Not a solution but a very useful tool (confetti.co.uk)

Member Name: indychick_uk

Product:	confetti.co.uk
Date:	12/11/01 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of useful tools all in one place, Wedding list service very good

Disadvantages: Won't stop you panicking

My fiancé and I got engaged last November and set a date for this September, which seemed like the very distant future. However come the New Year it suddenly seemed very close!

Like any girl who gets engaged (I guess) I immediately started thinking about dresses and flowers (and boring all my friends and family with the topics). There seem to be a million and one magazines in the shops full of ideas for the bride to be and they can seem a little baffling and, as there seem to be different magazines for dresses, cakes, flowers etc all at over £3 each, very expensive.

Being a thoroughly modern girl I decided to see if I could get some help on the internet (after all my fiancé and I met on the internet so it seemed sort of fitting we plan our wedding there too!) and came across confetti.co.uk. The site is very well organised and has a lot of useful tools to help any couple planning a wedding. There are loads of dresses to look at on their online catalogue, they have planning tools to help you draw up a checklist of things to do, links to Moss Bros. to look at suits and they can even organise your wedding list for you.

I must admit I haven't used all the tools available, but that's one of the good things about confetti, you can use as much or as little as you like. You could plan the whole wedding here or you can just get a few good ideas. However I’ll give you my opinion on the features I have used.

Gift Shop

This is one of the features I would recommend wholeheartedly. Leading up to our wedding I ordered a number of items including disposable cameras and streamers from the confetti shop. The online order system was easy to use, I received an email confirmation immediately and written confirmation in the post the next day. My delivery arrived about 4 days later. Fantastic!!

One word of warning if you order the “table torpedoes” (light the blue touch paper and then you’re showered
with balloons, confetti and streamers). The owners of the hotel where we were having our reception wouldn’t let us put these items out as they stated on the packaging “must be situated on a fire proof surface” and they didn’t want us burning down their hotel. When we arrived home the day after our wedding with some of our guests in tow we decided to set one of the torpedoes off in the garden. It exploded with a very loud bang and the lid shot in the air about 40 foot. So, unless you’re having your reception out of doors or in a room with very high ceilings – I wouldn’t recommend them!

Wedding List

Having been impressed with the speed and efficiency of the gift shop we decided to have confetti.com hold our wedding list. The process began with us registering on the site and requesting a catalogue, which arrived very swiftly. After several weeks of flicking through the book we went online and selected the items we wished to include on our list. This is very easy and items can be added either by browsing online or by entering the code from the catalogue.

The range of items available is very good with gifts from a few pounds up to a few hundred pounds. From the usual items such as irons, toasters and crockery to the more unusual including “experiences” such as parachuting or jet-skiing. We also found that they are happy to add items not included in their catalogue if they can source them. We had decided on one particular Denby china pattern only to find that confetti offered every Denby pattern except the one we wanted. A quick e-mail and my consultant (Dawn) telephoned me to go through the details of exactly what we required. A few days later and the pieces we wanted were on our list.

When you have registered your list you are sent a supply of “gift list cards” to send out to your guests giving the website address and the telephone number and also the reference number
of your list. Guests can either purchase online or over the telephone. If they do not have access to the internet they can call a consultant at confetti.com and either pick something over the phone or request a hard-copy of the list to be sent by mail to peruse at their leisure. All of our guests found the purchasing process very easy to use, although we were a little worried about the fact that they had to pay a fee for packing & delivery. Most of our guests commented that this was only about as much as they would have paid for wrapping paper anyway and they avoided the hassle of going into a department store and picking something for us. I believe that confetti have now removed this delivery charge anyway.

Most of our gifts were delivered the week after our wedding and were very nicely wrapped with personal messages from our friends and family. We had one duplicated gift (still not quite sure how that happened). We have had a little hassle receiving the remainder of our gifts but that has been done to Parcelforce not Confetti.

Overall the wedding list service was very efficient and the consultant in charge of my list was very helpful, even though I was a pain in the neck. As an extra bonus, you receive 5% “cashback” on whatever is spent on your list so you can buy those items that weren’t bought from your list.

Planning Tools – there are a lot of these and I used the following two
Guest List

This is a great way to keep track of invitations sent, replies received, gifts received and thank you notes written. It’s very easy to use, simply type in a few details about each person you’re inviting, tick some boxes as to whether they are male, female, adult, child, have special dietary requirements and whether they are invited to the day, the evening or all of the wedding. You can then add more details as people reply, send you a gift and you send a thank you note. You can list your guests by th
ose invited, those coming and see on-screen by means of little icons whether they are male female etc.

Seating plan
From the details in your guest list you can generate seating plans and then “tweak them” to ensure that feuding cousins aren’t sitting next to each other. You can specify a head table and then “tag” the guest who are going to be on this table. This is quite good as a starting point if you’re finding planning the seating as difficult as I did!

To Do List

Confetti have made a list for you of all the tasks which need to be completed at every stage of your planning. Each week you can go look at what you should have done by now, panic because you haven’t done it or tick the “completed” box and feel smug. You can view the whole list or break it down into tasks to be done by different members of the wedding party. So you can print out the “Best Man’s”, “Groom’s” or Bridesmaid’s” lists and wave them under the noses of the relevant people to make sure they’re doing what they should.

Obviously all of the planning tools. Lists etc aren’t going to plan the wedding for you (unfortunately) but they do help as reminders. There are lots of little hints and tips on the site, which could give you some inspiration to help make your day the best day of you life. There’s also the chance to win £10,000 to pay for your wedding (although that would have paid for my wedding about twice! (including the honeymoon)

So, if you're looking for help and ideas, rather than wading through a hundred different sites that specialise in dresses, cakes, jewellery ... or spending a fortune on magazines - go look at confetti, get some direction then go off looking.

And Good Luck if you're planning a wedding.

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