Featured Wedding Consultants

Schwartz & Woodward

Our story is a great one! John and I married in October, 2000. I had never been married so getting married for the first time at 48 was an experience! We had dated for about 3 years and when he proposed he knew it had to be extremely special. I at the time was Director of Business Development of a new hospital that was being built. He contacted all my family and friends and let them know that he was planning on proposing. He came up with a plan for a Friday evening to get me to the construction site where he met me dressed as "Prince Charming" and got on his knee to ask me to marry him. The whole proposal was being video taped and there was champagne for all my co- workers to help celebrate. The ring was the best, a CZ from Target. He would never in a million years select a ring for me without my input. 
 
The wedding was spectacular, a moment in time we both cherish and will always remember. We were surrounded by many?. friends and family who were very special to us. Friends going back to grammar school and summer camp. 
 
After getting back from the honeymoon, I was laid off and John had decided to make a change with his career as a restaurant manager. We explored many options and after much research and doing our homework, we decided to become wedding planners.  
 
We do every wedding together and this makes us quite unique! The couples who interview us and hire us enjoy the fact that there is a male point of view in this equation. Many couples are paying for their wedding themselves and the groom today has opinions. 
 
With my background as a psychiatric social worker-business development and John's restaurant and catering background it has served us well.  
 
We interview most couples together. John and I market ourselves as a husband and wife team, so we do every wedding together. We love the fact that we share this special moment with our brides and grooms. He and I both have different responsibilities on the wedding day and it works well. It surprises most brides that he is the one that bustles them!! My fingers are too chubby. 
 
We love what we do and it makes it wonderful that we can do it together. If we have to give up most weekends we might as well be able to enjoy the time with each other. We both bring very different things to the table and our personalities are very different which is a good thing! We offer a good balance. 
 
Our goal was for John to join me full time after we got the business up and running at the 3 year mark.  
Our business has grown much faster than anticipated much to our delight, so he is working a part time job with Gingiss Formalwear. It fits our needs and assists our grooms with a area that has a bad reputation in the Houston market. The best thing about this combination is that John can make sure our bridal party looks perfect and we don't have the two left shoe issues! 
 
As we approach our 2 and 1/2 year mark in business we have reflected on our exciting past year. We were chosen as the wedding consultant's for the cosmonaut wedding that took place at NASA and the international space station. The bride found us on "The Knot" and we were selected from a group of 4 other consultant's. We were responsive and did not make fun of her story. Some planners blew her off and others did not return her call until days later. 
 
Due to my past experience with marketing and PR we were given the responsibility to handle the media as well. It was a PR dream come true as I was on the Today Show with Katie, CNN here in Houston and with Wolf Blitzer in NY, our bride was on the Linda Vester Show on Fox and we were on every radio talk show in Houston, in London to Russia. The newspapers picked up the story and we were quoted in every major newspaper from here to Singapore. This has translated into an excellent opportunity as brides feel that if we can do a wedding in space we certainly will have no problem taking care of their earthling wedding. We continue to keep our feet on the ground and focus on our goals for 2004. 
 
We have found that the pros of working together are that we love each other and make a good working team. The cons are we live eat and breathe weddings! We just have to be careful to make sure we schedule some time us for as the business can totally take over. We learn from each other and respect what each other brings to the table. 
Many couples have written us in their thank you's that we set a great example of marriage. What a wonderful compliment. 
 
schwartz & woodward 
T 713.935.0353 
F 713.935-0653 
www.schwartzwoodward.com