As my week of celebrating the New Year continues, I thought I would write a post on wedding New Year's resolutions. I saw a recent article on TheKnot that mentioned a bunch of rules that brides should follow, so that was my inspiration for wedding New Year's resolutions. These are resolutions that brides should take into consideration when planning their wedding in 2009.
1. I (The Bride) won't revise or peek at my gift registry.
Two problems are being addressed in this one, but one root of evil - the online registry. So now stores make it so easy for a bride with online registry access, right? Wrong! This only helps brides obsess over looking at their registry to see what people bought them and making tons of changes. Do it once and and make at most 2 revisions, then leave it alone and enjoy getting the gifts.
2. I (The Bride) won't make my bridesmaids crazy with matching shoes, hair styles, jewelry, nail polish, make-up or underwear. (And yes I have seen this one)
Now I can talk the talk, but I have to admit that I was a bit out of control when it came to this. Yes, you want to make sure that your bridesmaids look nice and the pictures will turn out great, but really, if you chose someone to be in your wedding who you worry will wear some crazy color shoes or gaudy jewelry, then you shouldn't choose them for your wedding.
3. I (The Bride) will stick to the budget.
One of the biggest issues couples have with weddings is going over budget. More and more I read about couples that blew way past their budget. What's even worse is that either the parents get stuck with the large tab or couples take on large credit card debt to pay for it. Take a stand, as much as I know you want to have the chocolate fountain, butler passed hors d'oeuvres, present-box invitations and fireworks - just take a minute to reevaluate what the most important elements are for your wedding.
4. I (The Bride) will not ask, whine, meddle, spy or get mad about his bachelor party.
This makes me laugh. I have had numerous friends ask me to go with them to spy at their fiancé's bachelor party and others that get into an all out fight over it. I say, if there is reason you are worried about him having too much fun at his bachelor party, then maybe you should rethink the wedding. Lighten up ladies. Go have a blast at your bachelorette party and enjoy your "last night."
5. I (The Bride) can make sensible weight goals.
I have heard horror stories on this one. Some brides get so into a diet or exercise that they actually make themselves extremely sick. Others have done crash diets and wonder why their dress is too big, and some even get mad at themselves when they don't reach their "goal" weight when really it wasn't that feasible at all. Yes you want to look your best on your wedding day, but diet and exercise the right way. No crazy fad or crash diets, it will only end up making you sick or causing other problems. Try going to a trainer, or go to Curves and have them tell you what your ideal weight should be. Then have them calculate what realistically you could be by your wedding date. That way, meeting that goal is safer, easier and a lot more pleasing when you meet it.
It's not too late to add these wedding New Year's resolutions to your list. Have any others on your list?
Thursday, January 8, 2009
5 Wedding New Year's Resolutions
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Wednesday Wedding Feature - Wedding Photo Calendar
In lieu of the New Year, I thought I would feature a product that a lot of people buy come January, a photo calendar. Lots of people head out to the stores to pick up a calendar and a lot of the times they don't really even pay attention to what's on it. Why get a calendar that you are going to have to look at for 365 days and see random images? Why not make it special to you and make a photo calendar of your wedding pictures? PhotoWorks offers a variety of photo calendars. You can choose from different sizes, styles and themes.
Maybe you aren't one of those people who likes staring at pictures of yourself. Try something different with your photo calendar. Make your own scenic photo calendar with pictures from your honeymoon.
The year after I got married I made 2 photo calendars. One had a variety of pictures of my husband and I with our friends and family the day of our wedding. The other had beautiful pictures I took of Jamaica on our honeymoon. We put one upstairs in our office, the photo calendar with the scenic pictures (reminding ourselves why we work) and the other one downstairs. It was nice to see those pictures around our house and they really were a conversation piece when people came over. So try something new this year and make a wedding photo calendar you can enjoy year round.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Wedding Hairstyle Tips and Ideas
Many think that choosing your wedding hairstyle is not that big of a deal... but it is. Lots of brides stress over this, and I think it's perfectly normal to do so. This is the one day when you want to look perfect, and your hairstyle will really pull together your overall look. The pictures from your wedding are pictures you are going to have up and around your house forever. It is your only wedding day and you want to look your absolute best.
Your wedding hairstyle is something you should begin to think about soon after you get engaged. Seems silly, but it is something you want to make sure you get right. Below are a few tips to keep in mind when thinking about and planning for your wedding hairstyle.
Wedding Hairstyle Tips
Plan Ahead
- Search online and through magazines for wedding hairstyles that you like
- Bring pictures of the styles you like to your stylist
- Schedule a trial run appointment to test out a few of your select wedding hairstyles
- Take a friend(s) with you to get multiple opinions
- Choose your hairstyle before you get your wedding accessories - Do not choose too many accessories
- Begin growing your hair out if the styles you like need long hair
Color
Nowadays there are many women who get their hair colored, highlighted and lowlighted. When it comes to your wedding day, playing it safe with your hair color is the best way to go. This is definitely not the time to be toying around with the idea of getting a new color.
- Choose a hairstyle/color that fits you
Counting Down
As you get closer to your wedding day there are a few things you will want to make sure you do:
- Schedule at least 1 practice hairstyle run with the stylist that will be doing your hair the day of your wedding
- Make sure you are keeping your hair healthy with regular trims and hair care products
- Be sure to wear a button down shirt while getting your hair done the day of the wedding so you won't have to pull your top off over your head
Wedding Hairstyles
There are a lot of ways you can go about finding different wedding hairstyles, but I find that searching online can be the fastest and give you some of the greatest ideas. Now you can just search in Google for "wedding hairstyles" and look in the image results; however sometimes sites do not have their images set-up to show in these results. So I would also look at some websites that have great wedding hairstyle pictures and tips. Below I have listed 3 websites that I think have some good stuff, but there are a lot out there.
The Knot
The Knot has a great wedding hair gallery section where you can look through pages of wedding hairstyles.
Here are a few different styles from their gallery:
The Tiara Style
The Bun
The Traditional Updo
The Wedding Channel
Another great site that can help you decide what wedding hairstyle you are going to choose is the Wedding Channel. They have a few pages that can help a bride in need.
Here are some of their helpful guides:
- How to Match your Veil to your Wedding Hairstyle
- Formal Wedding Hairstyle Galleries
- Hair Accessories Gallery
Model Bride
The Model Bride website has a section devoted to many different wedding hairstyles. What's nice is that they separate the hairstyles into categories to help you.
Some of their categories are:
There are things that will go wrong on your wedding day, and on that day it seems like it's the worst thing that could happen, but over the years you will forget about it. However, if you choose to make drastic changes to your hair or color or hairstyle, those pictures will last forever.
Hope some of this information helped you. Happy styling!
Friday, December 19, 2008
Christmas Wedding Theme
The Christmas holiday is right around the corner, so today I thought I would talk about having a Christmas wedding.
What's great about having a Christmas wedding is the very little time and effort it takes to put together the wedding coordinates and decorations. In order to have a true Christmas themed wedding, there are a few pieces of traditional Christmas decor that you shouldn't go without.
Colors
Sticking with the traditional colors of Christmas is a must. You could either chose to have a red, green or red-green color for your wedding. And what's so nice about the Christmas colors is the variations that are seen today. No longer are you bound to bright red and green. Chose something more formal and go with hunter green and deep red, or if you are more modern, try a brighter green. What's also great is the accent colors that go so well with Christmas. Try gold or silver, it will add a bit of depth to your color palette.
Christmas Wedding Flowers
Don't think that just because it's Christmas you have to have Poinsettias integrated into your bouquet... if you really don't want to. Many brides today are instead using red berries and twigs. This may not sound pretty, but, like this picture shows, it could truly be a beautiful bouquet and one that is very unique.
Cake
Try something a bit less traditional and put a little Christmas fun into your wedding. Spread the spirit of gifting and try a Christmas gift themed cake. I think this cake is very pretty and it looks like a lot of work went into it.
Christmas Wedding Favors
Again, lots of options. Sticking with the Christmas theme couples could give Christmas ornaments or Christmas treats like the decorated Christmas fortune cookies to the right. Another great idea is giving the gift of a donation. It is the holiday season so giving the gift of a donation is a great way to give to the community during a time of year that is very hard on some. It's also a great way to promote giving during the holiday season.
Invitations
Take advantage of the time of year and use Christmas cards as your invitations. There are always so many to choose from and now many can be personalized with custom text and pictures. If you are looking for more traditional invitations the only thing to keep in mind is to follow your color scheme and anything you pick should be perfect.
Christmas wedding theme phrase:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Top 10 Wedding Movies
I am a sucker for wedding movies. I can watch them over and over. So, in honor of the new wedding movie that is coming out in a few weeks, Bride Wars, I have decided to list my top 10 favorite wedding movies. If Bride Wars is even remotely as funny as the trailer I think it may get into my top 10.
Here are my Top 10 Wedding Movies
Wedding Date
"The Wedding Date" centers around Kat Ellis, who returns to her parents' London home for her sister's wedding. Afraid of confronting her ex-fiancé, who dumped her two years before, she hires a top-drawer male escort to pose as her new boyfriend.
This movie had some of my favorite things - British accents and a bunch of Michael Buble music.
27 Dresses
American-born Jane is career-oriented and secretly in love with her employer, George. She spends most of her time as a bridesmaid, and has appropriate dresses as evidence, including a traditional Hindu wedding dress, complete with Bindi. Then her structured and ordered life comes unhinged when her younger sister, Tess, re-enters her life, and a reporter, Kevin, who also has an alias, claims to be attracted to her. Kevin decides to publish Jane's secret and her overwhelming wardrobe. Things get even more complicated when Jane finds out she may end up losing George to none other than her very own sister.
27 Dresses is the autobiography of my best friend Kara. One year we pretty much decided that being a bridesmaid was her career.
Sweet Home Alabama
New York fashion designer Melanie Carmichael suddenly finds herself engaged to the city's most eligible bachelor. But Melanie's past holds many secrets, including Jake, the redneck husband she married in high school, who refuses to divorce her. Bound and determined to end their contentious relationship once and for all, Melanie sneaks back home to Alabama to confront her past, only to discover that you can take the girl out of the South, but you can never take the South out of the girl.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Toula Portokalos is a single 30-year-old Greek woman, living with her parents and brother in a Chicago Greek community. After convincing her father to let her go to the university, she meets the non-Greek Ian Miller and they decide to get married. Her father does not accept the wedding of his daughter with a non-Greek man.
When this movie came out my husband said, "that is your family." It was rather funny watching the movie and seeing such resemblances to Greek family traditions and idiosyncrasies.
My Best Friend's Wedding
A woman who, by a promise made years earlier, is supposed to marry her best friend in three weeks, realizes she doesn't want to. When she finds out that he's marrying someone else, however, she becomes jealous and tries to break off the wedding.
American Wedding
Jim proposes to Michelle and she accepts. Now their families are looking forward to it as are Jim's friends, Kevin and Finch. They do their best to keep the other friend - the crude Stifler - from knowing, but he finds out and all he sees is the bachelor party that goes with it. However Jim is more concerned about whether or not Michelle's parents will like him and he is also worried about whether he can learn how to dance before the wedding.
Mary Fiore is the wedding planner. She's ambitious, hard-working, extremely organized, and she knows exactly what to do and say to make any wedding a spectacular event. But when Mary falls (literally) for a handsome doctor, her busy yet uncomplicated life is turned upside down - he's the groom in the biggest wedding of her career! Will she help him walk down the aisle with his internet tycoon girlfriend, or will Mary finally get to be the bride herself? When it comes to love, you can never plan what's going to happen.
I think it is pretty obvious why I like this movie, a wedding planner watching a movie about a wedding planner.
Made of Honor
Made of Honor revolves around Tom and Hannah, who have been platonic friends for 10 years. He's a serial dater, while she wants marriage but hasn't found Mr. Right. Just as Tom is starting to think that he is relationship material after all, Hannah gets engaged. When she asks Tom to be her "maid" of honor, he reluctantly agrees just so he can attempt to stop the wedding and woo her.
License to Wed
Sadie and Ben are in love, and although Ben suggests getting married in the Caribbean, Sadie has her heart set on a wedding at the family church, St. Augustine's. Ben says sure, and they meet with the pastor, Rev. Frank. The only date open for two years is three weeks away, and Frank insists the kids go through his marriage prep course. They're to write their own vows; he also demands chastity, bugs their apartment, initiates arguments, has them care for robot twins, creates friction between Ben and her family, and raises doubts in Sadie. Desperate, Ben looks for dirt on Frank. Can he undermine Frank's authority and keep Sadie's heart?
What Happens in Vegas
Set in Sin City, this story revolves around two people who discover they've gotten married following a night of debauchery, with one of them winning a huge jackpot after playing the other's quarter. The unhappy pair try to undermine each other and get their hands on the money -- falling in love along the way.
Once Bride Wars comes out I will do a review of the movie, but for now here is a sneek peek.
Two best friends become rivals when they schedule their respective weddings on the same day.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Feature - Engagement Ecards & Cards
For today’s Wednesday Wedding Feature I started out looking at a wedding engagement ecard from American Greetings. I thought that this was pretty cute.
This is so true, you get engaged and it is so exciting.
Until...
you realize you have to start planning.
This card was brought to you by American Greetings, but as you can see in the corner it was sponsored by Paper Bride. Paper Bride offers wedding thank you cards, notecards and stationery for the hippest bride-to-be. Here is one of the wedding engagement cards that they offer on site, Bling Bling.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Feature - Personalized Wedding Planner
One of the first things I give my clients is a wedding planner. Many people don't really understand why these are so important until they haven't used it - and are in panic mode 6 months before the wedding. My advice is this: don't even try to plan without a wedding planner. There is a lot of information in these books that can help every bride - despite the type of wedding she is having - organize and prioritize the many tasks that accompany planning a wedding.
What's funny is that after I have given a bride a wedding planner, I find that as we meet, the wedding planner becomes more personalized. I had one client who bejeweled the entire outside of the planner, and another who placed pictures in the front cover. I actually did the same thing by adding pictures to the outside of my wedding planner when I was wedding planning. So, today I am featuring a wedding planner that you can have personalized with photos of you and your soon-to-be hubby or anything else you like.
PhotoWorks offers personalized wedding planners and you can design the front cover any way you'd like. So instead of printing out photos and either gluing them on the front or sliding them into the front part of your wedding planner, try creating a personalized wedding planner that looks professional.
Don't really want to place pictures of you and your fiancee? No problem: you can upload any photos you like. Know what flowers you are using for your wedding? Put random pictures of those flowers on the front cover instead.
I think that this wedding planner is a great idea. Like I said before, and brides have proven this to me, brides want to personalize everything for their big day. So why not start everything off with a personalized wedding planner?