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The Organized Wedding Consultant Online Help: Working with Clients

Views Discussed: Clients & Events, Default Client Info

The place to start working with clients is "Clients & Events" in the left hand menu.

Working with new clients generally has two stages, although you can do them both at once if you prefer:

1. When you first get a new lead, or have a phone conversation with a potential client, you enter a small amount of basic information. None of the information you enter is required by the software except for the client's name, so you can type as much or as little information as you have. At this stage of the process, the software doesn't turn on powerful event-planning abilities like the budget planner and the seating organizer for this client -- but that's OK, because at this stage you don't need them.
   
   To get started with a client, click "Clients & Events" in the left-hand menu, then click the "Add a Client" button in the upper right. In the window that appears next, you can enter as much or as little information as you want about the new client. When you've finished entering the information, click the "OK" button at the bottom to save it. You'll now see the client's name in your list of clients.
2. When you're ready to really work with a client, even if it's during an initial consultation, you come back to "Clients & Events" and open the client's records again. What you do next is called "creating a database for the client" -- a simple, three-step process that the software guides you through. When you're done, all of the sophisticated planning tools in the left-hand menu will be available for your work with this client.
   
   To create the database, go back to the "Clients & Events" section (by clicking the left-hand menu), then double-click the client in the list that you want to work with. Fill in the couple's names and the wedding date if you haven't already done so, then click the tab labeled "Create the Database!" (You can see the tabs at the top of the window). On the page that appears, click the button labeled "Create the Database for this Client" and follow the directions as they appear.

Much later, when you've completely finished work with this client, you can remove the client from the "Clients & Events" section without losing the records. Go back to the "Clients & Events" section and click "Archive" on the far right. This procedure moves the database file containing all of the client's information into a separate folder so that it will no longer appear in the "Clients and Events" list, and none of that client's information will show up anywhere in the program. If you ever need access to the client's information again, just click "Retrieve a Client from the Archive" to bring it back.

Naming your Clients

The software lets you enter anything you want for the names of your clients, but it sorts your client list alphabetically by whatever you enter. You'll probably find it easier to work with the list of clients if you enter their names as "last, first" (as in "Bennet, Prudence and Henry") so that they're sorted in your list according to their last name.

Customizing the Information to Collect

If the information that the program automatically collects for a new client ("style of wedding", "decorations", etc.) isn't what's most important for the kinds of weddings you plan -- or for your system of wedding planning -- that's OK. You can change the list of information that the program automatically asks for. To change the questions that the software asks, click "Default Client Info" near the bottom of the left-hand menu, then "Info to Collect" underneath it. Any changes you make in this area will appear for any new clients you add after you make your changes. (They won't have any effect on existing clients.)

Invitation Methods

When you create the database for a client, you're asked one question that may seem out of place: how will the client invite guests to the main events? (Wedding invitations that will all enclose a reception card; or reception invitations, some of which will enclose a ceremony card; etc.) We ask this question so early because it affects how much information the program collects about the guest list. For example, if everybody will be invited to the reception and only a smaller group will be invited to the ceremony, you'll need to indicate which guests should get an enclosure inviting them to the ceremony. Although we ask for this information early on, it's actually safe to leave the "invitation method" alone and not worry about it until you're ready to start work on the guest list. You may already know about the following methods (because they relate to general wedding planning rather than to this particular software), but here are the circumstances in which you would use the various ways of issuing invitations.

• Invite all guests to both wedding and reception: this method is the most common one in the U.S. The invitations are for the wedding, and each invitation either mentions the reception directly on the invitation or encloses a reception card. Other events, if any, get separate invitations.
• Invite all guests to the wedding, some to the reception: this method is sometimes used when the wedding is for the child of a clergy member -- the clergy member's entire congregation is invited to the wedding, but a more select list is invited to the reception.
• Invite all guests to the reception, some to the wedding: this method is commonly used for both celebrity weddings and weddings of Latter-day Saints -- the invitations are worded to invite guests to the reception (not the wedding), and separate ceremony cards are enclosed to invite a smaller group to the actual wedding (for Latter-day Saints, a card for the temple sealing). If you choose this option, the "Stationery" view (which assists with the wording of invitations) will automatically take it into account. This method is also standard for Shinto weddings.
• "Destination Wedding" or "Weekend Wedding": use this method when there's a whole roster of events, possibly over multiple days, and all guests are invited to all of them (with the exception of single-gender events). There are two common situations in which this method is appropriate:
• For destination weddings, where there are lots of things to do over several days, and guests need to decide what time block to be there for.
• For Hindu or Muslim weddings, for which this is the traditional layout of invitations. (Hindu weddings can have as many as 15 separate events over a period of two weeks, although the schedule is usually compressed in Western countries.)

Note: You can use this method and still send out strictly traditional invitations if you'd like -- the method does not necessarily have any effect on the wording of the invitations. What this method really does is to tell the software to simplify the part of the program where you indicate who is invited to what (because invited to one event means invited to all events) but also tells the software that you'll want to track responses for each event separately, because some guests will not be able to attend all events. It affects how the software does the record keeping, not what goes on the invitations.

Business Envelopes

When you're editing a client (click "Clients & Events" in the left-hand menu, then double-click the client you'd like to work with), there's a button labeled "Printing" in the lower right. This button makes it easy to print (or preview) a business envelope addressed to the client. The return address is filled in with the company information that you enter in "My Company", under "Professional Setup" in the left-hand menu. The delivery address comes from the client's name and address.

Note: If you have not included a title (like "Mr." or "Ms.") with the client's name, the program will guess at the appropriate title -- and sometimes it will guess wrong. Use print preview before you actually print envelopes addressed to your clients, and if the program guesses the client's title incorrectly, it's easy to fix: just add the client's title to the box labeled "Name of client(s)". In the Bennet-Darcy example, if Mr. Bennet were a doctor, you would enter the client name as "Bennet, Prudence and Dr. Henry".

Adding an Event for a Client

When you create the database to get started working with a client, the program assumes that you want to plan a wedding and reception. You can easily add other events to plan, such as the rehearsal dinner, shower, or anything else. Step 2 of Creating the Database displays the list of Events, and you can add as many as you want. To add an event for an existing client, just double-click the client name in the "Clients & Events" section, and click the "Event List" tab. You'll see buttons on the right-hand side to add new events, delete events, or change the name, date, or time of an event.