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ADVISORY VIDEOS
01:05 Tara Fay - Restrictions
13:35 John Burke - Venues
28:45 Bruce Russell - Destinations
45:55 Laura Keenan - Styling
53:40 Zubair Arshed - Budgeting

​SPEAKER BIOS​

​TARA FAY & BRUCE RUSSELL
​We are delighted to announce that award winning wedding and event planners, Bruce Russell and Tara Fay, will be part of our first 'advisory content' release in celebration of the launch of VOWS on July 18th! Co-stars of RTE’s flagship lifestyle show My Big Day: Home or Away, and with a combined experience of over 30 years planning and designing weddings and celebrations, London based Bruce, and Dublin based Tara, have planned everything from intimate Irish weddings to elaborate overseas celebrations and everything in between.

As part of the line-up, Tara will be presenting a session on the impact of the current guidelines for weddings, the most common questions she gets asked in relation to the guidelines, and the questions you need to ask your venue and your suppliers. Bruce's session will focus on everything you need to consider at the moment to plan a destination wedding or honeymoon.

JOHN BURKE
​​Joining our stellar line-up of wedding experts, is innovative hotelier John Burke. John heads up a portfolio of tourism interests in Co Clare, including the widely popular Armada Hotel which was crowned Ireland's Best Wedding Venue at last year’s industry gold medal awards, as well as Hotel Doolin and the Fiddle and Bow collection. John is at the cold face of the challenges couples are now experiencing with uncertainty around weddings, even with weddings still on the cards for this year. 

John will be talking about the way that he has adapted his businesses to new products and offerings, along with implementing all the challenges around Covid-19, His belief is that weddings may be different, but in so many ways the difference could lead to more positive, better service experiences, and he is looking forward to helping to instil some positivity in couples currently on their wedding planning journey. He remains ever optimistic around the future of the wedding industry. 

LAURA KEENAN
​We're delighted to also welcome the talented Laura Keenan to our first 'advisory content' release! Laura is owner, leading creative and stylist at Once Upon A Wedding and has worked in the creative field for over 15 years.  Her journey began with fashion design, to window display and visual merchandising and from there into the world of weddings and floristry. She enjoys the creativity of fusing these various elements from fabrics to flowers together to bring couples' wedding vision to life.

Laura will be using her experience and expertise in styling weddings of all shapes and sizes, to talk about how to be 'Creative in Covid.' She'll be taking attendees through how to maximize your venue's potential when working with reduced numbers, and talking through the styling checklist lockdown; the 'nice' versus the 'needs', to do with investing budget in styling your day.  

Laura says, "Weddings are happening, they just look a little different. Once Upon A Wedding believe that creativity is needed now more than ever. Let's de-feature Covid by delighting ourselves and our guests with the beautiful details instead. VOWS is a much needed innovative platform that allows us to reach out to wedding couples everywhere, and to inform and inspire them and that is why we are looking forward to being part of this new planning series."

​ZUBAIR ARSHED
​Also joining our line-up of industry experts is Zubair Arshed, Senior Event Designer with Marigold Events, who will be taking attendees through a wedding planner's top tips to stay organised and in control of your wedding budget - a topic we know is very relevant to a lot of couples in wedding planning mode at the moment.

Over the past decade, Zubair and the team at Marigold Events have organised weddings with 1000+ guests in some of Europe's most exclusive venues, and their work has been featured by Wedding Journal Ireland, One Fab Day and All Seated New York. Zubair says, "At Marigold Events, we believe your wedding day should be filled with joy, love and laughter. Recently with all that's going on, the excitement and joy a wedding brings has been subdued. That's why we are thrilled to be part of the launch of VOWS! It's an amazing new way for us to connect with couples, help you plan your big day and inject that excitement back into weddings. After all, a wedding is a celebration and it should feel like one too."