Alternative to Rice Bags

Rice bags can make it rough on the birds and the environment.  Not only that, you have the problem of accidently injuring someone with the rice pellets because they are so rough.  One of the best alternatives to rice bags is rose petals.  You can fill the bags with rose petals and have everyone toss those for good luck instead of rice bags.

 

Another alternative is bird seed.  Bird seed is environmentally freely but you do have the problem of the seed hitting someone in the eye.  Just ask guests to use caution when they are celebrating your wedding with you.

Honoring a Deceased Parent or Friend at Your Wedding

Many times people think that they should honor a deceased parent or friend on their wedding invitations. This is no longer the modern tradition.  You should honor someone that has passed and meant a great deal to your life.  There are several methods that you can honor someone that is special at your wedding.

 

One of the simplest ways to honor a deceased person for your wedding is to include a small paragraph on your wedding program.  This is an excellent way to pay tribute to them and to include them in your wedding ceremony.  Where you place it on the wedding program is entirely up to the couple.

 

Another way to honor someone that has died at your wedding is to place a candle in their honor near where the vows will be taken.  You can light the candle together as a couple or have it pre-lit prior to the wedding ceremony.  A small note can be placed in the program the reason for the lit candle.

 

 

Etiquette for Addressing Wedding Invitations

Wedding invitations are a very important part of the wedding.  It is important to understand how to address wedding invitations that you will be sending out to your guests.  The first thing to do is to plan ahead.  Invitations should be mailed out to your guests approximately two months before the wedding.  This is especially important if guests will be arriving from out of town. 

 

You can also place a memorial candle at the reception area or guest book signing area with a picture of the loved one.  You can even include a small framed note explaining the importance and significance that they had in your life for others to read. 

 

Another way to pay tribute to a deceased parent or someone significant in your life is to include their name in the newspaper announcement for your engagement and for your wedding.  These are great ways to honor someone and have them included in your wedding.

Wording Wedding Invitations When Multiple People Paying

In the past, it was traditional for the wedding to be paid for by the bride’s family.  In fact, normally weddings were completely paid for by the bride’s parents.  But today there are many couples that have family relations that are not your traditional parents of times past.  There are blended families, step-parents, divorced parents and it can get complex doing wedding invitation wording. 

 

You ideally want the wedding invitation to reflect who is funding the wedding.  This person is normally the one requesting that guests attend the wedding.  If the couple is paying for the wedding you should put the couple’s name as the request for attending the wedding.  If it is in conjunction with the parents then you should put together with the parents as the wording and then the couple’s names for the invitation.

 

What if the parents are divorced?  You should list the father’s name first with the prefix of Mr. and the mother’s name second with the prefix of Ms. This will make certain both names are on the wedding invites without offending anyone.

 

For friends of the family that aren’t relatives that are helping to fun the wedding you can list the friends of the bride and groom or you can list the names of the friends depending on how many are helping to pay for the wedding.  It is best to ask them their preference.

 

If there is more than one person in the household that you are addressing the wedding invitations to you might need to send more than one invitation.  If the people are a couple, you can address the envelope with both their names alphabetically.  If the people in the home are roommates, you should address a separate invitation for each person.  Children over the age of 18 years should be sent a separate invitation even if you sent one to the couple or roommates of the home.  If however, the children are under the age of 18, they’re invite is considered part of the parents’ invite.

 

Always hand address the wedding invitations.  You should write neatly on the front the names and address of the guests.  On the back flap of the invitation, you should put your return address.  Don’t use sticky labels or rubber stamps for this.  Your return address should also be written by hand.

Individual Wedding Cakes Option

Often it is hard to plan for a big wedding.  There are so many activities that you must attend to.  One of the big parts is the wedding cake.  Many couples find this part of the wedding planning to be frustrating.  One option is to provide individual wedding cakes.  This can save money on the wedding and is a terrific option for guests, especially at a large wedding with lots of children attending.

 

The traditional bridal and groom cakes can be made and cut for the wedding ceremony.  Then instead of serving everyone the bridal cake, you can serve individual wedding cakes on platters.  You take regular wedding cake mix and bake sheets of cakes.  Freeze.  Cut with cookie cutters to fit the wedding theme.  Ice. Freeze again.  Place on platters.  Guests can serve themselves and there is less mess if there are a large number of children attending the wedding. 

 

This makes for a great alternative to serving everyone a slice of cake from the main wedding cake.  You can also save on the size of the bridal and groom cakes because everyone will be eating the individual cakes instead.  You can save even more money by having the bridesmaids help you to make these instead of having them catered in.  You can decorate to match the theme of the bridal cake.  Everyone is sure to love this idea.

The Right Color

After you have gone through so much time and effort to pick just the right colors in the right shades and hues, you pick up your photos and your beautiful ivory dress looks white, and your brides perfect shade of violet looks blue. You are beside yourself and voice your complaint.

This has been an on-going problem since I have been in the wedding photography business in the early 70’s, and from what I hear long before that. Think the new digital photographs solve the problem? Think again.

I have had to talk to many brides over the years about this and the biggest name in photography, Kodak had put out a press release explaining why this happens. While it’s been years since I have had to explain it, this is what I remember from Kodak.

The problem in not the film, equipment, or processing. It has to do with the color of the flash, the reflection of UV light, and the type and dyes used in the different materials for the girls dresses. The truth is the flashes on cameras cannot compare with the natural sunlight that allows us to see the true colors in real life. While I don’t doubt that a program like photoshop run by an expert can color the dress true color, this would be impractical for a thousand shots typically taken at a wedding.

The bride then has a choice. Although contrast and saturation can be manipulated by computor, color usually includes the entire photo. In other words to get a blue dress in a photo to look violet, we would have to add magenta or maybe red to the photo. That’s great, now the dress is the proper color, however now the skin tones are magenta or red and the people look horrible. So do you want nice color for the overall picture, or a bad color that will show the real dress color? Most brides opt for good color overall.

What I would suggest is that you ask the photographer to just take a picture of the dress from the neck down and you can then have the color on that one photo changed to match the real dress.

You might ask what would happen if the photog doesn’t use direct flash? The answer is that he/she can bounce the flash off the ceiling or walls, but the color of the light that bounces back will be changed by the color of the surface it’s bounced off of.

You may have better luck with outdoor photos showing true color. However my recommendation is that you never put all your eggs in one basket. Have a few taken indoors, some outdoors, some flash, some bounce, some available light. The available light photos will appear more green/blue if your light source is flouresant, regular lamp light will shade the photos heavy yellow and orange. Your photos won’t all match exactly to each other this way, but you will get a variation in the dress color.

As for your ivory dress, the problem is easier to solve. Just make sure that some photos are bounced and available light and after you’ve seen the proofs, tell your photog that you want your dress true color, if you have a swatch you can give them they have a better chance of matching it. It’s not that drastic of a color shift so the skin tones will be a little warmer but still ok. Also having pictures taken with available light will show up the beading detail on your gown, where as regular flash will just wash it out. Suggest a few shots taken at a window with just natural light coming in. The detail that comes in on the dress is awesome.

One more comment on color. This goes for guests also. It only seems to occur on woman dresses and not tuxes because I think the material on the dresses is thinner, but try to avoid wearing black. Flash very often goes right through the material to show the hint of underwear worn. So in other words you can see enough through to know if the person was wearing a half or full slip, or with out a slip the cut of the bra and underpants.

Cut-Glass Centerpieces

An awesome DIY for wedding centerpieces and decorations. The bride-to-be started collecting vintage cut-glass cups, glasses and small bowls, from tag sales, thrift stores and so forth. Now that she’s building a collection of similar styles of cut-glass, she plans to use them for candles at her wedding. What a lovely idea!

If you have the time and like thrift stores, this would be a great way to add personal style without breaking the bank. There are endless variations on this, too. Look for eclectic but coordinating vases for your flowers, retro brass candlesticks, or glassware in your wedding colors. (You can always fill it out your plan with pieces from Target or Ikea, if your local thriftstore only provides centerpieces for 12 of your 20 tables.)

Custom Wedding Cocktails

Wedaholic talks about drinks for your guests besides the classic flute of champagne. She suggests greeting your guests with cider, hard lemonade, mulled wine or making a unique wedding cocktail for your guests. I’m a fan of champagne… or at least I was before I saw some these awesome alternatives to a glass of bubbly. 

 Anything which can set your wedding apart from the rest (for the right reasons) is a good think and by choosing your own distinctive signature cocktail you will not only be serving up a delicious treat to your wedding guests but you will also be creating a conversation piece amongst them.

Something to also bear in mind is that serving cocktails at your wedding provides you with an ideal opportunity to carry your wedding theme and color schemes through to the drinks served. For example, if the color scheme of your wedding is purple then how about serving a cocktail containing grape juice such as Purple Passion to co-ordinate with your wedding colors, or if your colors are blue serve a cocktail containing Blue Curacao such as a Blue Hawaii or if red is the main color in your wedding theme then how about serving the infamous Cosmopolitan.

Read the whole thing here.

 

Trash The Dress

You’re probably heard about the Trash The Dress trend. Basically, after the wedding the bride destroys her dress in some kind of crazy / artsy / funny photoshoot. (Check some lovely ones out right here) Some of them are really quite beautiful, with the bride jumping in a lake in her wedding day white, or playing soccer in the mud. And they’re a nice final shot for your wedding album!

 Some of them, though, just seem like a huge waste. Yeah, I don’t think I’d ever wear my wedding dress again (especially one of those big meringue poufs) but ripping up or burning my dress is just too wasteful. Donate it, save it for the kids, turn into a quilt, but don’t destroy it!

From Biedermeier To Tussy-Mussy

Wedding flowers are an important part of the big day. TheKnot.com has a glossary of floral terms, from Biedermeier to Tussy-Mussy, that will help you explain exactly what you want to your florist. You’ll probably by familiar with most of these arrangement, but it’ll be nice to say “nosegay” instead of “like what cousin Sarah had at her wedding.”

Biedermeier: A tightly arranged nosegay consisting of concentric circles of various differently colored flowers. The blooms are wired into a holder, with one flower variety per ring.

Cascade: A waterfall-like spill of blooms, often composed of ivy and long-stemmed flowers, that is wired to cascade gracefully over the bride’s hands.

Classic bouquet: A dense bunch of blooms that can be anchored in a bouquet holder, wired, or hand-tied.

Read the rest of the glossary here.

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