Wedding Exits With Style

There is a wonderful custom that when the bride and groom leave their wedding, their guests will shower them with something festive. This grand exit can take place when you leave the ceremony (especially if it is a separate venue like a church), at the end of the reception, or maybe even both. Here are some great ideas for things your guests can toss to help you make your wedding exit with style.

The toss for your exit can tie in with the general flavor of your wedding. If you are having a glitzy evening reception, with plenty of sparkle and Swarovski crystal bracelets on the bride, your big moment should have a similar, ahem, spark. When you want the sparkle and drama of your Swarovski crystal bracelets for your leavetaking, why not go with actual sparklers? They look fantastic lighting up the night sky as the newlyweds dash away arm in arm. A canopy of sprinklers held aloft also makes for some stunning photographs for your wedding album.

Of course the impact of sparklers would be lost on a sunny afternoon, so you might want to go a different direction for a daytime wedding. One very pretty idea is to exit your ceremony in a sea of bubbles blown by your guests. You can buy small jars of bubbles that are decorated in a wedding style, or take it on as a simple diy project. Get tiny jars of bubble solution and cover them with a pretty piece of paper in your wedding colors. Hot glue a few silk flowers to the top of the cap, and tie a grosgrain ribbon around the jar. It is an easy and inexpensive way to add some fun to your wedding.

There are tons of other great ideas for your grand exit. Guests can throw simple paper confetti or fly cute little paper airplanes. A shower of flower petals is always beautiful, and is lovely for a romantic garden wedding. If your bridal attitude is a little more dramatic, step out in style in a cloud of fluffy feathers wafting through the air. Whichever you choose, having a toss at the end of your wedding will make for a fun getaway.

Thoughtful Brides Know…

Sure, most of the brides you see on television are not the most thoughtful people. After all, more people will tune in to see an episode of “Bridezillas” than to watch a program about brides behaving beautifully. When it comes to your own real-life wedding, though, you could not do any better than to get a reputation for being a considerate and gracious bride. These are the things that thoughtful brides all know…

Your guests do not want to be inconvenienced. This means things like going with your second choice reception venue over your favorite because it is fifteen minutes away from the church instead of almost an hour away. It could mean setting up a bridal registry at a national chain, not just online if you will be having a lot of older guests who might prefer shopping in a brick and mortar store with salespeople to help them. Not hosting your reception in a remote location like a mountain top that involves a hike, unless all of your guests will be fitness nuts.

Everyone appreciates being appreciated. There will be countless opportunities to express your gratitude while planning your wedding. One of the most important ones is to give special thank you bridesmaid gifts like jewelry to your wedding party. If you take the time to customize or personalize your bridesmaid jewelry gifts, your attendants will feel even more special. And don’t forget about everyone else who helped to make your wedding a success; a simple note of appreciation with a photograph will mean a lot to your baker, florist, and the rest of your vendors.

Spending time to get the reception seating chart just right is really important. No one enjoys making seating charts, but the best hosts will always make an effort to seat people together who will enjoy each other’s company at dinner. Do your best to avoid leaving anyone stranded at a table with total strangers. Finally, be sure that anyone who does not get along will not be at adjacent tables, and arrange it so that divorced parents can each head their own table in a way that will make them feel equally important. It takes a little extra effort, but it is well worth it to be a gracious bride.

Distinctive Table Names for Receptions

Your table names can be much more than just a way to indicate to each guest where they should sit during dinner. They can also be a chance to reinforce your wedding theme, express one of your passions, or even just amuse your guests. Why let this opportunity go to waste by using boring old table numbers when you can do so much more?

Theme weddings will always lend themselves to interesting names for the dinner tables. Let’s say that you are having a tropical theme wedding. A great idea for marking the tables would be to label each one with the name of a famous tropical paradise. Your guests can dine at Bora Bora, Tahiti, Fiji, and Hawaii. A couple who is throwing a tropical theme wedding and also loves to surf, for instance, could name each table after their favorite place to catch a wave.

Some brides will plan their wedding around their favorite color. A purple wedding could be graced with tables named lavender, aubergine, lilac, plum, and so forth. Or have a pink wedding with tables named after your favorite pink flowers, such as roses, tulips, peonies, and hydrangeas.  The idea of naming reception tables after flowers would also be lovely for a garden wedding.

Tables can be named after famous people, too. How better to evoke the cool elegance of the Rat Pack than by calling your reception tables Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and so on? When using the name of a person, definitely have their picture on the table number display to make it even more interesting. This would be a very hip idea for a wedding theme, and you could bring it to full fruition by including elements in your wedding like Sinatra music, a martini bar, and small silver flasks for the favors (they also make great groomsmen gifts, by the way).

Nature can always provide sweet wedding ideas. If you are the earthy type, how about using table names such as river, rock, branch, and moss? Or get more specific; a bird loving bride and groom could call their tables warbler, finch, cardinal, bluebird, etc. Another great source of inspiration is literature. Not only would it be a nice personal touch to name your reception tables after your favorite books, but it will be a great conversation starter for your guests at dinner.

Tacky Wedding Ideas

The dictionary definition of the word tacky is “lacking style or good taste”. Not exactly the vision that most brides would say they have for their weddings, and yet every Saturday of the year, there are plenty of tacky things taking place at weddings around the country. These are some of the tackiest wedding ideas that some couples have at their weddings; ones which brides of taste should try to avoid at all costs!

One of the first examples of this that comes to mind is something that happened at a friend’s wedding. When her in-laws suggested a dollar dance, the naïve young bride, thought to herself, “Money is tight when planning a wedding, so a dollar dance would be a great way to raise some cash for the honeymoon.”. What she did not consider is that a dollar dance was not a custom that was usually observed where she came from, and far from lining up to dance with the bride and stuff money into her apron, the guests were appalled. Everyone remained standing on the sidelines while the bride suffered through the awkwardness of standing out on the dance floor alone for most of the dollar dance. A word to the wise, ladies, no matter how good it may sound at first, a dollar dance is always a tacky idea.

Another truly tacky idea that some couples have is to attempt to round up sponsors for their wedding in the same way one would for a charity event. The bride and groom go around to their relatives asking for donations in exchange for billing in the wedding program or a mention in the wedding toasts. It usually goes something like this: “Aunt Margaret, if you wanted to buy my wedding jewelry and veil for me, I will put a note in the program telling everyone how generous you were. And Uncle Bill, would you like to sponsor the d.j. for the reception?”. There is no other word for this behavior than shocking (or at least no other word that can appear in print!).

There is another very tacky thing that is sadly rather commonplace these days, which is including bridal registry information in the wedding invitations. Many brides may not even realize that this is in poor taste, especially since some registries will give you little cards for the express purpose of putting them in the envelopes with the invitations. But keep in mind that the store may not be worried about offending your guests, but you should be. After all, the last thing that you want is for the first impression people have of your wedding to be,”Oh my gosh – how tacky!”.

How to Order a Wedding Cake

One of the most special parts of a wedding reception is the cake. Often the centerpiece of the reception, you want your wedding cake to have great style, taste good, and fit in with your budget. Yet many brides go into the process having no idea of the basics of wedding cakes. Here is how to order the wedding cake of your dreams.

There are two things that you absolutely must know before ordering your wedding cake. The first is the number of guests that you will have and the second is your budget. The price of a wedding cake can range wildly, anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand, so this is why it is important to have a firm budget in mind before meeting with bakers. You don’t want to fall in love with one of their designs only to find that it is ten times the price that you are able to afford!

The look of your wedding cake should suit the rest of your wedding. For instance, if you are having a traditional wedding, wearing a classic gown and pearl bridal jewelry, you should also have a traditional cake, such as an all white buttercream. The accents can also tie in with your bridal attire; tiny frosting “pearls” can be used to create a delicate border on the edge of the tiers to mimic your pearl bridal jewelry, or you can have the baker replicate the pattern of the lace on your gown in fondant.

Your budget will have a big impact on the shape, size, and decorations on your wedding cake. The ones that you see in the magazines that are five tiers tall and covered with a profusion of handmade frosting orchids cost thousands of dollars, which is not what the average bride will spend for her dessert. However, don’t shy away from showing your baker designs that appeal to you, no matter how fantastical they may be. If you loved the grand orchid cake but found it too pricey, a similar confection could be created using fresh flowers on a three tier cake. A tried and true trick for saving money is to have a smallish display cake made to put out at the reception, but to also have the same flavor made in an inexpensive sheet cake to cut in the kitchen and have the waitstaff serve to guests. No one will be the wiser, and you will get to “have your cake and eat it too”.

How to Design Mixed Flower Bridal Bouquets

The bridal bouquets are one of the prettiest parts of a wedding. You can do some wonderful things with your wedding flowers, especially if you combine different colors and varieties. Here are some tips on how to design beautiful mixed flower bridal bouquets.

Mixing and matching flowers can be intimidating. It is one of those things that looks amazing when done well, but looks like a jumbled mess when it is not. An example of this would be the standard mixed flower bouquets that you find in grocery stores. They are rarely that pretty, and the reason is that they have no cohesive theme, in terms of color, shape, types of flowers, or theme. A few pink carnations, a yellow rose, and some purple mums does not make for a gorgeous bouquet! The lesson to be learned from the unappealing mixed bouquets is not that combining flowers will look bad, just that it has to be approached with a plan to make it all come together into a harmonious whole.

There are a variety of ways in which you can design a bouquet that combines different flowers gracefully. The first of these is color. Decide on one color or color family for the bridal bouquets, and then look for several types of flowers in your chosen color. For instance, let’s say that you would like to have pink wedding flowers. You can create lovely bouquets using a mixture of pink roses, hydrangeas, tulips, and sweetpeas. Notice how all of those flowers are not only similar in color, but also in feeling; traditional, in this case. This would be the type of bouquet that would be perfect for a bride who is wearing a classic bridal gown with cultured pearl earrings and a long veil.

When looking for ways in which to create pretty mixed flower bouquets, also think about layering in non-floral elements. A very traditional bridal bouquet is one made from white roses, white tulips, and white stephanotis. The tiny star shaped stephanotis are usually accented with pearl tipped pins through the center of each one, which is such a sweet detail for a bride who is wearing cultured pearl earrings and pearl necklace. A multi-colored mixed bouquet could be made even more cheerful with the addition of gossamer sheer fabric butterflies tucked into the flowers. Special details such as these will help to give your bridal bouquet a wonderfully harmonious feeling, even when it includes a variety of different elements.

Should a Bride Hide Her Tattoos?

Every generation of brides faces unique questions as they prepare for their weddings. When our mothers got married, it was probably something like, “Can I get away with a bridal gown with bare shoulders for a church wedding?”. For a lot of today’s brides, the overwhelming dilemma is what to do about her tattoos; should she show them, hide them, or what? These are some of the considerations to help you decide.

One of the biggest issues in the tattoo dilemma often involves the mother of the bride. Most moms are not interested in seeing body art on their daughters during the wedding ceremony. Sometimes this can present an opportunity for compromise. The bride agrees to cover her ink for the ceremony, but does not hide it for the reception. This can be a good solution, particularly if the wedding ceremony is going to be traditional.

If you decide to hide a tattoo for the ceremony, there are a few ways in which it can be done, depending on where it is. One possibility is to get special tattoo covering makeup. The effectiveness of this tactic will depend on the size and color of the tattoo. This can be an option for tattoos that are in hard to cover places such as hands or arms. Do be aware that makeup can tend to smear, especially after a night on the dance floor.

Tattoos on the back of the shoulder are very popular, and they can be concealed for the ceremony with a shrug worn over the bridal gown. A cool way to hide a tattoo on the wrist or neck is with custom bridal jewelry. An extra wide bracelet created from rows of crystals and pearls will add style to your bridal ensemble as well as hiding a wrist tattoo. If the body art you wish to cover is on the neck, then custom bridal jewelry in the form of a beautiful choker will do the trick.

The decision of whether or not to hide a tattoo for your wedding is an entirely personal one, although family and social pressure will often come into play, as well. Ultimately, each bride has to make the choice that will make her happy, while showing respect for her family and their customs.

Wedding Invitation Motifs

Your wedding invitation is your first chance to set the tone for your event. The style that you choose will give your guests a sneak peek into what your wedding will be like, especially if you have a special theme. One of the best ways to personalize your wedding invitations is with a signature motif.

First think about the basics of your wedding. Will it be formal? Then choose a very small motif. Have it either engraved in gold ink or blind embossed for even more subtlety. A formal wedding calls for a traditional and symmetrical invitation, as well, so you will want to place your motif on the top border of your invitation, right in the center.

Less formal weddings can accommodate more eclectic uses of motifs. You could even choose stationery which has your design printed on it, and the invitation wording printed on a vellum overlay. For example, if you were having a destination wedding, complete with a breezy wedding gown and beach wedding jewelry, a fantastic invitation would be an image of a sandy beach or a large tropical flower. If the invitation shows the beach scene, tie the vellum layer on with a piece of raffia, or use a pretty fuchsia ribbon over the tropical flower image.

A simple way to use a pretty design for a semi-formal wedding is to print, engrave, or letterpress it onto the paper in a color. You can really have a lot of fun picking your motif. Choose one that ties in directly with your wedding theme, or select a design that reflects something personal. A good example of this would be a monogram or a family crest (either real, or invented). Or if the bride and groom are both Texans, a small image of a pair of cowboy boots would be fun on the invitations. You can also design an entirely custom motif that will start on your wedding stationery and be carried throughout the rest of the wedding.

Adorning your wedding invitations with a special motif or theme is a wonderful way to introduce your guests to the style of your wedding. It will also add personality to your stationery and help to set it apart from the basic invitations that many couples use. A custom motif is one of those small details that can add so much to a wedding.

Nutrition Tips for Brides

The months before a wedding can be loaded with potential dietary pitfalls. There are engagement parties (around 100 calories per glass of Champagne), bridal showers with cakes and pastries, food tasting sessions with the caterer and baker, bachelorette parties (600 calories in a big frozen margarita!), not to mention meals eaten on the run. If you happen to be a stress eater, too, you can suddenly find your wedding dress getting tighter and tighter at each fitting. So what is a bride to do? Follow these simple nutrition tips for brides, of course.

Knowledge is half the battle. Once you become aware of all of the extra calories that are lurking in your celebrations, you can plan ahead. No one is suggesting that an engaged couple should not enjoy their pre-wedding parties, but if you want your dress to fit, a little caution is a good idea. When going to a party, eat a filling dinner first, and stay away from the appetizers, cheese plates, and tiny desserts at the party. It can be easy to eat way too many of those tasty little treats; each one is so small that it can be hard to realize how quickly they add up.

Alcohol is the biggest diet killer in more ways than one. First of all, it is loaded with empty calories. Secondly, after a few drinks, it is easy to lose control over your snacking in a way that you would not if sober. If you are at an engagement party with lots of Champagne toasts, remember that etiquette says that the person being toasted should only raise their glass; you do not actually drink to yourself. Once you realize that you don’t have to drink along with every toast, you can nurse one or two glasses of Champagne all evening long. As for those wild and crazy bachelorette parties with the margaritas, try a light beer or a glass of white wine instead to cut the calories in each drink down to 100 or less from 600 or so for the big frozen cocktail.

For those brides who like to reward themselves with food, find an alternative indulgence when you are looking for a little pick-me-up. A piece of jewelry from your favorite bridal jewelry set is not going to put weight on your hips like an ice cream sundae. Anything that makes you feel beautiful is good, whether it is bridal jewelry, a makeover, a manicure, or some sexy new lingerie for the honeymoon. Stay away from the kind of treats that you will regret later. Keep your wedding goals in mind to help keep temptation at bay.

Rehearsal Dinner Etiquette

It is customary to hold a rehearsal dinner on the evening before a wedding. This event can be as formal or casual as you like, but either way, there are still some basic rules of etiquette that should be observed. Here is what you need to know about rehearsal dinner etiquette.

One of the biggest questions about any part of the wedding is who should be paying for it. Traditionally, the rehearsal dinner is planned and paid for by the groom’s family. This was done to help alleviate some of the financial burden from the bride’s father, who traditionally shouldered the entire burden of the other wedding expenses. These days, the groom’s family is more likely to pitch in with some of the other wedding costs, as are the bride and groom themselves. If the parents of the groom is helping to pay for the rest of the wedding, it is not technically necessary for them to cover all of the costs for the rehearsal dinner, although in most cases, they still will.

The next question is who should be invited to a rehearsal dinner. Etiquette used to be that the guest list for the rehearsal dinner was a small one: the bride and groom, their parents and other immediate family like siblings, and the wedding party. The age old question is whether it is necessary to invite the spouses or significant others of the bridal party, and the answer is yet. A rehearsal dinner is a social event, after all, and it is never appropriate to invite only one half of a married couple to a dinner party.

Something else that couples wonder is if they should be presenting their bridesmaid jewelry gifts and groomsmen gifts at the rehearsal dinner. The answer to this is no. The only thing that goes on at a rehearsal dinner (other than dinner, that is) is a couple of toasts, often from the parents of the bride and groom. Bridesmaid gifts like jewelry are best presented at a bridesmaids’ luncheon which takes place about two days before the wedding.

Planning a rehearsal dinner need not be a very time consuming or stressful thing. It should really be no more than a nice dinner to give the close family and friends of the bride and groom a chance to do a “meet and greet”. Now that you know the rehearsal dinner etiquette, the rest should be easy.