Wedding Supplies

How about this for a twist…instead of having a wedding theme based on one ethnic background, why not create a melting pot?  Not only can the couple incorporate their own nationalities into the wedding but many other traditions will keep the event fresh, interesting, and exciting.

Starting from invitations, through favors, and on to the final dance, guests can experience a different country’s tradition throughout the entire event.  Just a few choices from the many options available could be Oriental centerpieces, Greek favors, Egyptian jewelry and old style scrolled British invitations. 

The wedding attire, the ceremony, and the reception are all great places to add that heritage factor.  Each member of the wedding party could be dressed in different outfit, customary to different regions of the world.  The bride a groom could do the same.  The ceremony itself can include many different customs and rituals. 

The reception is an especially perfect spot for a myriad of ethnic “flavors.”  You can have each table labeled as a different country.  For instance, The Jones’ may be sitting at the Africa table, with the Smith’s are sitting at the Brazil table.  You can decorate each table in colors and themes from that particular country, maybe using that country’s flag as the centerpiece.  If you choose to serve a buffet style meal, each station could be a food indigenous to each different county.  Appetizers could be a variety of Indian Tapas, while the main course could consist of favorite Italian dishes, maybe tied up with French desserts.  Another great place to include ancient traditions is on the dance floor.  There are so many great traditional dances along with music to accompany them.  As many of the older, traditional dances, encourage audience participation, this is a great way for couples to interact with their guests.   

Whatever your choice, this is a very easy theme to work with and you will find the possibilities are endless and plentiful.  Most of us want our wedding to be an unforgettable event and having an Around the World theme, will certainly prove to be a one-of-a-kind event for your guests and a most memorable occasion for you both.

Egyptian Shell Necklace

Capture the spirit of the season you marry in

Winter time weddings usually breed winter themed weddings, including location, (probably indoors), decorations and possibly your selection of a favor. I went to a December wedding once where the couple gave each female guest two ornate glass Christmas ornaments. I suspect they were pricy because they were in boxes from an upscale department store. I certainly understand the relevancy here, but if the majority of your guests don’t celebrate Christmas, (and you are aware of this fact), then I’d suggest something else; something more appropriate for the general public.

Spring weddings tend to lend themselves to a few more options than winter weddings. Depending on the month, you can have a portion or all of wedding reception outdoors. You’ll have a variety of flowers to choose from. You can find lots of wedding supplies geared towards the spring months, including holidays like St. Patrick’s Day. You may also get a better turn out of out of town guests. People are less averse to traveling if in climate weather isn’t an issue.

Daytime or nighttime weddings are both good choices in the summer. I would suggest lighter colors and lighter weight dresses for the bridesmaids. People will get antsy quickly if they have to spend an hour on formal pictures outside in a black gown in the middle of August! If your reception is going to be outside, make sure the tables are under tents or that there is some form of shade. If it’s going to be indoors, make sure the reception hall has air conditioning.

Fall and harvest type themes speak volumes in the fall months. If you’re into the yellows, oranges and browns, then fall is the right season for you. It should be relatively easy to provide an elegant setting or whatever setting you want with the changing of leaf colors. Corn stalks and scarecrows are great if they’re utilized in the proper setting. If your wedding is early enough in the fall season, you may be able to have cocktail hour outside.

No matter what month you pick to marry in, just try to make sure that you are in sync with the season. You can certainly do what you want to do, but if your hearts’ desire is to have a clambake for the food, I’d stick with the summer months. It might seem a little odd to eat steamers and lobster in many places in January. Of course you could always have a destination wedding to the Caribbean or some other exotic place where it’s pretty much always summer.  Ah, but that’s a whole separate topic!

Cut into your new life with a beautiful cake server set

                I imagine that most women, if not all women, fanaticize about their wedding day.

words of wisdom you can treasure long after your wedding day

From an early age, a teenager or younger, we begin to imagine our Prince Charming and living happily ever after. Of course everything is perfect because when we use our imagination, anything is possible. But in reality, we know that there’s always room for error or mishap. Prince Charming may look slightly different than we’d pictured and our chances for a fairy tale marriage are slim. Still we can reach for the moon while proceeding cautiously.

                When it comes time to actually plan and execute your dream wedding, you have nothing short of high expectations from anyone and everyone involved. If it starts to fall apart, don’t you fall apart. Drama can be imminent during the planning stage, just by virtue of the number of people that might be involved. But you cannot just call off the wedding and write it off as a bad experience. You must combat the drama with a positive and calm can-do attitude. Even if it means taking a step back to reassess something or someone, make your decisions for the right reason and then stand behind them. Even the most well planned wedding receptions can have a minor flaw or two.

                Against all odds for a perfect wedding is the first thing that comes to my mind when I recall a friends’ wedding. She was so excited to be marrying the man of her dreams, (and he was pretty close to Prince Charming all right!) She ironed out all the details early on with the intention of avoiding last minute stress as much as possible. Things were going great, for a while.

One of her bridesmaids lived in another state. Money was an issue for this woman, so my friend offered to pay for her dress and plane ticket to lessen her expenses, thus allowing her to be in the wedding party. A couple of months before the wedding, they got into an argument over something so trivial that my friend didn’t even consider it a true argument. The other woman saw it as something completely different and decided not to be in the wedding. In fact, she decided not even to come to the wedding. But here’s the kicker; she didn’t bother to tell my friend any of this! As time went on and she wasn’t returning phone calls, (no email back then), my friend took the hint. It was much too late to find a replacement bridesmaid, so she resigned to the fact that there would be an uneven wedding party. This was ultimately resolved by having one of the bridesmaids walk down the aisle with two ushers. She wasn’t thrilled about this, but it was better than asking for a stand in at the last minute, (when clearly the woman would know she was not the first round draft pick!)

                Okay, minor glitch, no big deal, right? Then comes the bachelorette party. Everyone’s having a great time until one of the bridesmaids goes MIA! She was with the group dancing one minute and gone the next. Everyone was drunk and went back to the hired van to pass out. This left only the bride to sober up and find her missing friend. She had a police officer helping her and the chauffeur of the van waited patiently for 2 hours. Finally, my friend gave up her search after retracing all their steps and decided to get everyone else home before anything else bad happened. Needless to say, she was upset and frightened for  the safety of her friend. She ended up paying the overage for the van and the additional tip out of her own pocket. She called the woman’s house a few hours later to find that she’d made it home safely. Somehow she felt it necessary to blame the bride for her disappearing act and proceeded to treat her very poorly for the remainder of the engagement. The bride had to track her down at work two days before the wedding because she had no idea where she was supposed to be and when. She was just plain mean to my friend on the phone. She showed up late for the rehearsal and at dinner she dismissed the bride’s attempt to resolve and rectify the misunderstanding by saying “now’s not the time. You should focus on your wedding and we’ll discuss this later.”  The next day, she showed up late to get her hair done and barely spoke to anyone. She may as well have not even been there. During the reception she got into a fight with her boyfriend and guess who consoled her while she cried in the lady’s room? Yup, the bride! My friend thought at least that would break the ice to get their friendship back on track. But as the star of the show, she couldn’t spend all night in the bathroom, so she rejoined the party with the idea they would make up later that night. But at some point after dinner, the woman left the reception without so much as a goodbye to anyone; including the bride and groom! They’ve never spoken since.

                While the bride-to-be was dealing with all this drama, she tried to focus on the positive. The day the bridesmaids dresses came in, my friend rushed down there only to find that the maid of honor’s dress was a completely different color…the wrong color! They bridal shop said they would send it back but could not guarantee that the replacement would make it with only three weeks until the wedding. She thought she better not risk it, so she kept the dress. Fortunately, it was a color that did not clash with the chosen color. Since it was the maid of honor, she figured she could play it like it was intentionally different. The dress also had to be taken it because from the time the dresses were ordered, the maid of honor had lost a significant amount of weight. The dress was literally about five sizes too big!

                Great, another tragedy averted she thought. It should’ve been smooth sailing from there, but of course it wasn’t! She soon found out that her grandfather could not attend her wedding because he was very ill with cancer. He was too weak to make the trip. This made her very sad, but of course he was there with her in spirit! In addition to this and to her bridesmaid that was completing ignoring and avoiding her, she had another wrench thrown into the works. Her otherwise very healthy Prince Charming came down with pneumonia a couple of weeks before the wedding! He was sick as a dog and was just barely recovered by the big day! Oh, and did I mention that his mother basically abandoned her family a couple of years earlier and he didn’t even want to invite her to the wedding? Well the bride, being “politically correct”, said she had to be invited and that he needed to put his feelings for his mother aside for the sake of a peaceful wedding. She came, they danced, and she too left the reception at some point without saying goodbye! What a kick in the pants!

                The good news is that my friend managed to still be a happy bride and everything else fell into its respective place. She’s down two so-called friends, but happily married for 14 years. Have you figured out yet that my friend is actually me? True story!

How about an Ensemble?  Wedding ensembles are all inclusive sets that feature all the beautiful pieces you need, packaged together in one bundle.  Because accessories are bundled together, ensembles will save you time and money.  They are ideal for one stop shopping and cost less than if you purchased all the items separately!

Ensembles are available in many different styles, colors, and themes.  They include matching items like the wedding guest book, ring bearer pillow, flower girl basket, and unity candle.  Ensembles are a convenient, cost-effective way to make your wedding complete.

Back in the day, this formal book was a way to signify which family and friends actually attended your wedding.  In the past, such books resembled that of an address book, with not much frill or flair.  Occasionally you’d come across “the diamond in the rough” decorated to suit the occasion.  While an important detail that should not be overlooked, I’m happy to tell you that the days of boring old guest books are gone.

There are many creative ways to re-invent the wedding guest book tradition.  You and your new spouse can use the book as the official address book of your friends and family.  Create it in a way that captures all their current data, including a spot for cell phone and email addresses.  You can go so far as to have the photographer snap a photo of each guest as they sign, and include the picture beside their information in the book.  Another fun idea is to frame your wedding invitation, and let the guests sign the matte around the frame.  They can write well wishes and notes that become a treasured keepsake in your home forever.  The list goes on and on.  Just remember, the guest book is a reflection of you and should represent your sense of style.

One of the best keepsakes that comes out of a wedding is the guest book. Within these books, people are able write all kinds of well wishes and pieces of advice. It’s always amusing, insightful, and thoughtful to go back and read these inscriptions. But there’s always so many things going on at a wedding, it’s easy to forget these kinds of details. But it would be a real shame to miss out on something as special as the guestbook.

So with aspects of the wedding like this, it’s a perfect time to utilize your maid of honor or best man. These are just the kind of jobs that they are there to complete. Put somebody in charge of the guest book, and then you won’t even have to worry about it again. Just make sure you specifically designate somebody to do the job. If you just announce that it needs to be done, it’s likely that nobody will take responsibility. Just make sure the person that takes the job is detail oriented. Otherwise, they might forget something important like the guest book pen!

There are certain events in our lives that we’ll remember forever. Whatever the milestones in your life that stand out the most, your wedding day is invariably one of those days that you will always remember. But for many stressed out brides and grooms, the day is such a blur or last minute activities and preparation that the day itself can be lost. In fact, many newly married couples look back on the day only to realize they didn’t even get to have any of the delicious food, the expensive champagne, or the delectable wedding cake.

With that in mind, there are ways that happy couples can help themselves experience the day after all the excitement and planning are over. For one, make sure you hire a photographer that captures many of the darling, hilarious, or unforgettable moments that you might have missed. Also, look into wedding guest books, so you can read all the comments and well wishes from your friends and family for years to come.