Fiestasol Wedding Planning Timeline

Wedding customers are usually new to the prospect of having to prepare a wedding. It is difficult to know where to begin, what to do, who to talk to etc. Is there a timeline involved in planning a wedding?This is how we manage it at FiestaSol:

·       To start with, there is the initial email contact with our clients. We email our famous wedding presentation with an overview on how we work, plus the venues we propose, the catering we organise, decoration details and pricing.

·  eWe can then set up a free morning of site visits when the clients are able to visit Spain.

·       When the venue has been chosen, FiestaSol books it and sends the venue contract.

·       We then email our clients a list of supplier options that match their tastes and budget. This includes websites, pricing and packages.

·       We encourage clients to come back for at least one visit and we set up a whole day at our wedding showroom – meeting with suppliers, putting all design elements into place, sampling wedding cake and having a full wine and menu tasting. All suppliers are then booked and confirmed.

·       3 – 6 months before the wedding, we send a detailed wedding update with full information on suppliers that have been booked and deposits paid.

·       One month before the wedding, FiestaSol sends out a full checklist of all the final details that are needed to be answered. Clients often think that they have forgotten small details, and as we have so much experience, we know that everything is covered once all these questions are answered.

·       FiestaSol then sends the clients a full itinerary for the day plus a list of all supplier payments that are pending.

·       2 days before the wedding, FiestaSol calls all suppliers and double checks that everything is in place and their movements on the day.

·       One day before the wedding FiestaSol will attend the wedding rehearsal and run through any last minute questions with the bride and groom.

·       On the wedding day – the FS catering team generally arrives 3 hours before the ceremony to set up and the planners will be there on site until the end of the event.

Fiestasol in Tarifa! Meet our new wedding planner Tara Chapman

I grew up in Southern Spain, so I´m fluent in both Spanish and English language and culture. I started working in the family tv production company in the art department before going off to Saint Martins College of Art in London to study Set Design. This persuaded me I would rather be in control of the whole production and started the long climb up the work ladder working for two of the best production companies in Europe before moving back to Spain in 2001 to take over the family business.  Some of the productions we did included Pepsi campaigns with personalities such as Beckham and Ronaldo, with crews of 150 people to coordinate.

This all changed when I decided to start a family, my parents were living in Tarifa so I took a break from the rat race and moved. In Tarifa I kept the company going for photography shoots however decided to look around for something more local. I then started working with a friend in Gibraltar organizing events which then lead to weddings in Tarifa. I´ve planned weddings large and small in the area, which is not just limited to Tarifa since there are beautiful cortijos all over this corner of Spain. I like to take experiences learnt from my design days and the organisational skills needed to run film shoots, combined with the softer side that motherhood brings and put it all into practise organising the big day for my clients. I consider myself more Spanish than English however hopefully am far quicker than the average Andaluz!

January Guest blog - the aptly named Lizzie Marriage

I have been associated with the wedding business here in Marbella Spain for 8 years now.

Things were a little different when I started, for a start we did not have the internet, so there was a much more personal approach which these days is hard to attain at times and makes the companies who do succeed to do this special.

When I started, most brides wanted a church wedding, which unless you are Catholic, in Spain has always been a problem. I feel this has been made more difficult in recent years and therefore many couples,  as they are mostly now of mixed religion or none at all, choose to have a civil ceremony where they live and come here for a blessing service afterwards. I really feel that Spain should allow non residents to have legal civil ceremonies here, in this day and age it seems to me to be very archaic not to. We do understand that this is all about to change which will be wonderful for the wedding business in Spain.

I feel the ceremony itself is the most important part of the marriage plans. The couple are promising to love each other, support and care for one another for the rest of their lives, so this part of their day should be very personal and special. As a minister, I like to meet with the couple long before their wedding, so we have time to discuss their needs and be able to write a ceremony together that has meaning and purpose for them and their families. It is I feel very important to include as many people from the two families as possible as the couple will need their support as they go through their lives and the promises all the family make this day will carry forward with love.

I have worked and know as friends Alex and Heather Sadler for many years and value their professionalism very much. They have brought Fiesta Sol so far along the road in this business by sheer hard work, personal service and commitment to perfection that they should be very proud of the success their company now has as the top wedding planners in this area. Everything they do is done with such care and commitment to each couple they work with that the friendships that are formed with couples last a long time after the wedding day is over.

Which really is what this is all about.

Caring and making people happy forever.

My father - the guru! David Sadtler´s Management Blog

There is one simple building block for a successful competitive strategy: finding out what customers want and doing it better than anyone else.  There is no substitute for this. No business can succeed without happy customers, a rule which requires that the successful competitor actually find out what customers do want.  This is why we are constantly bombarded by satisfaction surveys when we buy anything online. The supplier wants to know whether you were happy, what you were looking for, the cause of any unhappiness, and whether or not you will recommend their products to your friends.

In consumer products, the successful competitor must think this way and do three things. First, he must create awareness of his product or nothing further will happen. Potential customers must know that you exist. This is why you often see advertising for websites on television, not campaigns for the products themselves. People have to know that you are out there.

Second, he must motivate the prospect to try it, or the prospect will not become a customer. The company seeking your business will try to capture you and find out about you. They will then appeal to you to try what they have to offer, building on what they have found out about you. Supermarkets assemble massive databases gathered from transactions at the till using loyalty cards. From this they know what to try to sell you via coupons and even in-store promotional materials.

And finally, he must motivate retrial: the product must be good enough that the customer wants to buy it again. This is the acid test. If the customer tries your product and doesn't like it and does not come back for more, you have largely failed. It's that simple.

In the case of services like Fiesta Sol’s business of wedding arranging and food catering, the requirements for success reflect these guidelines.  In catering, they have managed to create awareness principally through good website design, but also selected advertising campaigns in targeted publications. Before the web, awareness was created solely through advertising, an often prohibitively expensive way to find your first customers. Now a good website can at least get you started. The website also plays a role in generating trial. The message on the website must be sufficiently enticing to generate clicks and enquiries, whether it is a catered dinner for 100 people or a wedding in a Marbella villa.

Retrial is the life blood in food catering. Customers must see the performance as exceptionally good and worth doing again. The corollary of retrial in the wedding planning business is a good reference (and hopefully not a return for a second marriage, at least not too soon!). Brides pleased with the wedding experience and the service provided by the wedding arranger will tell their friends and provide endorsements and testimonials. The FiestaSol website is replete with such compliments.

One final piece of advice. The great American poet and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say." Don’t speak ill of your competitors. Your customer prospects will simply assume that you are struggling to catch up with a superior rival.

The bottom line is this. A great product, attuned to the needs and requirements of the customer, is the backbone of any business, large or small. Do everything you can to provide it.

Glamour at Villa Padierna

I was delighted to receive Becky Sharpe´s (www.beckysharpe.co.uk) gorgeous images of Paula and Alans stylish and emotional wedding at the Villa Padierna. And I won´t forget the groom and all his ushers jumping on stage in their pink suits and performing Westlife for a long time....

Stunning beaches of Cadiz

While we love living in the Costa del Sol, we take any opportunity we can to escape down to the amazing Atlantic beaches of Cadiz. Unfortunately the wind means that it is not the best place for weddings, but for chilled beach holidays, kite boarding, dune buggying and generally unwinding, this is the best part of Andalucia by far. Check out the beautiful kiddies, looks like a Boden catalogue!