My weddings' season normally starts in April, when the weather becomes milder but I oftern have couples asking me how I spend my time in winter time. Well, I do travel in winter and, as a joke, I decided to count how many kilometers I've been travelling last winter (Nov '18 to March '19) , and wo wo wo... here is the count: 5 months =  ish 31500 Kms between flights and driving. 

OMG this has not been a long holiday, believe me, but a pack and unpack tour the force to travel from one side to another between Italy, Europe, Asia and finally Antigua. 

TAKE THE BEST FROM DAILY LIFE

My latest travel has been an amazing destination wedding in Antigua W.I. It's indeed funny that the Mayor of one of the most saught-after wedding destination decides to elope abroad, but it did happen and being hired from the Mayor of the city where I live has been a great satisfaction!!! and a way to take 7 days sea&sun break  before being sucked into work commitments.

So...

besides the lovely break that you see in the photos above, I have devoted last winter to keep my business up to date. Even I'm in the position to teach new planners how to deal with suppliers and clients, I also need, and want, to keep updated but moslty visit new venues in person.

Finding new venues for our clients

We, Planners, have several ways to find new suppliers for our clients, but the most effective one is to personally visit and watch suppliers "at work". This is the best way we have to decide if they are the people we are looking for. Visiting international Wedding Fairs or B2B events is the first step to be updated about new openings, meet the managers and then arrange for the onsite inspection.

The photo below is of Buy Wedding In Italy, one of the most B2B event in Italy. 

The best part of the story comes after all meetings have been arraged. Yes we do visit great venues and are cuddled from hotels' managers; we do taste lovely food and drink amazing wines, and we see incredible lanscapes and get betwiched by stunning sunsets... BUT, do you ever immagine to do this for 10 days every month for 3/4 months? we start with the excitement of visiting new locations and get exausted from the journeys from one city to an other city, but we gain a very deep enrichment. Living places as we were in proces to get married and  experiencing new places is the challenge and the joy of every Planner. Because it is true, we can sell only what we have experienced ourselves.

a even bigger enrichment comes from our Wedding Planners' meetings. We have been working on IWPA International Wedding Planners Association for few years an now our is one of the trendsetter association. The aim of the association is to let International Planners meet Local Planners to create synergies, share working experiences, learn one from the other, but I'll talk about "us" in a next post. 

Hope I didn't bore you with my consideration and please stay tuned. My next blog posts will be about th enchanting venues I've been visiting for you guys!