Nairobi wedding scene: A vendor's perspective.

This has been afew tough months for me in the wedding industry. I have had to look critically at how I run my business and make necessary changes. Nine years with quite a good turn and a few bad turns even some horrible situations to work with that now as I begin the 10th year soon, a radical change is necessary.

Before in my early years in the industry, I could predict with certainty what my clients would want. Now the tide has changed. You learn to keep an open mind and work with them. This is certainly good for a creative mind as keeping with the latest trends worldwide and out of the box thinking are the norms towards setup of such events. I must admit I miss the predictable bride once in awhile. The reality though is she has become as rare as hidden treasure.

With more wedding vendors getting into the market and pricing point becoming the competitive factor to many, its sad to see at the end of the day the number of frustrated bride at the end of their wedding. On the positive side, more competition means better pricing, vendors offering more than one service to keep the account books attractive. It also means that as a vendor, you only have one chance to pitch to the bride or the work goes to another vendor.

In the past, i would have feared a saturated market but now ive learnt not to do so anymore. When its clear the kind of client you want to attract and work with, the business standards you keep and what you can do well then whats left to consider is: Does my target market give me the business I need to have an attractive balance sheet? Well, my 10th year in this business just about to start, it might just prove to be a more realistic ride than ever before.

Flowers for all ocassions

I  began this article on flowers more than a year ago. I had promised to work on 3 of them. I can finally say its the third one of them. I just love flowers in a wedding as they add beauty to the occasion. Much as its important to engage a florist early most times, its equally important to have the season you are getting married clear in mind. For example, next week for many who observe Valentine's day, the usual trend is for them to say it in flowers, mostly red flowers. That probably makes red roses prices to more than triple in February or at least the week of Valentine's day.

For a bride getting married then, it would be wise to avoid having red roses used in your wedding décor if the goal is to keep the price from excalating. 2 years ago i had an event in may same day as a national holiday. All venues countrywide were using white roses which i desperately needed. At the end of the day, i didn't have enough white roses to build my theme well and that left me feeling like I'd let down my clients in their expectations.

While its hard to miss roses, its good to check early enough for color availability. The same can be said of seasonal flowers, they might not be around when you need them. The good thing though, you can always dye flowers work with artificial or even have the flowers you want dried early enough when they are still available.

Ps: my friend took lovely shots of this flowers. I'm glad he let me use them in my article.