Adding an Extra Personal Touch to Your Honeymoon

I feel very strongly that your honeymoon should be personal; even a package cruise deal can still be made to fit you, if it’s what the two of you really want. To be honest, even staying home would be romantic right after your wedding! What you do on your honeymoon can help add that personal touch and essential romance, especially if you’ve opted for a beach honeymoon and are thinking about mainly relaxing together. I’ve put together a few ideas below for ways to make your honeymoon special; I’m sure you have a few of your own, but I’m running with the idea that more are always welcome!

1. Start to make your own wedding album. Some photographers work fairly quickly these days. If you have access to the internet on your honeymoon, it can be fantastic to try and work through your photos and put them into a scrapbook. Relaxing together is the perfect time to read look at those photos and start to construct the image of your new life together. You may not have the final versions of the photos, but you can certainly think about what you’ll put on the pages and shop for a new album, even if you’re having a professional album done.

2. Take along your wedding guest book to have a look over while you’re away. In fact, it’s best not to look at it until you’ve had a good few days of honeymoon – bring out the album when you’re good and ready to do so! It can be so romantic to read family and friends’ well wishes while lounging at sunset on the beach, at your candlelit dinner in the bush on safari, or simply anywhere you’re happy and comfortable. Many people do creative things with their guest books these days; I still would suggest having a physical book to pin things in, even if you’ve had guests write their messages on flowers or their place cards.

3. Wait to buy gifts for the wedding party until after you’ve had your honeymoon. This is a REALLY unconventional idea, and something I only just thought of myself, so I didn’t do it, but instead of giving your bridal party a gift beforehand, why not get them a special souvenir from your honeymoon destination? I’m not thinking a conventional or tacky gift, but something genuine, like a handcarved wood statue from Africa, would surely make a bigger impact. Otherwise, why not personalise your gifts?

4. Keep a few decorations and take them along with you on your honeymoon. They can be perfect for putting in the scrapbook I’ve already recommended you put together or even just including in your photos. Perhaps you have a particular bit of decoration that either you’ve spent quite a bit of time making or just symbolises your entire wedding to you – this can be such a romantic, small thing to take along and remind yourselves of the amazing wedding you’ve just had, even if you haven’t made them yourself.

Cherry Blossom Wedding Ideas

Cherry Blossom Small Cling

$9.98 each

 

Cherry Blossom Place Card Favor Boxes

$25.12 each

Cherry Blossom Candle Wedding Favor

$3.00 each

 

 

Cherry Blossoms Wine Glass Shade

$1.10 each

Simply divine on

Cherry Blossom Traditional Guest Book

$29.98 each

 



Cheery Cherry Blossom Design Candles

$1.60 each

 

Cherry Blossom Scented Soap

$1.47 each

 

Cherry Blossoms Frosted Glass Coasters

$1.75 each

 

All items can be purchased at www.GorgeousWeddingStuff.com

Bachelorette Party Ideas

Bachelorette Slumber Party

A fantastic bachelorette party idea is a good old fashioned slumber party. You can pretty much guarantee that slumber parties won't be happening again in your bride's life, so now's the time to have one with all her best friends! Go all out with footie pajamas, pillow fights, dreamy crooners on vinyl, slam books, and lots of junk food. You may even want to play some old favorite games like Truth or Dare or Light as a Feather. Do seances, do dance contests, do each other's hair! Live it up one last time before your buddy gets hitched...just like you did when you were all little girls.

Weekend Getaway Parties

For a truly unique bachelorette party, you may consider taking off for the weekend with your bachelorette party guests. Whether you choose to stay in a quiet bed and breakfast or party it up in a big city like New York or Las Vegas, spending a couple of days with your dearest friends is a great way to see the bride off to her new, married life. (Besides, who knows when you'll all be able to go away together again?)

Bonus Tip: It's a good idea to cover the bride's cost for the weekend, and if every member of the party chips in, you should have no trouble.

Concentrate On the Bride

Sometimes you can get more ideas for your unique bachelorette party by browsing the ideas other parties have used. Check out party supplies stores for photos and stories. These things can give you ideas for a general theme of the party, which you can build on from there. Play her old favorite songs, make her favorite snacks, and give the bride the surprise of her life by making her bachelorette party all about her.

Pamper the Bride-to-Be

Ahh, the future bride's days as a bachelorette are numbered, what are her closest partners in crime to do? Send her out in style, of course! What girl doesn't love to feel beautiful? Treat your bosom buddy to a day of getting gussied up.

Start the day off shopping. Collect a pool of cash from the attendees and let the bride pick out a smashing outfit (make sure she models it and gets the vote of the crowd). Next, head off to the salon for facials, manicures, and pedicures that will leave everyone glowing. Then, to top off the day of beauty, let the guest of honor get her hair blown out. Finally, it's time to put the morning's shopping escapade to good use, put those killer outfits on ladies and head out to show them off, even if you're just planning a simple dinner. Everyone is sure to feel like a million dollars, especially the bride-to-be.

An Elegant Evening

If you look through any guide to bachelorette party planning, you're likely to be greeted with a tasteless assortment of phallic-themed ideas. However, who says that bachelorette parties have to be tasteless and debaucherous? Plan an elegant affair instead. Lay out the white tablecloth and break out the silver and the crystal. Arrange a four course meal, even if it entails ordering from a fancy restaurant. Invite all of the girls that are the closest to the bride-to-be and tell them to wear their cocktail dresses and heels because this is a fancy dinner. For the evening let all of the ladies feel like they are VIPs at a five star restaurant. And, don't forget to break out the bubbly and give a toast to the real VIP and the guest of honor, the bride-to-be.

Ships Ahoy!

Ahh, the bridal celebration before the wedding. Who will ever forget their bachelorette party (on purpose, anyway)? It's up to you to make sure that the bride-to-be has the time of her life so don't drop the ball, girlfriend. Chances are this woman is very special to you so you'll want to make this event special for her. Why not opt for an adventure asea?
Invite all of the closest women to the bride, pack oodles of sunscreen, and charter a boat. There are vessels available for charter everywhere, you just need to pick your pony. If you want a relaxing day gliding in the breeze, rent a giant schooner and a sailor to show you the ropes. If you feel the need for speed and excitement, rent a speed boat and pack some skis. If you just want to relax, however, look into a yacht or a cruise boat. These options aren't as expensive as you'd think (especially with multiple women chipping in). Do your planning right and it will be smooth sailing.

Remember...Just be creative and make sure that it's about the bride.

Best Wishes, Michele~

What's your wedding style?

So you’re heading to the chapel of love.

Congrats and buckle up! Getting to the ‘I dos” can be tricky. It is time to get to work planning a celebration you’ll remember for a lifetime and my have been mentally planning since first grade. But what kind of party will it be? Will it be simple and chic or cool and off beat. We want to help you discover the personality of your inner bride. Our Bridal Guide will help you narrow down the selection of vital wedding day components like food, music, flowers and that all-important dress. The Guide also has useful information about local reception venues, bridal boutiques and rehearsal dinner options.
To help you through what could be one of the most trying processes of you life - planning a wedding - we’ve devised a little quiz. Our quiz is not fool-proof (you can like a combination of bridal styles), but it can help your narrow down your bridal style.

So go ahead, whip out a pencil (or if you are confident, a pen) and take our Wedding Style Quiz.

Wedding Style Quiz

Directions: select only one answer for each question and pretend your resources are limited.


1) Which word best describes your ideal reception?
A) Funky
B) Fantasy
C) Chic
D) Classic
E) Sophisticated

2) If you had to be a Spice Girl, which would you most likely be?
A) Melanie Brown/ Scary Spice
B) Emma Bunton/ Baby Spice
C) Victoria Beckham/ Posh Spice
D) Melanie Chisholm/ Sporty Spice
E) Geri Halliwell/ Ginger Spice

3) Which ‘martini’ best describes you?
A) Electric blue martini with a twist
B) Cosmopolitan
C) Pamatini
D) Classic Martini
E) Bellini

4) Pick an appetizer:
A) Crawfish boulettes
B) Shrimp cocktail
C) Mini kobe burgers 
D) Bruschetta
E) Baby quiche

5) Where would you most like to live?
A) A penthouse, an igloo, a sailboat ...
B) A Tudor home
C) A decked-out loft in the city
D) A comfortable, yet stately cottage
E) A mini mansion

6) How would you rather get to your reception?
A) Parachute
B) Horse-drawn carriage
C) A Hummer limo
D) Stroll in with friends
E) A vintage Bentley

7) In addition to or in place of a veil, which accessory are you most likely to wear in your hair?
A) A star-shaped hairpin
B) A blinged-out tiara
C) A feather
D) A flower
E) A vintage diamond pin

8) If money was not a factor, where would you rather honeymoon?
A) Hong Kong
B) Hawaii or Jamaica
C) Aruba
D) Cape Cod
E) Rome

9) What would you most want your bridesmaid to wear?
A) A dress of their choosing
B) Matching pickup dresses
C) A range of dresses in my color palette
D) Classic A-line dresses
E) Floor-length evening gowns

10) Which classic screen star best describes you?
A) Bette Davis
B) Audrey Hepburn
C) Marilyn Monroe
D) Katharine Hepburn
E) Elizabeth Taylor

So which type of bride are you?

Mostly A’s Your bridal style is Off Beat
You are a free spirit who likes it funky, eccentric and unique. The way you see it, a wedding reception doesn’t have to happen in a banquet hall and a wedding dress doesn’t necessary have to be a ‘wedding’ dress.

Mostly Bs? Your bridal style is Princess
You have been dreaming of your wedding day since the day you first watched “Cinderella” as a little girl. Your wedding day will be a lavish fairy tale where you will marry your charming prince.

Mostly Cs? Your bridal style is Trendy
You are a fashionista in life and you will be one on your wedding day. You want the freshest style from your gown to your cake.

Mostly Ds? Your bridal style is Simple
It is OK for other girls, but you are a bit turned off by much of the splendor involved in most marriage celebrations. You want your wedding day to be beautiful, but uncomplicated and uncluttered. You like clean lines, grace and purity.

Mostly Es? You bridal style is Elegant
You want your wedding day to be an upscale, adult affair. You are inspired by the flare and swagger of old Hollywood, but don’t want things to be too stuffy.

For the Love of Shoes

The importance of the RSVP

“There are those who feel so socially desirable that they consider themselves excused from any obligations to their entertainers, including answering invitations, dressing and arriving according to instructions, expressing gratitude, or reciprocating.”
– Judith Martin

RSVP is French...Répondez, s’il vous plaît means “respond, please.” Back in some hazy, blissful days of paradise which have long since passed, there was no question on whether or not to respond to an invitation.  From this we can deduce that any possible situation left out of this volume simply didn’t exist at the time. The phrase “RSVP” was invented “because so many people, lacking in good manners, were not responding to cocktail invitations,” but remains silent on the issue of ignoring an invitation.


“Traditionally, social invitations contained no instructions whatsoever about replying. Common sense and common decency so obviously required allowing party givers to know who would attend that it would have been insulting to point this out. How much humanity does it require to recognize the callousness of friends’ ignoring your hospitable overtures? However, it has gotten harder and harder to insult people by assuming that they have no manners or consideration, and so the “R.s.v.p.” was born .


Informal invitations even began to include telephone numbers in the RSVP line, and later, the phrase “Regrets only” came about so that only those who couldn’t make it would be expected to let the host or hostess know. We all know that even in the age of Evite and Facebook guests are as reluctant as ever to respond, though all that’s required is a single click of the mouse. After these repeated attempts by longsuffering party givers to make it easy for their guests to respond, the question of how to deal with this social faux-pas remains.


The rules are simple:

1. Always respond to formal invitations in the manner which is indicated.
2. Respond to informal invitations if the card asks for an RSVP, or if there is a space for it on the Evite / Facebook / etc. invitation. (If the option “Maybe” is given, you may select it. The host or hostess wouldn’t have included it as an option if they needed a firm “Yes” or “No” from everyone.)
3. Respond promptly. According to the Emily Post Institute, that means “within a day or two of receiving an invitation.”
4. Perform according to your response. “RSVP etiquette dictates that you should be sure of your answer when you give it and only change your attendance status if there is an emergency or unavoidable conflict,” says Boston event planner Danielle E. Brown. This means to show up if you RSVPed “yes,” and to not show up if you RSVPed “no.”

If you are the reluctant responder, let me assume your actions are not malicious and help you through your great difficulty:

“I don’t want to attend but don’t want to offend the host or hostess.”

Once and for all, you must learn this mantra: It’s okay to say “no.” Whether you have a previous engagement or you just feel like lounging around the house that night, you must still respond to the invitation. Just say “Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it, but thanks for the invitation,” and you’re done!

“I forgot.”

Okay, you forgot. It’s not a good excuse, and you acknowledge that, and maybe you’ve even asked for forgiveness (which your host or hostess was happy to grant). But take care lest your “forgetting” should become a habit, because it will send a clear message of just how unimportant the host or hostess is to you since you seem perfectly able to remember many other things. Repeatedly neglecting to RSVP to events is an obvious social snub.


If you are the exasperated host or hostess:

Be prepared to accept good excuses.

Sometimes your friend really did have an emergency. If she went into labor, it’s perfectly excusable that she didn’t RSVP or that she RSVPed “yes,” and then didn’t attend. When you receive a good excuse, always act graciously. Let guests who had to deal with emergencies know that the party was great but that they were missed, and ask what you can do to help with their situations.

Take a proactive approach to obtaining responses.

Remember that you have not asked guests to respond just for the heck of it, but in order to adequately prepare for your party. You should not be left with a shortage of hors d’ouevres just because half the party didn’t RSVP. Though all of your guests should respond promptly to an invitation, the accepted way to get a response from stragglers is to call them. The short sentence “Hello, I was wondering if you were planning to attend my party next Saturday?” should get you the answer you need. If you are hosting a very large event, however, you can’t be expected to spend three afternoons personally calling the 75 people who never RSVPed. Our next bullet point discusses what to do about those.

Maintain your standards.

Though our spirit of goodwill and politeness demands that we forgive someone who forgot to RSVP just this once, we would be unkindly throwing self-respect out the window if we kept inviting those who routinely ignore invitations. It doesn’t matter how close you may once have been with these people; they have let you know how unimportant your events are to them and you must not feel the need to continue inviting them around. Yet again Miss Manners says it best: “Those who elect to disregard the standards of others or of society itself should, at the very least, find that people refuse to invite them, eat with them, or attend their weddings or funerals.”

The Royal Website

The official website for the Royal Wedding is up and running as of last week. It provides updates about plans for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s big day, as well as some wonderful royal facts (did you know that Buckingham Palace contains 775 rooms? Included in this are 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bathrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms).

The Royal wedding is a historical occasion deeply rooted in tradition. Even if you are not a royal fan, witnessing this monumental wedding — and the months leading up to it — is watching history in the making.

Looking for a more dramatic or more whimsical arrival at your wedding?

Here are some great suggestions for those couples looking for a more dramatic or more whimsical arrival at their wedding! From horse-drawn carriages and limousines to motorcycles, hot air balloons or horseback, there are many options to choose from...

Limousine: The classic, and by far most popular, choice for a formal wedding, limousines afford enough room for a large party to travel together.

Horse & Carriage: Nothing is more romantic than travelling by horse-drawn carriage. Reminiscent of Cinderella, the carriages can be decorated quite festively.

Stretch SUV: A modern take on the classic limousine, stretch SUV's can be either Cadillac Escalades or Hummers, and certainly afford ample room for the entire wedding party to travel in comfort.

Luxury Sports Car: The options are endless for luxury sports cars, and you can choose either a classic ride or something more slick like Maseratis or Lamborghinis.

Rolls Royce or Bentley: The ultimate in luxury, nothing quite compares to a Rolls Royce or Bentley for traveling to your wedding in absolute style.

Convertible: A wonderful choice for warm climates, travelling by convertible is a great way to add some fun and coolness factor to your wedding.

 

Motorcycle: The perfect option for motorcycle fans or the truly adventurous couple, a motorcycle will definitely leave a lasting impression on your guests.

Horseback: For the true horse fans, traveling by horseback also adds a great amount of chivalry and romance to your wedding.

Hot Air Balloon: Arriving at your wedding by hot air balloon will be nothing less than spectacular, and the serenity and striking views will allow you and your partner wonderful, hard to find alone time - thousands of feet in the air!

Setting Realistic Body Transformation Goals In Preparation For Your Wedding

Setting body transformation goals usually takes a back seat with all the obligations and organizing that goes on during the months leading up to your wedding. Unfortunately, this type of thinking leads to a lot of overtraining and a lot of underwhelming results that won't have you looking your best on your wedding day.
Consider the following goal guidelines to help assist you in planning your body transformation so you reach your goals and look fabulous in your gown.

1. Specific: Your goals must be very specific and acute. "I want to lose weight" is not specific. I want to go from a size 16 to a size 11 by 2 weeks of my wedding date IS!
2. Measurable: You can't measure "fitness" or "health" directly. Specific goals are measurable by definition. You know your body is improving if your waist measurement and abdominal measurements decrease. Progress needs to be measurable. And your measurements will provide you with the kind of feedback you need to make adjustments as you proceed with your program.
3. Attainable: Be honest with yourself about what you can reasonably accomplish at this point in your life - along with taking into consideration your current responsibilities. Knowing that if your diet is perfect and you make time to exercise each week you COULD lose 2 pounds a week, at this rate is there enough time between now and your wedding to reach your goal weight/size? If not re-examine your time line and adjust your goal.
4. Realistic: Your goals need to be rooted in reality. If you're five feet tall and weight 180lbs, it's okay to dream about being 105lbs and a size 0 at your wedding in 6 weeks, but that goal is at odds with where you are now. Weight loss goals should never be more than 10% of your current body weight if your wedding is less than 12 weeks away. Is this realistic if you've never tracked your calories and exercised before? Which leads us to our final goal objective...
5. Time-Related: Having a time frame attached to your goals is important. You should allow yourself a minimum of 12 weeks if you are going to aim for a weight loss of 20 pounds or more. Add a week of training and dieting for each 2 pounds you want to lose over 20lbs. For example, if your current weight is 180 and you want to weight 150 by your wedding date, simply subtract 150 from 180 (180-150 = 30) then divide the result by 2: 30/2 = 15. It would take you 15 weeks to lose 30 pounds IF your diet is perfect and you are exercising.

SMART GOALS WEDDING WORKSHEET

1. Today's Date is: ___________________________
2. My Wedding Date is: _______________________
3. How many weeks are between today and my wedding day? ___________
4. If I lose 2 lbs. a week how many pounds can I lose by my wedding day? _________
   (# of weeks in question 3 X 2lbs. = ____ lbs weight loss possible)
5. Below is an example training schedule according to your wedding date. Since June is the most popular month for weddings I will use that as the example:

• Wedding Date: June 2nd - Training Start Date: March 3rd
• Wedding Date: June 9th - Training Start Date: March 10th
• Wedding Date: June 16th - Training Start Date: March 17th
• Wedding Date June 23rd - Training Start Date: March 24th
• Wedding Date June 30th - Training Start Date: March 31st

If you start adjusting your diet and exercising by the training start dates that correspond with your wedding dates you should have plenty of time to reach your weight loss goals of losing 20 lbs. If you want to lose more, you'll need to be more strict with your diet and more intense with your exercise or add a week for each 2 lbs. of weight loss you are planning.