What about the place?

I just got a job as a “Banquet Attendant” at a beautiful manor close to my house. The place is often used to house weddings, which is where my job comes in. Our little team plus the cooks take care of everything that you wouldn’t want to on your special day.

We set everything up before anyone to do with the wedding arrives. All the bride needs to bring is herself, her guests, and the place cards. We take care of setup, cooking, clean up, serving, we cut the cake, everything. Now that I have done this for a few weddings, I think it is what I will do for mine. I can’t imagine spending all of my time setting up and cleaning up after my guests on one of the most important days of my life.

Proposal Disaster!

A proposal horror story from London:

 It is the one moment every man wants to get right — and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.

The luckless 28 year-old’s dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring — and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend — sailing away over the rooftops.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told The Sun newspaper.

“I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

“I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me.”

Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.

“I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question,” he said.

“But I had to tell her the story — she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring.”

He is hoping the ring will still turn up.

“It would be amazing if someone found it,” he added.

Oh man! Looks like he needs a new ring, and a new girlfriend!

By the way, what’s a plonker?

Reception: Food on a Budget

The meal or refreshments for your wedding reception can cut into a large part of your budget. Although there is “general and traditional” etiquette, you don’t necessarily have to follow. This is your wedding and it should reflect who you are and not a matter of trying to impress to the point you go in debt. Whether refined or downscaled, your reception can have style and stay within your budget.

Tips for early afternoon weddings:

A dessert buffet - have an assortment of cookies, mini cakes, pastries, truffles, along with punch and coffee. If you have a friend or family member who is a great cook, they may be more than willing to offer their baking skills. It would make the perfect wedding gift.

Tea-party style - a large variety of finger sandwiches, toasted panini, small cakes, tarts and tea, coffee and champagne.

Picnic - if you’re having an outdoor summer wedding, especially near or in a park, going picnic style may work very well. Include fried chicken, slaw, green beans, corn on the cob, potato salad, baked beans, rolls, chips and dips, simple desserts and drinks. Wine, whether alcoholic or non-alcoholic would add a nice touch.

Tips for evening weddings:

A buffet - a variety of pasta, rice, potatoes and bread, along with vegetables and/or garden salad, roasted chicken, sliced turkey, cabbage rolls and simple desserts. Soup would also work well.

Simple - a variety of sliced meats such as roast beef, ham and turkey and a variety of sliced cheese such as provolone, swiss, cheddar. Add in fruits such as grapes, strawberries, sliced apples with dip, a variety of salads and a variety of bread and crackers.

Cocktail-hour style - keep it simple with only cocktail food and drinks. Serve a variety of non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks with garnishes such as olives, lemon or lime and cherries. For food, include cheese and crackers, canapés, chips and salsa, raw vegetables with dip, pigs in a blanket and a variety of nuts.

Other tips:

Having the reception catered can be more expensive, but it can also lessen the pressure. This is an individual decision. If you cater your own reception, enlist friends and family members to help. Most people genuinely enjoy being part of the wedding in some way. You can also buy prepared fruit, vegetable, cheese and meat trays at a quality deli, which will save you time and be good on your budget.

If your budget doesn’t allow for a large wedding cake, have a small one made, just for the bride and groom, and then have sheet cakes for the guests.

Simple wedding receptions can be elegant and certainly just as memorable as more elaborate receptions.

Why Not Elope?

Here Comes The Blog has a great story about the merits and drawback of eloping. Eloping has struck me as a really romantic thing to do. I love old novels where the young lovers run off to Gretna Green, and I’ve thought about it as modern option ever since a grey-haired grandmother at my old job told me about her teenage elopement.

We eloped because neither of us felt like a big wedding was necessary. I didn’t want my parents to go into debt so I could get married, and it just wasn’t our style. People elope for lots of reasons. Some people are uncomfortable doing things in front of a crowd. Others would rather spend the wedding money on a quick Vegas wedding and a weekend of gambling. Whatever the reason, eloping is still a viable option for marriage-bound couples.

But there are also major drawbacks:

Perhaps the two biggest drawbacks to elopement are the potential hurt feelings of family and friends, and later in life you may miss the photo memories of an actual wedding and reception.

Muppet Wedding Cake

Hurray! The WeddingBee girls must have heard me promising to post pictures of rocking cakes, because Miss Cherry Blosson is showing some amazing cakes-pretending-to-be-other things!

And my favorite:

If you’re not interested in Oscar The Grouch at your wedding, check out more pics from the maker, Crazy Cake Company.

Recession-Proofing The Big Day

The always-awesome DIYbride has a really insightful article on recession-proofing your wedding. She skips the obvious “don’t spend your down payment on a dress you’ll wear once, doofus!” and focuses instead of good spending habits for a couple starting their life together. Too many couples start their marriage with a dream wedding, and piles of debt! And DIY Bride agrees with me:

Don’t go into debt for any wedding expenses. I’ve written about the perils of this before (from personal experience) and want every engaged couple to know that getting into deep debt for what’s essentially a big party is just plain financial stupidity. Sounds harsh, I know, but this is coming from someone who had a solid financial plan and the best intentions for getting out of debt fast but got caught in a downturn in the economy (dot com crash). It took years to rebound from that. Years, people.

Don’t count on outside sources to fund your wedding. Things are getting tight all over. Getting a personal loan will be harder as banks are starting to tighten their belts. Credit card companies are offering fewer credit line increases at low/affordable rates and newer cards are coming with higher APRs. While mom & dad may have offered a generous sum several months ago, their financial situation may as perilous as anyone else’s right now. Stock prices are dropping, the housing market is a mess, job security is … you get the idea. What was once a surplus may totally disappear in the coming months.

She also suggests starting an emergency savings fund, which is something I’ve been meaning to do every since I left college, but what I really do is sock a couple hundred dollars away, and then blow it when I have a surprise expense like car repairs or something else I wasn’t expecting. But with the possibility of recession and the threat of layouts, brides and non-brides would well to take this advice:

Start a personal emergency fund if you don’t have one in place. The general rule for emergency funds is to have enough cash to cover your basic expenses (rent/mortgage, food, utilities) for 3 - 6 months. You need to take care of yourself! This is not for wedding expenses, movie tickets or anything else but basic survival.

All right, that’s enough of negativity. My next post will be more wedding cake pics, I promise!

Stylish Save-The-Date

I saw this awesome ticket/invitation on TheUnBride, and I think it would make a great pattern for a Save-The-Day fridge magnet! I love the fridge magnet idea, (makes me smile when I’m grabbing a yogurt) but don’t really like those calender ones, they remind me of the cards the dentist or the gutter-cleaning service sends to remind you call them for an appointment. But this? Would be great.

When Vendors Attack

When my best college girlfriend got married a few years ago, she had a seamstress friend of hers make our bridesmaid dresses. It was a Renn-themed wedding, and the dressmaker specialized in Renn faire clothes. We didn’t have a contract because the bride was such good friends with the seamstress, and as the wedding drew closer, and we still hadn’t had out fittings, we weren’t worried because of course “Starlight” would finish in time.

You can see where this is going, right?

When the dresses were delivered — at the rehearsal dinner – the bridesmaids breathed a collective sigh of relief. So Starlight wasn’t the most professional tailor, but who cares if the dresses made it on time?

We giggled and decided to try on our gowns. The skirts and corset-tops were each made separately, and each girl had her own color. I grabbed the yellow top and bottom, and pulled them on, but the skirt was too long

Starlight had confused our measurements and colors. I had a skirt for a taller bridesmaid, with about six inches dragging at the hem. A chubbier maid couldn’t close my corset over her bust, while I tried to keep decent in a top for someone much larger.  We were looking at each other in horror when one of the groomsmen came to the door.

“We’re not dressed!” I opened the door a crack.

“Sorry to bother you, but we need the rest of our clothes,” the groomsman said. ”She must have put our pants in with your dresses.”

“No. We don’t have any men’s clothes at all,”

“But then… we don’t have any pants for the wedding!”

Everytime I see the wedding photos now, with the guys in their black jeans and wedding tunics or the girls in our pinned dresses, I laugh. Our late-night sewing session was pretty funny, but it was an awful time for the bride and groom. 

After the wedding, when the bride tried to claim compensation from her seamstress “friend”, we found out the friend’s company had gone of of business (I wonder why?!?!). It’s a horror story, but not that unusual. A WeddingBee bride went to pick up her ring, only to find the jewelry shop had closed. It’s sad when vendors let you down, but what can a bride do? Just try to get the best out of your day… and call the BBB after your honeymoon!

Novelty Wedding Cakes for Creative Brides and Grooms

I love flipping through bridal magazines and seeing all the creative wedding cakes (and groom’s cakes) that people come up with. It’s really amazing.

I think most of these cakes would be considered over-the-top by the average bride and groom — who, I’d guess, would prefer something abstract and/or elegant to, say, something with a Super Mario Bros (!) theme.

But they’re still totally worth a look — you never know what sort of idea might be sparked by a novelty wedding cake.

Things:
Jukebox cake
Tea for Two cake
Daleks & Phone booth cake (here’s an explanation)
Grandfather Clock cake
Turtle & Elephants cake
Classic Car cake
A Suitcase cake… and, another Suitcase cake
Rotary Phone cake
Nintendo cake (perfect for a retro wedding!)
Dog cake

Places:
Mountain cake (perfect for ski buffs)
Lifeboat cake
Yacht cake
French Village cake
Taj Mahal cake
Moroccan Pagoda cake
Japanese Pagoda cake
Sherwood Forest cake, for the Robin Hood fans
Minas Tirith, for the Tolkien-obsessed

Which of these is your favorite? Would you ever use one at your wedding? (Or, maybe a toned-down version of one of them?)

Unbridal

Unbride M.R. shares her inspiration board (love the summery pink with hints of green), and her comments on being a non-trad bride.

I am also an unbride.. just like you. I am 29 also, and find that a traditional wedding is not for me. Yes, some traditions will be included, nor am I having a wedding based on Star Trek or Medevil times. And yet I find that when I explain to people that I am not a traditional bride, they roll their eyes and don’t understand. They assume that by being untraditional you cannot be beautiful, chic, and classy. You can be an unbride and still have style.

Exactly! I don’t want a poufy dress and a unity candle, but I do want a lovely wedding day and nice photos when it’s over. You don’t have to have a cookie-cutter wedding to have a gorgeous, memorable day! And you don’t need an officiant in a Starfleet uniform to have a creative wedding.

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