Bride Dress and Weight Loss

Being also a writer at the Healthy Living and Diet Logs blogs, I figured out this could perhaps be of interest to some, as well as be more fit for this very blog than for the others.

The subject is, of course, what to do when it comes to your bride dress, and you want to lose a serious amount of weight for your wedding–and I do not mean only a few vanity pounds, but enough to make you go down two, three sizes or even more.

First, be aware that wedding dresses run in sizes larger than your average size in regular shops; that’s because what is taken into account is the smallest measurement, so if for instance you’re like me and have slightly broad shoulders or a naturally large bosom but your waist is perfectly alright, don’t be surprised to find yourself with a size 14 dress when in fact you’re an 8. It doesn’t mean anything, and nobody will see the size tag anyway as long as you don’t let them know.

Second, I would advise you to NOT wait longer than needed to order your dress. Most often, it is recommended that you do that no less than six months before the wedding: a dress can take between 6 and 10 weeks to arrive, and then you also have to account for potential (likely?) adjustments to be made. If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s great, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot thinking “if I wait some more, maybe I will lose one more size”. It’s not worth losing the dress of your dreams over that: when you find it, BUY IT, no matter its size.

And that’s where it comes down: adjustments. These will be your friends. Evidently, you’ll have to be prepared to shell out some more money, but it cannot be worse than having to find another dress at the last moment, or, the horror, ending up without any dress at all. For what it’s worth, make use of all those seamstress friend of a friend of a friend connections and others of the same kind, and/or make sure to find one you can trust long before it’s time to perform the needed adjustments. The better s/he’ll know you beforehand, the best s/he will be to get you what you want in due time. Anyway, it’s always better to have your dress having to be altered down that the other way round, isn’t it?
And last but not least: if you want to shed enough weight, start working on it in advance, too–not in those six months before the wedding. A crash diet will only leave you tired and perhaps even with unwanted symptoms, such as hair loss (isn’t that hideous in the pictures?), with the added certainty of gaining all the weight back plus some. Giving yourself one or two years before the actual ceremony will allow you to take on that endeavour with a lighter mind, and a slower but healthier weight loss rate.

Besides, in 12 or 18 months, you can indeed get closer to your goal–close enough for you to pick your dress without having to dread the performing of many alterations.

A Honeymoon Registry?

Here is a great idea for a registry for couples who already have a lot of things to start their new life. It’s called a honeymoon registry. Friends and family can buy your dinner, help pay for sight-seeing, or just about anything else related to trip expenses.

At Buy Our Honeymoon.com, couples can create a registry of things pertaining to their honeymoon. Friends can then go and purchase those things for you. Instead of a towel set or a frying pan, wouldn’t a nice bottle of champagne or a romantic dinner be more fun?

Even today with brides having several bridal theme showers, you could always have a honeymoon shower where guests could buy or go in together to get something on your list. Here is a sample registry that shows a list of some items a couple wants for their Tuscan Villa honeymoon.

Honeymoons can be expensive, so why not create a registry for it? I think it’s a great idea especially for those hard-to-buy-for couples who already have everything or for couples who are heading into their second marriage. Buy our honeymoon does have a free trial period but is a paid service. For the right couple, this could be a very useful registry to ensure that they don’t receive yet another gravy boat or another item that is useless to them.

The fact that today anyone can buy airline ticket, has made everyone go airlines. Does not matterof the airline in question is indian airlines or american. People know that now they only need an airline ticket on any airlines to europe

Inviting Co-workers At Your Wedding… Or Not

If, like me, you’re working in a tiny office where everyone tends to know everyone, this may be something of a problem you’ll be faced with when it’s time to decide on who to invite.

So, one thing I’d like to state right from the start is that: there is nothing wrong with not inviting work colleagues at your wedding. No matter how much some like to say “we’re a tiny family”, or other similar guilt-trip inducing sentences. As a rule of thumb, if you do not socialize with your co-workers outside of the office, there is also no reason why, out of the blue, they should be on your guests list. Any kind of bruised susceptibilities after that will be just that, and not you committing and awful etiquette mistake. (Personally, I tend to keep work and private life clearly separated–not because I don’t like my colleagues, but simply because it is the way I am, the way my personality is set. I am quite confident that lots of people do that as well.)

Maybe your office will throw a bridal shower for you, though, or offer gifts all the same. What about that? Well, again, there is still nothing wrong with not inviting them in turn, especially if the shower is something completely independent from your own will (of course, if you demand they organize one for you, then the matter is different, but demanding is in bad taste anyway, isn’t it?).

The only really tricky part, in my opinion and from experience witnessed at friends’ weddings, is if you invite a couple of people from your office because you are close to them, and don’t want to invite the others. Diplomacy is key here, but one thing you can always say, and that will always provide a clean escape, is that you are on a tight budget, have to be very careful of the head count, and that you unfortunately had to choose. Still, this might hurt feelings; however, you really cannot invite the whole world, can you? People should and normally do understand that, and if some don’t, then the problem lies with them, not with you. It is your day: stay diplomatic, but firm, and promise to share the pictures as soon as possible to show that you appreciate all the well-wishes and are not keeping anyone out of your thoughts.

Do You Need a Wedding Planner?

Some people need to have control of every little detail of their wedding days. That makes sense, since it is one of those days you’ll remember (at least parts of) for the rest of your life.

Other people just don’t want to have to deal with all those details on the day of the wedding, instead handing over a bit of control to a professional known as a wedding planner.

A wedding planner can be a big help. She or he takes a lot of stress off the bride and the wedding party by coordinating with vendors, making sure everyone is where they need to be when they need to be there and dealing with any last-minute problems that might crop up. Getting a wedding planner involved in the early stages can help you stick to a budget, ensure that all aspects of your wedding fit together into a cohesive whole, and help you form and carry out a vision for the wedding of your dreams.
But having a planner adds an expense that not all couples are willing or able to pay. The cost for a wedding planner varies widely depending on where you live and what kind of services are being provided, but a good rule of thumb is that it will cost 10 to 15 percent of the total cost of the wedding to have a planner.

Having a wedding planner is certainly not a necessity if you are having a small wedding or have a friend or family member who is not in the wedding party who can help you with the details. Ask at your ceremony and reception location if they have wedding coordinator services. You may be able to use someone who is familiar with the site to direct vendors where they need to go and accept deliveries, so at least you don’t have to think about that.

Having a wedding planner or coordinator can take some stress off the wedding party on the wedding day, but if you’re willing to handle a little stage management on your big day, it’s a cost you can definitely do without.

Ready for the Weather?

Like many people, I wanted to have an outdoor wedding, so I booked a venue in my hometown that allowed for an outdoor ceremony and an indoor reception.

I think this was really good planning on my part because in the event of bad weather (the day before the wedding was cold and windy but the day of the big event was bright, warm and cloudless) we could have taken the whole show inside.

Some venues, such as city parks and beaches, don’t have the option of an indoor locale in the case of bad weather–whether you’re talking about rain, snow or just extreme heat or cold.

If you’re planning a wedding for a place without indoor accommodations, have a back-up plan. Many brides opt for renting a tent that’s big enough to accommodate all the guests, their chairs and the altar, if necessary.

If your ceremony and reception both are going to be outside, you might already have a tent in your budget for the reception portion of the event. In that case, talk to your wedding planner or the person at your rentals shop about arranging things so that you could have the ceremony under cover if you needed to.

Planning for bad weather usually doesn’t add a lot of expense to your big day, but it can certainly save the day if bad weather does indeed strike. And if it does, just remember, it’s supposed to be good luck if it rains on your wedding day. I’m not so sure about snow.

Gifts: Asking For Money?

It really seems like many brides and grooms ask themselves this question, especially when they try to pay for their own weddings, so I don’t think I’m off when it comes to mentioning it here.

As more and more couples live together before their wedding nowadays, and as the age at which they marry has increased, it often happens that most items they could need–what traditionally was offered as wedding gifts–are already between their hands, and that they don’t actually need to set up a household. What about asking for money as wedding gifts, then? Is it in poor taste, and bad etiquette display? Or is there a way to do it without appearing rude?

The first rule is that you don’t ask for money, and don’t include such a request in your wedding invitation (nor a request for any gift, by the way): it IS considered rude. Even if you’re directly asked about it, tradition still demands that you don’t openly mention it. However, you may have someone else get the word out for you and let other people know in passing that “since you’re asking, any gift is welcome, you can have a look at their registry, but I also know know that money would be a good idea because [insert reason here]” (people generally like to know that such a gift would be put to a particular use). After all, wishing to save up to buy a house, for instance, or covering a down-payment for a mortgage, isn’t a silly reason at all to prefer money to other types of gifts, and one definitely couldn’t blame you taking care of what is useful to your household.

So, tradition-wise, asking for money still remains a delicate topic. Nevertheless, most people are aware that a lot of young couples would need it all the same–rather than a pretty gift that is of course nice, but not necessarily the most useful item they could wish for. Therefore, knowing how to ask for it indirectly may very well wield positive results without causing a fuss nor making anyone angry with you.

As a side note, you should still put together a small registry: there will always be people who will prefer to offer a specific item as a gift no matter what, and this will allow them to do so without making you appear like you’re white-knuckling them because “money or nothing, they haven’t left us any other choice”. Some companies also give you the option of setting up a registry where guests can pay for “gifts” (e.g. a dinner out at this-or-that famous restaurant) that, minus a small fee, will be in fact given to you as cash. This may seem tacky to some, but depending on what you wish to use the money for, if your guests can still feel like they’re really taking part and not just handing out fat dollars or signing a check, you might want to keep such a solution in mind.

How to Write a Thank You Note

Since I’ve blogged here about tracking your thank you cards in order to avoid accidentally forgetting anyone–and after Lynn’s post about the matter on this very blog (she offers pretty good ideas, I think)– I figured out that maybe I could add a word about proper etiquette, if I may say so, when it comes to actually writing your cards.

• A personal ‘thank you’ note is pretty much the only way to go here (no, an e-mail won’t cut it). Pre-printed cards are a definite no-no: believe me, it’s easy to recognize one of those, and people never really appreciate, even if they pretend they did, to receive the very same thing that has evidently be sent to fifty other people. You have to make every guest feel special, feel like their gift has truly touched you (I hope it is the case). A personalized note, even a brief one, will always be better than some flowery text, poem or quote, if the latter is just another cookie-cutter filler. Also, the note should be hand-written, not typed: it tends to express sincerity in a much better way.
• Another thing to keep in mind: pay extra attention to friends and family who have helped you organize, threw a shower party for you, etc. They’ve gone out of their way, and they’ll be pleased if you ‘officially’ thank them for that as well as for their gifts.
• Regarding the gifts, it is common etiquette to send one card per gift received if those have not been offered at the same time–for instance, a shower gift, then a gift at the wedding party itself. And, by all means, don’t send ‘group cards’ thanking everyone at once in cases where members of a same family unit have brought a gift each. Thank every person individually, no matter the roof under which s/he lives.
• An evident thing, but one that one might overlook, in their wish to write something really personalized: your cards must remain readable! Please avoid using yellow ink or anything too fancy. Black or blue will do very well.
• When it comes to writing style, make sure that it is appropriate depending on the people. You will not thank your grandmother the same way you’ll thank that friend of your mother who you don’t know too well, but has sent a gift no matter what.
• Finally, as a matter of politeness (this is a common rule in many types of letter writing, after all), don’t start your cards with ‘I’.

As a side note, these little ‘rules’ are also worth being followed for other types of cards, so I believe it can really be useful to keep them in mind.

A Different Approach to the Thank You Note

It is just good etiquette to send a thank you note to guests who bring a gift to your wedding. If someone spends time buying you a gift, then you should take a few minutes to thank them properly. There are the traditional thank you cards that you can buy. You might even be able to buy some matching thank you cards for your wedding invitations. There are a few other approaches to thanking guests that might be more to your style or liking.

There is a wedding favor that is basically a cover-all thank you note for guests. It’s in the form of a wedding scroll and pretty much thanks guests for attending and supporting you. I have known some brides just to use these in lieu of the traditional thank you cards. There are also thank you wedding favors that are used to thank guests for coming to the wedding. This is probably a good idea best for friends and possibly some family members. If Aunt Sally has to have a thank you card, then you better send her a traditional one. If you know guests on care one way or the other, just use a scroll and save time.

For a more personal thank you, why not send postcards from your honeymoon destination? Some people actually collect postcards, so this would be a great thank you for them. I think it’s safe to say that most people would enjoy a postcard. It would be cheaper to mail although it creates some stress on the honeymoon to get them filled out and in the mail. A small list of people who would love one would be the best way to go. You can thank them for their gift and wedding attendance plus give them a small souvenir at the same time.

It is still proper to thank guests for their gifts however you choose to do it. You can even mix methods to make it easier on yourself. A more traditional approach for family while something a little more modern for friends. Either way just don’t forget to send those thank you notes within a few weeks of receiving your wedding gift.

Things You Can Do Without

Budgetting a wedding is never an easy task. But among all the things you have to think of, maybe some aren’t exactly mandatory, and nobody would mind you if you were to do without them. I’ve been researching this a little, and here are a few suggestions that maybe, just maybe, will help you prepare better.

• Wedding cars. They are nice, but depending on the distance between the church and reception hall, maybe they’re not worth it. After all, your guests will see you for one or two minutes in it; perhaps finding another way (going on foot, borrowing a nice car from a friend…) would be more useful here.
• Invites and RSVP cards. For small to medium-sized weddings, and if your every day life committments allow you to do so, doing them yourself will help you save enough money in terms of print workshop’s costs. Besides, even if it takes more time, it can also be itneresting to do.
• Pictures. Don’t worry, it’s not about not taking any! But if it is possible, ask your photographer for all the prints, CDs and negatives and create your own photo books and duplicates to share. This should be less expensive than having said photographer do everything.
• Chair covers. If your relatives and friends are like mine, they’ll throw their jackets over them anyway. Nobody will really pay attention.
• Favours. From what I’ve found out, many people won’t even notice if you don’t have them.
• Dessert. Instead of having a dessert AND a wedding cake, why not make the cake your dessert? In every wedding I’ve been, meals were so filling that it was quite hard for the guests to ‘have room’ for a dessert and a wedding cake.

There are probably other things one could do without, but I hope these few ideas will be of help all the same.

A few things to know: what might annoy your guests

The best party is the one where everyone has fun, that’s well-known. And although it is far from being an easy goal to achieve–can we ever make everybody happy?–here are a few things you might want to keep in mind for the experience to be enjoyed by both the newlyweds and their guests, without any bitter memory lingering on afterwards:

• Long pauses, especially between the ceremony and the reception. It seems that many guests don’t like having to wait at the door, so it may be a good idea to book that reception hall for 5:30 instead of 6 p.m if your ceremony ends at 5, since everyone will want to go there quickly enough.
• Preparations that still last until the last moment, such as decorations being held up where the guests already are. It kind of kills the mood.
• Not having any place to sit at the reception. Make sure that there will be enough seats, or have them even reserved with every guest’s name, just in case of.
• Making your guests pay for their drinks and food during the reception.
• Speeches can be a tricky part sometimes, so better have them out of the way before people begin to be tired or, worse, drunk and not really knowing what they’re saying to the crowd anymore.
• Separating couples. If a guest doesn’t know anyone at the party save for his/her significant other, putting them at two different tables isn’t a very good idea.
• Photographers who take ages to perform their ‘duty’. Again, nobody really likes waiting.
• Similarly, having your photographs shot in inconvenient places. (I remember a wedding where half the guests spilled on the road near the church, with a long line of cars honking for a good 15 minutes for them to go away. I bet you don’t want your wedding ceremony to end up in such a cacophony!)

Those are only but a few ideas about little logistic elements to keep in mind. There is really so much to do when preparing a wedding, so I know it isn’t easy, but I hope that having compiled this little list may help all the same.

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