1bigpresent.com Blog

Each day I meet some very talented people and in the world of weddings there are some wonderful new ideas out there so every now and again I plan to highlight a few of them. 

I have recently spent some time with the lovely lady behind www.thecelebrationherald.com and I hope I can do her justice by explaining a little of the concept to you. 

‘The Celebration Herald’ is the perfect unique gift for family and friends, or indeed for anyone who has something to celebrate.  It is a beautifully prepared storybook which catalogues those special moments in time in stunning detail and which, once presented as a gift, will be cherished forever. 

For weddings ‘Your Wedding Herald’ lets you share the stories of how you met, of those special moments together, right through to the proposal and the engagement.  It allows you to revisit the excitement of creating your perfect wedding day and to recapture the magic of the day itself with pictures of the bride and groom, the wedding venue, the dress, and so much more.  

‘The Celebration Herald’ is a real treasure. It’s the perfect gift for so many occasions including Civil Partnerships, Christenings and Naming Days as well as being a memorable gift for anniversaries and milestone birthdays, in fact, in the words of The Celebration Herald - ’Anything worth celebrating is worth its own Celebration Herald.’

Not blogged for a while and had my backside booted for that very reason, so here we are again.  In the life of ’she who eats, sleeps and breathes’ 1bigpresent.com, it can be such a headache each day to establish which tools are most effective in driving traffic to the website.  I try my best to keep each flame alive, namely a little bit of Twitter (follow 1bigpresent), a little Facebook and some strategic ads and editorial placed here and there, but all whilst keeping within a reasonable budget, oh and just working hard to keep everything about the site fresh and up to date.  It is oh so easy to let the purse strings go and to run with every suggestion, especially when you are keen to try new ideas, but common sense soon gets the better of you and reigns you back in.  At lease  blogging doesn’t come with a large invoice, so yes, it’s time I got back in the saddle!! 

I would be fibbing if I was to say that there are not many headaches with running a site such as 1bigpresent; the biggest to date has been finding it’s niche, somewhere for it to fit when marketing!  It isn’t a site selling gifts or presents, it is actually a service which does a beautiful job of linking everyone together, no matter where they are in the world, towards a fabulous birthday or wedding gift or just the cash to buy what you need.  But headache aside I love it’s diversity!  We are currently holding gift accounts for a massive civil ceremony in Ireland, a marriage across two cultures (Hong Kong and UK), and a couple getting married in Italy, having a reception in the UK and then leaving for their new life in Oz.  Most wedding/civil couples use their gift fund for a honeymoon (or to pay their credit card bill after the honeymoon!) but we have seen some original and interesting gift ideas going on, namely a renovation holiday home project to which all guests are invited when it’s complete, a unique piece of Scottish artwork, oh and my absolute favourite, the Sonos music system which allows you to play unlimited music around your home.  This was a request from one of last year’s birthday people on 1bigpresent.com and after reading her fabulous account of the product I have to say I succumbed and am now the delighted owner of a Sonos S5 Zone Player and the impossible to put down hand held controller, which to my shame I must admit I am incredibly possessive of.  And so I guess one of the loveliest things about running 1bigpresent is sharing in a little bit of each celebration and knowing how much the service helps each wedding couple or birthday person to achieve what they want in a gift.  Does that cure my 1bigpresent headache?  Hmmm nope, I still need 1bigparacetamol for that!!

1.  Your family have the worst taste in toasters

2.  You’re saving for new breasts, buttocks, eyes, teeth, identity, etc etc

3.  You want to get the hell out of here (there or anywhere) but don’t even have the bus fare:(

4.  You saw what they bought for cousin Geoffrey - EEEEK - but you pretended to like it - DUUUHH - so looks like another’s on it’s way

5. You want to rekindle what you started with that juicy Turkish waiter but you’ve already sent him ALL your wages for his large extended family 

6.  You want to give all the money in your gift fund to charity (yes I AM serious!)

7.  You just don’t need ANYTHING (GRRRR) - but some Jimmy Choo’s would be cool

8.  Your car is somewhere on the hard shoulder of the M1 (but don’t worry - the exhaust is in your handbag)

9.  Your Auntie Jean has a knitting machine (poem in there somewhere lol)

10. You’re just purely and utterly, totally and absolutely SSSSSSSSKKKKKKIIIIIINNNNNNTTTTTTTT!!!  Innit!

Well by now you should know that 1bigpresent was created to avoid receiving some pretty awful gifts so if you’re well on your way to the big 40, planning on saying some wedding vows or even having a baby shower then why not register now with 1bigpresent.com.  Why?  Well it gives you complete control over the unwanted gift pile and allows your lovely guests to log on and link up with the other guests towards an uber great gift that you thought only dreams were made of. 

If you need convincing then why not have a play around on the site.  Our latest upgrade to the 1bigpresent website (any time soon) allows you to register and test the site to see if it works for you.  It really does only take minutes to set up your occasion page which will then be held open for 14 days at absolutely no cost or inconvenience to yourself.  If however your occasion is not activated with a small monetory deposit within those 14 days it will automatically expire:(.  You can make this small deposit by yourself or you can request a friend or family member to kick start it for you.  Whichever way this deposit is obviously yours to withdraw after your special occasion has passed and your fantastic guests have paid LOADS more money into your fund.  It really is a great way to get the cash together for something very special.  What would your BIG PRESENT be?

Okay guys after one or two ‘requests’ (thankfully not singing requests!! OMG I am soooo bad)  I have decided to write some little gems of poetry.  It appears that one of the biggest challenges facing all of you brides and grooms to be is how to politely ask your guests to make use of a gift service like 1bigpresent.  Last week I had a couple of calls and emails asking for advice and if I had any specific words that they could ‘borrow’ for their invitations etc.  It appears that no matter how familiar we all are with Gift Lists/Funds you still struggle with the ‘how to ask’ bit.  This wee gem of info that I recently picked up may help.  According to a nationwide survey carried out by research group i3 78% of consumers actually prefer to give cash as a wedding gift.  Most friends/family members appreciate that monetary gifts are far more useful than traditional gifts.  It is a great deal more satisfying for them to know that they are contributing towards something you really need or are saving for.  Feel better?

Anyway here goes with poem numero uno.  All my own work and proud I am too!  Go ahead and copy and paste, edit bits or delete (ouch), but hopefully some or all of it will go a little way to help you with your polite request.  Watch this space for more ‘polite’ poetry!!

Laters

Michelle x

Are you twittering yet?  Or are you the one who’s wondering why we’re all twittering on?  Well I was recently  introduced to Twitter, a social networking site where you can mini blog as often as you like and with the likes of Phil Schofield, Fearne Cotton, Jonathan Ross and so many more.  In fact even Britney is all of a Twitter….

To date Schofe is my best twitterer! He’s like a naughty schoolboy and twitters at every opportunity, even when he shouldn’t. It is addictive stuff!  You can twitter about anything and everything. I haven’t come across any hard and fast rules - yet!  It goes a bit like this: You register and then you look up some folk and simply ’follow’ them so you can see their daily tweets. If the mood takes they follow you back.  It’s pretty cool that you can follow these guys and get daily insights into their lives but try to hide your disappointment when they don’t follow everyone back. Hey, with almost 37000 followers on Twitter, Schofe, I may just have to excuse you for not following little old twittering me:( 

On the downside, one of Schofe’s avid followers is my worst twitter nightmare!!  A few folk apparently have nothing much else to do but to stalk their celebrity favourites, and OMG boy do they stalk, ALL DAY.  This means, when like me you have just a few people to follow or who follow you that their tweets appear on your screen constantly!  One, who shall remain nameless, must tweet to Philip Schofield every few minutes, ‘Ooh I love your hair Philip! Is that a new suit Philip?’ and is currently upset that he hasn’t thanked her for the latest gift she sent him!  She drives me absolutely crazy, or did till I deleted her!! Oh what joy, to exterminate on twitter, just like that, POW! GONE! 

So what you all waiting for!  Go get following and twittering and exterminating!  Oh and BTW to follow me look for 1bigpresent!!

So your hubby’s bought you a toaster. Again. It’s a terrible present frankly, and almost certainly wasn’t on your gift list (Jimmy Choos, a holiday in the Bahamas, George Clooney’s address). But hey! It could be worse, right? Just to help you put it in perspective here’s three horrible husbands from history…

Henry VIII

Why he’s bad

• You’ll end the marriage a foot shorter than when you started

Redeeming features?

• Hey – he’s a king… you’ll never want for shoes!

Being married to Henry VIII was one of the worst gigs in marital history. England in the 16th century was still under the religious control of Catholicism, and divorces could only be granted by decree of the pope.  Despite this, Henry was so keen to get rid of his first wife that he invented an entire new religion of which he was the head, giving him the ability to annul his own damn marriage. That the side effect was 3 hundred years of religious schism and bloody external and internal warfare was neither here nor there to Henry, who went on to marry a further 5 times.

As he got older, and his desire to have a male heir to take over his throne increased, his wives found their time curtailed in various ways – both Anne of Cleves and Catharine Parr winding up in custody battles for Henry’s Lute collection when they were unable to give him the son he craved. Bored of divorce courts – or possibly too skint to front-up the lawyer’s fees - Henry just had Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard executed. But even if you survived the executioner’s axe or the courts, you could die in childbirth  like Jane Seymour.

So if a fat, bearded ginger man claiming to be King gets down on his knee to you in a busy restaurant, take advantage of his position to steal his crown, knee him in the face and hightail out of there. Don’t worry – he can afford to foot the bill.

George Joseph Smith

Why he’s bad

• You’re not his only wife
• You’ll always have to remember to lock the bathroom door

Redeeming features?

Err…

If you were hanging round in singles bars in the Edwardian era, you were statistically seven times more likely to end up marrying George Smith than anyone else. With, perhaps, a flagrant disregard for his own health, he was a dedicated bigamist who eventually ended up with 7 wives around the country. Maybe motivated to cut down on the tedious business of remembering all their birthdays, anniversaries and shopping lists, he thinned them out the only logical way – murder. That he was able to claim insurance payouts on their deaths only added to the appeal. Three deaths under similar, unusual circumstances in various parts of the country aroused suspicion and a clear pattern emerged. Before he knew it, Smith was hauled up blinking before the beak to explain how three of his wives had come to die in the bathtub and why he had so many goddamn wives in the first place.

It was shown in court that as his unsuspecting wives lay in the bath he would grab their feet and slide them suddenly downward. Whilst a seemingly unlikely way to commit murder the suddenness and surprise was enough to cause his victims to reflexively choke and drown within seconds. A doctor testing the theory very nearly killed his subject. Smith had his comeuppance at Maidstone Prison, where he was hung for his crimes.

Homer Simpson

Why he’s bad

Channel 4, 6pm every night to find out

Redeeming features?

He loves you just enough to not murder you

As if being yellow wasn’t enough, few husbands have proved as disastrous as Ma Simpson’s boy, Homer. Over the course of a decade and a half, he’s inficted more misery on his long-suffering wife than most of us would stand for. We can only assume he makes up for it in some other, unspecified, area!

Some brief highlights. He enjoyed brief flirtations with various females down the years - from unknown country singer Lurlene to a coworker at a nuclear industry conference. That seems like small beer when you consider that whilst on holiday with do-gooding next door neighbour Ned Flanders, Homer bigamously married a Vegas stripper! Away from the routine ups and downs of maintaining a long-term relationship, Homer once binge-ate his way up to 400lb in order to claim invalidity benefit and be able to work from home. Naturally, this ended with him bringing the nuclear plant to near meltdown and wearing a dress.

A change of career saw him doling out marriage advice to struggling newlyweds, during which his indiscretion let Marge’s most intimate secrets spill out all over town. Mind you it isn’t all one way traffic: Marge herself was prepared to spend a weekend with her childhood sweetheart Artie Ziff for a cool million dollars…