Haute Cakes & Confections - preferred vendor review

Witness Tree Videos is a fan of the Food Network, WeTV, The Wedding Channel, and many others that feature decedant cakes, but we admit that we didn't think it was possible to find a couture, visually stunning, and really yummy cake maker here in Oregon.

Until we discovered Haute Cakes & Confections. Owned by Lori & Jill Leach, Haute Cakes & Confections specializes in anything from weddings to birthdays to showers with a mission to deliver cakes that both look amazing and taste fantastic. Their cakes are true works of art, and they strive to involve the client as much as possible in the design.

Whether your taste buds are bold and bright, or classic and elegent, they can make your cake dreams come true. Flavors vary from banana, chocolate, poppyseed, hazelnut, pumpkin spice, the truly amazing pink champagne (their best seller and a favorite of Witness Tree Videos), carrot, pina colada, and black forest. YUM! For more information, please visit http://www.hautecakesandconfections.com/ or find them on facebook.

Oregon Wedding Showcase recap

It was a pleasure meeting those of you who stopped by our Witness Tree Videos booth during the Oregon Wedding Showcase in Salem a few weeks ago! The brides of 2011 and 2012 are shaping up to be a very friendly, very wedding savvy bunch.

According to the organizers of the event, a record number of brides attended over the weekend and were able to gather a ton of information regarding different wedding vendors. Sounds like success to us! Witness Tree Videos received over a hundred entries for our IPAD sweepstakes and looks forward to notifying our winner later in the year. But more importantly, it was great to see so many ladies (and even a few guys) shopping around for everything they would need to make their wedding day special.

As many of the brides we spoke with pointed out, a wedding video is indeed a new and catching trend for your wedding day. It remains, however, something that not everyone is going to want. You really have to ask if you can see yourself, years down the road, watching your wedding video on your anniversary with your hubby and a bottle of wine. If so, then Witness Tree Videos would love to provide the professional and creative eye required to get you a wedding video that you can both afford and deserve.

For those of you who attended the show, you very likely met the Witness Tree Videos father/daughter team; I hope we made a good impression and stood out as a duo that could be unobtrusive as well as creative and focused on getting the right footage during your wedding day. To accommodate all budgets, we maintain our $500 to $3000 price range. For more information on our wedding video packages, please visit http://www.witnesstreevideos.com/weddings.htm

Witness Tree Videos wins several prestigious awards

Oregon based Witness Tree Videos, a female owned and family operated enterprise, has recently won two awards for excellence in wedding video production - both showcased in the banners above! Our first achievement is with WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, who is thrilled to announce that Witness Tree Videos has been selected to receive the prestigious annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 for wedding videography.

Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation. Witness Tree Videos stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud Witness Tree Videos for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.”

Our second achievement is with The Knot & The Wedding Channel, who recently announced Witness Tree Videos a 2011 Best of Weddings™ Vendor Award Winner for wedding videography as voted by brides on The Knot & The Wedding Channel networks. Thousands of brides across the country reviewed their wedding vendors and Witness Tree Videos ranked among the highest!

"Witness Tree Videos is excited and honored to have received these awards," said business owner Carey Bruce. "It feels good to know that our work has been enjoyed and appreciated enough for us to receive the votes and recommendations required to win such prestigious accolades."

Portland Reign Photography - preferred vendor review

Welcome to 2011! The new year kicks off a new feature for the Witness Tree Videos web blog: our preferred vendor reviews!

Portland Reign Photography is a Wilsonville based business run by Danny Abrego. Danny is a member of the Wilsonville Chamber of Commerce, the Wilsonville Kiwanis, Oregon Horse Country, the Rotary Club, and a handful of other civic organizations. He is an excellent photographer and an all around nice guy.

Portland Reign Photography has been in business since 1990. Danny and his team have the creative eye and attention to detail that really yields superior results in everything they do.

The company is an active member of Professional Photographers of America, Wedding & Portrait Photographers International, and Portland Metropolitan Photographers Association.

An office space in the Old Town Village of Wilsonville allows for a variety of photo setups in a relaxed yet professional setting.

An attractive outdoor seeting, complete with railroad tracks and a historical church, are nearby. For more information, visit http://www.portlandreignphotography.com/

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Witness Tree Videos wishes all of its readers a safe and happy holiday season. December is a slower time for brides, but remains busy for us as we gear up for our wedding show booth at the Oregon Wedding Showcase on January 22nd and 23rd at the state fairgrounds in Salem, Oregon.

Other bridal shows of note are the Eugene show the second weekend of January, and the Portland show the third weekend of January. If you're a 'newly engaged' individual, you should try to check out all three as there will likely be different vendors at each. If yours is a destination wedding, try attending the show that is closest to your destination. For example, coastal brides may benefit more from the Eugene or Salem show. Downtown Portland brides should obviously attend the Portland show, and so on.

Again, a Merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone! Thank you to all our customers of 2010, and we hope 2011 brings peace and prosperity to you all!

We love happy customers!

We're going to take a pause from the videography tips to share some great reviews given by a few of our recent wedding clients.

We really enjoy what we do, but we enjoy it even more when a client expresses their appreciation in our work.

On the Wedding Wire website, we are fortunate to be a 5 star vendor because of our reviews. Similar reviews can be found on OneWed, Eventective, The Wedding Channel, and The Knot, among others.

A big thank you to all our past clients who took the time to send kudos are way and suggest us to their friends and family.

In this business, word of month is key, and so we love you for putting in a good word!

Wedding Videography Tip #6

Where can you find the best wedding vendors? It seems like a simple question, but it doesn't really have a simple answer. As a new bride-to-be, you have probably noticed that there is a plethora of resources available to you when planning a wedding.

There is the internet, bridal magazines, the yellow pages, television, bridal shows, and the list goes on. So how do you find the vendor for you in all that noise? The internet is a good place to start. There are a lot of different wedding directories and many of them are equally useful and informative. It is often a good first clue if you find the same vendor listed on several wedding sites. If they have reviews, read them. Most professional companies will include likes to their own websites with demo videos. Visit those sites and watch the demo videos.

Bridal magazines can be useful, but if you are looking for local vendors make sure to look at a local bridal magazine. You or not likely to find vendors (outside of wedding venues) advertising in the national magazines. This holds true for the yellow pages as well. Television is a good place to be inspired, but you are also not likely to see ad spots for local wedding vendors on TV. Even for video companies, a television ad is not very feasible as it is difficult to pin down your target audience.

Bridal shows are a great way to meet local vendors. In January there are at least three big ones in the Portland area. This is a highly recommended way to visit potential vendors and perhaps even retain a few for your upcoming wedding.