Shopping for Your Wedding Dress

Give yourself enough time to plan- generally the guideline is that you need to order your gown at least 6 months before your wedding. So you should start shopping for your gown nine months or more before your wedding.

Take a few minutes to think about what you would like your dress to look like. It will make it a lot easier when you enter the labyrinth of wedding dresses out there to know what your budget is, any details that are essential and an idea of how conventional you want your dress to be.

On your wedding day, along with looking great, you’ll also want to be comfortable – it will be hard to enjoy your wedding day if you’re struggling with your dress.

Wedding Magazines and Online Resources

Finding and sharing wedding ideas can be a real adventure. Wedding magazines and online resources provide an abundance of information for brides, grooms, bridal party attendants and even wedding guests. Sorting through this cornucopia of information can be overwhelming and a waste of valuable time if you are not mindful of a few important factors; relevance, level of importance to your event, and financial impact.

If your hope chest is bursting at the seams with everything you’ve ever collected over the years that you thought would be “perfect” for your wedding day, you might find yourself sifting through a dusty box of useless material. As little girls we often find ourselves day dreaming about the dress that we will wear on our wedding day, to the point of clipping magazine pages to hang on to a picture of what you’re sure will be the perfect dress for your big day. However, the reality of the fact might be that the dress you loved at age 14 is no longer in style, or is just not appropriate for your body type. Holding on to the keepsakes of your childhood daydreams has a special place in your life, but it shouldn’t be something you spend more than one afternoon sifting through to see if there is anything viable for the event at hand. If you want to share the walk down memory lane, be sure to schedule a specific date and time with your mom or your gal pals to accomplish this in one viewing, thereby making the best use of your available time without completely skipping the effort. When it comes to wedding idea resources, your best bet is to stick to the most current offerings, ensuring that the what you see is available to you when it’s needed.

Weddings are such an exciting time, be they a small or large scale event that you are planning. It is quite easy though to get caught up in the idea of the “perfect wedding” verses what you are actually planning, your perfect wedding. What this means in plain English ladies is spending all your free time and even some time when you’re supposed to be working, on looking for all of the biggest and best wedding ideas out there, is not necessarily a great use of your time either. Just because you read somewhere that you ‘need’ to have a minimum of 3 attendants on both sides does not mean that you have to meet and make a new best friend in the next year because you’ve only got two close girlfriends. It’s also important to remember that looking through pages and pages of 5 course menu ideas is sort of useless if you’re planning on having a destination wedding with an all inclusive package. Knowing the key components of your big day should help you to identify the areas where you should spend your time and energy resourcing.

For the majority of couples it is there whether it’s been explicitly expressed or not, a wedding budget. It can be a dreadful thing feeling constrained by what you are fiscally able to do to celebrate your marriage, or it could quite possibly be your saving grace, it’s really dependant on your personality and how you see your big day in the timeline of your life. If you’re working with a substantial budget and have allocated a significant amount to what will be spent on your wedding dress, then absolutely, spend three weeks leafing through fashion designer label dresses. This is also applicable to the bride who wants to wear Vera Wang and is willing to serve crackers and water to her guests to ensure that she stays within her budget. If however you’re working with a budget that does not allow for white calla lilies to be flown in for your big day in December, then spend your time looking for something that is more seasonal and available locally. Meeting with travel agents for details on destination wedding packages, when you know your budget will only cover being married at the court house and having a quiet dinner with immediate family members at a nice restaurant following, is not the best way to utilize your time.

Wedding Magazines and online resources can really open up the possibilities when you sit down and start sifting through for ideas and best practices. Just be wary of time wasters once you hammer down the fundamentals of what you will actually do to celebrate your big day.

Organizing Your Wedding Is Key

Getting married is widely recognized as one of the most stressful life events, second only to the birth of your first child. There are so many direct and indirect factors that can contribute to planning and executing your big event that things can very quickly spiral out of control if you are not mindful of necessity of being organized. Being organized does not necessarily mean that you must control every single tiny detail, on the contrary, it generally means that you must have the ability to maintain details at a high level, select representatives whom you trust to brainstorm with and who can act on your behalf when necessary, and you simply must have the ability to delegate.

Maintaining the details at a high level can be translated many ways, it is usually dependant on the style of wedding and the personality of the bride/groom. If you are having a grand affair where costs and details are limitless then you may consider hiring a Wedding Planner to be responsible for all of the planning, documenting and purchasing involved in your big day. A Wedding Planner is also a good idea for the bride/groom who isn’t especially skilled at keeping track of receipts or confortable making arrangements with vendors. If however your big day does not involve inviting the Govenor, or the Premier then you should investigate purchasing a Wedding Planning Journal, or utilizing a software version for those in this technically inclined generation. Personally documenting and tracking the details of the arrangements for your wedding will provide the bride/groom with a truer understanding of costs, timelines and details. And it may just provide you with a little bit of comfort when you wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat two weeks before the event to check to see if you remembered to update the caterer on your final numbers for dinner. Maintaining the details at a high level should provide the couple with the necessary control to deliver the event without too much panic and disarray caused by disorganization.

Selecting representatives, generally bridal party attendants, whom you trust to brainstorm and act as a representative on your behalf truly complements the afore mentioned maintaining of details section. It is important to choose a bridal party member whom you know will enjoy shouldering the difficult task of helping you choose the perfect wedding dress as well as being responsible for contacting the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and anyone else on your list who requires confirmation calls prior to the big day. Other major responsibilities generally reserved for bridal party members include; preparing invitations, guests lists, seating charts, party favours, and decorating the hall. If you do not feel that one of your best mates is reliable enough to participate in these preparations, perhaps better to ensure there are at the very least other people in your life who will be there at the eleventh hour when you’re elbow deep in a bowl of candy covered almonds, bagging your millionth party favour box. Do not be afraid to ask your parents or your favourite aunt or uncle to lend a hand when you’re in a pinch, most family members will be just as honoured to be included in the planning phase as those who stand beside you, following your walk down the aisle.

The ability to delegate can be worse than a trip to the dentist for a root canal for those people who have trust issues, or who you might have called control freaks at least once in the past. The key to delegation is to select close to 50% of the tasks to be accomplished, and assign some portion of their responsibility to someone you trust. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be asking your Best Man to select the wedding rings for you, but it might mean asking him to take payment to the jeweller and picking up the rings before the wedding. Other ideas for delegation include; making payments to vendors, confirming numbers and details with vendors, picking up family members from airports/train stations, researching options for live music, scoping out potential photographers or liaising with a Wedding Planner on the day of the event to eliviate wedding day stresses for the bride/groom. Delegating responsibility to a friend or family member will allow you to focus your attention on the bigger details of your wedding and at the same time provide your loved one with a sense of trust and respect as a special member of your big day.

While tying the knot is a big deal in the grand scheme of life it does not have to be an overwhelming one. Keeping yourself organized, enlisting people to share in the fun and tears, and delegating some of the less intensive responsibilites to people you trust, will have a huge impact on how enjoyable it will be to plan your wedding.

Photo by: Oh mon héros ! [parachute doré]

Wedding Cake Ideas

Long gone are the days of the hum drum of a traditional 3 tier wedding cake. Today’s brides are breaking all of the rules; from ditching the groom cake, to serving up individual cupcakes, to monogrammed sugar cookies wrapped in cellophane.

Wedding cakes have become a real outlet for creativity and self-expression, much more so than flamboyant flowers and prom-styled bridesmaid dresses. Today’s couples are putting a little fun into the planning by choosing delicious flavours, funky decorative layers, and totally off the cuff servings.

Let your imagination run wild and meet with your local bakery. Be sure to ask to see photos of their most current work, not only for ideas, but to see how talented they are, afterall this is likely to be the most expensive and memorable cake you will ever buy.

The following are just a few ideas to get you started when considering how to wow your guests with your non-traditional wedding cake: (Mad Hatter, Fruit Infused, Cupcakes, Chocolate Cover Strawberry Bride and Groom)

Photo by: freeparking

Bridal Party Gift Ideas

Know your audience. This is sage advice in most instances involving others, but especially when presenting a thank you gift to your bridal party.

Traditionally the Bride and Groom present those people that they have asked to stand with them on their wedding day with a token of thanks. This not only helps to acknowledge your bridal party, but can serve as a reminder of their part in your big day for years to come. Some ideas for traditional and non-traditional gifts are as follows:

Bridesmaids/Maid of Honor
Engraved Make Up Compact
Gift Certificate for a Spa Day
Jewelry
Stemware
Personalized Box of Treasures (could include favourite bottle of wine with glasses, favourite chick flick dvd, scented candles, chocolates – endless possibilities)

Groomsmen/Best Man
Engraved Beer Steins
Gift Certificate for Golfing
Tickets to Sporting Event
Personalized Box of Treasures (could include favourite alcohol, dvd offavourite action flick, set of shot glasses, golf tees and balls – endless possibilities)