Chicago Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
New here! How did you find your wedding vendors?
Hello everyone,
I've only posted here once before, I think. I hope it's ok for me to ask this, but I am a harpist who recently moved to the W. burbs from Iowa (after we got married there), and I'm finding it difficult to break into the wedding business here. How did you find most of your wedding vendors? Internet? Word of mouth? Bridal shows? I'm just wondering where I should invest my advertising dollar. Any thought would be greatly appreciated!
I've only posted here once before, I think. I hope it's ok for me to ask this, but I am a harpist who recently moved to the W. burbs from Iowa (after we got married there), and I'm finding it difficult to break into the wedding business here. How did you find most of your wedding vendors? Internet? Word of mouth? Bridal shows? I'm just wondering where I should invest my advertising dollar. Any thought would be greatly appreciated!
Re: New here! How did you find your wedding vendors?
The girls on the knot might give you a better answer, I found my vendors in various ways, a good percentage was word of mouth, especially through the knot, searching online, and one at a bridal show. I know that some popular photogs, if they really liked one of your vendors at your wedding they include them in their "preferred vendor list" on their website or blog. My photog really liked my cake designer and without really meeting her or anything she is featured on his site. That is another way to get "free" advertising on some more popular sites...but of course you got to meet the photogs first
So yeah, I did everything online - including abusing wedding chat rooms and their search engines.
But again, if a vendor didn't have a website, I didn't bother even calling.
HTH and good luck with everything!
click the pic (blog)
Our reception site gave us a list of "preferred vendors" and we made a few phone calls based on that list. I found our photog through the Knot and rec's from brides. Our ceremony musician was a family friend.
Since you're a harpist, I would try contacting churches and speaking with the music directors there. If we wanted ceremony musicians, I would have asked our vocalist who she rec'd first because I trust her and respect her opinion. If you can make friends with a few church music directors, your business could grow just through word of mouth.
I also found craig's list to be a valuable resource, like pps said. GL!
Because we're fancy like that.
I get most of my vendor reviews through the knot message boards.
Harper and Jaime...I'm from Iowa, too! (Muscatine) Where are you from?
I'm actually from MN, but spent the last 9 months living in Carroll.
Wow! Thanks everyone for all of your replies. I think I'm just going to focus on my web pressence for now and give it some more time.
To all the other Iowa ladies...I moved here from Des Moines last April. Our wedding was in W. Des Moines on March 16th, and we left the next day for our honeymoon. I only got to move into our house when we landed back in Chicago! I'm still getting used to the area, but love it so far. I live in St. Charles now. How about the rest of you?
We hired a band for the reception and then just had them do the ceremony and cocktail hour music as well. It was mostly the same musicians, but the band leader did bring in a violinist that he works with for the ceremony, so another suggestion is to get to know other musicians and bands who play weddings and could call you when they need a harpist. I think the church/synagogue suggestion is a good one too, I would have started there if our ceremony was in a church.