Picturesque Fall Wedding Venue Ideas

Nothing says fall wedding quite like a rustic barn in the countryside. Think apple orchards, pumpkin patches, and the glorious colors of fall trees. Play up the rustic charm of a barn wedding with lots of natural decorations. Use hollowed out gourds and pumpkins as centerpiece vessels. Graceful stalks of wheat bundled with satin ribbon make simple but elegant decorations for guest book tables. The bride can wear a dress with a texture that suits the rustic flavor of a barn wedding, such as a slubby silk dupioni gown with handmade wedding jewelry. It is sure to be a wedding that captures all the beauty of autumn perfectly.

An historic inn is another great idea for a fall wedding venue. A charming country inn is a romantic spot to host a wedding ceremony and reception. Look for an inn with lots of personality, such as wide graceful porches, Adirondack chairs on the lawn, and colorful gardens. Line the porch steps with baskets of seasonal mums for a splash of color. Greet your guests with mulled cider, and serve an elegant meal of fresh fall foods like pumpkin risotto and butternut squash. Best of all, the country inn will make a wonderful place to honeymoon.

How about a fall wedding on the side of a mountain? This is a fantastic idea for an early autumn wedding before it gets too cold in the higher elevations. Pick an overlook with a sweeping view of the valley below for the ceremony. The photos will be truly breathtaking. It may get a bit chilly, so in addition to her gorgeous gown and handmade wedding jewelry, the bride will definitely want a cozy wrap for the reception. Plan the wedding to take place when the fall foliage will be at its peak to take advantage of the best that nature has to offer in the autumn. The location will be so stunning that you will need minimal decorations.

Another very picturesque site for an autumn wedding celebration is a vineyard. How beautiful to host a wedding surrounded by lush grapevines full of the fall harvest. Let your celebration include one of the special autumn vintages made by the vineyard. Long family style tables work beautifully for this rustic-chic location. You don’t have to head to Napa or Sonoma for a marvelous vineyard wedding, either. Many states have their own wine-growing regions, with little vineyards which would make ideal wedding venues.

Beautiful Wedding Programs

Your wedding programs should fit the overall theme of your event, but they need not match the rest of the wedding stationery suite exactly (unless you want them to, of course). Spend the time to make your programs look really special by using a beautiful paper, a carefully selected font, and pretty embellishments such as ribbons or tassels. Naturally, you will want them to be done using your wedding colors, and they can coordinate with other aspects of your design as well. For instance, if you love the sparkle of your crystal wedding jewelry, add a small crystal tassel to the corner of each program to dress it up.

Some of the most fun programs are not even printed on standard paper. If you were having an outdoor summer wedding, you could print the ceremony details on a pretty paper fan. The special fan would not only let your guests know what music you used in the processional and who wrote the poem from your vows, but it can be used to keep cool on a hot afternoon. Pretty, unique, and practical – what’s not to love? The same idea can be adapted to suit weddings at other times of the year, as well.

For a wedding done in a modern style, think about creating programs in a non-traditional shape, such as circles. Be sure that the font you select reflects the overall style of your event. A bold sans-serif block print is ideal for a bride who loves contemporary design. Another way to play up an ultra modern style is to use a variety of font sizes in unexpected ways. The easy-to-read sans-serif font will ensure that the offbeat printing style is still extremely legible. Splashy color combinations like cherry and aqua or mango and lime look fantastic for this updated take on the wedding program.

There are many more great ways to make your programs unique and fun. You could create an old-fashioned scroll, a playbill fit for a Broadway show (let your inner diva shine!), or even a message in a bottle for a beach wedding. The most important thing is that the programs express your personality and enhance the theme of your event…oh, that and getting them done on time – always start making diy programs long before the wedding date!

Honeymoon Planning 101

Just getting started on planning your honeymoon? Great! Before you make any arrangements, get the tips you need to make planning a romantic and memorable honeymoon trip a breeze. Welcome to Honeymoon Planning 101.

When it comes to a memorable honeymoon, the most important thing is to do something that you both enjoy as a couple. The beach honeymoon is very traditional, but if neither of you enjoys the sun or water, it would be a poor choice! Perhaps your style is checking out all that a big city has to offer or maybe you have always dreamed of seeing Alaska. A festival could be just your cup of tea or perhaps you have both always longed to see your ancestral homelands. Think about what would make the trip really special, and plan it based on that, rather than tradition.

Knowing what to bring on your trip is also important, as is knowing what to leave at home. Check the local guidebooks for your honeymoon destination to find out how casual people typically dress. Make an effort to look your best; it is supposed to be a romantic trip, after all! A few common packing tips include bringing nice shoes (no sneakers!) and skirts or pants instead of shorts for a tour of Europe. Beach vacations are usually fairly low-key, but you should definitely bring along a pretty dress and some of your wedding jewelry to wear for intimate dinners. Then there is what not to bring: anything very valuable, especially very flashy jewelry or watches. Bring a minimum of jewelry; the earrings and necklace from your wedding jewelry set should be plenty, especially if you will be spending most of your time lounging on the beach.

Finally, be sure you make plans to capture all of those beautiful honeymoon memories. A good camera (bring extra batteries!) is a must. You may also wish to bring a small travel journal to record your memories and impressions, as well as a folder to save tickets and other memorabilia for scrapbooking. Meaningful souvenirs will help you to remember your wonderful honeymoon for years to come. Skip the tacky tourist stuff like t-shirts and pick up one or two really special local items, such as a piece of Venetian glass from a honeymoon in Italy. Even a collection of seashells would make a lovely honeymoon memento when artfully displayed in a shadow box. Choose that special something that will always remind you of your first ever vacation as husband and wife.

Formal Fall Wedding Colors

Did you know that September and October are among the most popular months for weddings? Fall weddings have a very different flavor than the bright summer weddings which precede them or the “Winter Wonderland” weddings of the holiday season. Many of the ideas for autumn weddings are rustic, but one can certainly have a more elegant wedding in the fall months. These are some ideas for formal fall wedding colors.

When trying to avoid the standard rustic fall colors, the key is to use something a bit more sophisticated with one of the rich seasonal hues. For instance, the rich red of burgundy is a fairly classic fall color, but when paired with a deep aubergine, the result is truly regal. It would be a fantastic color palette for an October evening wedding. Decorate with an abundance of roses in burgundy and aubergine, along with touches of amber crystal to lighten things up a touch. The bride can choose to wear a gown with golden tones instead of pure white, perhaps accented with custom bridal jewelry in amber crystals. It would be a perfect bridal ensemble for a ceremony in a Gothic stone church.

Brown is a popular color for autumn weddings. To make the look more elegant than rustic, steer clear of the standard brown with orange combination. Brown paired with a luxurious lilac color would be feminine and yet seasonal for a fall afternoon ceremony. Think about how pretty your bridesmaids would look in brown taffeta or shantung dresses with lilac sashes. For the bouquets, choose elegant flowers in shades of lilac and light purple, such as lisanthus, calla lilies, orchids, roses, and statice. To bring the fall season into the bouquets, create a ruffle of embossed velvet leaves in brown and deep purple around the blossoms.

Gold is an excellent color for a formal fall wedding, as is its cousin, bronze. The rich warm metallics are ideal for an upscale autumn wedding and pair beautifully with any number of other colors. Dark colors such as forest green, cobalt (just a bit fresher than navy), russet, and deep orange are all gorgeous when combined with gold or bronze accents. Set the mood with invitations engraved in an exquisite gold font and line the envelopes with your other color. For the wedding decorations, use gold or bronze charger plates under the dinner china, layered over dupioni tablecloths in forest, cobalt, russet or deep orange. The gorgeous colors will bring your autumn wedding to life beautifully.

Wedding Planners’ Tricks of the Trade

Not every bride will hire a professional to organize her wedding, but that does not mean that you cannot benefit from their know-how. Over the years, a good wedding coordinator learns all sorts of nifty tricks that make weddings more beautiful, better run, and more cost effective. These are some of the tricks of the trade that wedding planners use.

Reuse Ceremony Decorations. Why pay for everything twice when you can reuse much of your ceremony decorations for the reception? While your guests are enjoying a fabulous cocktail hour, the vendors can move the ceremony chairs, altar flowers, and any other decorations you had into the reception space. Think about how much money you can save by not paying for duplicate chair rentals and floral displays!

Variety is the Spice of Life. If there is one thing that every planner strives to do it is to create a wedding that is unique, not cookie-cutter. A simple way to do this on your own is to break up the sameness of repeated elements with some variations. Rather than having the same centerpiece design repeated for a dozen tables, pick three centerpiece designs with similar flowers, but of varying heights. The same goes for your bridesmaids. Pick complementary dresses and sets of bridesmaid jewelry in several styles instead of having all the girls match exactly.

Great Food is a Must. Wedding planners have attended enough receptions to know that if the food is not delicious, the guests will be grumbling. Even worse than lackluster meals are weddings that do not have enough food. There is nothing worse than having the food at the cocktail hour run out before the end of the event! Scrimp in other areas of the wedding as needed, but keep your guests happy with food that is tasty and plentiful.

Planning a Weekend of Wedding Events

For a Saturday wedding, the wedding weekend will likely begin on a Thursday. This is the ideal time for the bride to host a ladies’ luncheon, a lunch which she gives to show her appreciation for her bridesmaids. During the luncheon, the bride will give out the pearl earrings, or whatever gift she selected for her bridesmaids. The ladies’ luncheon is typically held in a nice restaurant, since the last thing the bride needs to be doing the week of her wedding is cooking and hosting a party at her house!

Friday is when things really ramp up. A trip to the beauty salon is usually the first order of business for the ladies in the wedding. This can be a really fun time for the bride, her bridesmaids, and the moms to bond over manis and pedis (and maybe a few Champagne cocktails, if the spa is really posh!). Friday afternoon is the usual time for the wedding rehearsal, and it is important that all hands are on deck for this event. Some couples like to line up an activity to entertain their out-of-town guests on Friday who will not be attending the rehearsal. A sight-seeing tour or trip to a local attraction like a vineyard would be a good choice.

Friday night is the traditional time for the rehearsal dinner. In recent years, some couples have opted to host a wedding welcome dinner instead of a rehearsal dinner. The difference is that the welcome dinner is open to everyone, which can make a lot of sense if a large percentage of your wedding guests will be out-of-towners. The rehearsal dinner or welcome dinner can be as formal or informal as you like. You could rent a yacht and serve a five star meal or have a picnic in a neighborhood park; there is no right or wrong. The only rule of thumb is that you don’t want to have a rehearsal dinner which is more lavish than the wedding reception!

On Saturday will come the wedding ceremony and reception, of course, but that is not all. For ceremonies with a 4pm start time or later, it has become very popular to arrange a group activity to keep people entertained before the wedding. The golf tournament is a particular favorite, although you could choose any activities which you think your friends and family would enjoy. The comes the wedding itself, which is of course, the main event of the weekend.

The final thing to add to your wedding weekend is a post-wedding brunch on Sunday morning. This is always a fun and relaxed event, where guests can see the newlyweds one more time before they head off on their honeymoon. It is really just a great way to cap off a wonderful weekend of wedding fun.

Flower Girls for Summer Weddings

One of the cutest parts of any wedding is the flower girl. Choose an adorable outfit and special flowers for her to make your little one even more darling. These are some sweet ideas for flower girls for summer weddings.

The first thing to decide for your flower girl is what she will wear. A white Swiss dot cotton organdy dress with a Peter Pan collar and a self sash tied in a bow would be about the cutest thing imaginable. It would be perfect for a semi-formal church wedding on a summer afternoon. Add white Mary Jane shoes with little white cuff socks and a silver heart locket for the flower girl jewelry, and you will have a timeless look that is sure to delight all in attendance. Pair with either a traditional basket of rose petals or a very small posy of pink spray roses.

Pastel organza dresses are also very sweet for summer flower girls. They are great for garden weddings in soft shades such as lavender, pale green, rose pink, or light blue. Rows of tiny ribbon flowers around the waist or neck make organza flower girl dresses even more precious. Instead of a basket, flower pomanders on organza ribbons would be wonderful for the girls to carry. If you want to have some fun with your little ones, add sets of colorful organza fairy wings for them to wear down the aisle. It is especially adorable if you have several little girls in the wedding party.

Nautical themes are always popular for summer weddings, and this can be a great place to get inspiration for your flower girl dresses. Classic navy sailor dresses with white trim are perfect for a nautical wedding by the ocean or at a yacht club. This is a style that never goes out of fashion, and as a bonus, sailor dresses can be found in a wide range of prices, unlike official flower girl dresses which tend to be more pricey. White leather Mary Jane shoes will suit the traditional nature of the sailor dress. A natural colored basket with red flower petals would be the perfect thing for the little sailor girl to carry. Keep the summer season in mind when selecting the attire and flowers for your littlest attendants, and they will be one of the most delightful parts of the wedding!

Evening Wedding Themes

Evening weddings have a special appeal all their own. After dark, you can really pull out all the stops when it comes to glamor, sophistication, and even entertainment. These are some ideas for spectacular evening wedding themes.

Casino Night. If you want your wedding to have an emphasis on fun and glamor, consider a casino theme. Base your wedding design around the sophisticated style of an upscale casino in Monte Carlo or one of the palaces in Las Vegas, all with a bit of retro flair. Crystal chandeliers, gold chargers, and heavy cut crystal glasses are the order of the day. For the bride, a slinky beaded sheath dress with dramatic crystal chandelier earrings would be fabulous, and the bridesmaids can be equally glamorous in satin column dresses with crystal bridesmaid jewelry. Naturally, the high point of the reception will be the gaming; bring in professionals to run games like roulette and blackjack after dinner. Chances are that real gambling for money would be illegal, so let your guests play for chips and pride.

Starry Night. Picture a clear ceiling tent under a mass of twinkling stars for your wedding reception. This would create a spectacular place in which to celebrate your wedding. If you cannot conjure up real stars, drape midnight blue fabric over the ceiling of your venue and light it with thousands of tiny twinkling white lights. Play up the star theme in subtle ways throughout your wedding, such as using pierced votive candle holders which have tiny star shapes. A wedding cake painted to resemble Van Gogh’s famous “Starry Night” painting would be a real show stopper.

Masquerade. This is a particularly fun theme for a wedding on New Year’s Eve. Instead of standard wedding favors, give each guest a beautiful handmade mask to wear for dancing after the reception. You can take your inspiration from the lavish masks which are made in Venice, Italy or the flamboyant purple, gold, and green masks which are a huge part of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The perfect bridal gown for the masquerade theme would be a lavishly embroidered and beaded strapless ballgown, worn with opulent wedding jewelry, and of course, a custom white feather and crystal mask. One thing is for sure: you will get some fantastic wedding photos!

Can You Wear White to Someone Else’s Wedding?

The reason to avoid wearing white as a wedding guest is that the color is reserved for the bride. It is the job of guests at weddings to be dressed appropriately and festively, but not to upstage the bride. Wearing white can definitely fall into the category of drawing attention from the bride, even if it is completely unintentional. This is particularly true if you wear some sort of a white dress with pearl wedding jewelry. Unless you are actually wearing a wedding gown, no one is going to mistake you for the bride, yet it would still be pushing the edge of good taste. While the bride might not be uptight about such old-fashioned rules, the chances are that her grandmother will be, and why do something that is likely to offend?

For a summer wedding, it is true that many of the prettier dresses in the stores may be white (more so some years than others), but there are so many other colors out there in the world that one can surely find a safer alternative. Another option is to wear a dress with a white background which has a colorful print on it, such as blue and pink flowers. Few would find fault with that; even those who interpret traditional wedding etiquette strictly will understand that a patterned dress with a little white in the background is in no way an attempt to upstage the bride. The one exception, by the way, to wearing white attire to a wedding is the naval officer’s summer dress white attire.

These days, black has become fairly accepted for wedding guest attire in many social circles (especially around the big cities). That said, there will still be those who find it inappropriate for a wedding, and it should be avoided by the mothers of the bride and groom due to the old meaning that black meant disapproval of the match. For the other guests, while you probably can get away with wearing black, especially for an evening wedding, it is still not the best color choice. Why? Because black is rather somber and dark for an occasion as festive as a wedding. Even if it is not strictly taboo, it is still nicer to wear a color other than black.

This brings us to the other old belief, that red is inappropriate for a wedding guest. The simple reason for the ban on red is that it is bright and flashy. While no one will think you are trying to look like a bride (white) or show disapproval (black), they might well think that you are trying to upstage the bride by wearing such a bright color.  That said, red can definitely be worn in a manner that is completely appropriate for a wedding. The key when wearing a bold color is to select a dress with a very classic design. When dressing for a wedding, let your good taste and good judgment be your guide to sartorial success.

Brown Wedding Color Palettes

Brown is one of the most versatile colors for weddings. While not necessarily considered to be one of the most festive colors, brown adds a richness and sophistication to a wedding color palette that can really enhance the overall design of the event. Take a look at some of the elegant ways to include brown in your wedding color palette.

In the spring, a soft cocoa color pairs wonderfully with lilac. The unexpected color combination is chic and stylish, and the brown helps tone down the Easter egg effect of the spring pastels. Try bridesmaid dresses in lilac organza or shantung with cocoa brown sashes and mocha bridesmaid jewelry sets. Bouquets in a range of lilacs and light purples tied with cocoa satin ribbons will be the perfect coordinate.

For a late summer wedding, try mixing brown with a bright coral color. The depth of the brown will tone down the intensity of the coral and make it more sophisticated. It is great for an evening wedding, but would also be quite chic for the afternoon. A deep chocolate or even an espresso shade is an excellent match for the coral. If you wish to add another color to your palette, try mixing in touches of mango for a little more warmth. All these colors work beautifully for the centerpieces and bouquets, and will also look great for all the reception details. A tiered wedding cake covered with smooth chocolate ganache decorated with coral and mango mini calla lilies would be the height of elegance and style for any reception.

If you like a dramatic look, think about mixing a rich chocolate with a dark plum hue (sounds almost good enough to eat!). This would be a regal and striking palette for a winter wedding. These colors look excellent in the luxe fabrics of the winter season such as sumptuous silks, velvets, and even faux furs. When using a palette this rich, go overboard with opulent details, such as towering centerpieces set on quilted silk tablecloths with beading. Take it over the top with a chic lounge at the reception featuring low slung plum velvet sofas with cream and chocolate faux fur pillows scattered about. Too fabulous!