When Groomasaurus Gal first asked me my opinion of some pictures she had clipped out of magazines of wedding floral arrangements, I looked at her earnestly and uttered this profound statement: “Uh, I dunno.”
I would imagine that most guys have the same reaction to floral arrangements. Nothing in life has prepared most of us to have an opinion on floral arrangements: what is fitting, what to look for, what they should cost. Many of us have bought flowers for women on more than a few occasions, but on those occasions usually we just stop by a local florist and ask them something like, “So I’m in the doghouse and I need to get out before I freeze from all the icy stares I’m getting from my girlfriend/fiancee/wife. Do you have a floral arrangement that can help with something like this?” To which the florist smiles and then shows us a fabulous arrangement that helps turn the tide (as well as a litany of apologies) and put us in our significant other’s good graces.
With that said, here are a few tips I learned when shopping for flowers for your wedding:
1. Have your wedding colors already picked out – It helps to know what colors your wedding part attire (such as bridesmaids’ dresses and groom’s and groomsmen’s attire) and decor (including table runners and skirts, favors, etc.) will be so that your florist can match those items.
2. Browse around the Internet for ideas – There are tons and tons of wedding flower pictures on all sorts of wedding-related sites and blogs, and these are great places to start to get an idea of what is possible (for example, here’s a great place to get ideas for bridal bouquets).
3. Decide what kind of arrangements you want – Traditionally, the bride has a bouquet and the groom has a boutonniere, but you can also add bridesmaid bouquets; groomsmen boutonnieres; corsages for mothers, grandmothers and other women of importance; boutonnieres for fathers, grandfathers and other men of importance; ceremony arrangements; and finally reception arrangements and centerpieces. You need to decide how much you want and what role flowers will play in your decor.
4. Consider your favorite types of flowers – Some people have certain types of flowers that they just love, or they have certain flowers that they associate with points in their relationships (like you gave your fiancee a rose on your first date), and you may want to consider adding these special flower species to your mix. Remember that some types of flowers may not be in season when your wedding occurs and that out-of-season flowers are often more expensive.
5. Visit a few local florists – Once you have a good idea of your colors, styles and types of arrangements, you should pay a visit to some local florists and have them show you their sample books. This will give you a good idea of their capabilities as well as the choices you have.
6. Narrow your florist list and ask for quotes – Revisit those florists who seem to be a good fit and who you think can meet your needs and ask them for a quote. Remember to include any special requests (such as special delivery needs as well as any floral preservation services you would like).
7. Follow up regularly with your chosen florist – A few weeks prior to your wedding, you should follow up with your florist to confirm your order as well as delivery times, etc.
8. Consider a way to “recycle” your flowers – When your wedding is over, what will you do with your flowers? Many couples have their bridal bouquet and groom’s boutonniere dried and preserved, but what will you do with the rest of your flowers. One option is to give them all away to your guests by telling them to take home the floral centerpieces. Another is to donate them to a local church. Whatever you decide, try to think about finding a better place for your beautiful wedding flowers than a dumpster.
Those are some good initial tips, and another great place to start researching your wedding flowers and finding great local floral vendors is the Flower Shop Network. This site not only has great advice for researching and buying flowers (for example, there’s a page that provides wedding flower tips for the budget-minded bride), but it also offers a wide number of profiles for florists in your local area. The same people also have a site called Wedding & Party Network that offers great insights into wedding flowers as well as many other wedding areas, and it is another excellent place to check out for wedding ideas, inspiration and vendors.
Today we have another great guest blog post … this one from Matt Campbell over at Wedding Museum … thanks, Matt.
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Grooms selecting music for their wedding reception sounds easy. Play the music the bride and groom like. If it were only that simple. We encourage bridal couples to select music that means something to them for their special dances. However, we still have a few guidelines to follow when selecting songs for a wedding reception.
Do not play music with explicit lyrics. Don’t assume this is the case. Verify music entertainers have all radio edit versions of songs to be played at your wedding receptions that contain explicit lyrics in their original releases.
Do not play songs that reference death. My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. Who will not think of the lives lost on the Titanic when this song is played? Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton. This song was written by Eric in memory of his son.
Do not play songs that reference suicide. Examples include Don’t Close Your Eyes by Kix and Jumper by Third Eye Blind.
Grooms, be sure you discuss with your bride-to-be about the type of music to be played as background/dinner music. Options for background music include jazz, classical and pop. The music entertainer needs to know so they can prepare the correct style of background music. Classical music would not be appropriate for a country theme reception.
Do not play music that is suggestive or offensive. Songs that may be considered offensive that are mainstream include My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas, Wild Thing by Tone-Loc and I Touch Myself by the Divinyls.
Songs to add to a do not play list at a wedding reception may include songs that refer to the stressful wedding planning process. Stressful wedding planning songs include I’m In a Hurry by Alabama and Rush Rush by Paula Abdul.
Please add stalking songs to your do not play list. Stalking songs include Every Breath You Take by the Police and Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell.
You must decide if both of you would like group dances to be played at your reception. Some people do not like such dances as they consider them goofy and/or well overplayed at wedding receptions. Group songs include the Macarena by the Los Del Rio, Y.M.C.A. by the Village People and Hokey Pokey by Ray Anthony.
Many people feel the money/dollar dance is inappropriate at a wedding reception. The reasoning is because guests are expected to bring a present and to ask for more money in the dollar dance is greedy. However, others feel it is a great way to have multiple one on one conversions with many guests.
You must consider if you would like songs played that have an extended playing time. The standard song is about three minutes. The following songs are in excess of seven minutes each. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights by Meatloaf and American Pie by Don McLean.
Finally, please consider adding songs to your do not play list that are just plain in bad taste. Song titles considered to be in bad taste include Love Stinks – J. Geils Band, You Give Love a Bad Name – Bon Jovi, My Best Friend’s Girl – The Cars, Jessie’s Girl – Rick Springfield, Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash, Mother-In-Law – Ernie K-Doe, Suspicious Minds – Elvis Presley, To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before – Julio Iglesias, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – U2, She Hates Me – Puddle of Mudd, Everything About You – Ugly Kid Joe. For a complete list of all of our suggested songs not to play at weddings, please follow the previous link.
About the Author – Matt Campbell is the owner of WeddingMuseum.com. WeddingMuseum.com offers online wedding planning and wedding website museum. One of the most helpful features of WeddingMuseum.com is our song suggestions and advice for a wedding ceremonies and receptions.
Here’s a guest blog post about online wedding photo galleries from our friends over at A4DeskPro, who offer a really cool tool for creating your own wedding websites and photo galleries
When a couple get married, they will hire wedding photographers and other photography professionals to take photos on the wedding day. Most people agree that it is essential to share the most memorable moments with your families and friends, such as exchanging rings with the partner, the kiss of the bride and grooms, how the couples are played in wedding games section, etc. In addition to capturing the moments on wedding days, it is also common to show the wedding portraits, photos of the couples growing up, how to propose marriage as well as vacation and honeymoon snaps as they are also the key components to good memory.
Photo sharing is the process of transferring digital photos online, hence enabling users to share photos publicly for Internet users to view. This functionality is offered by both the website and application like wedding photo gallery program to upload and display photos. But what is the best option to share your wedding photos via the Internet? Send the photos as email attachments to the recipients? The attachment sizes are usually limited to 10mb, so is it enough for sending a large amount of wedding photos? Absolutely not. How about using the online photo sharing sites? Or using ready-made photo gallery templates for your website?
Online photo sharing websites such as Photobucket, Snapfish and Flickr are the prime examples of image hosting and sharing. In order to share photos online, the first step is to register an account, followed by clicking the image to upload, and then the images can be accessed by anyone on the Internet.
However, once you have published your images to the photo sharing websites, you’ve little control over your photos. For instance, your wedding photos will be removed without prior notice if the photo itself doesn’t follow the rules of the site, and even worse, all photos will be gone once the website is closed down or the subscription expires. More than that, there is a limit to the number of photos you can have, plus the ads on some free account are very annoying. Another restriction is the incapability of altering the way of how the photos are displayed. Usually the photo sharing websites force you to use the same gallery with identical look and feel, which is not very appropriate for those who would like to have a nice photo frame to display fabulous wedding photos.
Considering the disadvantages of using email attachment and photo sharing websites, photo gallery program seems a great way to go since the gallery can be hosted anywhere, and there is no limit on the number of images uploaded. Many wedding gallery programs are now available in the market for you to choose from. For example, A4Desk Flash photo gallery program is an easy-to-use photo gallery builder for your websites. It supports major image formats including JPG, JPEG, GIF and BMP. Extremely 
easy to use and no HTML knowledge is required! The photo gallery program features 12 layout templates, ranging from the simpliest thumbnail gallery to the sophisticated flash slideshow template, with the whole folder hierarchy for user navigation. It allows users to add rich-text descriptions to your photos using HTML tags or simply plain text, resize the gallery to a more web-friendly dimension and insert wonderful background music to deliver rich multimedia experiences. You can preview the photo gallery embedded inside the web browser instantly to see how it looks like, then upload files to the website using the built-in FTP tool for people to view your digital photos online. Or you can burn the gallery into a CD for physical distribution.
Apart from the wedding gallery program, there are also other software which is helpful for your wedding plan:
* My Wedding Workbook is an online wedding software, it lets couples store and manage all their wedding details online easily.
* A4DeskPro website builder features a number of flash templates with stunning animation effect, a perfect tool for you to build a wedding website.
* A4Desk Flash Video Player can play the video clip of the wedding day, showing the highlights and the best of your wedding day. It is an ideal way to refresh your memory all the time.
(Note: Today’s guest blogger is Jean over at JustCuffLinks.com, and Jean wants to tell you a bit about the value of cufflinks. I myself have a whole bunch of great antique cufflinks that I inherited from my grandfather, and french cuffs with cufflinks is a classy touch on any outfit. )
We all know, and probably have received, all the usual groomsmen gifts: personalized mugs and shot glasses, the keychain that we’ll never use, or even the money clip for all those non-existant bills in my pocket. Sure, you appreciate that you’re getting a gift and who doesn’t love receiving one, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could for once get a guy-gift you’ll actually use?
That’s where Cufflinks come in. We know not every guy wears a shirt with French cuffs to accommodate a pair of cufflinks, but if the guys in your wedding party do, please put down that personalized tape measure and order them one of one of these awesome pairs of cufflinks. JustCuffLinks.com have literally 100,000 pairs of new and Vintage Cufflinks on their site. A great groomsmen gift idea would be to take a look at the site and choose a different set of cufflinks for each guy’s personality in your wedding party.
See? Wasn’t too hard to just say no to boring groomsmen gifts, and go with one they can actually use (and like!).
(Thanks, Jean, for giving us pause to consider a classic gift.)
I just got an email from Jacqueline over at Cosabella, that distinguished maker of fine Italian lingerie (and whose models certainly give Victoria’s Secret models a run for their money … not that I pay attention to such things), and they have a new online registry for brides to choose lingerie for their wedding night and honeymoon. You can get to it by clicking here: http://shop.cosabella.com/shopcosabella_bridal_reg.html
I don’t know about you, but I would certainly encourage my bride to register anywhere that involves lacy, frilly underthings … and again, not that I endorse or condone that type of behavior 
One of the many very fine offerings from Cosabella
Every December, Pantone unveils color trends for the coming year, and this year it chose turquoise as the color of 2010, with other colors such as tomato puree, violet, fusion coral, pink champagne, dried herb and eucalyptus ranking high on their list. And this got me thinking … who really follows these trends?
I ask this question because we recently conducted a survey of brides at My Wedding Workbook (a Web site that I own that provides online wedding software for brides) on things such as their preferred styles and colors, and brides’ preferences really don’t align much with the experts chosen colors. First of all, there was no real runaway winner. Navy was the winner with 13.2% of brides reporting that this was their main color, with black next 9.7%, dark red/burgundy 8.3%, brown/chocolate 7.9%, green/hunter 7.9%, purple/plum 6.9% and light blue/aqua 6.6%. But what it seemed like was that brides really went with either their favorite color and/or a more conservative, familiar color. Which tells me one thing … people choose the colors that they’re comfortable with.
This really isn’t anything new, but it does hint at a dirty little secret in the wedding industry. You see, the wedding industry is huge, with annual U.S. revenue estimates varying from as low as $40B to as high as $100B yearly. For an industry to sell this much stuff, it needs to constantly reinvent itself and to create new variations, varieties and permutations of products and services. Fashion can be a fickle thing, as what was cool and alluring last year is tired and stale this year, and wedding fashions and decor are no different. But the wedding industry in particular seems very adept at creating such variations of products in so many different colors and styles that not only are the choices baffling, but they are also always getting more and more elaborate and expensive.
I’m not blaming anyone here, because in our competitive marketplace, companies are always innovating, refining, specializing and customizing. But what this does do is cause untold amount of confusion and “decision paralysis” among engaged couples who are faced with a mountain of choices and an onslaught of expert advice.
So what do people usually end up doing? Sticking with what they know and like. So, as one who just got married, my advice to you is to take all that expert advice on colors, styles and everything else with a very large grain of salt and, as a rule of thumb, create the wedding that expresses who you are (and not some pundit or expert). If you can’t stand turquoise (which, although there certainly a place for it, was never at the top of my personal list), don’t feel obliged to use it. It’s your clam bake … pick the colors you want.
A few months ago, Groomasaurus Gal and I ventured over to one of the many bridal expos that are offered in the Denver area. Supposedly Denver has a large demographic of 20-somethings, which makes us very attractive to wedding vendors and marketers. When we signed up for the expo we provided our names and address, and since this is America, within a few days we were getting all sorts of junk mail and emails from photographers, caterers, tux rental stores and the like.
Now, I’m a marketer by trade, so I can’t well blame these vendors in their attempt to make a buck and survive this dismal economy. But because we’re having a destination wedding and really have no need for any of the vendors who are hitting us up, it seems like a huge waste of trees, fuel and effort. Which got us thinking…
We’ve been meaning to sign up for some of the stop-junk-mail lists for a very long time, and now seems like as good a time as any. So we tracked down a few online resources that allow us to minimize the amount of junk mail sent to our house, and here they are:
- DMAChoice.org – This site allows you to set preferences for what emails and direct mail you receive and control who sends commercial email and smail mail to you.
- Catalog Choice – A great resource that enables you to choose what catalogs you get in the mail. More than 900 merchants have signed up to allow you to opt in our out, so kudos to them for volunteering.
- 41Pounds.org – This organization contacts direct mail companies on your behalf to stop catalogs and junk mail like those ubiquitous pre-approved credit card solicitations. It does cost $41 for 5 years of service, but they’re a nonprofit, and that fee covers their costs (plus they donate $15 to the charity of your choice). Another fine option.
Here are also a couple Web pages with more information on stopping junk mail:
http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/
http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/junkmail.htm
Check out these great resources and, when you want to turn off the spigot of wedding junk mail, try them out.
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Thanks to Tom Santilli over at Examiner.com, who blogged about our Workbook. For all those in Michigan who need a wedding videographer, check out Tom’s site at Complete Video Solutions.
This past weekend, Groomasaurus Gal and I attended the wedding of one of her many cousins (large Catholic family) in her hometown east of St. Louis. Before we left I checked the weather on my handy iPhone weather app, and it read 98 degrees for the wedding day. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Midwestern heat, but any high temperature is also accompanied by humidity that can hover around an ungodly 50%. There’s a reason neither she nor I venture back to our childhood stomping grounds (mine were in northwestern Ohio), and that’s because we remember sweating through shirts and soaking in ice baths during the summer months.
And despite the forecast, we decided to attend a Cardinals game on Friday night, where around 45,000 other people also decided it was a fine idea to melt in the early evening steam that was St. Louis. One guy in the upper deck actually passed out due to heat exhaustion and fell to the lower deck; thank goodness he was so limp that he bounced off a few people and was relatively unhurt.
This leads me to my first piece of advice: if at all possible, avoid a wedding where there’s the potential for conditions to become physically uncomfortable/unbearable for your guests. I must admit, the church and reception hall were both air conditioned, but you have to leave those comfy confines sometime, and I think I set a U.S. record in the sweat-through-your-shirt/sprint-to-your-car event. Even drinking sucks when it’s hot, because your misery/dizziness baseline is already high, and drinking escalates it almost exponentially faster.
Okay, so I’ll stop bitching about the weather and move on to my next rant, which was my choice of shoes. Last week I ran across this great pair of very modern Steve Madden dress shoes (the pic here is close to what they look like) for cheap, and I thought they’d be great to wear to the wedding. So I pack them up with all my other clothes in my carry-on, and we’re off. Everything is fine until the wedding day arrives, and as we’re getting dressed I pull on my undershirt and it smells like someone doused it with turpentine. I mean, this thing smelled toxic to the point that I sort of got a bit of a brain rush/headache (as close to huffing as I’ll probably ever get).
My strongly scented Steve Madden shoes
Then I started sniffing around my suitcase and my dress pants and jacket also smelled like a chemical dump. So I’m thinking, there’s no way any of this stuff got near jet fuel or a gas station. And then I grab my shoes to put them on and WHAM … they smell like an ether mask. Come to find out, the plastic soles smelled like they hadn’t cured properly, or that they had just reached their half-life of biodegrading. Whatever the reason, they really, really smelled, so bad that when I was sitting down during the ceremony I could smell the fumes wafting up from below. I’m sure everyone around me smelled it, too, but it’s the Midwest, so they’re all too polite to say anything, plus they probably figured it was some idiot burning his yard (yeah, some people used to to that in the Midwest) or the wind changed and was blowing the plume that always engulfs the local fertilizer dealer into the church.
And the lesson here? Don’t travel with new clothes that you’ve never “battle-tested” or, if you decide to do this, take a backup just in case. Amazing that I never smelled these shoes before I packed them, but I’m now thinking the rubber soles somehow chemically reacted with the humidity. Yeah, I’m no chemist, but I can’t make sense of it any other way.
More about the acutal wedding tomorrow…
Groomasaurs Gal and I were again watching garbage TV on a Friday night. This is beginning to become an ugly trend, but like any addiction, it’s very hard to break. Also like any other addiction, it has its deleterious side effects, in this case loss of sleep, reduced attention span and a propensity to scream at inanimate objects (i.e., a rigid TV screen) that coincides with a false belief that you can change events that happened 1,000 miles away about 3 months ago.
This time, we were mainlining Say Yes to the Dress and another show about people who run a wedding chapel in Vegas. The latter was actually a good show, mostly because of one couple who appeared on the episode. They were a military couple who have been dating for a few years but are stationed on different bases and got married so the military would station them in the same place. But although this was much more than a wedding of convenience, the two of them had not planned a thing and showed up to the chapel wanting to get married the next day in full wedding dress (white gown and tux). You could tell how much these two people adored each other, and the fact that their wedding was spur-of-the-minute didn’t take away from how much they obviously loved each other.
I’m going to stop here so this doesn’t turn to mush and I lose my Manly Dude Club Card, but I was struck by how the spontaneous nature of their wedding actually made it so much more refreshing and poignant than weddings that have been planned to death. It’ almost like there’s so much emphasis on hammering out all the details and locking things in that once you’re finished, it runs like a military maneuver and not a romantic occasion.
I was thinking that there’s got to be a happy medium, where you have your ducks lined up in a row but you leave some room for people to freely express themselves. If you’re really adventurous, you could have a half-hour open mike during the reception where people can come up and tell fun, G-rated stories about the two of you. Or you could tell unrehearsed stories about each other. Or you could each plan something for each other that happens sometime during the day that would be a surprise to the other person (anyone who saw the musicians appear in the wedding scene in “Love Actually” knows exactly what I’m talking about). Just something to add an element of good surprise (god knows enough glitches happen during a wedding) to your wedding day.
Would love your feedback on this…
We’ve been planning on getting married for some time now, so in December 2007 we decided we were going to buy rings even though we hadn’t set a wedding date. Initially Groomasaurus Gal wanted an engagement ring with a different stone – emerald, sapphire, something that had color (she’s very untraditional, this girl). So we shopped around for a day or two and found an heirloom emerald ring at a local jeweler that was okay. But we didn’t want to settle for okay (this is her engagement ring for God’s sake), so as we walked away from that jeweler’s store we wandered into another jeweler and, whammo, there they were.
We saw displayed in one of their cases rings that bore designs that I had never laid my eyes on. They had all these intricate contours of different colors of gold, bronze and copper – it actually looked like a cross-section of rock, but that’s not doing it justice whatsoever – and some were embellished with platinum and others with diamonds. We asked to see them, and once we started to closely inspect them, we were hooked.
The designer is George Sawyer, and he is a Minneapolis-based metallurgist who many years ago started making rings by folding layers of gold over on each other in the style of Japanese samuri swordmakers. The technical process of folding the metal is called mokume, and it results in creating rings that are one of a kind. Just check them out…
Here is what Groomasaurs Gal's wedding band looks like
And this is pretty close to how our wedding bands appear ... we wanted the two platinum bands to signify the two of us united by our vows
And here's what a plain band looks like (although it's anything but plain)
