The First Look Blog - The Truth About Your Wedding Invitations

If there is one thing I know to be true, there are endless blogs and websites that offer advice and tips to brides as they begin planning their big day. The First Look is a blog created by Dara Lynn Smith where she gushes over making planning a wedding easier and a lot less stressful. 

I'm excited to have joined her on her blog to give some advice of my own. 😉 Click below to read more about The Truth About Your Wedding Invitations. 💌

Photo Credit: Deni Dom Films

Heart + Hustle Podcast Interview #101 - Becoming a Full-Time Artist

Whether you are a full-time Entrepreneur that's been around for awhile or just starting your path to entrepreneurship, it's common to seek advice from different sources. Whether if it's from a daily newsletter, self-help book, or podcast, we tend to try to gain as much knowledge as we can. The ladies at Heart + Hustle Podcast are no different. Their motto is:

Dream Big. Work Hard. Repeat. ⚡️🖤

After meeting Charisma O'Keefe at the Your Story Workshop last year, I began listening to the podcast and got to listen to different topics discussed by herself, Angelica Yarde, and other women who talk about business and life. I was honored to be asked to join them for a recent episode discussing the evolution of my business, becoming a mom-preneur, and plans for Only One Mark's future.

Click the button below to listen to the episode.

Alejandra + Daniel - A San Francisco City Hall Elopement

Not every wedding project I take on is traditional. This was the case for Alejandra. Her fiance, Daniel, and herself had made plans to elope over in San Francisco, California and she wanted to have a special detail for her special day. Having seen the leather jacket I painted for this styled shoot elopement, Alejandra wanted to have similarly designed. These are the results.

If you want have your breath taken away, go check out more details on Dipp Photography's blog. I promise you will be gushing over them too.  

What I Think About Digital Invitations & RSVPs

With the ever changing world we live in, it seems like the next technological advance is almost seconds away from being discovered. One of the latest items to affect the wedding and event game is the introduction of the Digital RSVP. In this new age of managing your schedule through your ever useful smart phone, it was just only a matter of time that digital Invitations and RSVPs would hit the market promising a cheaper way to afford one of the most important details for your special event. While I’m totally up for not breaking the bank for your big day or special life time event, but here are a few points I would like to make about digital RSVPs and Invites.

📧 Digital Invitations are great for INFORMAL Events. 

Having a backyard BBQ or small get together is in no way shape or form a time to break out the paper and send out paper invitations, especially if they are last minute (although you totally could if you really wanted to 😉😊). There are some great sites that will provide designs as well as a system to include all of the attendees emails. They are even known to collect an RSVP count and even request quests to pick from a list and confirm what they will be bringing to contribute to your shindig. But I would only suggest using these for an informal event. Not for a lifetime event like a wedding, baby shower, birthday, etc.

📬 Snail Mail still gets folks excited. 

Even now for my baby shower, I’m excited to receive my own invite in the mail (I was barred from creating my own invite and have been also lovingly banned from any involvement of planning pertaining to my shower). This is something I can put into my baby book and share with Baby G when he is older. This is the same sentiment I think most people have when planning their big events. I mean, how exciting is it when you receive an envelope in the mail that may even have a wax seal on it. How impressionable! It’s like I tell clients when they come in for a consult, the invitation is 

If you don’t want to are my word for it, check out this segment of After Elvis once he received his invite to the Grammys this year. 

While it is totally up to you whether to send out a digital invitation for your big event, I would consider the following if you are going to receive RSVPs digitally. 

• Make sure your site to RSVP is password protected. The last thing you want is the link to your site being posted and folks inviting themselves to your special event.
• If you are budget conscious and limited on seats for the party, make sure your site can limit the amount of RSVPs per guest. Similar to the note above, you want to make sure folks don't go nuts adding their friends and family who weren't intentionally invited by you. 
• Still make paper RSVPs available for older guests so they feel included in their own way. Although I have known a few grandmas to be super tech savvy, not all older family members may know how to go online. Also consider that as we get older in age, we are creatures of habit and prefer to do things the way that we have always done them. Another point to be made is that little by little, older folks are stripped from actions that they used to do every day because of their age or health barriers. Making it a point to at least include a few paper RSVPs for these family members will make them feel included as well as special because you made it a point to make them feel included.

What do you think about this new way to RSVP for events? Comment below!