Yesterday, we were excited to return to New York City for another WeddingWire Networking Event!

Members of the WeddingWire team gathered at Bayard’s Events and Catering in New York City along with local Wedding Pros for a Happy Hour. Similar to our past WeddingWire Happy Hour events in South Florida, North Jersey, Philadelphia, San Diego and Richmond, New York City Wedding Pros had the opportunity to mix and mingle with other local Pros across all service categories and meet members of the WeddingWire team.

A special thanks to Bayard’s Events and Catering for the welcome hospitality, beautiful event space and delicious food and drinks!

Please find below some photos from the event, and thanks to all the New Yorkers who attended!

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We would like to take a moment to thank the wonderful partners who helped make the event possible:

• The gorgeous event space, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails provided by the InterContinental Tampa
• Music and entertainment provided by Music and More Entertainment Service
• Stunning floral arrangements provided by Flowers by Fudgie
• Delicious assortment of cakes and treats provided by A Special Touch – Cakes by Carolyn
• Beautiful photographs of the event (seen below) taken by Richard Harrell Photography
  

Congratulations to our drawing winner, Lisa Dahlberg from Event Sisters, LLC! Lisa will receive a WeddingWire prize pack and touch-screen Android mini tablet PC!

Develop a strong online presence and stay on top of your business with these WeddingWire tested tools!

From organization and social sharing to analytics and design, these tools will help you take your business to the next level and make your work life a bit easier, while saving you valuable time!

Evernote

Evernote is a virtual notepad service that enables you to save, organize and share notes, images and ideas for future use. You can keep your notes in organized categories, and they can be shared with others. You quickly and easily can access Evernote from your computer, internet browser, and mobile application from your smartphone or tablet.

Wunderlist

Wunderlist is a free, easy to use, collaborative task manager. Keep your personal and professional life on track with this tool, which is able to sync both “to do” lists, and gives the ability to share individual tasks and full lists with other – making collaborating easy!  In additional to accessing the task manager from a PC or Mac, Wunderlist works across popular mobile platforms, including iPhone, Android and iPad, so you can access all your items on the go!

99 Designs

99 Designs is the #1 marketplace for graphic design, and is a resource for basic design needs that you would like to outsource. This is a great tool for logo design, web design and collateral items. You simply create a contest for your design needs and budget, and designers compete to win your business, with your input.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg provides web analytics and usability tools that allow you to visually understand your website. A heatmap is an easy way to understand what users do on your site through a visual representation of where users click and actions they take. Crazy Egg’s Confetti feature allows you to distinguish all the clicks you get on your site segmented by referral sources, search terms and more.

This post was written by Sonny Ganguly, CMO of WeddingWire, you can follow him on Twitter @sonnyg. Sonny leads WeddingWire’s marketing strategy, customer acquisition, and business development.

In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, it is often difficult for wedding professionals to find enough hours in the day to catch their breath, let alone stay on top of all the latest trends. The good news is that there are many online tools available to make your work life a little easier!

We’ve gathered some of the top WeddingWire tested tools that we use at our offices.  These services will help you effectively market, run and grow various elements of your business, including your website, social media, emails, analytics and organization. It’s time to work smarter, not harder!

Website

With tech-savvy brides, it is crucial to have a strong online presence. The following tools will help you find new sources of traffic, while making sure there are no issues!

• Domize
  • Looking for new url’s for your business?  Domize is the quickest way to see if the domains you want are available.  Instead of doing one search at a time, you will see all available url’s.

• Google Keyword Tool 
  • Google provides a free Keyword Tool to help you research the best keywords for your business and improve your SEO. Simply enter some keywords and Google will tell you how competitive it is and how many people search for the keyword.

• SEO for Firefox
  • Want to be an SEO expert, but find it too complicating?  Install the free SEO for Firefox extension to your Firefox browser.  As you browse the web this tool will give you all the SEO details a professional would, from page rank to the number of links a site has.

• Google Webmaster
  • This free tool tells you how the world’s largest search engine views your site, analyzes search data and where links to your site are coming from.  Most importantly, Google Webmaster will alert you via email if any issues or malware arise on your website.

Check back soon for more ways to work smarter, not harder including top tools for social media, email, insights and analytics, and organization and meetings!

We would like to take a moment to thank the wonderful partners who helped make the event possible:

• The gorgeous event space, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails provided by the Inspirador
• Music and entertainment provided by Desert House Productions
• Stunning floral arrangements provided by LUX Wedding Florist
• Lovely event rentals provided by Classic Party Rentals
• Delicious assortment of cakes and cupcakes provided by My Goodness Cakes
• Photo fun provided by Clique Photo Station
• Beautiful photographs of the event (seen below) taken by About Love. Inspired Photography
  

Congratulations to our drawing winner, Cameron Carpenter from Three Oceans Entertainment! Cameron will receive a WeddingWire prize pack and touch-screen Android mini tablet PC!

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Next up in the Executive team’s “When We Were 5″ series as part of WeddingWire’s birthday month celebration, is Lee Wang, WeddingWire Chief Operating Officer (COO)!

Learn more about Lee’s favorite things when he was five, along with his reflections on WeddingWire’s growth over the past five years.

When you were five….

What did you want to be when you grew up?

An Astronaut.

Who was your role model?

My grandfather was my role model.

What was your favorite food?

Homegrown sugarcane (yum!)

Now that WeddingWire is five…

Who has had the biggest impact in your success thus far?

The founding partners of CourseInfo LLC (later Blackboard Inc.); a group of really smart guys who journeyed as entrepreneurs together.

What has been your favorite moment so far at WeddingWire?

My favorite moment was having lunch with Martha Stewart and having her call me out for using dessert plates instead of entrée plates… I should have responded that I was using “portion control!”

What do you look forward to most in the next five years?

I look forward to being able to continue to innovate in the mission to help our local businesses grow their businesses.

Have you read Timothy Chi, CEO’s When We Were Five Q&A? Be sure to check back for more “When We Were Five”  from our Executive team and other birthday celebrations!

We are excited to announce a new addition to our WeddingWire Pro Blog: Featured Pro Tweets!

In this new series, we will highlight tweets from Wedding Pros like you that we have received to @WeddingWireEDU. We receive many great tweets, and would love to share your wedding industry tips, insights, feedback and thoughts with other Wedding Pros!

If you have questions, tips, WeddingWire feedback or interesting industry or education articles to share, please send us a note by tagging @WeddingWireEDU. If you are not yet on twitter, now is the perfect time to get started! Check out our Social Media Checklist to help you get your social media accounts set up.

Find below our first round of Featured Pro Tweets, and check back often for insight from your peers!

Happy Tweeting; we can’t wait to hear from you!

This May, WeddingWire turns five! As we celebrate this milestone, we decided to take a look back and reflect on when our talented Executive team had this important birthday, as well as their favorite WeddingWire memories in the “When We Were Five” series. Take a walk down WeddingWire’s memory lane, and see how far we have come in five years!

Let’s get started with a look at Timothy Chi, WeddingWire CEO, at age five!

When you were five….

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Superman.Obvi.

Who was your role model?

My dad, and Big Bird.

What was your favorite food?

I  consumed a lot of Apple Jacks back then. Pretty certain it was Apple Jacks.

Now that WeddingWire is five…

Who has had the biggest impact in your success thus far?

Every single WeddingWire employee who believes good enough is not good enough.  They strive to make our company great.

What has been your favorite moment so far at WeddingWire?

Three way tie between 1) closing our first round of capital, 2) partnering with industry leaders like Martha Stewart, Conde Nast (Brides.com), and WeddingBee and 3) The annual WeddingWire chicken wing eating competition. 

What do you look forward to most in the next five years?

Continuing to innovate and bring new products to market with THE most talented team in the DC area.

Be sure to check back for more “When We Were Five” (and photos) from our Executive team along with other fun birthday celebrations throughout this month!

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WeddingWire is growing up so fast; we can’t believe it’s already been 5 years and we’ve accomplished so much, thanks to Wedding Pros like you! We have so much to share with you in celebration of this great milestone. Stay tuned for:

• WeddingWire Through the Years – a trip down memory lane with an infographic of our favorite milestones and memories over the past 5 years

• When We Were Five – a spotlight on WeddingWire’s stellar Executive Team, here’s a sneak preview: (Can you guess who’s who?)

• WeddingWire Turns 5: Top Lessons Learned – a webinar, featuring CMO Sonny Ganguly, highlighting the main lessons we have learned as a young startup company and how it can help your business

• And much more fun and surprises!

But, for now it’s time to cut the cake and pop the bubbly in celebration of our big day. We look forward to celebrating with you!

WeddingWire was thrilled to be part of Tech Cocktail’s Sessions DC – Start Up Inspiration: Turning Ideas into Action on Wednesday evening! The goal of Tech Cocktail Sessions is to inspire and educate people on how to start and run a business with experienced entrepreneurs sharing their personal stories. Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Founder and CEO, was honored to be a keynote speaker at the kickoff to the series.

Tim, along with Shane Green, Co-founder and CEO of Personal, provided insight on their journeys to building successful start-ups, and the lessons they learned as entrepreneurs. The event was hosted at The Water Street Project, a unique temporary arts space and gallery created by local arts and design group, No Kings Collective, showcasing the original works of 13 featured visual artists.

Tech Cocktail is a media company that covers the latest tech innovations across the globe. Tech Cocktail hosts mixer events around the country; check out the upcoming event schedule to see if they will be in a city near you!

Check out a photo from the event below, thanks to Frank Gruber of Tech Cocktail!

The ISS Experience is bringing the 2012 tour to the beaches of the Dominican Republic! Experience 4 days full of exciting networking opportunities and inspirational and educational seminars designed specifically for wedding industry entrepreneurs at a luxury resort in the Dominican Republic from May 6-9^th!

WeddingWire understands the power of education, and so we’re eager to share the opportunity to learn proven tips and techniques for growing a successful business from a dozen successful entrepreneurs in the wedding industry, including leaders in everything from event design to bridal gowns, blogging and photography.

Register today and you will have the opportunity to learn from experts like Preston Bailey, Stacie Francombe and more! Sessions include:

• Effective Goal Setting & Selling Your Value
• Defining your Identity and Perfecting Your Brand
• Embracing Entrepreneurship & Creating that Work/Life Balance
• Staying Relevant through Social Media & Mobile Outreach
• Elements and Designs for Stylized Photography
• Behind the Scenes of Wedding Planning
• The Secrets of Successful Blogging

Registration closes tomorrow, so be sure to sign up today!

Click here to learn more!