Wedding, a money draining activity…

You have finally decided to tie the knot, with the person you want to live with for the rest of your life. Eversince you learned the word wedding, you have thoughts of how your dream wedding would be – perfect, romantic and breath-taking. You begin to be excited and want everything to be grand. But turning your dream wedding into a reality requires deadly and tiresome planning. Not to mention, ever-increasing costs for that perfect celebration.

Oftentimes, couples worked around budgets to achieve realization of their dream weddings. Oftentimes, too, certain expenses are overlooked, therefore, unaccounted resulting in budget deficits. Here are some items we can refer to as “hidden costs” to projects like dream weddings.

Honeymoon expenses. Couples usually leave out honeymoon expenses as a post-wedding project, when in fact it is tied with the wedding itself. As a post-wedding project, budget for honeymoon expenses are usually charged to cash gifts from the wedding day or worse, charged to credit cards. To avoid this, plan your honeymoon early on to avail of possible early-bird discounts from airlines, hotels or resorts. You may also plan to have your honeymoon on an off-peak season to benefit from lower rates during this period.

Marriage license. For a ceremony to take place, you need to pay for the cost of a marriage license. The license fee itself may be reasonable, but you also pay for the associated time spent to secure it, for the seminars prior to its release, for prerequisite documents and for associated taxes or service charges.

Tips. To complete a wedding you avail of the services of various unrelated suppliers. These suppliers perform at their best to provide you with the dream wedding you want. There are industries that have unwritten rules for tips for services rendered. Be very cautious of this, as it may throw you off just after the reception is finished. This may be true for food suppliers, hair and make-up stylists, disc jockeys, wedding planners or limousine drivers.

Service charges. There are some suppliers who do not include service charge in their initial quotes. In our country, it is a practice for food suppliers to declare a per head price for their package, excluding taxes and service charge, which is actually a percentage of the per head price.

Now & Forever Invitations

Invitation site Now&Forever is offering
Free Wedding Invitation Samples. I requested some, and I was pleased with their Loving Silver Hearts design. The hearts are metallic, much nicer than they seem in the photo. Very classy without being overdone.

I also ordered the Burst Of Colors invitation, but they looked more like an invite to a junior-high sleepover than a wedding.

Anyway, if you are picking invitations, don’t forget to look at Now & Forever.

Post-Wedding Candles

What to do with all those lovely wax-covered candleholders after the wedding?

Maybe everybody knows this already, but I found it to be life-changing. When your candle is burned up and you want to get the wax out of the holder, put it in the freezer for awhile. The wax contracts, loosens up, and you can dump it right out in one big piece. Awesome.

Via How About Orange: How to get wax out

88 Brides

It’s no news that 8/8/08 is a popular lucky wedding day in China and throughout Asia (especially with the Olympics), but 88 couples in a mass wedding is still a bit of surprise!

Eight more and the Johor Baru Tiong Hua Association will have the planned 88 couples to tie the knot in a special mass wedding ceremony on the auspicious date 8-8-08, or Aug 8.

Association manager Eric Ku said some 80 couples have registered for the mass wedding since registration began on July 1. He expects to see 88 couples registered by the July 25 dateline.

…

“However, the couples must wait for their big day to see what we have planned. We want the ceremony to be more memorable than our annual mass weddings,” he said.

Ku added that 77 couples participated in the mass wedding ceremony the association held on July 7 last year, or 07-07-07.

Wonder what they’ll be doing for 9/9/09!

Via 88 couples to tie the knot on 8-8-08 mass wedding

Beautiful Jewelry

My sister is getting married and she is wearing my grandmothers pearls but I wanted something that sparkled. I got the most gorgeous necklace at a site called Diamond Effects - www.diamondeffects.blogspot.com - it is just so pretty. And they made it so that it wasn’t just clear crystal beads but alternated with blue which is the color of her theme. I am going to get the bracelet too - it is so pretty!!!

Botox for Bridesmaids?

Some brides pick up the tab for their attendants, replacing the pillbox inscribed with the wedding date with a well-earned squirt between the eyes. In other cases, bridesmaids — who may quietly seethe about unflattering dresses — are surprisingly willing to pay for cosmetic enhancements. “Most women, when they come in here, they want it,” said Camille Meyer, the owner of TriBeCa MedSpa. “They know they’re aging.”

For Karen Hohenstein, who held her party at the Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa in Chicago, convincing her friends was as smooth as a Botoxed forehead. “It wasn’t me saying, ‘Hey, we all could use a little something,’ ” she said. “It was, ‘I want to do this,’ and a couple of people said, ‘I do, too.’ ”

But for every accommodating pal, there’s another who feels going under the knife is beyond the duty of bridesmaid. Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. “We’re all Asian and didn’t have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two,” said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.

I wouldn’t get Botox or boobs for a friend’s wedding, but a pre-wedding facial and waxing would be an awesome way to spend time with the ladies of the wedding party while getting beautiful for the big day!

Via Skin Deep - It’s Botox for You, Dear Bridesmaids - NYTimes.com

Win a Honeymoon From Wed Alert!

We are now offering our Honeymoon Giveaway 4 times a year!! That gives you and your Fiancé twice as many opportunites to win.

WedAlert’s next drawing for a Honeymoon Giveaway is on July 1, 2008. So Register now.

Via WedAlert Wedding Planning Blog: Congratulations to the latest Honeymoon Giveaway Winner!!

Home Fix-it

Before I met Marko, I was single for a looong time. I had lover(s) of course, but I preferred to fly solo. Which meant that I pretty much looked after myself. I was self sufficient and rather handy with a hammer.

However, ever since getting married, my DIY skills have deteriorated to a point where they are practically non-existent.

Marko has been away on a business trip this week, which means I have spent the entire week driving my car in total silence because my radio says it needs an access code and I have no idea what to do. I tried to read the instruction manual but it made me cross and irritated and so I gave up.

I have also not been able to print anything because there is a paper jam in my printer and I can’t see how to open the different compartments to get to the stuck piece of paper inside.

I used to know how to do stuff like that before I got married, now I just call Marko to do it for me. Marriage has made me soft and pathetic. It’s all his fault, obviously. Can’t possibly be mine.

Tertia is so right! I did just fine living alone, but I don’t think I’ve hung a picture since the boy moved in!

How about you?

Via So Close: Marriage makes you pathetic

His Wedding Band

We’ve talked a lot about engagement rings and our own wedding bands, but what about his ring? Your groom might not be as interested in wedding rings as you are, but this is still a piece of jewelry he will wear everyday!

A simple gold band is classic, of course, but why not pick something that fits his style better? It’s important to find a ring that matches both his personal style and your own wedding ring.

Just Men’s Rings offers tungsten-carbide, titanium and stainless steel wedding bands, not just the traditional gold. A harder metal like titanium won’t scratch when your husband-to-be is rough on it. Even though these are relatively new ring choices, there are plenty of elegant and classic styles to choose from. Look at these wedding rings to get you started in your search!

Or you can get this one, which is a blend of a traditional gold band and a modern titanium ring.

Wedding and Money

Wedding is one of the most memorable day in a girls life. If only all the wedding may be a fiest for all but its not. Some wedding were not having that huge budget and it does affect the wedding per se.

I have attended various wedding ceremonies. Both big and small. Most of the couples says that the beauty of the wedding depends on how much money will you allocate on it. But did you know that there are lots of ways to make your wedding a memorable one even if you are in a tight budget?

If you had a not so big money for your wedding, make some budgetting works! As much as possible determine how much money you are willing to spend for this big day. Then try to allocate that money. But first determine which one will get the highest percentage. Is it the food? Or the gown? The flowers? etc.

After you had determine that try to stick on that budget as much as possible. Don’t do overspending. Be resourceul on finding some more costless gowns which has the same quality.Or find the best cook if you can’t afford to book in a cozy restaurants. Sometimes cooking at home the dishes will only spend you half of the price at the restaurants.

Also make some list on who are the persons invited. Don’t invite the whole community if you can’t feed them all. Just invite those who are close to you. Like those relatives and friends. Having more guest will cause you a lot of money since you invite them you have to feed them too.

I also find that making your own souvenirs and wedding invitations cost less than buying the already made ones. JUst try to go to different bargain places and be creative in making those stuff and you’ll have a very nice pieces.

Last but definitely not the least. Enjoy this day. Cut all those nasty things that goes on your mind. Forget about the bad memories that will only ruin this day. Smile and show the world that this is the best day of your life.

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