More References

•From the American Statesman (6/15/2004),

"Identical I Do's" by Lauren Lipton, Wall Street Journal

...
The number of U.S. wedding planners has also grown, rising 25 percent in the past 18 months to 7,000, the Association of Bridal Consultants estimates. Although these coordinators' job is to come up with ideas, some say clients hire them just to winnow through stacks of magazines. "A lot of times they get overwhelmed -- 'Oh my God, there are 50 billion choices' -- and start freaking out," says Pasadena, Calif., planner Marley Majcher. Some couples just give up, planners say, and pick ideas they've seen work before.

Belynda Barkley Montgomery, an Austin-based certified wedding consultant, said Austin brides and grooms don't have to worry about the copycat epidemic as much as people who live in towns with fewer resources.

"Copycat weddings tend to occur in small cities where there aren't many vendors for them to choose from," said Montgomery, the current past president of Austin Wedding and Event Coordinators. The city's creative class and its wide variety of ceremony and reception sites make it easier for couples to be original, she said.
...

•Austin Wedding & Events Coordinators Press Release announcing 2004 officers.

•From a client's website:

We hired Belynda Barkley Montgomery. Let me tell you this - she absolutely rocks. She knows everyone in town and has very good connections. She's young and really understands what we are trying to accomplish. She isn't phased by any of the unconventional ideas we have. She understands the vision and has embraced it, lining up a variety of vendors for us to interview that she thinks will be best at achieving the vision. I really like the fact that we get to interview the vendors and pick the ones that we like best, but she does the initial recommendation and only recommends vendors she has complete confidence in. She is also very responsive. She's always sending us emails with updates on her progress.

And she knows her stuff. The wedding dress we like (see below) is at a shop that told us the designer didn't have a web site. Belynda found out that this was incorrect and found the web site for us. Then we told her that our dream would be to have an Ethiopian feast for the rehearsal dinner, but because Austin doesn't have an Ethiopian restaurant, we thought it would be too difficult to get it catered from Houston or Dallas. Even though Belynda had never really heard of Ethiopian food, two days later we got an email from her with the address of an african restaurant in North Austin that serves Ethiopian food. I can't believe we didn't know that it existed, but Belynda rocks for finding it. Charlotte and I are going to go check it out this Friday.

So as you can tell, we are very happy with Belynda so far and feel very comfortable with her.

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