Planning Your Wedding

When a couple are getting married everyone wants to support and help them make a great start in their new life and choosing wedding gifts gives you the chance to have an impact on their future happiness.

When buying wedding gifts it is important to think about how well the gift will last. A wedding gift that is worn out after a year will not mean much in ten years time but a wedding present that is still in use ten years hence will remain a reminder of the great day and of you.

My favorite choice for a wedding gift is cast iron cookware not least because it lasts a lifetime. So much of our modern lives is temporary and transient so it is great that there is something that lasts so well it can be passed on to our children when we are gone.

You can get enameled cast iron cookware in a variety of colors or you can choose the plain iron look but whichever you choose you will know you are giving a quality wedding gift that will be in use for years and years.

Before yor wedding you will be giving some thought to what to wear with your dress. Some special jewelry for the big day would be very appropriate and while you are buying your jewelry and accessories why not buy a wooden jewelry box to put it in.

If there is one material that always looks elegant and stylish it is wood and you can find many beautiful wooden jewelry boxes available from the small traveling jewelry box through to whole wooden jewelry cabinets or armories that can be as big as you require.

Wood is a beautiful natural material and is often used to craft hand made custom jewelry cabinets made from hardwoods and finished with a wonderful glossy surface which shows the beauty of the grain of the wood beneath.

The speeches are often a highlight of any wedding. It may be they are amusing, they may be quite emotional and moving but the worst case scenario is when they are a disaster.

Making a wedding speech can go wrong in many way. There are plenty of stories of a drunken groom, best man or father of the bride making a fool of themselves and embarrassing the bride so the first and most important rule must be do not drink too much before you have made your speech. It seems so obvious but it needs to be said.

Planning your wedding speech should start some time before the wedding takes place. Some people can write a speech in minutes but for those of us who are unaccustomed to making speeches it can be a difficult task and it may take you some time.

Start with a list of some points you would like to mention and develop each one into a paragraph or two. Make some of the sections amusing and one or two can be emotional remembrances of events that played a part in getting to this point where the wedding is taking place.

Keep it light and friendly and enjoy the moment. It is a rare opportunity to display your love to the the world so enjoy the moment.

The numbers vary from maybe two to two thousand but the numbers of guests you invite to your wedding is your choice. There is no reason to be too concerned what people may say if they don’t get an invite. You, or whoever is paying the bills, have to make a choice and if the money is limited you have to cut the numbers of guests you can invite.

The alternative is to invite them all but not supply them with food, drink or accommodation. If they pay the bills I am sure you would be happy for all of them to turn up at your wedding celebration.

It is so easy to get carried away with plans for a wedding but you must keep your feet on the ground and be realistic about the costs of a wedding. More guests means more money in several different areas and it may be you really need that money when you are starting out on your married life.

If these friends and relations really care for you they will want you to begin your marriage on a sound financial footing and they would not want to be the cause of you starting married life with huge debts. Apologies that you cannot afford to invite them but tell them how much you wish you could have done.

It is all too easy to get carried away with some of the things you would like to have at your wedding. Unfortunately most of them come at a price and it is all too easy to end up spending a lot more than you can comfortably afford on your wedding day so managing the cost of a wedding is an important skill for any bride to learn.

In many cases there will be cheaper alternatives that will achieve the same result but at a lower cost. Some wedding suppliers charge a lot because they know most brides will not question the price but if you get a few different quotes from different companies you may find you get a much better deal and still have the wedding of your dreams.

Spring is in the air, for those of us up here in the Northern Hemisphere, and for many people this means they start thinking about weddings and wedding planning.

Getting married is a very significant event in your life and in the greater scheme of things. The time of year you get married is almost unimportant compared to the lifetime you will share together but when you are planning a wedding it feels very important.

The Spring and early summer are probably the most popular times to get married and this is probably something to do with the natural process of nature. We all feel how spring is different. Everything is starting anew, the plants and flowers are bursting into life and everything feels fresh and clean, so it’s a good time to be arrange your wedding for.

Most people plan weddings a year or more in advance so now is a good time to think about a wedding next year. All the wedding support companies will be very active right now and ready to respond to your needs.

So now Spring is in the air start thinking about your wedding plans for the future.

It may seem a daunting task when you first think about all the things you have to do to prepare for your wedding but breaking up the big tasks into smaller sections and trying to do at least one small part of those things every day makes the whole wedding planning process a little easier and less stressful.

So, try to do something towards your wedding plan today.

A wedding can sometimes seem like a very formal occasion. Well it would wouldn’t it? It is a very serious step in someones life. The guests will most likely only know a half of all the people there and maybe less so sometimes you can physically see the room divided into two halves. The bride’s friends and family and the grooms frineds and family. What we need are some fun things to get people who have never met before, talking to each other. We need some seated wedding reception games to get the ball rolling

A wedding reception full of guests who look a little bit bored is not what you want to see at your wedding. They may not all be eager to get up and dance so they sit there looking around the room wondering when it will be OK to leave. You don’t want that at your wedding do you? What you can do is to plan some activities to engage and entertain the guests. Some fun things that will help them get to know each other better.

Here’s one that’s fun and might remind you just a little bit of a football game. Make a placard for each guest. On one side, letter “Bride” and on the other, “Groom”. Someone, and if you have a DJ it can be him or her, or the best man or maid of honor, asks a series of questions. They might be simple, like “who was born in New York City”? Or they might be more complicated, such as “who, at 6, broke their leg when they were playing with their German shepherd puppy”?

Guests don’t yell their answer, but rather show their placard, turning it to the “bride” side of they think the question pertains to the bride or to the “groom” side if it’s the opposite. The guests’ guesses can be revealing, but even more revealing, are the true answers. It’s a great, fun way for everyone to get to know a little more about the bride and groom.

One word of caution about the above activity: Keep ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends out of the questions and don’t ask anything that might be a little too revealing or too risqué. Remember, grandmothers and grandfathers and young children will likely be present!

If it’s too much work to create signs for each person, you can create just two and create two teams – a team of men and a team of women. Grouped together, the teams can work together to decide on the answer and answer as a group. This “men versus women” concept is always popular and sure to be fun for everyone.

One silly game that’s always a hit really puts the groom in the spotlight. How well does he know the feel and touch of his new wife? In this game, everyone finds out. You can do this several ways. You can enlist just the wedding party in this game, or as many of the wedding guests that want to participate.

Line each participant up and blindfold the groom. Put the bride somewhere in the mix, and send the groom on a hunt for his bride. The participants can either shake the groom’s hand or give him a kiss on the cheek. In some versions, he might feel their hair or their leg. The details are up to you.

Depending on how far you want to take this game, you can add a fun element to it that is sometimes popular. You have the groom feel the leg of each participant. The best man, or other male member of the wedding party, rolls up his pant leg, puts on a garter and has the groom feel that. The groom has to kiss whoever he thinks is his bride, while still blindfolded. Often, he ends up kissing a man.

For an activity that allows the guests to be audience members instead of participants, consider the game of “feed me”. In this game, the bride is seated and the groom is (again) blindfolded. He’s given a piece of food and then spun around a few times so he’s a little bit dizzy. Guided only by the helpful words of his new bride, he has to find her and get the piece of food into her mouth. Be sure to have the wedding party shadowing him so there are no accidents.

Once the groom has fed his new wife, the tables are turned and she is blindfolded and must find him.

A few notes about this activity: when feeding the bride, don’t use wedding cake or a piece of bread with dip. In other words, don’t use anything too messy. If the groom has a hard time finding her mouth, he might likely smear the food on the bride’s face and that is something that won’t make a bride – prettily made up just hours before – too happy.

The time has finally arrived when you get to choose your wedding dress. After years of dreaming about it the day is rapidly approaching when you will say your vows and commit to your new spouse. Every little girl has a dream of what her perfect wedding with will be like. When dreams of  weddings are in your mind the wedding dress will always be a vital part of the dream.

In real life choosing which dress you want at the wedding dress store can be overwhelming with people telling you which is best and trying on so many dresses. You must choose between halters, strapless or spaghetti straps.  A line, empire waist or mermaid. There are so many different styles it is so hard to decide. So, here are a few helpful tips and suggestions for choosing your wedding dress for your big day.

Get a wedding Dress That Is Right For Your Figure
Your wedding dress needs to be appropriate for your figure so while you may well love strapless gowns, if you have a large chest they may not be the best choice for you.  Better to look for a dress with some support. Something like a halter dress or a dress with cap sleeves may be far more suitable. In addition, while some large, flouncy, princess gowns look great on store mannequins, it takes a certain body type to effectively pull the dress off. If you have a short waist or are not very tall in general, chances are that this type of dress will completely engulf you and make you look absolutely ridiculous. So even if you absolutely love a dress on the hanger or the store mannequin, remember that you have to find a dress that fits your figure, not a size zero mannequin.

Fit Your Location
Something must be said about dress appropriateness for the location of the wedding and or the reception. If you are having a beach wedding, for example, you should probably find some sort of beach like wedding dress. Instead of a huge dress with a large train, you will probably want something thin and lightweight with a very small train if you are getting married on the beach. You do not want your dress to be covered with sand, and sand can get caught in a train or even in certain materials like lace. Instead, the light weight, wispy materials are easy to shake off and can easily be loosed of any sand that may attempt to attach itself.

Try Two!
A new trend is to get two wedding dresses: one for the ceremony and one for the reception. The ceremony dress can be ornate, glamorous, and formal. Then you can get a more casual and comfortable wedding dress for the reception. This is so that you can have your formal wedding dress, but still be comfortable at your wedding reception.

You finally decide you are to be married and the excitement makes you skin tingle. You are walking on a cloud for several days until you start to think about planning the wedding. Suddenly it dawns on you what a big challenge this will be. There are so many things to think about and so many thinks to plan.

Calm down and take a breather. Planning a wedding is like building a wall. You take it one brick at a time. You need to break the process down into several different sections. For example you have the pre-wedding preparations on the day of the wedding, the wedding itself, the celebration after the wedding and finally your honeymoon.

See how we already have separated one big problem into smaller ones? You can split each of these smaller parts into even smaller things to prepare and make lists of things to do in each section and simply tick them off when you have completed them.

Even the biggest wedding is made up of lots of parts that are joined together so stop worrying and tackle each small part separately.