Research questions

After finishing the literature review search and analysis I have identified that there is not enough literature in the wedding industry, especially for the UK. Which of course is good news for me!
The questions I will research on are who decides to purchase what for a wedding set up, preparation. Is is the groom or the bride, is it the families (mothers-in-law), best men, friends or whoever pays for it, or there may be anything else?? The other question is what influences the couple's decision making on their purchases (bookings) for their wedding. The four areas (expenditures) to be explored will be venues, bridal wear (wedding dress, grooming outfit), florists, photograher, and possibly will add catering as well. The four areas (influence) to be explored will be culture-ethnicity-traditions, advertising, word of mouth and technology.
I hope my research methods paper makes sense, and is good enough. It is the very first I ever had to write and I hope I understood what I needed to do, and have it done correctly! I have to confess I am really looking forward to finding my research results. It's fascinating!

Literature review

Tomorrow we submit our literature review. After my meeting with my supervisor on Friday and a weekend of research on my topic I am writing about consumer buyer behaviour on weddings. So far I am analysing 12 journal articles on the topic of consumer buyer behavour identifying the 3 key areas that affect or may affect a couple that is going to be married to make their decision on how and where to spend their money.
From a quick online research on various wedding websites I have seen that the most important or better stated more expensive - without which there is usually no wedding - are bridal wear, wedding venues, florists and photographers. I would add the rings in the list of importance but not necessarily at the most expensive.
My research questions are not very clear yet, but they will certainly be at the end of my literature review analysis. It's good that I have a more focused and targeted idea of my research and it does start to take shape in words too. I am very excited!

Decision still to be made

I am leaning towards to the wedding area, back to the very original thoughts that I had in October when started this MA course. I still have the business conferences in my head, though I have to admit after the tour at the Excel centre I got a little bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong the tour was great, and the info they gave us very important. Actually it was that important for me, as it made me realise that business is going down in the exhibitions sector. In a way it helped make my decision to gor for what I wanted.
Still I need to do further research to see if there is relevant references on my topic, or at least something relevant that I could link my research to. Time is really going fast, luckily I'm getting fast too! I like researching there is so much that I learn through that process, though when the deadline is in less than a week not that much of a joy.. I just try to keep calm and not get stressed, after all it is all part of the process, right?

Changes on my topic

I understand it has been a while since I've post my thoughts on my dissertation topic, but it has been very confusing. I had some problems with not knowing who my supervisor will be, and in a way I exchanges opinions with three different tutors. Each one of them provided me with a different point of view on my original topic idea, and in the end I had three complete different potential dissertations in my head without being able to settle on what I would trully like to research about and that being an acceptable MA dissertation research.
After one of the meetings I researched on politics and media influence, on power and decision making for the Games. Personally, I very much dislike politics. So after a couple of weeks of searching articles and reading I decided that this route would soon become a nightmare.
Now, I am leaning towards the event design theme area - which was actually my original interest, just not for the Games. There are a couple of areas I could focus, I just need to decide on which industry it will be researched and reviewed upon. Business or non-business orientated.

My topic thoughts

After a lot of thought and many conversations with friends and tutors I decided to change my topic area. I ended up realising for one more time that somehow I just have to write about the Olympic Games. I really liked Peter's methodology in pushing a lot of questions quite fast so you bring out what naturally interests you. Those questions helped me helped me choose one point of view for my topic, which is still very broad itself. So, at this stage my objective would be to analyse the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games. I understand that this is very wide and not exactly focused; analyse what? the success; in terms of an event or of attendance? the attendance; in terms of  a a ticket sale or as a touristic destination? the cultural input of the host city to the set up and main idea of the ceremonies? There are so many different areas that I could work on, that I have to admit I get a little bit lost. I just need some more reading in the subject and I am pretty positive I will find it in the end. The good part is that I truly enjoy reading about the Games.  

My first blog!!

Hi all,

This is my first blog and I am very excited!

As for my dissertation, I haven't decided exactly my topic, but I was thinking of working on a bicultural event, probably a wedding; but I wouldn't really like to limit it in that direction. I find it fascinating to have to combine traditions, cultures, different languages to create an event where everybody will enjoy it. Now, I guess I have to decide how I need to approach my topic, so as not to label myself as a "wedding planner"...