Wedding Gowns: Finding “The One”

Shopping for a bridal gown can bring up so many emotions, running from elation (“I am getting married”) to excitement (what could be more gorgeous than a wedding gown) to despair (“What if I don’t find my dream dress?”) to shock (“This dress costs how much?!”). Without a doubt, the pressure to find the perfect wedding dress can feel immense, especially for brides who are working with a short time frame. These are some great tips to help you find the wedding gown that is “the one” with a minimum of stress and a maximum of fun.

First of all, there is the question of cost. It will do you no good to fall in love with a $20,000 wedding gown when your budget is $2000. On the other hand, it helps to have an understanding of what is a reasonable price range for the style of wedding gown that interests you before you begin shopping to avoid any nasty sticker shock in the bridal salon. That way you can adjust your wedding budget accordingly and avoid disappointment.

A lot of brides wonder how they will feel when they find “the one”. If you do not burst into tears of joy the moment you put on a wedding gown, could it still be the right one for you? Absolutely! Absent the flood of tears, what should you expect? Well, you should definitely feel gorgeous, like you have dropped ten pounds instantly, and like you can’t wipe the smile off your face. A very good clue is that you do not want to take the dress off. If you have been standing in front of the mirror in the store for an hour admiring the gown and trying on all sorts of veils, headpieces, and bridal jewelry, the chances are you have found your gown.

Another great tip when it comes to finding the perfect wedding gown is to know yourself. You should definitely be open to styles that your bridal consultant wants to show you, but you can help her by cluing her in to your absolute must have features. Be honest! Give your bridal consultant more of your genuine personality to go on, and you will save a lot of time.

One final piece of advice is to only go wedding gown shopping with those who will be supportive…and honest. If you and your mom have never seen eye to eye on fashion, maybe she is not going to be the best sounding board for you. And only bring a couple of people with you to shop, or you will end up with so many conflicting opinions that your own voice will be lost in the crowd. With these thoughts in mind, it will be much easier to find the perfect wedding gown. And when you do find “the one”, snap it up without hesitation!

The Ultimate Bridal Beauty Checklist

Get prepared for your nuptials with the ultimate bridal beauty checklist…

Skin: This is where it all begins. If your skin is in tip-top shape, it will only take a minimum of makeup to attain the coveted bridal glow. Begin with regular facials once you become engaged. Every four to six weeks will ensure that your pores are unclogged and your skin is as radiant as possible. And if you happen to get a nasty pimple the week of your wedding, run to your doctor for a cortisone injection to kill the blemish in a flash.

Eyelashes: I just recently learned that it is possible to get eyelash extensions attached to your existing lashes. Adhered one at a time, the extensions last for weeks, and will hold on through tears at the ceremony as well as splashing in the ocean on your honeymoon. Running close to $2000, eyelash extensions are not for everyone. However, a good makeup artist can add individual false eyelashes for your wedding day for a minimal cost. If you are going for an ultra-glamorous look, you can even have lash extensions with tiny crystals on them; perfect for matching a great pair of Swarovski crystal earrings!

Hair: Nothing less than silky lustrous hair will do for your wedding day. Begin by getting regular haircuts to keep split ends at bay.  Bridal hair looks best when the color is natural, as it is the most timeless. To tame frizzy hair, there are thermal straightening treatments available, and a deep conditioning treatment is a good idea for any bride to make sure her mane is in tip top shape.

Nails: As soon as you become engaged, manicures are a must. Everyone will be looking at your hands to check out your engagement ring, after all! The week of your wedding, treat yourself to a paraffin manicure which will make your hands as smooth as silk. Keep your bridal manicure classic and simple; neutral polish, a French manicure, pale pink, or classic red are the best options for nailpolish. As for a pedicure, the answer is yes, please. You want your nails to be neat and your feet to be free of rough callouses. Not only that, but a good pedicure is just the kind of pre-wedding pampering to help melt away all that stress. After all, brides, the better you feel, the better you will look.

Do Good While Getting Married

Planning a wedding can feel like a charmed time in your life. While you are in the midst of all that bridal bliss, why not find a way to share your good fortune with others? From charitable donations to environmental good deeds to helping animals, there are numerous ways to do good while getting married. Take a look at these suggestions to get ideas that you can use to “pay it forward” as part of your own wedding.

Start with supporting local vendors in your community whenever possible. Get your bridesmaid gifts from the local boutique which handcrafts jewelry right in their back room. Hire an artist to handmake letterpress wedding invitations for you. Order a wonderful blackberry jam from someone at your local farmer’s market. When you do good in this way, it is a win-win situation for your wedding and your community.

Charitable donations are becoming increasingly popular for wedding gifts and favors. Perhaps you already have a house full of stuff; why not request that in lieu of gifts a donation be made in your name at your favorite charity? These gifts can also come from the bride and groom. In lieu of traditional favors, make a donation to a charity. Put out an elegant card at each place setting informing guests that a donation has been made in their name. Just be sure to select a charity which is going to be acceptable to everyone (animals are good, political causes are not).

After the wedding, there will be even more opportunities to do good works. You can donate your wedding gown to Making Memories, a foundation which raises funds for victims of breast cancer. Make arrangements to have surplus food donated to a food shelter at the end of the reception. You can even have your wedding centerpieces delivered to a nursing home to brighten the day of the residents. With so many easy and meaningful ways to make your wedding a time to share your good fortune, it will be simple to find a couple of things that you can do to pay it forward.

Create Your Own Wedding Inspiration Board

When you are trying to plan a wedding which has a cohesive feeling, it can be great to lay everything out in one place. Besides, while you are looking at wedding websites online, you are sure to run across tons of gorgeous details that take your breath away, and it is nice to have them all together. The solution is to create a wedding inspiration board. It is a lot of little squares put together into one large square, each with a tiny jewel of an image in it. Whether it is strictly electronic or something that you put together on paper, an inspiration board is a fun and easy way to design a fabulous wedding.

There are countless things which a bride can include in her wedding inspiration board, as long as the key word is remembered: inspiration. These should be the things that make you drool or dance with joy when you see them. Never mind that you cannot afford that Vera Wang gown or that tulips are out of season for your October ceremony. The inspiration board is a design technique, and it should be a feast for the eyes. The wedding design board is about the dream. Even if you cannot have the exact piece of wedding jewelry or the very same cake that you saw in a magazine, you can still use your fantasy objects as the basis around which you select the items you will ultimately use.

Fashion and beauty are almost always a key part of a wedding inspiration board. In fact, you might even want to have a couple of style boards; one for fashion, one for decorations and flowers, and perhaps another with close ups of unique details that delight you, like a gorgeous style of calligraphy. On your fashion board, the natural things to include are bridal gowns, wedding jewelry and veils, bridesmaid dresses, shoes, bags, hairstyles, and headpieces.

On your decor style board, focus on pulling together elements which create a beautiful color palette. Laying it all out on paper is a great way to ensure that the vision in your head will look just as pretty in reality, especially when it comes to mixing and matching colors. The beauty of the wedding inspiration board is that it is all for fun, so you can take chances and experiment until you find an overall style that you know you will love for your wedding.

Reception Ceiling Decorations

These days, decorating the dinner tables at a wedding reception is not quite enough. After all, everyone has centerpieces, right? If you really want to make a splash, add some visual interest above the tables and the dance floor. Take a look at these fantastic ideas for reception ceiling decorations.

Chandeliers have become very popular in recent years, and they are still very much in style. However, even a great idea can feel a little bit stale when everyone does it, so if you want to decorate your reception with chandeliers, choose unique ones. Chandeliers with a vintage girly curlique form take on a cool retro edge that can be a little bit goth when they are painted in a flat black color. Give them a French boudoir flair by dressing them up with strings of beads and pairing them with pink and black striped tablecloths. If you want to create a moody effect, combine the black chandeliers with centerpieces featuring Black Magic roses and black ostrich feathers in a distressed black vase with Victorian curves.

A terrific idea for an outdoor wedding or a garden wedding is to suspend an eclectic collection of birdcages over the dance floor or the dinner tables. For a daytime wedding, leave them open or twine flowers and vines around the frame of the birdcages. In the evening, line the bottom of each cage with clear Plexiglass (to catch the drips) and set flickering candles inside to create a wonderfully romantic ambiance. It would be especially great for a retro wedding  if you are using letterpress invitations with a bird motif, and lots of handcrafted elements like felt flower bouquets and handcrafted bridal jewelry.

There is no such thing as too many flowers at a wedding. After all, why should the tables have all the fun? A gorgeous effect can be created by suspending balls of flowers over the tables. This is an especially good idea for decorating the space over long reception tables for family style service. The suspended flowers will look fantastic in a long row. As a bonus, with so many flowers over the table, you can keep tabletop decorations minimal, which allows for an unobstructed view of the person across the table; keeping sight lines open is great for getting a lively conversation going at the wedding dinner.

Ideas to Brighten Up Black Bridesmaid Dresses

Just because you have chosen a dark color for the bridesmaid dresses does not mean that they cannot have some vivid color elsewhere in their ensemble. A very fresh approach to the bridesmaid bouquets is to give each attendant a nosegay made of a different variety of flower. Have each bouquet made in a monochromatic color from one type of flower. In other words, you might have one nosegay of green Kermit mums, another of hot pink carnations, another in orange gerbera daisies, and so on. As long as the shape and size of each bouquet is uniform, this will look fantastic.

Accessories are a great way to brighten up black bridesmaid dresses. The bridesmaid jewelry can be a particularly fun way to add a splash of cheer to dark attire. Classic white pearls are lovely, but when the attendants are all wearing black, it can be better to opt for Swarovski crystal bridesmaid jewelry sets. This will give you a huge range of color choices, and will also get some shimmer and sparkle into the bridesmaids’ outfits, which is always a good thing. For summer, aquamarine crystal station necklaces would be gorgeous. In the winter months, a rich color like jade or cinnamon will be just the right amount of color for the bridesmaid jewelry to make it pop against the dark dresses.

Bridesmaids wearing knee length black dresses? Then use their shoes as the pop of color. One of the best colors is a chartreuse satin shoe, which will really stand out and make a statement. There is nothing somber about shoes like that! Cobalt blue is a rich hue which looks surprisingly good with black. Another deep shade with a great hit of color is plum. Metallic colors can work well for the bridesmaids’ shoes also. Silver, gold, or bronze shoes will offer the distinct advantage of being something which the bridesmaids will be able to wear again on many occasions.

What if your bridesmaids have already purchased their black dresses, but when your mother learns of the choice, it launches her into a panic attack? Instead of returning the dresses, consider adding a sash or wrap with a pop of color. This couldn’t be easier, since absolutely any color will look great against a black dress. If it means maintaining family harmony, it may well be a worthwhile compromise. The nice thing is that after your wedding, remove the sash, and your attendants will still have the classic black party dresses that they started with.

Pace Yourself, Brides!

Imagine this: you have been planning your dream wedding for a year. Your parents have taken out a second mortgage on the house just to make sure that you get exactly what you want for your wedding. You waft down the aisle like an angel, resplendent in your fabulous designer bridal gown and equally fabulous bridal jewelry. “Isn’t she lovely,” the guests all coo. “The most beautiful bride ever”, they all agree. Until this vision of the gracious bride hits the bar at the reception and by the time the night is over, she is performing moves on the dance floor that are better left for the honeymoon.

What do you think the guests of those brides who lose control of themselves will remember about the wedding? How the bride looked like an ad from a bridal magazine in her gown and bridal jewelry exchanging her vows in the church, or the embarrassing scene she caused at the reception by falling down drunk, dirty dancing with her bridesmaids, or giving a booze-fueled inappropriate toast? Let me give you a hint: it will be pretty hard for anyone to forget if the bride makes a total fool of herself, since the video will have gone viral on the web before the newlyweds even make it to their honeymoon destination. Don’t let this happen to you, ladies!

A  good way that a bride can be sure to keep her head is to keep track of the alcohol she is consuming over the course of the day. Don’t just accept every glass that comes your way without a thought. Think about when you will most enjoy a special drink and plan accordingly. If you know that you want to try out your custom signature cocktail and share a romantic glass of Champagne with your new husband, have sparkling cider with dinner instead of wine.

And remember that when a person is the object of a toast, she should only raise her glass, not drink to herself (that can save a lot of added up sips of Champagne if you have a lot of speeches at your wedding). This is not to say that a bride should not relax and enjoy herself at her reception, just that when all is said and done, it is really nice if you can actually remember what happened there. In the end, you will be very happy to reach the end of your wedding day with your dignity and reputation intact!

Quirky Wedding Ideas

Every wedding shares many elements in common, but that is no reason that you have to do them in the expected way. Most brides will give their attendants bridesmaid jewelry, but instead of giving each girl an identical set, why not have custom bridesmaid jewelry made with unique variations for each attendant? What a simple way to show each of your bridesmaids that you see her as an individual, not just as part of a matched set.

Your wedding favors are a great place to try something a little different. No matter how traditional the wedding, it is always okay to go out on a limb with the favors. At one wedding I attended in a mountain resort, the newlyweds gave pens from the resort as their favor; not just any pens, but the retro kind filled with liquid and a moving scene. To dress them up, they handmade special clear triangular tubes which fit the gifts to a “t”. It made a nice presentation for favors which were inexpensive, but also fun, unique, and enjoyed by all the guests.

Centerpieces are one of the main forms of decorations for most wedding receptions. Flowers are always gorgeous, of course, but blossoms in a vase do not always look so original. Think of new ways to display your flowers, like putting them under a sheet of Plexiglass on the table or inside clear boxes. Or skip the flowers altogether and design centerpieces around something that is near to your heart. Book lovers can stack up piles of their favorite classic stories (pick up vintage hardcover versions in second hand shops) and top with a ribbon or a few loose cut flowers. Or maybe you are headed to Paris for your honeymoon. Attractive Eiffel Tower replicas would look marvelous as centerpieces. Almost anything goes, as long as it looks stylish or beautiful.

Allow your mind to wander and your creative juices to flow, and before you know it, you will have planned a wedding which is quirky, fun, and entirely you.

A Perfectly Polished Wedding

We all know that true perfection is an impossible dream for a wedding. However, there are many, many things which a bride can do to ensure that her wedding is as polished and pulled together as possible. This is a list of what wedding insiders recommend doing to achieve the goal of a perfectly polished wedding.

Prep Your Wedding Gown. There is nothing to ruin a beautiful wedding photo like seeing a big gap between the top of a strapless gown and the bride within. Your bridal gown needs to be fit to perfection before the ceremony. The last fitting should be no more than a few weeks in advance in case you lose a couple of pounds at the end, as many brides do. Something else which is frequently overlooked is to steam the crinoline underneath the fabric of the bridal gown. The crinoline itself does not show, but if it is bumpy the skirt of the gown will not hang smoothly.

Perfect Your Accessories. Most brides know that they should have their wedding gown steamed or pressed before the ceremony, but to achieve a perfectly polished look, give your accessories that same care and attention. Personally, it drives me nuts to see a bride wearing a creased or rumply veil, when it is so easy for the bridal shop to steam it before the wedding. Your bridal jewelry deserves some pre-wedding tlc as well.  Have your engagement ring cleaned by a jeweler a day or two before the ceremony. It only takes a few minutes, costs nothing, and makes a huge difference in the sparkle of your gem.

Hand-cancel Your Wedding Invitations. Most brides put thought into selecting the right stamps for their invitation envelopes, and some even go so far as to create custom stamps. But if you really want your wedding invitations to arrive looking their best, take the time to hand-cancel them yourself at the post office. This avoids having a messy smudge of a cancel ruin your carefully chosen postage stamps. Even more than that, hand-canceling spares your invitations the rough treatment of the automated canceling machines, which can be very important when you have a bulky double envelope with enclosures or a ribbon inside. It is a little detail, but attention to detail is exactly what it takes to pull off a perfectly polished wedding.

The Latest Wedding Hair Trends

The most recent bridal shows definitely presented a different approach to bridal hairstyles than have been prevalent over the last few years. The messy, tousled look is out, replaced by a much more polished and classic approach to styling hair. Personally, I am all for it, as the current hairdos are much more glamorous and pulled together than their beach-messy counterparts. With one of these chic new hairstyles, you will look every bit the gorgeous woman ready to get married, and the look will be just as appealing in your photos twenty years from now as it is today.

The polished chignon is the ultimate new bridal hairstyle. Classic, ladylike, and sophisticated, it will complement any wedding gown. The ideal way to do it is with a little bit of height on the top and the crown (very subtle and even, so you don’t look like you are wearing a Bump-it!). This softens the look and keeps it from becoming severe. A single large hair ornament is the perfect finishing detail for a chignon. Tuck a fresh gardenia into the side of it, or add some drama with a spray of feathers. Gorgeous!

A variation on the chignon is the intricate bun. The hair is sectioned before being formed into a large low bun shape. The sections can be braided or smooth, depending on how much hair you have. It is a very pretty style, as polished as a chignon, but a bit more youthful. The intricate bun would be wonderful for a youngish bride. Sparkly bridal hair jewelry tucked along one side of the bun is the freshest accessory. Either use a crystal bedecked comb or a cluster of crystal hairpins to complete the look to perfection.

Romantic styles are always lovely for brides. Medium length wavy hair looks fantastic when pinned back into a faux-bob style which brings to mind the Jazz Age. The hair is loosely gathered in the front, leaving enough draping to resemble the effect of a bob, then the rest is pulled back and pinned at the back of the head. It is a neat combination of a hairdo which is pulled back, yet has a fair amount of hair showing in the front. Try it with one of the 1920s inspired wedding gowns with beaded chiffon to look like the modern version of a glamorous flapper!