Happy New Year!

2011, a year many of us are unlikely to ever forget, has finally come to its end. On a personal level it was a year of trials and frustrations but also of tremendous growth and blessings. Though still a little scarred, I’m delighted to be on the other side of 2011 with a clear sense of purpose and direction in all areas of my life – including DIY Bride.

2012 begins as 2011 ended: with gratitude.  I want to thank each of you, dear friends, new visitors, and drop-in buddies, for the overwhelming support and kindness you contribute to the DIY Bride community. Your questions, contributions, participation, and financial support (advertising, purchases of books) has helped keep DIY Bride going strong as we celebrated our 9th year of blogdom last year. That is an extraordinary milestone for not only for me but for bloggers, crafters, and for the wedding industry. From the bottom of my heart: thank you, thank you, thank you!

This year brings many new challenges for us: sustainable growth, adding new features, maintaining the site, and expanding the brand into the DIY home/entertaining/cooking arena. It’s an exciting time and I hope you join me, Valerie, and Whitney, as strive to bring you exciting and useful content, inspiration, resources, and opportunities to help you celebrate who you are every day of the year.

Each January, instead of resolutions I never keep, I create a theme for the year ahead. 2011′s theme was “growth” (got that in spades, thank you very much). For 2012 I’ve chosen INCLUSIVE. This year is about bringing people together, creating welcoming environments, and strengthening communities. It’s about collectively working towards something greater. It’s about sharing and connecting and actively making a difference not only in our lives but in the lives of others. It’s harnessing the power of good for the benefit of all.

I welcome you to our community and look forward to doing wonderful, powerful acts of kindness and good together this year. Happy 2012!

About My Wedding

I don’t talk about my wedding much here mostly because it is now in the distant past. Next month will mark my 7th wedding anniversary and to reference it seems somehow odd. Weddings haven’t changed that much since 2000, really. The trends are different, sure, and you guys have so many more options and resources now. My attitude about weddings has certainly changed and I know lots of nifty shortcuts and crafty stuff. But, at the end of the day, you’re all dealing with pretty much the same stuff I did waaaay back then. Since many of you don’t know me that well – or at all – I thought I’d give a little Khris’ wedding 411. Wedding Date: October 07 Place: (Ceremony) Berkeley Rose Garden; (Reception) Brazilian Room Number of Guests: 120-ish Catering: Serves You Right Cake: Julie Durkee of Torino Baking (She’s since gone on to Food Network Fame. I’m so proud.) Photography: Michelle Walker. Brilliant. Wonderful. We still love her and her work. Highly recommended. Hair: Stacey Williams (genius); Makeup: Done at Preston Wynn in Saratoga. Dress: Don’t remember! Mori Lee, I think. Purchased at Trudy’s Brides in Campbell, CA. Bagpiper: Ian … cannot remember his last name. He was good. Transportation: A 1940′s Citroen, owned and chauffeured by a friend of the family. Wedding Night Accommodation: The Claremont Resort and Spa Honeymoon: French Polynesia (Vahine Islandand Bora Bora). Highly recommended. Our DIY Projects: Favors (petits fours in a hand-cut vellum box), invitations/rsvp, programs, thank yous, guest book (doubled as the CD covers for our reception music) and all of our reception music. What I remember most: Being outrageously, gloriously happy and sharing that with the most amazing people on the planet. Dancing. Falling flat on my arse because my bustle pushed the chair out from under me when I went to sit down. Being outrageously, gloriously tired at the end of the evening. The cake. Being silly with our friends and family. What I would’ve changed: Nothing and lots. Saying I’d change anything feels like I’m saying I have regrets. I don’t. Buuuut…

• I would’ve picked the *right* dress for me. I was in a situation where I had to settle. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t me.
• I wouldn’t have gone into deep debt.
• I would’ve accepted more help from those that offered.
• I would’ve worked more with my husband to make the wedding and reception more reflective of us and not a variation of what was “the norm” or suggested at the time.
• I would’ve changed my bmaid situation. Too much drama, totally not worth it.
• I would’ve gone on honeymoon right away and not waited over a week to leave. I went to work the Monday after my wedding!  (We had originally booked  a spot in Fiji but they went into some sort of civil unrest right before the honeymoon. We had to change plans only a few weeks out and couldn’t get anyplace we wanted right after the wedding.)
• Reworked our registry. Cut out all of the frivolous stuff and gone heavy with the gadgety stuff we love and better dishes. (We did not, however, register for china and do not regret that one bit.)

My advice:

• Celebrate who are you now, not who you’ll think you’ll be in X number of years. We fell prey to the “Don’t do xyz. You’ll look back in X years from now and regret it.” spiel. Humbug! Hogwash! You will never, ever know who you’ll become or what your preferences will be in x number of years. Enjoy the now, my friends.
• Let go of your control issues. Doing so will save you from so much drama, tears, and stress.
• Work harder on preparing for the marriage than the wedding.
• Communicate. Love. Trust.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance.
• Don’t be afraid to set boundaries around your wedding plans or your relationship(s). Lots of people will have opinions about how you should celebrate your wedding.
• Treat each other with kindness, honor, and dignity. Always.
• Get the best photographer you can afford.
• Treat your guests with kindness and love. Invite only those that you hold dear.
• Have a fabulous, fun honeymoon.

A Day In The Life

This was originally meant to be a snarky response to an email exchange I’ve had with a recent visitor who insisted that I custom design a couple of projects for her – for free – because, you know, I obviously had a lot of extra time since I’m “just a blogger” and “that’s what this site is for”. (Really? Indentured servitude has never been promoted as a feature on this site.) While I usually don’t engage my readers in any drama, that was just too funny not to share. It’s also a great segue into giving you a peek at the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to keep DIY Bride chugging along in the blogosphere. DIYBride.com is not my sole source of employment – and I really argue “employment” because I have historically received no revenue from it and pay for all of the hosting fees, project supplies, and other necessities out of my pocket. But I’m not complaining! This site is a labor of love for me and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I’ve met some amazing, kind, and utterly delightful people and do have a blast with the site. That said, I do get a bit peeved when visitors make assumptions about how cushy I have it here or when they have a messed up sense of entitlement to my time and resources. I volunteer my time, creativity, and funds because I want to. Not because I owe it to anyone. For the most part, my visitors are gracious, fun, and lovely people and the take-take-take-gimme-gimme-gimme folks are few and far between. Ah…where was I? Oh, yes… There seems to be a misconception about what I – and other bloggers – do to keep our sites going. It’s a hell of a lot of work, even if you don’t see it! The amazing Kathleen Fasanella of Fashion Incubator posted about this very topic a few months ago in response to another post at ProBloggerthat gave a little glimpse of the daily blogger grind. My list is very similar to Kathleen’s so I’m going to amend my answers to hers so that DIY Bride readers can get a the behind-the-scenes peek at what I do. (My notes are italicized.) All day long, every day, Monday through Sunday (no days off):

1. Deleting spam comments
2. Responding to comments
3. Writing to people who comment
4. Responding to reader emails
5. Deleting bogus forum registrations (30+ a day)
6. Responding to forum topics
7. Moderating the forums, deleting spam.

Daily:

1. Writing entries and sometimes even posting them. (This cracked me up! I’m entirely guilty of this.)
2. Reading what other bloggers write on my topics of interest.
3. Taking calls/emails from genuinely nice people with a “quick” question -at no pay
4. Researching and compiling resources of interest to DIYers.
5. Visiting industry-related sites and associations.
6. Monitoring and tweaking SEO. This is an ongoing, tedious task.
7. Check MySpace. Add new friends. Respond to comments.

Weekly, off and on:

1. Checking for updates, plugins and utilities for the blog
2. Brainstorming for ideas for features, projects, and topics. I keep copious notes.
3. Keeping up with the field via traditional media.
4. Monitoring and posting to other forums
5. Tweaking the site templates, updating links, fixing configuration errors.
6. Monitoring site stats to see who’s sending me traffic. I often post on referring blogs.
7. Uploading and editing photos, one of my least favorite activities. It also takes time (you wouldn’t think file organization is an issue but it is). This is one reason I’m doing fewer tutorials lately. The rest of the site work eats into my time. (Couldn’t have said it better!)
8. Creating projects, writing instructions, taking photos. There are so many things I have offline right now, it’s not funny.
9. Network with other bloggers and industry folk online and off.
10. Research business stuff: blogging, advertising, marketing. Lots of reading.

Monthly/Intermittently/Occasionally:

1. Searching for sites reposting my original content.
2. Modifying widgets, spam blockers, keeping up with the latest blog software and forum software updates.
3. Field calls and emails about “business opportunties”. Find out who’s legit, who’s a scammer; evaluate if offer is good for me.
4. Investigate ad and sponsorship opportunities.
5. Mentor other bloggers, writers, crafters.
6. Review submissions from guest writers.
7. Research project ideas, resources, ideas for new books.
8. Investigate new features for the site, test them out. Decide to implement or pass.
9. Update /monitor Flickr and YouTube. I’m pretty lax on this, actually.

And then, after all that, I spend time working on my (sometimes) paying job(s) as a crafter, author, instructor, and event coordinator. More often than not, the paying stuff comes first, and the list for those ventures is much longer than the DIY stuff. So, there you have it! My wish is that when you visit blogs that you’re kind and gracious to the people that operate them. Many of us are completely (or very poorly) uncompensated for our work and the amount of love and passion we pour into them. A little thanks and a little understanding are all we need to inspire us to keep moving forward. Cheers, Khris