I know this is a wedding site but a lot of former brides do surf the bridal blogs so we take a break from our wedding posting to bring you new moms a contest from Act 2 Modeling.

Then sign them up for the…..

Beautiful Baby Contest

At the Expo for Women

Saturday, March 13, 2010

South Bend / Century Center

Presented by: A.C.T. II Model & Talent Management, Inc

Registration form attached to this e-mail

Age Groups: Boys 3 months to 12 months &

Girls 3 months to 12 months &

Boys 13 months to 24 months & Girls 13 months to 24 months

Wonderful Prize Package will be given to one boy and

one girl in each age group.

Four runners up in each age group will be awarded modeling contracts with

A.C.T. II Model & Talent Management. Inc

Enter before March 10^th to receive a pre-registration discount.

Entry forms also available at: www.expoforwomen.org , www.act2models.com & Flourish Boutique & Gallery

Visit our booth at the Expo for Women, A.C.T. II Model & Talent Management, Inc will be scouting for

models in all age groups from new born to seniors.

11777 Park Lane N., Granger, IN 46530

Phone:  574-243-4060  574-243-4060 / Fax: 574-247-9067

www.act2models.com Act2models@sbcglobal.net

Cynthia Basker of Celebrated Events, the best wedding planner in the area in our opinion, has details including pictures of the new Club Naimoli on the Notre Dame Campus. Brides and grooms who get married at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart have a new upscale venue at which they can host their receptions and rehearsal dinners in the Jaycc overlooking the basketball court below! You can find details of her personal tour of the new Club Naimoli on her blog here! Celebrated Events

Over a year ago we posted a warning about a website that had appeared in the search engines called Eventective. Our recommendation at the time was if you wanted to contact a wedding vendor there do a google or yahoo and now bing for the vendors name and not go through the Eventective system because it looked fishy. Our recommendation has not changed! Not surprisingly people identifying themselves as happy eventective vendors have posted the glowing praises of eventective many times. Not knowing who these people really were and, never was their company name listed those comments were moderated to the trash. That is until today when a comment appeared for moderation.  In the name of fairness so that they can have their say, here is the response from the eventective people.

Greetings from Eventective. Thank you all for sharing your experience, concerns and feedback and for giving us this opportunity to respond.

First, to allay fears, it is important to clarify that Eventective is not a scam or a fraud. We are a legitimate company, based in Portland, Maine with a dedicated client service team. You can reach us at 207.253.1653, or email us at getthefacts@eventective.com between 8 AM and 5 PM EST. We are here to answer any questions, concerns, or set your business up with a free trial offer. Eventective offers a FULL refund of every lead purchase that is invalid (incorrect email address or phone), or is a non-response 12 days after the lead purchase date. If the bride or individual does not respond after 12 days, you get a full refund. We work with clients on a daily basis to ensure their listing is updated, they are satisfied with the leads, and are not wasting their money.

Eventective is visited by more than 1.2 million individuals a month who are planning their events and looking for venues and vendors. Eventective leads are event requests created directly by these individuals as they browse venue and vendor listings by city and state. Here is how the leads are created:  When a bride or individual planning an event finds a venue or vendor listing they like, they can click on the red ‘Contact’ button on the detail listing and enter their event details. This event request is sent DIRECTLY to the business as a FREE direct lead. This lead is free as the bride or individual is contacting the venue or vendor directly. As a venue or vendor, you do not have to pay for this lead. In other words, when the bride is sending an event request thru the detail listing for the venue or vendor, Eventective does not charge the business, or the bride.

If the bride or individual chooses to have their event details sent to other venues or vendors in the area, they can make that selection in the event details form (by selecting various vendor types), and their event request is sent to those selected vendor types as an indirect lead. The bride or individual does not know which specific venue or vendors received the lead. The venue or vendor who receives this indirect lead can view all the event details and then decide to purchase that lead and contact the bride or individual directly regarding their event. Or, if the event details are not a fit, the venue or vendor can ignore the lead. Ignoring the indirect lead by not purchasing it does not damage the venue or vendor’s reputation, as the individual does not know which specific business received their indirect lead.

There is no cost for a venue or vendor to have a simple listing on Eventective, and there is no cost to brides/individuals to send their event requests to area venues and vendors.  Please review the information on Eventective that explains our Pay Per Lead Program – (removed by Michiana Weddings)

And here is some feedback from clients who have used Eventective and benefited from the leads -  (removed by Michiana Weddings)l

Again, please do not hesitate to contact us at 207.253.1653 or email us at (removed by Michiana Weddings)l. We look forward to hearing from you.

Our Turn:

First of all are you a scam? We consider you so because this is what we found out when we tested your system with friends across the country. Our friends tried to use your system for a direct vendor contact. We tried a sample in LA, Orlando, NJ and of course South Bend. Per your words: “his event request is sent DIRECTLY to the business as a FREE direct lead. This lead is free as the bride or individual is contacting the venue or vendor directly. As a venue or vendor, you do not have to pay for this lead.” Yes the vendors that we tried and our friends tried to contact through your system did receive the communications 3 to 5 days after the initial entry into your system! Oh but it gets better! Within hours of entering that attempted contact through your eventective system these vendors’  competitors received an email with a wedding who’s details were strangely similar to the one that was entered to contact the vendors directly. So the competitor who you sold those contacts to could easily contact the potential client days before the vendor they were attempting to contact even learns of the attempt! We also had a few of our friends pay for those strangely similar “leads” only to find that the lead was our wedding, that was supposed to be a direct contact to a specific vendor.  Here at Michiana Weddings we call that a SCAM!

We are sure you probably do have a lot of vendors happy with your services, they are receiving leads based on attempted contacts to competing vendors and they are getting them first. You are also playing with the reputation of the vendor who the consumer attempted to contact. Brides are finicky and if you don’t return their requests usually by the next morning if not the same day they send it they will move to the next vendor and when you do contact them, likely just ignore you. Really that is unfair to the vendors,  eventective who are at your mercy and you are playing with their customer service and their reputations!

Another reason we consider you a scam: How many vendors do you have listed that actually requested or even know you have them listed. In a random search of your listings in South Bend, we contacted 10 vendors you had listed between DJs, reception halls, photographers and bakeries. Of those 10 companies only one had actually requested a listing and they are fairly new in the area and only 4 knew they were listed! Everyone who is listed on Michiana Weddings either requested a listing  or was invited, but all of them know they are listed! Now we are not going to bore our brides with a lengthy explanation of search engine optimization and the boost having so many different companies with or without their permission listed on your site does, but deny it all you want you are doing it to scam the search engines and line your wallets with money!

We have removed the direct links you placed in your posting, no seo boost from Michiana Weddings. But as our brides can see, they can call  you.

To head off one of the arguments we received for Eventective; that they are a “search engine” like google or bing but for weddings. Our response is no they are not. Bing, Google, Yahoo etc do not attempt to interfere with you the consumer’s attempt to contact the vendor! All of the trusted search engines provide a direct link to the website of the vendor, list their phone numbers if the number is readable by the crawl robots and do not make you send a message through the search engine.

Evemtective we classify a scam. If as a bride or groom you use their website to find your vendors, that is your choice, but be aware, direct contact to a vendor will take days to get through to that vendor, in the meantime you will probably start hearing from vendors that you did not contact. The tardiness of the vendor contacting you is not the vendors fault! So please don’t penalize them for this! And we still recommend, get the vendor’s name and then go to google.com, bing.com or yahoo.com and contact that vendor through their own website this way you are assured the message is getting through directly and speedily.

Below is the “contact” form to directly reach a wedding vendor listed on eventective. You will notice, no phone number, no direct website link and they want you to “allow” them to make the contact on your behalf. As we found out this is to sell your information to competing vendors while the contact will wait a few days before they know you even exist! While not in any way breaking a law,  we find this awfully” scammy” on the part of eventective!

Hey everyone, I just got notified that one of our vendors is having a drawing! Fun Zone PhotoBooths in South Bend is having a drawing for 2 free hours of photobooth rental! You enter by becoming a fan of Fun Zone on their facebook page! You can find more details on their blog: PhotoBooth Rental

Their Facebook page is here: Fun Zone Fan Page

Here are some images from the bridal fashion show at the Bridal Spectacular.

It is that busy time of the year! Congratulations to those who got engaged over the holidays, it’s time to start planning your wedding and a great opportunity to find some fantastic wedding professionals is coming up January 10, the Bridal Spectacular! Sunday 12 to 5 at Century Center the largest, oldest and best bridal show of the season will be held, be sure to be there!

What do I wear to a wedding at Notre Dame cathedral South Bend IN

Iris

I am of the opinion that weddings are a formal affair, the bride and groom along with the bridal party are going to be dressed in tuxes and gowns, the least their guests can do is dress in suits and ties and dresses. Unless the bride and groom indicate differently every wedding should be a minimum of suit for the guys and dresses for the ladies. Notre Dame would be no different.

And brides, if you are going to be at Notre Dame, especially make sure your photographer or cinematographer knows to dress appropriately.  I know of a few vendors who nearly got booted due to sloppy, poor  dress.  No matter how much they may protest, I’ve been told by many who do dress to complement their clients that moving in a suit is no more difficult than in just a shirt.

Don’t forget to attend the open house of our favorite Girly Gift Shop! I understand that Fun Zone Photo Booths will be there giving out free photo strips. So have some fun going crazy in the photobooth!

Here is a signature drink for your fall wedding reception. I love apple cider and have served this at several parties.

Hot Mulled Cider Rum

1 quart apple cider
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 small sticks cinnamon
8 whole cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
Spiced Rum to Taste (I prefer Captain Morgans)

Combine all ingredients except Spiced Rum in saucepan.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat, simmer 10 minutes.
Remove cinnamon sticks and cloves. Add Rum to taste. Garnish with lemon slices.

You can also make this as a non alcoholic drink. Change the 1/2 cup of brown sugar to 2/3 cups and serve!

Enjoy everyone, it is delicious!