Pressed for Ideas

I'm always looking for more ways to permanently capture things about your wedding day.  Hopefully it was the best day of your life, which is why a videographer and photographer are ESSENTIAL!  Being a florist, I search for floral preservation techniques for the brides bouquet.  More and more ideas are coming into fruition.  I was reading my trusty COSTCO Connection Magazine today and came across this business:

All Seasons Floral Preservation
www.allseasonspressed.com

Check them out!  It's another great option if you want to keep your bouquet forever....or until death do you part, really, since we can't take anything with us from this life to the next. 

But that's a topic for another day.

What to do with your "Free Time"

Often when a wedding is just a few weeks away I will ask people what they are doing to prepare. Usually they tell me, "There is nothing left to do. We're just waiting for the wedding day to get here." I would encourage people to utilize that time to double- and triple-check everything. Call the caterer, the florist, the decorator, etc. and double-check that they have the right date, delivery time, etc. So much anxiety the day before and the day of your wedding could be avoided by double-checking these things. Don't just let that time waste and then panic the 48-hours leading up to your wedding. Utilize it to the fullest and let that anxiety wash away with each successful phone call.

Happy planning!

In My Humble Opinion...

The following are some miscellaneous thoughts of mine regarding wedding planning. They aren't meant to offend anyone, they are just my opinions. Here they are...in no particular order.

• Return Address Labels - I don't like when couples send a wedding invitation with a return address label that makes it look like they already live together/are married. You know what I mean? When it's listed with their names as _____ & ______ _____________ and then their address. I don't think that's right. You can insert a card with your new address after you are married in the invitation so that people have it and can mail cards directly to you, or you could always just save those labels for your thank you notes.
• Wedding Colors - I laugh that people use whatever wedding colors are "in style". What is that about? Why wouldn't you use colors that have been your favorite your whole life? Or the colors you want to decorate your home in? The one thing that all "in style" weddings will one day be is "out of style". But if it's "your style", it never will.
• Invitation wording - I love creativity and personality! When considering the wording for your wedding invitations I think it's great to make it sound like you...on your best behavior! Don't even get me started on those invitations where the couple is "gettin' hitched" and so on. Ugh!
• Telling people what to give you. This one is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! Of course I have no problem with registering. I think people are really starting to appreciate not having to guess what to give. And it's one thing to encourage gift cards if you are getting married and then moving across the country or something. But I have seen wedding invitations that say (I am NOT lying) "In lieu of gifts the couple requests cash gifts in $20 increments". Are you kidding me???? Since when do you tell someone what gift to give you? What happened to being thankful for any gift at all??? And if you are going to be that...wretched, why not shoot for the moon and say "$100 increments? I have seen so many invitations like this lately. If it were my child, I would pull all funding from the wedding (not to mention my name from the invite) if they tried to pull a stunt like that. It is tacky and horribly rude! And in this economy where people are just trying to keep their house and keep food on the table, it is completely unacceptable!!

I'm done now.

My DREAM Wedding... In THIS Economy???

I'm going to start blogging more about wedding planning - specifically how to have your DREAM wedding day YOUR way and how to do it in the worst economy our country has ever seen. It's totally possible! I want to show you how!

First of all, a lot of people are confused about the term "dream wedding". They hear that phrase and automatically think you have to be Donald Trump's daughter to pull it off. That is NOT the case. Having YOUR dream wedding actually has almost nothing to do with money at all.

Let's have a little conversation about having YOUR wedding YOUR way.

I want to start a wedding revolution!! I am SO over cookie cutter weddings!! You've seen one wedding, you've seen them all! People think that they can use a different color scheme or whatever and trick people into thinking that their wedding was uniquely their own. Everything about your wedding day should be a reflection of who you (Bride AND Groom) are as individuals, and more importantly as a couple.

Let's talk just about the time line of your day. When I got married EVERYONE got married in the morning, then had a wedding breakfast, then a reception in the evening. So that's what I did. How was that a reflection of who either of us were individually or as a couple? It didn't. But everyone else was doing it, so that's what I did. So how can your time line be a reflection of who you are? If I had my day to do over again, this is what I'd do:

7am - Wake up and take a long bath
8am - BIG breakfast with my extended family (after all, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day)
9am - Go with my mom and sisters to my hair stylist extraordinaire to spend the rest of the morning getting all dolled up and hanging out together
12noon - Head for the Temple with my parents
2pm - Be sealed for Eternity to the man of my dreams
4pm - Go on a carriage ride with my new Eternal Companion
6pm - Wedding Dinner with both families
7pm - Reception begins
9:30pm - Leave our reception and drive off into the sunset

In everything in life, small changes can bring BIG results!