If you aren’t already connected with me on LinkedIn or Facebook you may not be aware that the reason for my absence from The Poly Bag Pro Blog is because I was getting MARRIED!
You may have seen snippets about my craziness going into the event, including the stress of planning for the wedding (which went off without a hitch).
While on my honeymoon I realized that that planning a wedding is in many ways similar to planning and designing a poly bag.
How can that be you ask?
Well there are really three main ways I can relate designing a poly bag to planning for a wedding.
You Need A Plan
While planning our wedding we had to to have a solid idea of what it is we wanted, as well as our plan of action to make it happen.
This is no easy task, especially considering we wanted a destination wedding.
We essentially had to make many decisions site unseen. As it is, this is very similar to ordering poly bags because not all manufacturers can provide production samples prior to running a full production run.
For our wedding some of the things we needed to plan out was choosing a location, inviting guests, budgeting out the expenses, and arranging our travel plans for the trip.
Destination weddings are not as easy as they look-trust me.
Poly bags are again similar because they require careful planning from not only the customer, but the manufacturer as well.
This planning will often include budgeting the expense of buying or producing the bags, scheduling the production to ensure it meets deadlines, and coordinating delivery.
It’s important that both the customer and the manufacturer or supplier come up with a game plan to make sure all parties are on the same page and understand what is needed from each to make the order go as smoothly as possible.
For our wedding, we delegated tasks to each other. My wife worked on picking the design of our wedding and invitations, while I handled things like the flights and other reservations. The same concept would work well for a poly bag order too.
Many Pieces Have To Fit Together
Because our wedding was a destination wedding, there were a LOT of details we needed to coordinate in order to make the day as magical as possible.
There were a lot of pieces that needed to fit into place on the right day, and sometimes the right hour.
We had a DJ, guests, hotel reservations, plane flights, airport shuttles, etc that all needed to be coordinated to ensure everything went smoothly. If our shuttle was late, we’d miss our flight. If the DJ was late, we’d have no music at the reception.
Small things that have drastic effects on the overall production.
Poly Bags are much the same way. Not only for the customer but the manufacturer as well.
Artwork needs to be received and approved by the customer in a timely manner.
The poly bag supplier needs to order plates and materials before their needed for the production run.
If any one side drops the ball, there could be substantial delays.
Choose An Appropriate Theme / Color Palette
The colors of our wedding were aqua blue and orange. This was coordinated between the bridesmaids’ dresses and the groomsmans’ shirts to the flowers and table coverings.
Everything needed to match in order to create the tropical theme we wanted. As mentioned in my two part series on designing the perfect poly bag I mention the importance of colors in your packaging design.
The colors your choose for your bag or design will express specific emotions about your brand. As mentioned, we wanted a tropical theme so bright colors such as orange and blue were perfect.
If we wanted to go a more elegant route we could have chosen ivory or pearl with black. Or if we wanted a mardi gras look maybe blue and green. For a romantic feel we would have done bright red and white.
Colors are important!
So like a wedding, choosing the appropriate colors for your brand and packaging can have a dramatic effect on the overall feel of your brand.
It’s important to keep these things in mind the next time you are designing or planning poly bags….or a wedding.
Let me know any other ways you think the two are similar. I’d love to hear what you all come up with.
~The Poly Bag Pro
