1bigpresent.com Blog

Each day thanks to 1BigPresent.com 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 Deirdre Thackray, the lovely lady behind The Celebration Herald, 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!!