There are two fall bridal shows in Toronto this year and we’re excited to have booths at both of these events. The following are some details, bonuses and our booth numbers for each show:

The National Bridal Show (Fall 2010)

When: September 10-12, 2010.

Where: International Centre, Hall #5 — 6900 Airport Rd. Mississauga (map & directions)

Ticket Prices: $16 online and $15 at the door.

Show Bonuses:

Come see us this weekend at the Fall 2010 National Bridal Show. We’ll be at booth #327 waiting for you!

Canada’s Bridal Show (Fall 2010)

When: September 24-26, 2010.

Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building. (map & directions)

Ticket Prices: $15 at the door (cash only – ATMs available).

Show Bonuses:

Whether you miss this weekend’s show in Mississauga or just want a ton of ideas for your wedding, we’d love to see you in downtown Toronto for the Fall 2010 Canada’s Bridal Show on the last weekend of September – we’ll be in booths 2016 & 1917!

Will we see you at one or both of these Fall 2010 wedding shows in Toronto?

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1. Toronto Bridal Shows Warm the Winter Blues
2. January 2010 Wedding Show Bonuses!
3. Bridal Show Take Aways

Weddings By Oceans is currently preparing for our upcoming wedding shows in September. We will have exciting offers and information available at that time which may help reduce the cost of your destination wedding group and assist you in making decisions.

It is for this reason, as well as finalizing fall wedding group departures, a sudden influx of business and our commitment to superior service, we have decided to wait-list all new inquires until September 13th.

This is effective as of today (Friday, August 13th) at 5pm and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We ask for your understanding and patience as we gather the appropriate resources to provide you the service you deserve.

In the meantime, we would love to discuss your wedding plans and invite you to come meet us in person at the fall wedding shows:

1. Sept 10-12 –  National Bridal Show in Mississauga at the International Centre.
2. Sept 24-26 –  Canada’s Bridal Show in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

All Brides will be refunded their admission to the show when they book with us and in addition, we’re also offering a $150 discount per couple for the bride and groom when they book with us by October 31, 2010.

If you are unable to visit us at the shows, we’d like to extend the same offer as a thank you for inquiring. You are also eligible to receive the $150 discount per couple for the bride and groom when you book with Wedding By Oceans by October 31, 2010.

We hope to see you at the fall wedding shows!

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If you’re following the Beachside Brides Blog, you’ll know our fearless leader and original Cyber Maid of Honour, Megan, recently travelled to St. Lucia to inspect properties for destination weddings. Shortly after publishing her live Testimonial Tuesday post about Jade Mountain and before she was to begin her intensive trek around the island, St. Lucia broke her toe!

That’s right, the island decided Megan needed an added challenge so she could prove her dedication as a destination wedding specialist. We say the island did it because there’s no good reason for the break – it just happened as she was walking. The situation was so unusual that it wasn’t until she returned home and had it x-rayed before she knew for certain what had happened.

Despite the pain, Megan knew she had to press on for the sake of her brides. Giving herself the first day to heal her mysterious wound, she rescheduled all her site inspections for the entire week. Hobbling around the mountainous island of St. Lucia, here is her itinerary:

Tuesday

8:30am – Boat transfer to Castries from Jade Mountain and Anse Chastanet.
Stayed overnight at Cap Maison.

Wednesday (Site inspections)

• Rendezvous (video: dancing Rendezvous chef)
• The Body Holiday at LeSPORT
• Cotton Bay Village
• Bay Gardens Beach Resort & Spa
• East Winds

Thursday

Transfer to Coconut Bay for 3 nights.

Saturday

• Moule a Chique Light House
• Balenbouche Estate – Old Sugar Mill and Colonial era house, a step back in time about 200 years
• Laborie Village Tour –  Cultural tour of Laborie
• Sandy Beach (or Anse de Sable) – one of St. Lucia’s longest
• Escap – Site of ATV Estate Tour
• Escap – Zamaca Guest House Latille Falls (waterfall near Micoud)
• Mamiku Gardens – Tropical Gardens (unfortunately, it was closed when we arrived)
• Fond D’Or – Historic Site
• Fox Grove Inn
• Dennery Fish Fry

Now, isn’t that dedication!? If Megan’s itinerary peaked your interest, stay tuned for an upcoming Testimonial Tuesday post where she’ll share her FAM trip report with us in a single review of St. Lucia for destination weddings.

Have you been to St. Lucia for a vacation or a destination wedding? We’d love to hear about it.

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2. St. Lucia Destination Wedding Review – Coming Soon!
3. The Bachelor, Saint Lucia & Your Destination Wedding: Part II

If you missed any of The Bachelor episodes filmed in St. Lucia, you can catch up now and get a good sense of the romance found at this beautiful island by reading these blog posts:

• The Bachelor, St. Lucia and Your Destination Wedding
• The Bachelor, St. Lucia and Your Destination Wedding: Part II

But wait, there’s more to come! We’ll be heading to St. Lucia for a familiarization (“fam” for short) trip in the last week in July so we’re up-to-date with several of the island’s resorts. We fully plan on sharing our experience with you in a review post or two upon our return.

For four nights, we’ll be staying at gorgeous Anse Chastanet on their 600-acre estate, complete with two beaches. While we’re in St. Lucia, we plan on visiting the luxury resort, Jade Mountain. We’ll finish off the week with a 2-night stay at the Coconut Bay Resort & Spa to review their facilities.

While we love travelling, our fam trips are business. It’s important to us that we, as destination wedding specialists, personally visit the resorts we recommend to our couples for their destination wedding. This is just one way we can help you create the wedding of your dreams.

Stay tuned for Megan’s St. Lucia review in early August and coming up in the next few weeks are reviews on Punta Cana and Jamaica!

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2. The Bachelor, St. Lucia and Your Destination Wedding
3. The Bachelor, Saint Lucia & Your Destination Wedding: Part II

Much of the feedback we garnered came through an anonymous online survey we created to provide a comfortable means to share honest opinions. If you have 5 minutes to help us out and haven’t already, please consider filling out our Improving Destination Weddings survey.

Snapshot of our new website!

Based on all the useful feedback we received so far, here are the changes we’ve already put into place here at Weddings By Oceans:

1. Restructuring to serve you better, including 2 new Cyber Maids of Honour! (We’re also looking for another talented agent, a.k.a. Bridezilla Whisperer, to join our team so if you know of any…)
2. Extended office hours and for those on even tighter schedules, evening and weekend appointments are now available with proper advanced notice.
3. Stronger industry partnerships which allows us to offer you trusted products and services, more incentives, bonuses, deals, and overall, more value for your dollar! You still have access to all the hotels that Canadian tour operators list as options, but our exclusive group of preferred partners have our complete confidence in delivering on your dream.

According to what we hear, our couples are loving these changes so far. But there’s more!

New & Improved Destination Wedding Agency Website

Planned launch date: August 1st, 2010

We’re aiming to be the best online destination wedding agency website on the world wide web!

Between the highly useful and relevant information, snazzy new design and collection of captivating and unique images, we’re positive the new www.weddingsbyoceans.com will win your vote.

The above photo is an image of what the homepage will look like.

Save the Date Magnet

Goodies for You & Your Guests (Wedding Group Kit)

Available right now for new wedding groups, we’re giving away handy items in a package for you to help your guests get to your big day:

• Save the Date fridge magnets that your guests can fill out with your name, date & destination. Our agency info is on them for convenient booking.
• Invitation inserts with our agency’s contact information so your guests know where to find us and how to book with us.
• Luggage tags to help checked baggage arrive safely.
• Book marks for those lazy days on the beach.

Calling on all past Brides & Grooms: If you have any images or testimonials you’d like to submit to us for our new website, we’d certainly appreciate it!

By the way, it’s not too late to tell us what you’d like to see on our new website! If you have any pet peeves regarding websites in general or want to share with us what information you’d find most useful on a destination wedding agency website, please post it in the comments below or email us at info [at] weddingsbyoceans [dot] com.

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Our office is a-buzz with some exciting news: one of our Cyber Maids of Honour is expecting a little one to join her family! Congratulations, Ashley and Martin! Click here to hear about their destination wedding in Mexico.

We realize Ashley must focus on her family life before growing her career as a destination wedding specialist. So, even though she’ll be leaving Weddings By Oceans for awhile, the (other) bright side to this unexpected change is that we’ll have the opportunity to add another brilliant, customer-focused member to our team of dedicated destination wedding travel group specialists.

This is what we’re looking for in our group sales coordinator applicant:

1. Loves making people happy and hearing satisfied testimonials from clients and their guests (a.k.a. strong customer service skills).
2. Has group booking experience in the travel industry.
3. Detail-oriented with effective time management skills.
4. Able to manage a variety of tasks in a fast-paced environment.

And hey, if you love weddings – even better!

Even if you don’t have experience in destination weddings, that’s not a problem because we’re happy to train you in everything you need to know about being a destination wedding specialist.

If you or someone you know has the above qualifications, we want to meet you!

Please either forward this blog post to the person you think fits our “Bridezilla Whisperer” profile or email your resume and cover letter to Megan (megan [at] weddingsbyoceans [dot] com) by July 31st.

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3. When Does Good Service Become Stalking?

Everyone has their own unique definition of what good customer service means.

Depending on the product or service, some people would like to be contacted within 24 hours after inquiring how the company can help them. Others may consider a week an acceptable time frame for a response because they expect any company worth contacting will be busy.

Of course, this all varies depending on different factors such as the immediacy of the customer’s needs and how big the customer believes the company is to accommodate inquiries.

Then there’s the question of how many times a company should follow up with someone who’s expressed an interest in what they offer.

Everyone has their own unique decision process and it usually consists of time, amount and quality of information and/or feelings developed about the company and its employees.

What does a company do to account for all the different preferences of their potential clients? Well, the best they can while they follow a basic `sales cycle’ they’ve created specifically for their business.

Sales experts say it takes the average person a minimum of 5-12 `touch points’ (a.k.a. different means of contact) before they trust, respect and understand a company enough to buy from them. As social media is reminding us, business is about building relationships; which we all know doesn’t happen overnight.

For this reason, most companies who really believe they can help their potential customers with their products/services expect to contact their prospects many times until they hear either a “yes” or “no”. Actually, some experts say even when a prospect says, “no,” it’s unwise to end the relationship because people change and so do circumstances.

Ah ha! But here we find ourselves teeter tottering on the edge of the dark territory known as stalking! Stalking has been defined as continuing to make contact once a person says, “no.”

Now once you say, “no thanks” to us, we will not contact you again (except for the very rare occasion where we didn’t receive your `no’ or your file wasn’t updated properly). Although we don’t technically stalk people who contact Weddings By Oceans, there has been the odd instance where we’ve misjudged personal lines and followed up a little too soon or too often for our prospective clients’ comfort.

If we can help it, we’d rather not upset people but for destination weddings, because of different factors like timing and group aspects (guests), it’s especially challenging to determine the “right customer service”. So we’d like to ask you: What does good customer service mean and/or look like to you?

If you have a few moments to help us (and the entire industry!) improve customer service, please answer the above question in the comment section below, contact us directly and/or fill out this handy online survey. We greatly appreciate your time and assistance!

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Here’s what people are saying about our 1st Destination Wedding Event & 4th annual Bride’s Bash:

“I was at the Bride’s Bash yesterday and the event won me over! I would like to use Weddings by Oceans as our travel agent for the wedding group.”

Lindsay (future Beachside Bride)

“Hi Megan, I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the wonderful “bride’s bash” you arranged on Saturday, May 29th. The event was top-notch and I had the opportunity and pleasure of speaking with several potential destination wedding couples.

Everything was very well organized (I would expect nothing less from you!) which made the day fly by! As always, I truly enjoyed working with you and the staff of Weddings By Oceans as well as spending the day with other travel professionals in the industry, from tour operators, tourist boards as well as hotel representatives.

Great job! Count me in for next year! Best wishes for your continued success and our growth together.”

Denise Graham, Sales Representative, Nolitours & Transat Holidays

Over 50 couples joined us at trendy Il Fornello restaurant in Richmond Hill to learn about destination weddings from some of our most committed hoteliers, tour operators and tourist boards.

As funky Ibiza lounge style music played in the background, engaged couples sat comfortably at their tables casually enjoying a healthy buffet lunch fit for vegetarians and meat-eaters alike.

The day’s events included hotelier round table discussions and podium presentations by attending tourist boards and tour operators. Exhibitors moved from table to table speaking with couples about their resorts. The only request we had for the couples was that they relax and enjoy themselves.

And, of course, fill out their “passports”.

What’s that, you ask?

Weddings By Oceans’ Boarding Pass to Savings

One of the event highlights was a game we created to help couples assimilate all the information they’d be exposed to in a few short hours and to also give them a chance to receive additional savings.

We handed out “passports” with questions that would be answered by our industry suppliers throughout the day. Couples who answered correctly would get a stamp from each exhibitor. The passport holders then went through our “security” to receive their Boarding Pass to Savings!

Destination Wedding Event Guests Win Big-Time

Besides the incredible bonuses and incentives offered only to event attendees, guests were entered into draws throughout the day for a slew of prizes generously donated by our industry suppliers. Some of the door prizes included gift baskets, wine, t-shirts and bags.

As for Grand Prizes and mystery draw, 3 lucky couples won:

• 5 nights at Colony Club Hotel in Barbados.
• 3 nights at Emerald Palms Resort in Andros Island, Bahamas.
• $200 gift certificate for dinner at Moxie’s Classic Grill.

Here’s some more event buzz:

“Just wanted to thank you and your staff for a truly great event on Saturday. It was a class act and very well organized – plus the food was super yummy! Thanks for welcoming Occidental Hotels into the family and I look forward to working with you on future initiatives.”

Nancy Abbott, Account Director, Occidental Hotels & Resorts

“It was a pleasure meeting you at the event on Saturday. Simone and I found it very useful and informative. We reviewed the information we received and now have a strong interest in Antigua. There are a few resorts we spoke to Alison (Antigua Tourism office) about.”

Glenn (future Beachside Groom)

“Thanks for having me at you weddings show on Sat. I thought your show was outstanding. You were very organized and I am sure you will get many bookings from this show. You and your team did a amazing job.”

Allison Ferguson, Sales & Marketing Executive, Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Board

Thank you to all the couples who attended this year’s Destination Wedding Event & Bride’s Bash and to all our industry partners who helped make this event an extraordinary success!

For all the couples who’ve already requested a quote, please expect it within 7-10 days. And for those of you who’d like a destination wedding quote, please feel free to contact us!

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Space is limited and it’s been filling up fast! But Il Fornello in Richmond Hill (where we’ll be holding it) is a big restaurant and we still have a few more spots available for you and your groom-to-be. If you haven’t registered yet, contact us for your formal invitation and registration form.

It’s been a month sent we announced the event on our blog, “Toronto Destination Wedding & 4th Annual Bride’s Bash,” and so if you missed it, please read it before you continue with this post. It’ll give you the complete low-down on what you can expect and who will be there.

However, that list is now dated because even more participants have signed up since that first announcement! Here is an up-dated list of attending industry reps:

Tour operators

• Air Canada Vacations
• Thomas Cook/Sunquest Vacations
• Transat Holidays
• Nolitours
• Sunwing
• Signature Vacations

Tourist boards

• Jamaica
• Bahamas
• Antigua
• St. Lucia

Hoteliers

• Iberostar Resorts
• Grand Palladium Resorts
• Occidental Resorts
• Sol Melia in Cuba
• Sirenis Hotels & Resorts
• Riu Resorts
• Anse Chastenet in St. Lucia
• Jade Mountain in St. Lucia
• Bay Gardens Resorts in St. Lucia
• Rendezvous Resorts in St. Lucia
• The BodyHoliday at LeSPORT in Saint Lucia
• Jolly Beach Resort & Spa in Antigua
• Coconut Bay in St. Lucia
• The Crane in Barbados
• Mango Bay in Barbados
• Karisma Resorts (featuring Azul Sensatori, El Dorado Royale and El Dorado Seaside Suites) in Mexico
• Majestic Colonial and Majestic Elegance in Punta Cana
• Couples Resorts
• Windjammer in Antigua
• East Winds Inn in St. Lucia
• Spice Island Beach Resort in Grenada

Don’t forget that you’ll also have a chance to chat it up with couples who have been in your shoes! We’ve invited a few of our couples who are currently planning their beach wedding and those who have already experienced a destination wedding. They have graciously offered to be available to answer your questions and provide testimonials.

Time is running out and we’d love to see you at this special event! Did we mention it’s free to attend, so is parking, and you’ll enjoy a lunch on us? All you have to do is cancel any plans you have for Saturday, May 29th, and contact us today for your registration form!

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While perfection is realistically unattainable, continually striving for it is not only doable but a must if you want to improve the world in your own unique way.

Our mission here at Weddings By Oceans is to help you create the destination wedding of your dreams and, more importantly, provide you (and your guests) the assistance you need to actually enjoy the process of planning it!

We know we’re making the world a better place when we hear the proclamations of satisfaction, happiness and gratitude from our Beachside Brides, Grooms and their guests upon their return!

Based on the most current feedback in how we can better accomplish our goals, we’re very pleased and excited to announce some upcoming changes at Weddings By Oceans:

1. Restructuring to serve you better, including 2 new Cyber Maids of Honour!
2. A new & improved website with enhanced features to assist you even further in planning your destination wedding, including an online `guest registration/booking form’ so your guests can conveniently and easily block their space with your wedding group. (coming very soon!)
3. Stronger industry partnerships which allows us to offer you trusted products and services, more incentives, bonuses, deals, and overall, more value for your dollar! You still have access to all the hotels that Canadian tour operators list as options, but our exclusive group of preferred partners have our complete confidence in delivering on your dream.
4. After June 1st, 2010, all our Beachside Couples will be eligible to receive a Wedding Group Kit containing essential goodies to make your life easier as well as some handy items for your invited guests.
5. Extended office hours and for those on even tighter schedules, evening and weekend appointments are now available with proper advanced notice.

That’s not all! We know there’s more we can do but we need your help. Would you take 5 minutes to take our online survey? Your answers will remain completely anonymous and used solely for the purposes of improving our services even further.

Thank you to all those who’ve shared your opinions with us already – we value your feedback. For everyone who has taken the time to read this post and for all those who complete our survey, we appreciate hearing from you, too!

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