Weddingbee PRO

We’re very excited to welcome the newest PRO to join the hive, the lovely and talented calligrapher Laura Hooper!  Laura is an amazing blogger, and we’re sure that she’s going to be a wealth of information and inspiration.  She’ll be popping in later today to officially introduce herself, so please help extend her a very warm welcome!

I know we promised to get back to everyone last week, but the past two weeks have been a little-extra-super crazy here in hive central. It’s taking us a little more time to get through the photography applications because we’ve received so many, and there are so many talented folks out there!

We’re really sorry for the delay, and thank you so much for your patience and understanding. We’ve responded to about 60% of all the applications, and we’re working feverishly to get through them all this week.

We have a couple of new PROS in the queue, so please stay tuned!

We’re organizing a little Los Angeles Weddingbee get together this Sunday!  Miss Meatball and Miss Glitter of Weddingbee, along with myself and some readers are getting together for a Mexican and Margaritas brunch.  Wedding vendors are welcome too, so please feel free to join us!

Where: El Cholo: 1121 S. Western Ave. (south of Olympic Blvd. in Koreatown, just off the 10 freeway)
When: 1/11 @ 11 am

Please RSVP on this Evite by tomorrow so we can make a reservation.

Thanks so much for extending such a warm welcome to our latest pro, Princess Lasertron.  She does such fun, fresh, creative and innovative work — exactly what we’re looking for in our PROS!  Each of her creations is truly one of a kind, and I can’t wait to watch this newcomer to the wedding industry catapult into stardom.

We’re also excited to introduce another new PRO today: San Francisco based photographer Jerry Yoon!  Jerry had the funniest application and when I asked our other photographer PROS what they thought of Jerry’s work, they all thought he was super talented!  Hopefully the Still Motion guys aren’t so lonely being the only male pros on the site anymore.

Jerry will be popping in later to say his official hello, so stay tuned!

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on PRO applications!

I apologize for the delay if you’re waiting to hear back, but with the volume we received and all the holidays, it’s taking us a little while to look through all of them.  We’re also enlisting the help of our PROs because they are the experts!

We’re going to try to get back to everyone by next Monday, so please expect to hear from us soon.

PS - I just got back from New Orleans and am in love with the city!  Hope you had a fabulous New Year’s too!

The wedding blogosphere has been a bit sleepy lately, so I thought I’d take advantage and take a short trip to New Orleans!

I just walked down Bourbon Street. It’s so crazy tonight because the Sugar Bowl is tomorrow. People are dressed in their respective team jerseys (the Utah Utes or the Alabama Crimson Tide). I’m trying to apply all the lessons I’ve learned from our photog Pros, and am taking tons of pictures. If some of the pics aren’t too bad, *maybe* I will post some on Weddingbee.

I’m really looking forward to 2009 with the Weddingbee PRO community! Thanks so much to all of our pros who launched with us over the last month:

Our hope for PRO is to help the wedding industry continue its embrace of the blogosphere. Wedding photographers and planners have really led the way for the industry, and we’re hoping that other vendors will follow! If you know of any makeup artists, bakers, hair stylists, or other crazy vendors out there - please encourage them to apply!

PRO has been a little quiet in the last month, because a lot of wedding vendors take December off. We’ll start posting again on Monday: we have a lot of pros in the queue, and will be announcing them soon!

Happy New Year!

We're super excited to announce the latest PRO to join the hive, the super talented photographer Punam Bean!  It’s hard to believe that Punam has only been in the business for 1 1/2 years, because her work is absolutely stunning — she is a true up and comer in the industry!

I was first introduced to Punam’s work when Weddingbee’s Mrs. Tulip posted pictures from her November 07 engagement session with Punam; I’ve been in love with her work ever since! Here are some shots from that day.  And stay tuned for Punam’s intro post later today!

Read more…

We’ll be adding a few new PROS to the hive tomorrow, so stay tuned!

We’re seeing lots of photographers and wedding planners, which is fantastic.  Planners and photographers are really at the forefront of the wedding industry when it comes to blogging!

We’d love to see other types of pros too — from florists, to bakers, makeup artists, hair stylists, caterers, wedding dress designers, and more — to make Weddingbee PRO a fantastic resource for brides and industry insiders alike.

If you know of any unusual vendors out there that are blogging up a storm, please encourage them to apply!  And if you’re a talented wedding vendor of any kind, please don’t hesitate to apply!

We’ve gotten some amazing apps from top vendors to become PROs.  It’s incredibly flattering, and it’s triggered some deep conversations here in the Bee household about how to best integrate top pros into the site.

We definitely want to encourage pros from all levels to apply!  The question is, how do we incorporate top pros without discouraging up and coming pros from applying?

We were looking for a model which would allow us to blend both together when we thought of Saturday Night Live.  The show focuses on giving new talent exposure with its cast members (Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader), and yet works in top names with their guest hosts (Justin Timberlake, Christopher Walken, Scarlett Johansson).

(image source)

It seems like a nice balance, where the regular cast joins for longer periods of time and the top names drop by for shorter stays.  We liked it so much that we thought we’d try something similar for Weddingbee Pro!

Pros will usually blog on Weddingbee PRO for 3-6 months.  Top vendors will drop in and blog for 2-3 weeks.  Other than that, there won’t be any difference between the two.

I hope that’s a good balance, but wanted to check with you guys.  What do you think?

A lot of you reported trouble with commenting on the site.  We think we just fixed the problem, so please let us know if you continue to have any problems at all!

We’ve been absolutely thrilled with the response to Weddingbee PRO so far.  We feel truly honored that so many top industry talents want to be a part of this site.  It’s definitely going to take a little while for us to get through all the applications we’ve received, but please look forward to lots of fabulously awesome new PROS joining the site in the coming weeks!

And thanks so much for the wonderful blog, facebook and twitter love!  We’re so very excited about Weddingbee PRO!!