Unless you were recommended a good wedding photographer by a trusted friend, finding a good wedding photographer is probably one of the scariest decisions you can make planning your wedding.  After all, when the wedding is over all you will have are your memories and hopefully some beautiful pictures to help you remember your ceremony and reception!  Pretty important stuff! 

So, what can you do to better your chances of getting a good photographer?  Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a certification process from a respected group?  Maybe one that was recognized as the Knot’s Best of Weddings 2008, Best of City Search 2008, Photo District News Top Knots, and is a certified member of Here Comes the Guide? 

Bella Pictures has certified photographers across the United States that pass a rigorous certification process and their work is 100% guaranteed!

You can check out their website to find out more about how they operate, but it looks pretty good!

This picture above is from the Bella Pictures website.

Many of you want your wedding rings engraved with something like your wedding date or a short meaningful phrase.  Well, now theres a company that has patented the ability to engrave your entire wedding vows on the inside of your wedding ring!

A company called WeddingVowRings.com has developed the ability to engrave multiple lines of text on the inside of your wedding rings.  You have the choice of either buying one of their rings or you can send them rings to get engraved.  You can also have bible verses or any other text engraved on your ring.

I think it will be nice to be able to look at your ring after the years go by to be reminded of your vows. 

Check them out!

You may have heard about the contest in which one lucky couple was going to win a wedding at the premere of the movie “Maid of Honor” on April 28th.  The ads to enter were all over the place a couple of months ago.  Well you may not have heard the specifics of what the winners were going to get!  It wasn’t your everyday wedding by any means.  The folks in Hollywood really put together a spectacular package of everything they needed and more.  Here’s a rundown…

Mary Hart, host of “Entertainment Tonight,” officiated the wedding.  Michelle and Shaun will have their first dance choreographed by ballroom dance champion Maksim Chmerkovskiy, a professional dancer who gained fame on “Dancing with the Stars.”

The bride’s make-up was done by David Evangelista and the bride’s nails will be manicured by one of the talented artists at Cornelia Day Resort. One of the nation’s leading makeup, hair, and fashion experts, Evangelista has been a contributor to The Early Show on CBS since 2002, bringing style, beauty, and makeover advice to millions of viewers each week. As host of the weekly series The Fashion Team on the TV Guide Network from 2006 to 2007, Evangelista gave viewers an inside look at the fashion world. He works with high-profile personalities including Julia Stiles, Eva Longoria Parker, Hillary Swank, Peyton Manning, Mandy Moore, Rita Wilson, Martha Stewart, Paula Deen, Steve Martin, and Kevin Kline. He recently opened his salon, David Evangelista at Cornelia Day Resort.

The bride’s hairstyle was set by celebrity stylist Oscar Blandi. Blandi’s many famous and glamorous clients include Jessica Alba, Kelly Ripa, Faith Hill, and Jennifer Garner among others. He is also seen regularly on “Live with Regis and Kelly”, and is often featured in the top fashion magazines, such as Allure, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, as one of the leading hair stylists to the stars. Oscar Blandi is the owner of the Oscar
Blandi Salon in New York. The couple received their rings from the leading Italian fine jewelry house, Damiani. The his-and-hers rings are from the company’s D.Side collection, co-designed by Damiani and actor Brad Pitt. These are the same style of rings that are featured in the film.

The bride’s dress was by Selia Yang. Called “the best-kept secret in New York City … not for long” by ailycandy.com, Yang has brides from all over the globe eager to wear her designs. She brings a chic, fresh, and
luxurious approach to bridal and evening wear.

The groom’s and best man’s tuxedoes were Arnold Brant. The luxury brand to the stars — having dressed Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, and many more — features flawless style that is sure to keep the groom looking
polished. Sold throughout the U.S. and Canada at Nordstrom and better specialty stores, Arnold Brant is manufactured in Italy. More information is available at http://www.arnoldbrant.com.

The wedding was photographed by Denis Reggie, hailed as the “hottest wedding photographer of the moment” by the New York Times. He has served as photographer at the weddings of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn
Bessette, Vera Wang, Mariah Carey, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, and Tom Clancy, among many others.

Sylvia Weinstock, who has baked for such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey, the Kennedy family, the Vice President and Mrs. Dick Cheney, the Vice President and Mrs. Al Gore, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ben
Stiller and Christine Taylor, and many others, provided the cake.

The bride’s lingerie was by Victoria’s Secret, the leading specialty retailer of lingerie and beauty products, with an emphasis on making its customers feel sexy, sophisticated and forever young. Under the Victoria’s Secret and PINK brand names in the United States, the company dominates with fashion-inspired collections, prestige fragrances and cosmetics, celebrated supermodels and world-famous runway shows. Through its more than 1,000 Victoria’s Secret stores, the catalogue and VictoriasSecret.com, customers can shop the brand anywhere, any time, from any place.

The bride’s and groom’s shoes were provided by Kenneth Cole New York, the renowned shoe company that is known not only for their fashion-forward men’s and women’s shoes but also for their thought provoking socially conscious advertising.

The bride’s bouquet was by Fleurop. Fleurop-Interflora — http://www.fleurop.com — delivers beautiful flower bouquets around the world, with floral gifts are available in more than 160 countries worldwide: North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Oceania, South America. Founded in 1927, Fleurop-Interflora is the largest floral company in the world, connecting approximately 58,000 North American and International retail florists, offering an international floral delivery network in over 160 countries. For over 77 years, Fleurop and Interflora have been recognized for the finest quality in floral products and excellence in customer service.

The wedding favors were provided by Ghirardelli(R) — Moments of Timeless Pleasure(R).

As a wedding gift, Patrick Dempsey, the star of Made of Honor, has chosen his-and-hers JEANRICHARD watches for the couple. Dempsey wears a JEANRICHARD watch in the film.

Michelle and Shaun have also received a special invitation to “A Catered Affair,” Broadway’s newest musical, at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

The wedding was webcast live on Crackle.com, and was covered the following day on “Entertainment Tonight.”

Following the wedding, Michelle and Shaun will celebrate their honeymoon, with a romantic six nights in Europe, visiting Paris and Venice, with hotel and transportation included provided by Fleurop. When they get home, the bride and groom will receive a $3,000 Bed Bath & Beyond shopping spree in the form of a gift card.

Shaun and Michelle are both teachers: he teaches photography at Cumberland Valley High School, while she teaches second grade at Grace Baptist School in Carlisle. They met after a Carlisle High track meet; Shaun had previously been the track coach, and Michelle had succeeded him. They have been dating for a year and a half and just got engaged on March 8th. Shaun’s best man is his college buddy Brit, and Michelle’s maid of honor is her friend Sarah, who, she says, she has known since they were babies.

There’s a lot of wedding resources on the web. The great thing about blogs is you typically get some unbiased information along with some interaction from real brides like yourselves. You can get some information from other brides who are going through the same process you are! So, it is with great pleasure that I can introduce you to another new wedding blog! This one is from the folks over at Brides.com called Wedded Bits. I browsed around there today and they have some great info to help you plan your wedding along with some celebrity wedding news. Check it out!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived!  Thanks to everyone who participated in the Great Wedding Memory Giveaway!

I’d like to start off by thanking all of the entrants for the well thought out and very useful comments. I think this post will go down in history as one of the most useful wedding blog posts ever! Not that I’m biased or anything. Future brides will be able to look at this post’s comments and add quality, reduce costs, and reduce the stress of their wedding with the wealth of experience they will find!

I’d also like to thank the 12 great wedding bloggers for their participation in helping me judge this contest. They each took time out of their busy schedules to read through all the comments and selected their favorite. Bear in mind, these bloggers aren’t just bloggers, in many cases they are very experienced and very busy wedding planners, invitation designers, event designers, etc! I’m flattered that they helped me with this contest by judging and also by helping me spread the word!

Here are the judges!

Melissa from Masterpiece Weddings
Thryn from wedlog
Darci from With this Ring
Lynn from The Handcrafted Wedding
Saundra from planning…forever
Miss Purple from Miss Purple’s Diary of Destination Wedding Drama
Miss Polka from Polkadotbride
Monica from WhiteboxWedding
Liene from Blue Orchid Designs
Anne from perfectbound
Rebekah from Elizabeth Anne Designs
Nicole from NicEvents

Now, the thing I find most amazing and indicative of the high quality of the submissions…of all twelve votes cast by the judges, only two were for the same comment!

So the winner of the contest only had two votes, meaning we had 10 runners up. Since all the runners up were tied for second place, I’m going to give each of them a free Our Wedding Plus wedding website! So without further ado here are the results…

The overall winner with two votes (winner of 10 Cruzers & a Wedding Website):   Comment #35 - Shauna

Runners Up (winners of a Wedding Website):

#7 - Sarah
#10 - Mary
#12 - Lauren
#20 - Rachel
#22 - Kat
#23 - Tara
#33 - Le
#34 - Ley
#36 - Chantal
#45 - Erica

Congratulations and thanks for all the great advice!

Rhonda

Hang in there folks.  The votes are flowing in from your favorite bloggers.  We are almost there.  I will post results this evening.

Plus, there will be a special surprise for all of our finalists (those who recieved votes from the judges).

Thanks for participating!

Rhonda

This is your last chance to enter the Great Wedding Memory Giveaway!  Deadline is tonight, midnight Pacific time!

We have a spectacular group of wedding professionals / bloggers that volunteered to judge!   I hope to have the results posted by Monday night, May 5th.

 So check back in to findout who the winner is and who our esteemed group of judges were!

 Thanks to everyone involved!

Rhonda

I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule next week.

Here’s Your Chance To Win Prizes Totaling Up to $470!

 Looking for unique, meaningful, and not to mention useful gifts to give your bridal party?  Something that isn’t cliché and something they can use over and over for years to come?  And, do you want to us to give them to you for FREE?

Sandisk has come out with a stylish new USB flash drive called the Cruzer Gator on which you can give members of your bridal party pictures of the great times you had with them during your wedding planning, videos, wedding photos, share some favorite songs for their iPod, and then they can use the massive storage (up to 4G) for whatever they like for years to come! The cool thing about the Gator is they come in a stylish alligator skin style, in different colors. (Black and Red are 4G, Pink is 2G)

The Prizes:  The folks at Sandisk have donated 10 Cruzer Gators USB Flash Drives (see picture above), one for each member of your bridal party including both groomsmen and bridesmaids (10 max), total value up to $400!  Plus, I’m also going to throw in a free one year subscription to one of our Our Wedding Plus premium wedding websites worth $72!  All this will be given to one lucky winner!

How You Enter:  Leave a comment on this post answering one of the following questions:

- What was the most useful piece of wedding planning advice you have received?
- What has been your biggest “lesson learned” so far during your wedding planning process?
- If you could do it over, what would you do differently?

How You Win: I’m going to ask some other wedding bloggers to rank their top-5 entries, based on the usefulness of your comment to someone planning their wedding.  I will tally the results and pick the most popular comment.  This is obviously subjective based on each judge’s opinion and my selection will be final.  If I can’t get any help in the judging I will select the comment I feel was most useful, based solely on my own judgment.

Deadline: Your Comment Must be Posted by Midnight, Friday, May 2nd 2008. 

The winner will be announced by Monday, May 5th 2008!  I will also announce which wedding bloggers helped in the judging!

Good Luck!

Wedding Planning is a very social activity.  You will be spending a lot of time with your friends, family, and extended relatives that you haven’t seen in a while.  So there are a lot of opportunities to have get togethers!  Well, unless you’re Martha Stewart, you could probably use some help organizing these get togethers.  So here’s something I found…

Pampered Chef and celebrity party planner Debi Lilly got together and put together a beautiful and very practical Party Planning Guide.  Debi starts off by giving some general entertainment advice and then provides pretty close to a step-by-step guide on how to throw various types of parties such as:

• Brunch
• Buffet
• Alfresco
• Sit-Down-Dinner 

Finally, there’s a great party planning checklist that will walk you through the process.  The best part:  It’s Free!

Check out here!

Thanks TimmyGunz for the picture!

Boy, this week went by fast!  It’s already time for the Top-5 Wedding Blog Posts of the Week!  Another great line-up but first I want to let you know I’ll be running my first-ever contest very soon!  This is going to be a pretty big one with prizes worth over $800!  All you other bloggers out there, hope you don’t mind but I’m going to ask for your help in picking the winner.  If you want to be involved leave me a comment.  Don’t worry it won’t take much of your time.  So now let’s get on with this weeks Top-5!

1.        I liked this post because of the cool wedding theme and design elements Miss Flamingo over at Weddingbee chose.  I also like how she’s working her theme into her wedding.  In this post she’s working on seating cards or place cards.  Checkout “Where do I Sit?”

2.       Liene over at Blue Orchid had a great guest blogger this week.   Kelly Ashworth of Kelly Ashworth Design gave her “do’s” and “don’ts” of having a stress free wedding taken from her own experience from her recent wedding.    Checkout “Be Our Guest: Create a Stress Free Wedding.”

3.       In honor of Earth Day, snippet & ink had an beautiful earth friendly inspiration board along with a list of 10 ways you can go green with your wedding!  Checkout  “Board #192: Earth Friendly #3, Garden Charm.”

4.       Continuing on the green theme, do you want to do something really unique for your honeymoon?   I’m not talking about  your standard beach resort.  Then checkout Thryn’s post over at wedlog, “Ten Green Getaways.”

5.       Last but not least, here’s a question for you…do you think the groom is being left out of the bridal registry?  Do you think the standard registry is to girly?  Checkout Never teh Bride’s post over at Manalo for the Brides “Strong Enough for a Man, but Made for a Groom” and see what you think!

That’s it for this week.  Get ready for the big contest.  If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter we will announce it there too, in case you miss it on the blog.  Sign-up through the link to your right!