Some exciting things are happening around here, and part of that is the blog redesign we will be launching soon! The new one is going to be a little more user-friendly and easier to navigate (although I don't think this one is difficult) plus I get bored easily and like to change things up. Maybe it is the Spring Fever that is sweeping through the desert? My apologies to all of you who were hit with more unexpected snow these past few days, but it is a gorgeous, tank top worthy 82 degrees here this week. This is why Scottsdale is one of the most popular places in the United States to hold a destination wedding as it has over 300 days of sunshine.

Anyway, the redesign will have some new features and one of the changes is that we will start hosting advertising on the site. I promised in this post that I would keep you in the loop if we decided to begin advertising here, and so I wanted to explain some of the reasons for it.

First, as you can imagine, this blog takes quite a bit of time to produce. I am pretty quick at writing the posts, thanks to endless literature and writing classes in a past life, but formatting them so that they fit the aesthetic I want, finding pictures that I am allowed to use and uploading and formatting them for the blog and all the other behind the scenes blogging stuff takes time. I don't mind, because this blog has proven to be an invaluable part of my business, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of things competing for my time.

If you've been following us since the beginning of this blog back in 2006 when it was hosted in a different place, then you know that it has taken on a life of its own. It has grown quickly and exponentially and it continues to do so. I am so incredibly grateful for the several hundred subscribers and even more readers who regularly tune in to hear what I have to say. With that amount of traffic comes greater responsibility on my part, so even more time is required as slapping something together to create a blog post is not an acceptable strategy.

This site is hosted by Blogger, which means that my hosting fees are free, which is awesome. There are a few things I do have to pay for with this blog, some of which include a few domain names, the annual Flickr fee, and a couple of other things. The cost is minimal, and I set it up that way on purpose. The increased traffic however has meant an increase of visitors to my main website, which is not hosted for free. Hosting fees increase as traffic numbers increase and OH. MY. WORD. Those of you who have gotten an unexpected hosting bill know exactly what I am referring to! Don't get me wrong, this is a very good problem to have, and offsetting those costs is one of the reasons I am going to be allowing ads on the blog.

I've mentioned before that I was uncomfortable with letting vendors advertise on this blog because I am a planner and it can potentially be a conflict of interest. I've decided that wedding consultants will not be able to advertise and neither will vendors who are located in Arizona. I want to be above board with this and not enter any gray areas with promoting local vendors. I'll continue to talk about some local professionals on my blog and link to them when I write, but those will still fall under our editorial policy and no money will be accepted for it.

Also, our editorial policy is not changing. There will be no pay-for-play with blog posts and I will not accept money to write about someone or their product or service. Ads and editorial will be kept separate.

So there you have it - the main reasons there will be ad space included in the redesign. I am hoping that it will produce enough revenue to break even on the costs of running the blog, and if they turn a profit, well that is just cream cheese icing on the cake.