Tuesday, April 16, 2013

FREE Ramada Wedding Showcase April 27th

The Ramada Bloomington at the Mall of America is hosting a FREE Wedding Showcase!

Visit us and some of the Twin Cities hottest wedding vendors from 2PM - 5PM on April 27th for complimentary appetizers and wine and to see what the Ramada has to offer for your wedding ceremony or reception!
Every bride that RSVP's will receive a $20 Ramada gift certificate upon arrival!

Please contact our Wedding Specialist Julie @ JRynkowski@RamadaMOA.com to register!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Every Creative Bride's Fantasy @ Linen Effects!



My dear friend Robin from Linen Effects invited me out to see her inventory and warehouse in Minneapolis.  I was thoroughly surprised as I drove up to the back side of all these warehouses next to the river to see a quaint little decorated building surrounded by delivery trucks and vans.  Little did I know the beauty that I was about to walk into! This place is every creative bride's dream and every wedding planners heaven! From head to toe from the moment you walk in the door, Linen Effect's inventory shop is covered in beautiful linens and accessories and decor for every bride's every wish and want for their wedding!

Brides can find their every style, fabric, creative idea right within their shop from a black and white affair to a full on color pallet! I am blessed to have the opportunity to see what I have available to offer to my brides! I had no idea how many different options they have and how much fun you could have creating your perfect day!
 We at the Ramada offer standard black and white linens and napkins with your set up.  These two colors are a wonderful start before you bring in your colors and style.  Linen Effects has a lot of beautiful black and white options to really stand out against our already complimentary linens! There are beautiful fabric overlays and details to really make your event pop!

 I am proud to offer Linen Effects as a rental company here at the Ramada Bloomington.  They are a reliable trustworthy company with a creative staff that will show you exactly what you are looking for during your consultation with them!




Booking your wedding at the Ramada gives a full beautiful set up for your perfect day.  With that said, please let me know your desires and wishes for your wedding weekend.  Robin has given me the basics to offer to my brides, but if you are really looking to wow your guests PLEASE go in for a consultation and see their inventory.  You'll love it just as much as I did!


Thursday, March 14, 2013

The End of Wedding Fair Season

One of my favorite parts of the year are coming to an end.  I had the opportunity to represent the Ramada Bloomington at the Mall of America and run a booth at three fabulous wedding fairs this winter! I met many helpful vendors that I can recommend to help my beautiful brides! I spoke with many people in charge of many companies that can really help all the brides that are hosting their wedding reception at the Ramada! I'm excited to continue my knowledge of the wedding industry in the Twin Cities!

Twin Cities Bridal Association


Thank you to the Twin Cities Bridal Association for allowing us to show off our three big beautiful ballrooms at two of their wedding fairs! I met so many beautiful brides and their generous grooms and excited girlfriends that spent their Sundays getting great ideas for their one perfect day!

 
 

The Perfect Wedding Guide

 
I'll definitely be doing another booth at a Perfect Wedding Show! The guests that register to get into the show also register for a chance to win $25,000! The brides just need to visit every single booth and get their card punched to enter the raffle! This way, I got to touch base with a lot of guests and interested brides!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Twin Cities Bridal Association Wedding Fair

To all the beautiful brides and their families that visited us at the Twin Cities Bridal Association Wedding Fair this past Sunday

Thank you thank you thank you!

We had such a wonderful time showcasing everything the Ramada Bloomington has to offer!
There were so many beautiful couples at this fair, so good job men for supporting your fiance! We know that the bride is in charge, so thank you for braving the event :)

To all my blushing brides to be:
I have been in contact with most of you, but please contact me with your tour availability and questions!

I look forward to working with you!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Lily Bloom's Kitchen

One of the best perks about this job is the great food I get to try! You only really get to know your vendors by taking a bite of your recommendations!

I had the pleasure of meeting with a wonderful gentleman and his assistant today from Lily Bloom's Kitchen based out of Fridley, Minnesota.  Larry had been to the old Thunderbird before, and was fascinated by our new bright spacious bar and lobby.  He was reminded of the stuffed animals on the walls and the shingled roof across from our front desk.  The old Thunderbird Motel was built in 1963 and this year marks our 50 year mark and officially makes us a historic monument in the city of Bloomington.  I love catching up with past guests about the popular days of the old Met Stadium with the Thunderbird Motel across the street and seeing their reaction with the modern lobby and fresh bar. 

Larry was full of fascinating memories, including the stories of how his company came about.  Lily Bloom of Lily Bloom's Kitchen was Larry's beautiful mother.  Larry grew up on his mother's macaroons and other delicious treats. What a perfect way to remember your mother by recreating her master pieces and letting others enjoy what she was so proud of!

Lily Bloom's Kitchen has so many creative ways of capturing your wedding ideas and creating exactly what you are looking for! These Poparoons are a beautiful touch to portray the black tie wedding theme! Let your bakery items really spice up the wedding theme!

Encorporate flavors into your wedding as well! Like I said at the top, the best part of this job is getting to try all the different flavors that these bakeries create! Lily Bloom's Kitchen let me sample a dozen of their flavors, with each flavor just as rich as the other! The flavors that really stuck out in my head as being so unique are lavender, ginger, and a few others that you wouldn't expect with chocolate but really came together to make my taste buds jump!

Lilly Bloom's Kitchen have created some beautiful masterpieces for all types of events! For brides, they can create centerpieces, favor goodies, and some fascinating full sized wedding cakes!

My favorite part about this company is their creativity! This picture just blew my mind of a beautiful wedding cake that he created for a wedding for 150 guests! His wedding cakes have started to be a very popular idea, especially since you can throw in the style for your wedding to really make it pop! You can add your floral or colors and create the exact cake to showcase your entire wedding style.

Candy stations are one of the most popular add-ons with weddings for this era.  Brides are able to be so creative in finding lots of color and flavor to give their guests quite a spread! Check out Lily Bloom's Kitchen to really get your guests talking!

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Studio MPLS Photography


"We love beautiful weddings, with a personal touch! As long as every detail speaks to the personality of the Bride and Groom (both individually and as a couple), we will fall in love with it every single time!"

-Chris, The Studio MPLS

What a wonderful thing to hear from a photographer! Every couple is looking for a photographer that can capture every perfect moment on their wedding day and use the couples' own personalities to create that perfect wedding album!

Photography is such a creative art and can capture so many intimate moments that you will remember forever.  The Studio MPLS is a company based out of Minneapolis that uses their creativity to really capture all the wonderful moments on your perfect day! They are a group of six talented photographers that are all schooled in many different types of photography.  Most photography studios are based off the expertise of one talented individual with a group of assistants.  Each of the photographers at The Studio MPLS brings their own style to really create exactly what each of their customers are looking for!

Over the last five years, The Studio MPLS has covered over 500 weddings with a wide range of style and budget.  Because they have so many skilled photographers on their staff, they also have a wide variety of equipment! One of their most infamous event that they have been a part of is a Pfizer Performance Excellence Trip at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.  They traveled with 13 employees and over 40 cameras and created hundreds of albums and frames for the Pfizer employees from the 45,000 photos taken!

As you can see from this New York City event, The Studio MPLS has everything you would be looking for in a photographer.  With a expansive variety of equipment, each member of their team puts their full attention into their style of prints so that the couple gets exactly what they are looking for. 

Along with the standard photography, The Studio MPLS also has the most upcoming and one of the most popular areas of photography for weddings! They give couples the option to include their photo booth on top of their standard wedding day packages! Their photo booth is so different than most traditional closed in box photo booths.  This company has "Open Air" photo booths so that you can fit all your friends in one shot! You also have a choice of digital packages or day of print packages with photo strips for your guests to take with them as well.  These packages come equipped with lots of different options for props to really bring out the fun side of your wedding guests!

Check out www.thestudiompls.com for examples of their beautiful photography for your engagement shots and wedding day memories!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Welcoming your Out-of-Town guests!

Whether you book your reception at the Ramada or even somewhere else in the Twin Cities, let the Ramada take care of your guests.  We have so much to offer to turn your wedding night into a fabulous vacation!

Your wedding day is probably the biggest party you will ever throw in your life!  If you have a lot of loved ones coming into town to help you celebrate, you really need to make sure they feel welcome and can have a great time!


Being the Wedding Specialist at the Ramada, I like to be able to take some of the heat off of the bride.  She has so much planning to do to get ready for her wedding, and so many responsibilities the week of her wedding! That is why I have put together a Welcome Packet for your guests! Let them use my expertise to really experience every bit of your wedding and the beautiful city of Bloomington!

Your welcome packet can include any and everything that you would like your guests to know about.  You can include your wedding style and decor to really make your guests remember their stay and remember your beautiful wedding!

There are a few things that I recommend to be included in your Welcome Packet.  You want to make sure that your guests feel welcome and comfortable and really make them appreciate everything that you have done!

We like to include a little about convenient and exciting Activities in the Twin Cities.  We want to make sure that your guests are aware of everything that is available to them and really use our many amenities! There are a lot of Bloomington and local Twin Cities activities that your guests can easily be a part of as well because of our shuttle service!

Of course, Bloomington's most famous attraction is the Mall of America.  Our shuttle will take your guests to the MOA for the most fabulous shopping experience they have ever had.  At the Mall of America, your guests can pick up the Light Rail service on the lower floor, which will take them downtown Minneapolis! The light rail has many stops to give your guests an even better impression of the Twin Cities area!

If your guests are able to stick around town for a couple days, they can get some site seeing in and enjoy the Warehouse District nightlife! The light rail opens up right to 1st Avenue and runs till 2 on the weekends! When your guests get back to the Mall of America after their excursion downtown, just have them call the Ramada and we will send the shuttle to pick them up!


The next thing to include in your welcome packet is your Wedding Week Schedule! Most of my brides will use one of the Ramada's many hospitality suites Friday through Sunday for their bridal party.  It is a nice room to have for your out-of-town guests too as a place to offer them to run into the rest of your friends and family at the hotel! Please contact our wedding specialist for more details on your Bridal Party Suite.  You may plan a meet & greet welcome event for the night before your wedding to say hello to all the guests that took time out of their schedules to celebrate with you!


The Ramada has many amenities that set us aside as as the perfect hotel for your guests! Another section we like to mention to your out-of-town guests is the Ramada Amenities! Depending on the season of your wedding, there are certain things that the bride has the option to include in their welcome packet.  There may be certain amenities that you want all your guests to partake in, so we want to make sure that all your guests know about it! Some suggestions that a lot of brides have included are the 24 hour business center, our on-site car rental company, how to reach the front desk, free wi-fi access, and coffee availability throughout the weekend!


Something that is very important to all of your out-of-town wedding guests is our Shuttle Schedule! A lot of your out-of-town guests will be using our shuttles to go to and from the airport.  We like to put our schedules in writing so there is no confusion for your guests! Our shuttle also has availability to take your guests to local restaurants, so we like to have that information available to them as well.

 Your welcome packet can be as plain or elaborate as you would wish. I would love if you would throw in some of your own design and style from your wedding! Let your Wedding Specialist at the Ramada Bloomington at the Mall of America help your guests to really enjoy your wedding!