If music be the ...

My website is set to be up and running any second .... very exciting, in spite of the slight worry of no one ever looking at it! The Celebration Herald goes live too, so to speak, at Duncombe Park in Helmsley, North Yorkshire on Sunday 21 February. My first wedding fair looks set to be a good one. Duncombe Park itself is stunning and seems a great place to spend a Sunday in February. Getting everything organised is proving frighteningly straightforward. The website is first on the 'must get it organised' list, followed by the design and ordering of a banner.

The wedding fair is being organised by a company called The Wedding Affair, and having spoken to Lisa Hogg, one of the company's owners, I must say I am really impressed. Their website is terrific and is a good showcase of wedding suppliers in Yorkshire - and I am about to be one of those wedding suppliers! So exciting! I feel a song coming on, or that could just be an ongoing reaction to GLEE!, the latest tv must-watch favourite of myself and my daughter.

Back to Duncombe Park though - after the banner the promo brochures are next on the list. I have decided on a promo brochure that covers both The Wedding Herald aspect of the business and The Celebration Herald side of things, ie. everything from wedding anniversaries, through birthdays, to every other type of imaginable celebration and party. The text is written and the brochure will be produced in 'handbag' mag size. Because the Herald will be available in both standard A4 size and now handbag size too (following a request from a prospective client. Why hadn't I thought of that?) I want to use the brochure to illustrate size, because of course I have sample A4 magazines available for people to look at.

The website is simple, but I believe apt. It includes a page flip feature, so that visitors to http://www.thecelebrationherald.com/ (whoa there, not quite yet!) can actually flip through a sample Wedding Herald, getting an idea of the range of stories and pictures that can be included. Everything from childhood stories and pictures of the bride and groom, the search for the perfect dress, and all the other essentials that go into creating the dream day. There are some lovely touches in the sample magazine, stories and pictures generously donated by my friend Jane and her husband Tracy, including a picture of Jane's scribbled thoughts for their brilliant wedding invitation. The sample is a 12 page version of the magazine, but Jane and Tracy's will be 20 pages, containing wonderful stories and pictures of their family, including their young twins and older children.

I want to get across to potential clients of the Herald that they can be as imaginative as they have ever wanted to be, because it is their stories, their pictures that will go into their own Wedding or Celebration Herald. I believe that a Herald is something that will be perfect for going back to time and time again - someone's Wedding Herald will be so much more than just pictures of the day, but all the stories and anecdotes, all the drama and laughter that made that day so perfect. I like to think that everyone involved in any celebration will look back at their own copy of the Herald with a glass of something enjoyable in hand and relive fond memories.
Bit nostalgic of me I think!

So, back to music and GLEE! And add ABBA to that and it's pop all the way. Today saw the launch of the ABBA World at Earl's Court - all things ABBA on display. Keeping the Dancing Queen alive. There is even a reconstruction of their manager's office, though one does have to ask 'why?', but maybe if I go I will find out. Dancing Queen was the song of my school prom, yes I was 17 (it was 1976) and I had a drapy dress, platform shoes but am pleased to say I had lost the mullet a few weeks beforehand, so the photos of that night are not too dreadful.
In terms of a celebration my school prom was part of an historical occasion for Marymount College in Umtali, in what was then Rhodesia. The school was closing, deemed to be in too dangerous a location for all concerned, so I was part of the last ever batch of pupils. My date for the night arrived from the bush in standard Rhodie dress - khaki shorts, desert boots and filthy, returning from a 28 day tour of somewhere unknown. He only got the necessary pass that day and arrived at the hotel just two hours before dance-off.

My dad was there to dance my first waltz with me, and I looked back at those photos the other day, me, dad, Graham, my best friend Jackie and everyone else looking young and shiny and hopeful, and just knew that the music was either ABBA or something equally as poppy. Nostalgic and memorable times for so many reasons, with a soundtrack that included, unfortunately, some pretty rubbish music! But it was the 70s in Rhodesia after all!

In closing I just wanted to muse on what people might choose, if they could, as the soundtrack of their memories. Would they keep it as it really was, naff or awful as it might have been? Or would they re-produce to add a glimmer of glamour or stage-managed romance or impending climax to the events?

I might just start asking people for their thoughts on this one - answers on a postcard?