A Side of Sweet

Choosing Wedding Music – Interview with Anna Vogelzang

I first encountered musician Anna Vogelzang through the wonders of the blogosphere. Her wedding was featured on Green Wedding Shoes, one of my favorite wedding blogs. In addition to being beautiful and colorful, it caught my eye because she got married in my future venu, the Olin Park Pavilion.

As I read the story of her wedding, I noticed that Anna is a musician in Madison. Intrigued, I found her website and listened to her music. I was absolutely blown away! My favorite song is actually about getting married:

I contacted Anna about performing at our wedding. The conversation that ensued answered a lot of my questions about choosing wedding music and even brought up a lot of things that I had never considered. I am so happy that she is letting me share her advice with you!

Choosing Wedding Music - Interview with musician Anna Vogelzang

Q: What do you think about having musicians perform during the dinner portion of the wedding?

Anna: Dinner music for original musicians is tough, because most folks aren’t listening (but eating!) and you’re trying to fill a lot of time. there are some people who do it professionally and so for them it’s not a big deal, but i tend to play listening rooms, so it’s harder for me to get excited for a show where everyone’s chatting with each other — unless it is a big payoff, which weddings usually are. it’s also usually so far in advance that i need the budget to trump any other gigs that might come up in the mean time.

Q: Do you have any recommendations for incorporating live music into the dinner portion of the ceremony?

Anna: Instrumental groups are usually way better suited to the background music thing. For our wedding, we also had a playlist for the DJ to play during dinner thatwas separate from our dancing playlist, so that the jazz boys could break & eat but there was still music playing.

Q: Live music is definitely (and understandably!) more expensive than doing a playlist. Can you explain all of the work that goes into performing at a wedding?

Anna: My fee includes learning & arranging the songs, sending demos of arrangements to give you options & make sure you’re happy with them, attending the rehearsal, providing my own sound, and (the biggest thing), my time, since i’m never sure if i’m going to be in town or not — I need to commit to staying in Madison during that time.

Thanks again for all of your advice Anna!

For those of you in Madison, Anna is playing a show at the Frequency this Saturday, January 19th.
Click here for more details!

Engagement Photos – Finally!

With the wedding only five months away, I’ve been doing a lot of DIY-ing and planning over my holiday break. This is includes one of my most daunting tasks – creating the wedding invitations. I’m not sure what it is about the invites that gives me pause. I really want to do them by hand, but the strategies I’ve tried so far, including this awesome Fiskars Stamp Press, didn’t work. Although it was awesome for arranging its clingy rubber stamps for repeated stamping, I just couldn’t get enough info on the page and have it still look nice. At this point, I’m thinking about getting a custom rubber stamp made on Etsy and then embossing the invites by hand.

We worked with Kinsey of Kinsey Mhire Photography and the blog Sincerely Kinsey. I cannot say enough how awesome she is! She was friendly and supportive – and patient! We ended up doing several hours of shooting in multiple locations. The day started with us on a tandem – representing our love of cycling and the fact that we met on a UW Cycling trip.

We were so lucky that the shoot was the first week in October when the fall colors in Wisconsin were at their peak and the temperature was in the 70’s!

Pat and I created a “campsite” with thrift store finds and a tent made with a simple wood frame draped with fabric. I also baked a pie for the occasion!

The night ended with homemade marshmallows and graham crackers.

I am absolutely ecstatic about how well the photos turn out. Kinsey really captured us as a couple and the photos really tell our story! This is only half of them! I’ll post the second half tomorrow!

See more of our wedding photos & DIYs:

DIY Hanging Twine Balls
First Look Wedding Photos, Part I
First Look Wedding Photos, Part II
Wedding Dance Party Photos
Wedding Details – Dessert Table & Table Decorations
Wedding Updo – How to Chalk Your Hair
Wedding Ceremony Pictures
Wedding Getting Ready Pictures
Vintage Drawer Pulls as Placecard Holders DIY
DIY Wedding Photobooth Setup with Printable
DIY Gilded Upcycled Plastic Cups
DIY Glitter Upcycled Silverware
DIY Honey Jar Wedding Favors
Rustic Wedding Cake Frosting Technique
Stuffed S’mores Cupcakes Recipe
DIY Glitter Swizzle Sticks
DIY Embossed Envelopes
Engagement Photos, Part I
Engagement Photos, Part II

Pretty Beaded Earrings DIY

Hello! I’m Lauren, the girl behind Click Clack Clunk and LoloMade (my graphic design shop). Most of my life is focused around school work, but in my spare moments I love to craft, read, go on adventures, eat–and then blog about it!

It’s my pleasure to be guest-posting on A Side of Sweet today to share these pretty beaded earrings. As a pre-med student, Kelly has been an inspiration to me. She’s living proof that I can run the pre-med gauntlet and still keep my creative pursuits alive.

So, without further ado, here’s a little tutorial for some awesome and easy earrings.
… Read More »

Easy SEO Optimization for WordPress {Blogging}

SEO Optimization – short for “search engine optimization” was developed to increase the likelihood your blog or website will shows up when searched for, especially on Google. Although I am no expert on SEO optimization, I want to pass on a method for easy SEO optimization that I’ve implemented in this blog. I can definitely tell that it’s working – the amount of hits Running Blonde gets due to people searching for me has increased exponentially in the past three months. The method I am describing is specific to self-hosting on WordPress.org

Easy SEO Optimization

1. Install the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin on your blog.

2. Follow the checklist suggested by the plugin – that’s pretty much it!

Here’s a little more detail:

I’ve optimized this post for the keyword search “easy SEO optimization”. To increase the likelihood that Running Blonde will show up if someone searches “easy SEO optimization”, I’ve done the following:

1. Put “easy SEO optimization” in the post title

2. Put “easy SEO optimization” in the blog URL

3. Looking at the Yoast plugin, you can also see that I used “easy SEO optimization” for the SEO title and in the meta description. This basically determines what your link will look like in a search engine. If you don’t edit your meta description, Google will randomly pick words from your post to display. This way, you can make something catchy/relevant for Google to display: Easy SEO Optimization | Running Blonde

4. In the above picture, I added “easy SEO optimization to the “Title” and “Alt Text fields”. This can be shown by the fact that “easy SEO optimization” appears when you hover the mouse over the picture.

5. I used an H2 heading with the phrase “easy SEO optimization” in the post. You can find this setting in the paragraph drop down menu at the top left of the post.

6. I used “easy SEO optimization” throughout the post, especially in the first paragraph of the post. In this post, the phrase “easy SEO optimization” appears xx times. Obviously, this is much, much more than in a typical post. I usually try to use the keyword at least two times in a post.

7. Although I didn’t do this in this post, I try to pick a unique search phrase that won’t necessarily pick up big, widely-read blog posts. For example, you are more likely to get hits on the phrase “Olin Park Wedding Reception, Madison, WI” versus “Wedding Madison, WI”. There are so many well written articles by big blogs about SEO optimization that despite my efforts, this post will be unlikely to show up if you do search for “Easy SEO optimization”.

8. All of these things are summarized in the “page analysis” checklist on the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin. Your post then receives a green, yellow or red rating to determine how well your SEO optimization for that keyword is:

Feel free to leave a comment with any questions. Any suggestions on things I could do better? Let me know in the comments.

Apple, Feta, and Delicata Squash Pizza Recipe

Vegetarian

If the rest of our meals of 2013 are anything like this first one, Pat and I will be quitting our jobs and opening a restaurant. We made this apple, feta and delicata squash pizza because it’s what we had in the house and our nearby grocery store was closed for the holiday. You could pretty much call it kitchen sink pizza, because that pretty much sums it up – it has everything in it but the kitchen sink. In Pat’s words, “It’s sweet, savory, salty and amazing, all in one bite.” Of course, these words are all mumbled with said bite still in one’s mouth…

Glitter Drink Swizzle Sticks DIY

Thanks to the holidays, I’m on currently halfway through a two week vacation from medical school. With the wedding only five months away, I’ve taken this opportunity to do as many wedding projects as I can manage. This basically means I have been glittering everything in sight! Despite my best efforts to lay down newspaper, there was a thick layer of glitter on our living room floor this morning and this afternoon I noticed an impressive layer of gold glitter in Pat’s beard! Needless to say, he was not thrilled.

One of my projects was these easy glitter drink swizzle sticks. This cute and easy DIY is a perfect thing to have on hand for your upcoming party or wedding! You can make them in any color or shape.

DIY Glitter Drink Swizzle Sticks

You will need:

Paper punch in the size and shape or your choice – I used this 1.25 inch scallop circle punch from EK
Bamboo Skewers
Wire Cutters (Optional)
Spray Adhesive
Newspaper
Hot Glue Gun
Cardstock (I used white resume paper)
Glitter!

1. Punch out your shape of choice, two per skewer
2. If your skewers are longer than your drink glasses, use the wire cutters to snip them to your desired height.
3. Open your newspaper and lightly spray a coat of adhesive on it.
4. Line up your punched shapes onto the newspaper.

5. Spray the shapes with adhesive.
6. Coat with glitter and let dry.
7. Hot glue two cutouts around one skewer

You’re all done! Pour yourself a cocktail and enjoy your drink swizzle stick!

See more of our wedding photos & DIYs: