Dear Vendors,

After much thought and consideration we have decided to dedicate our energy to making the Montana Wedding Guide have an even stronger web presence and following.  Instead of printing a guide we will be distributing postcards throughout the state directing people to our site for more traffic on our web page.  At a time when we have to save our natural resources and as our client base relies more on the internet for information it makes more sense to work on our internet marketing rather than in printed material.

With that in mind we will be sending out a newsletter that will detail some of the new ideas we are implementing.  If you have ideas that you would like to share please speak now as we are always open to hearing what you think would be helpful.

Thank you all for your continued support.  Check back with us in a few days to see our new PR piece for the 2012 year.

Melanie

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend.

While shopping at The Drawing Room in Livingston, the perfect place to get yourself or someone you love a great gift or some delicious tea, Trish introduced me to another woman in the shop named Mary who owns The Handbag Tailor.

She has created a store that is the mddle man for handmade bags of upcoming designers.  You can even have them design and make a bag specifically for you.  You can search their wide variety of products online and get a very practical and beautiful carry on garment bag made of linen and yellow cowhide to use on your way out to Montana for your wedding.

Or this great purse that Mary had over her shoulder, which I absolutely loved, a large tote handbag in rich Varese Argentine leather.  Unfortunately I tried to download some photos of the bags that I loved and could not, so you will have to visit her site and go through her selection yourself.

Most of the time when you hire a photographer the options come with an engagement portrait session.  Engagement photos are a great opportunity for you and your photographer to get to know each other.  If your photographer offers that as an option say yes and have a fun time with each other.  You can get some wonderful shots that capture how much you love each other.

Wedding vendors, this advice for you.  Some of you may know about Google Analytics and others may not.  If you are not familiar with the tool you should google it right now.  It is free tracking software that can be an invaluable tool for your business.  If you don’t have it set up you can ask your web designer to do the work and after about an hour or so you should be able to start tracking your visitors preferences on your site.  The program will allow you to find out how your clients find your site, where they come from on the web, and what they do once they are on your site.  This is turn can help you fine tune your web site to make the most of the way your prospective clients navigate your site.

Over the next few weeks we will look at the various tools within Analytics that are the most useful.  Once you have been tracking your site for about a month or so you can start analyzing your content.  My favorite aspect of the program is under the content tab and then select In-Page Analytics.  This is a Beta program which basically means they are test driving this option.  Once you click on the option your web site will come up in a window.  Within that window you will see percentage notes.  These denote where your visitors go on each page.  While looking at it yesterday for my husbands site we were able to see the parts of his site that were being neglected by his visitors because of the way it was designed.  Yesterday afternoon I called his designer and we will be making changes to the design to make it a bit more user friendly.

Check back with us in a couple of days to learn more tools within Google Analytics that can help you run a more successful business.

I live in Livingston and my favorite time of year is the 4th of July.  It is the weekend that our town comes alive.  We host a small town parade that rivals the Macy’s day parade in an unusual assortment of participants.  The parade starts off the Rodeo weekend that is hosted at the fairgrounds.  Watching the Rodeo is never boring for anyone especially out of town guests who have never seen a real cowboy or any part of a rodeo except what they see on television.  If riding a wild horse or sitting on top of a 2k lb. bull doesn’t interest them then the people watching will.  Cowboys are a colorful group of people and some of the most polite people that I have ever met.  If the animals and cowboys don’t interest your guests just the sheer beauty of sitting in our grandstands will render them speechless as our fairgrounds look over the absorka beartooth mountains and sunset is spectacular, if it doesn’t rain.

If you are planning a wedding in Montana consider planning it on a weekend that has a rodeo in your area.  I have seen couples buy each of their guests a rodeo ticket as a gift so they can enjoy something else as a whole group.  So if you are planning your wedding for 2012 check out where the nearest rodeo is and think about having your rehearsal dinner as a cookout and finish the evening at the rodeo.  It will certainly be a time that your guests will never forget!

Where else are there rodeos in Montana that you love?

One Great (wedding) Photo Show
•You are Invited• by Doug and Stana Loneman

I was recently reflecting upon the incredible amount of photographic talent in this area of Montana. So, it occurred to me to wrangle all that talent in one place at one time to show the community that we are far more than photographers, we are artists as well.
Last month Rab, Larry, Cali and I met and hashed out a photographic show for this coming fall. We are very much hoping everyone on this email list can participate. (If you cannot or chose not to; please let me know asap so we can replace your spot in the show.)

Here’s what we know so far:

• 16 spots are available at the Jewelry Studio in downtown Bozeman.
• Wedding images should be 16×20 or 16×24; framed or canvas wraps.
• No by-lines, fonts or logos on images; artist id cards with your names, studio name and date and location of image will be placed beneath each image.
•An alphabetical catalog of participants will be available to the public: studio name, photographer, thumbnail of image (please include a dig file with your bio info), 75 word max bio or artist statement of photographer.
• Prints are due by Sept. 5 …you can drop them off with Patsy at the Jewelry Studio for storage. Your info for the catalog and artist id cards are due Aug. 25th.(email info to me: dougloneman@gmail.com)
• The opening night of the show is in conjunction with a Downtown Art Walk Sept. 9th. The Jewelry Studio is excited about this show and is willing to keep images up through Feb. or March of 2012. The show is great public exposure for participants who do not already have a main street window front. Please “like” the Jewelry Studio on facebook. It’s really generous of them to offer their incredible space for this show.
• Images must be taken at an actual Montana Wedding from Jan 1- Aug 30th, 2011.
• I think this will be a very cool challenge for all of us…you get one image (one shot) to represent your talent and style of photography.
• There is no ranking or judging involved; all photographers are on an equal footing. I cannot wait to see what everyone comes up. It is a very talented list of photographers.
• If a name or two is missing from the list, don’t read anything into it, the names on this list came from a brain storming session, we are bound to have left off a few names inadvertently (I’m sorry if some names did not make it). Also, there are only 16 spaces available…hence the limit of photographers.
• To cover the cost of name cards, artist catalog and opening night goodies…there is an entry fee of $50.00 (cash or check payable to Doug Loneman)
I’ll put the money in an account and if there is any $ left over the $ will be distributed equally among participants)

SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS for One Great Wedding

How to Participate:
• email your response to dougloneman@gmail.com
• send in your $50 to lonemanphotography, po box 632, bozeman, mt 59771
•put the due dates for the images (Sept. 5 or sooner) and bios (Aug. 25) in your calendars. The sumer is too busy for me to follow up.

I sincerely hope all of you are able to participate and I expect this could be the start of similar shows in the future where area photographers are represented at one time in one place with one image.

Happy Shooting,

–doug–