imagined it! [We also have special packages for the bride who is planning from a far or the destination bride] We look forward to hearing from you!

I’m so excited to share this post with you! You’ve heard about Rachelle and I, possibly a little too much and we’ve been dying to tell you more about the rest of the Champagne team. Although our team is continuously growing, we wanted you to get a glimpse into our world! In a couple weeks I’ll be posting more information about each of the individual girls, but I wanted to share a few photos from a recent photo shoot we did with Dayna and Clete Schroeder of Dayna Schroeder Photography. We had such a blast spending the afternoon with them! Dayna and Clete recently moved here from Chicago and although they are new to Portland, they are definitely not new to the industry! They are so extremely talented and we can’t wait for the opportunity to work with them again! For the photo shoot, we were lucky enough to have the talented Face Body Beauty do our hair and make up!! Thank you Jennifer Rand Walker and team for helping us glow!  Boy, is there a lot of talent in this post! Sorry for the over use of the word, but I can’t help it if it’s true!

Welcome our team of talented and beautiful ladies:

Left to right: [Rachelle, Patty, Amanda, Andrea, Racheal, Debbie, Allison, Danielle, Katie, Mandi]

We are known for our red shoes…so we thought, we should all have a pair!

We are all so excited for this summer and look forward to working with you!! Thank you for stopping by! Please contact us to set up your free, no obligation, consultation! Again, a huge huge thank you to Dayna and Clete of Dayna Schroeder Photography and Jennifer Rand Walker of Face Body Beauty and team! We had so much fun working with you all! More about the Champagne team will be coming soon to the blog!

Cheers,

Mandi, Rachelle & the Champagne team

Come hang out at the Perfect Wedding Guide Wedding Show next Saturday, March 20th from 12-4pm at The Downtown Portland Heathman where you’ll be entered to win a pair of diamond earrings [Joseph K Jewelers], a wedding dress [AniA Collection], and many more prizes announced every half hour! If you haven’t already, make sure to stop by 105.1 The Buzz website and enter to win a Month of Package from Champagne [That’s us!]! We look forward to meeting you next weekend!