Entries from May 2007 ↓

Hi everyone, happy weekend! I’m going to start something new this week. I spend a lot of my time reading blogs and I know you may not have that privilege. So, I’m going to post my picks for the Top 5 wedding blog posts of the week that I’ve found on my favorite blogs (okay if your counting I included 7, I just had to include them all). Now I’m sure many of you have also found some posts that you liked this week so please share your favorites in the comments! Hope you enjoy!

MacKenzie from Something Old, Something New posted a great list of the Meaning of Flowers she found on Martha Stewart. Thanks MacKenzie for passing it on! It’s a great resource and some great “gee whiz” info. While there also check out her post Succulent Color Schemes, I love those colors and I’m glad she found Fiore Designs. I love the Fiore Designs website, very elegant. It actually inspired me to use the same colors on the Our Wedding Plus website which will be up and running soon.

Never teh Bride from Manolo for the Brides is off getting married so Twistie is guest blogging while she’s out. Twistie had a great post about How to Keep Your Guests Happy. Five simple things to keep in mind during your wedding.

Abby over at Style Me Pretty had a beautiful post entitled Color Palette Ideas. Abby just got done moving from San Francisco to Boston and she hit the ground running! I love Abby’s Inspiration Boards and this smaller color palette is just as inspirational. Not because she chose Chocolate & Cream which happen to be my favorite foods but they also make pretty nice colors too. And, it just so happens the second palette is Black & White which is my favorite flavor of cupcake from Sprinkles! I liked this post not only because of it’s inspiration but because it gave me an excuse to go off my diet, again! I had to include two of Abby’s posts this week because she came through with a fabulous Inspiration Board (Champaigne and Dessert Fete) today and it’s inline with a couple of my posts last week on smaller wedding receptions.

Thryn over at Wedlog: A Magical Blog of Fun, Funky, and Green Wedding Planning had a great post about eco-friendly bridesmaid dresses. I have to hand it to Thryn, she is definitely going above and beyond to ensure her wedding is eco-friendly. She is putting lots of thought and effort into every aspect of her wedding plans! You can follow along on her blog. Thryn also guest blogs over at Ethical Weddings.

Christy over at Junebug Weddings had a great post about A Groom’s Perspective. One of the most common problems I’ve seen is getting the groom involved in the wedding planning. So, after reading this post a lot of you brides might want to go bridezilla on your fiancé since the guy who was interviewed for this was very excited and actually interested to be involved. But ladies, before you go yell at your fiancé for not being as great as Travis was in this post, you have to understand that Travis isn’t your average groom, he’s a graphic designer and owner of “Love Letters Logos.”

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See you next week!

Rhonda
Our Wedding Plus

Thanks to Weddingbee’s Weekly Roundup, I found yumsugar’s post on “Wedding Cake Trends for 2007” and thought you might be interested! yumsugar gives a great breakdown of the latest trends in wedding cakes and has some great wedding cake pictures as well!

This unique wedding cake is from Pink Cake Box, a New Jersey bakery. This wedding cake has two tiers of chocolate cake with raspberry filling and two tiers of white cake with chocolate filling.

Are you doing anything non-standard with your wedding cake?

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Rhonda
Our Wedding Plus

Have we all lost our minds? The average cost of a wedding is $28,000! The wedding industry is worth $161 billion a year! Do you feel overwhelmed trying to make your wedding day that one perfect day? Has the standard for a “great wedding” just been set too high for the average couple?

Earlier this week I saw Rebecca Mead, the author of a book entitled One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding on Good Morning America. Rebecca did extensive research into how the wedding industry is driving up the cost of weddings even going so far as inventing new traditions to increase their bottom line.

One example she talked about was the “Oh Mommy Moment” when you walk out of the dressing room in a bridal gown and you say to your mom, “Oh Mommy, I love it, it’s exactly what I wanted!” That’s the queue for the sales person to start pushing the perfect shoes, the perfect hair piece, etc while mom is trying to make her daughter happy, to increase the sale. In One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, Rebecca exposes the commercialization of the American wedding including bridal registries, honeymoons, “for-hire” ministers and more.

So if you are stressed out trying to “keep up with the Jones” with your wedding plans and you think your wedding is going to put you in debt for the rest of your life check out Rebecca’s book “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.”

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Rhonda
Our Wedding Plus

If you have been reading my blog you know I’m a cupcake freak! Well over at yumsugar they ran a post about wedding cupcakes that I wanted to share with you, check out “Wedding Cake Trends – The Cupcake.”You may have seen my post a couple of months back “Cupcakes – They’re Not Just for Kids Anymore” where I talked about Sprinkles Cupcakes in located in Beverly Hills, and how you can integrate Cupcakes into your wedding. Well this amazing wedding cupcake tower is from The Vanilla Bake Shop, soon to be opening in Santa Monica, California. When Vanilla Bake Shop opens I will make sure I let you know!

If you are looking for resources to make your own wedding cupcakes check out this post (scroll to the bottom): Cupcakes: They’re not Just For Kids Anymore!

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Are your crazy about cupcakes? Looking for some great cupcake ideas for your wedding…

Summer is just around the corner and if your wedding is coming up soon you will most likely be having some other get togethers with friends and family this summer also. Well, today I’m proud to have some great party planning tips from Marley Majcher, The Party Goddess from Pasadena California. Majcher has orchestrated gigs for the season opening of the Hollywood Bowl, the Critics Choice Awards, celebrities she can’t mention, as well as exclusive dinner parties and corporate outings. She is also a professional wedding planner and even if your not from the LA area she is also willing to travel!

So, here are Marley’s Tips and Tricks for Summer Entertaining! Very small things make the difference between flat and fabulous!

- Multitask - Make everything do double (or triple) duty. Martini luges arefunctional, act like décor AND entertainment as guests ogle at the noveltyof booze flowing through the frozen sculpture.

- Do something unexpected - Put dry ice in the martinis, float centerpieces in the pool, put the dj on the roof.

- Create a fabulous invite - The summer social season is packed. Your guests receive three invitations: two are the usual uneventful variety, one is 3-D and sent in a box. Which might be more fun?

-Exaggerate your theme - It takes a lot for people to “get it.” Remember, you’ve been thinking about your party forever, your guests haven’t. If you’re doing a Moroccan theme, make sure the waiters are dressed in costume,the tablecloths are bejeweled, and the centerpieces reflective of the message you’re trying to convey.

- Stay within your means - Even blockbuster events have limits. If your budget isn’t huge, strive to get a lot of bang for your buck. Serve beer and wine instead of a full bar, or offer just wine, non-alcoholic beverages and a signature libation. Do a killer cocktail party with fabulous décor and lighting instead of the full sit down dinner with the omnipresent rubber chicken.

- Create vignettes and alternative seating options - No need to seat everybody at 66″ rounds. Instead, try combinations of squares and rounds,stand ups with barstools, low cabaret tables, lounges with couches and cubes.

Don’t want to deal with any of this? Perfect! Call The Party Goddess! and she’ll handle it all. The Party Goddess! is a full service catering and event planning company that handles any aspect of an event from concept to completion.

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See you tomorrow!
Rhonda
Our Wedding Plus

Today I’m honored to have a special guest blogger Randi Ragan, the owner of Green Bliss Eco Spa, ranked in the top ten Holistic Spas in Los Angeles by http://www.wholelifetimes.com/. Randi is a former Hollywood screenwriter and has spent over 10 years in the wellness industry as a yoga and meditation teacher, lecturer, spiritual retreat leader, and creator of customized healing ceremonies and rituals. You will see more from Randi here at Our Wedding Plus. She will be guest blogging on natural health, wedding stress reduction, and fitness. If your in the LA area check out Green Bliss Eco Spa, she can even bring a spa party to you with LA’s only eco-luxury moble spa! If you have a question for Randi, contact her throught the “Ask the Experts” link on the right column.

Not a person living hasn’t experienced some sort of stress reaction to a big, important event
in their life, even if it is a joyous, happy occasion, such as a wedding. It’s ironic, then,
that the preparation for a celebration can cause such adverse health effects sometimes.

As any health expert will tell you, prevention is 90% of the cure. That’s certainly true here, with pre-wedding and wedding day stress: accept that this is a period in your life when extraordinary things are underfoot. Make getting enough sleep and the drinking of plenty of water, a daily habit, like brushing your teeth. Take your vitamins regularly, get therapeutic massage and body work as often as you can afford it, and try to develop a regular work out routine – maybe even sampling a yoga or meditation class if you’ve never tried one, or up your attendance if you are already attending; and above all, remember to breathe.

Our breath to our mental state of mind, is like the canary in the coal mine is to the miners: it serves as an early warning system of what will follow in our bodies. Training yourself to take deep, long, fluid breaths as a habit of existing, will completely change how you deal with stress. At first, try just taking 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evening to practice conscious breathing. Try inhaling for 10 counts, holding your inhale for 5 counts, slowly exhaling for 10 counts, and holding the exhale for 5 counts.

I also would encourage using breath work as a part of the massage and bodywork experience. It’s obvious to most of us that therapeutic massage is great for dealing with stress. But what most people don’t know is that by working with your breath while the therapist is manipulating certain areas of the body, the muscle tension and stress will sometimes release more effectively. All Green Bliss Eco Spa therapists are trained to work intimately with the breath during bodywork sessions.

The more you can learn to breathe consciously, the more your heart rate stays steady, the more your internal chemical balances stay regulated, and the more oxygen your brain will receive. All of these physiological markers will then determine how your brain processes stress: your breath is a weapon against letting the mind spiral you into worry, agitation, and anxiety. Your decision-making will come from a place of clarity and confidence, your ability to communicate to those around you, more precisely, and your ability to become a more astute and flexible problem solver will increase. In short, you will become the calm, cool, and collected bride of your fantasies.

The goal is to live in the moment with all of the experiences coming your way as your count down the days to your big day. The journey toward the destination can be just as sweet and rich as the final result if you let it. Every day is a miracle; the miracle of having found the love of your life starts with breathing in that love, and then breathing it out to all those around you.

By Randi Ragan
Founder and Owner of Green Bliss Eco Spa
LA’s only eco-luxury mobile spa and spa party service
Named a “Top 10 Holistic Spa for 2006”

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So you’re getting married. Are you ready for the challenge? There’s a lot ahead! Building your guest list, tracking RSVPs, keeping track of your guests meal preferences, keeping your guests informed or event details, out of town accommodations, maps and directions, gift registry information. Don’t you wish there was an easy way to handle these details, especially with all the other decisions you need to handle?

Well lucky for you there is! Get yourself a personal wedding website! Believe it or not personal wedding websites are not yet mainstream. There are still a lot of couples out there who don’t realize how easy it is to get their own wedding website and what the benefits are. They may think that if it even was possible to get their own wedding website it would be way to expensive and complicated. But wedding websites are becoming easier to create and more advanced.

There are a couple of different major wedding website options to choose from. You can have your personal wedding website created for you by a professional web designer or you can create your own wedding website with one of the many wedding website companies out there. I recommend creating your own since it has become so easy, you can update your website any time, and they’re cheap!

Here’s how a wedding website can help you…

- Do you have a lot of family and friends out of town? They will have questions about accommodations, directions, etc.

- Do you want to let your guests get to know you and your bridal party? Your wedding website can tell your story, how you met, introduce your bridal party, so your guests feel a little more familiar at your wedding.

- Your guests want to know what to get you as a gift, where your registered etc. You may feel uncomfortable verbally telling your guests where your gift registry is and you probably don’t want to put it in your invitation package. But you can put it on your wedding website and you can even put a link to your registry!

- Many wedding websites have offer the ability to build your guest list online and track RSVPs online. This not only makes it easier for you to track RSVPs but it gives your guests an easy option to RSVP and let you know their meal choices.

So, for those of you that have a personal wedding website. Was it a great as they are cracked up to be? Share your problems and how it helped you. Are there any wedding website features that were worthless or features you wish you had?

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Rhonda
Our Wedding Plus

Thanks to Colin Gregory Palmer for the photo.

Hi everyone, you may have noticed that earlier this week I posted the Top Five Wedding Planning Blunders. This was my entry into problogger’s “Top 5 – Group Writing Project.” Well, the writing project is now over and there were 893 total entries! Darren Rowes from problogger is going to announce the winner of the $1,001 prize from the project tomorrow, so I’m standing by with my fingers crossed!

But in the mean time, I spent hours scouring the list of entries and boiled them down to what I consider the Top 5 of the Top 5. I’ll wait for the fanfare to stop……okay, here they are!

My basic rationale was to pick the best that would most appeal to the readers of Our Wedding Plus, in no particular order.…

1. Top 5 Reasons to NOT get Married

A short, cute, and entertaining list.

2. 5 Simple Strategies for Stress Management

If wedding planning is stressing you out, here’s some simple stress management techniques. This is actually a great prelude to a post from Randi Ragan, from Green Bliss Eco Spa, that will appear on Our Wedding Plus next week.

3. The Top 5 Things that Will Check Your Pre-Wedding Bliss

A great list from our friend Never teh Bride over at Manolo for the Brides!

4. Five Big Things that Could End Your Honeymoon

Some sage advice in this one. A must read for those getting married and those already married!

5. Top Five Ways Blog Carnivals Make Blogging Better

A blog carnival? What the heck is that? I thought the same thing too. But, after reading this post and doing some more research I think it’s an awesome idea! So, are there any wedding bloggers out there? Are you interested in a great opportunity to get more traffic and work together as a team? Send me an email, see the ask the experts link on the right. I’m interested in hosting a carnival and would like to see if there’s any interest!

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Hey! That’s not a whale! That’s my husband’s best man! Just kidding, it actually is a whale. Not just any whale, that’s Shamu! Well, you might ask, how did he get from Sea World to attend his close friends John and Sallie’s wedding? Boeing made an airplane especially for the event, see it here. No, you got me, I’m just kidding again. John and Sallie actually brought the wedding to their good friend Shamu’s house at Sea World. (Disclaimer: I’m not sure who these people are, and odds are their names aren’t John and Sallie, and I really don’t believe they personally know Shamu beyond their encounter in this picture. Also, Boeing did not build an airplane especially for Shamu) Actually, this picture is from SanDiegoWeddings.com and it really was taken at Sea World!

So, now that my comedy routine is over! Here’s the scoop…

If you are in the market to have a very unique wedding, much like those two unidentified people in the picture you can! Sea World can host your wedding reception if you have a group of 75 to 10,000 people! You can even have dolphins or killer whales as honored guests at your wedding. Not sure if they will let them stand in as your maid of honor or best man, but if you have enough money they might be able to accommodate!

Checkout Sea World for details!

Rhonda

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There she stood. Center stage. The overhead spotlights pointed down on the soft curls that draped her shoulders. She had been smiling for so long her cheeks looked exhausted and the creases along her eyes became pronounced. Her new husband rubbed her neck as she waited for the next round of family members to take their places on each side of her and the groom. Once everyone is arranged, the camera crackles a few times and documents the moment…for only the bride to look and count at least six more groups of people who are waiting for formal portraits.

This is not merely a story. It’s a scene that is played again and again at weddings across the nation. So often the bride and groom lose precious time together and/or enjoying the simple moments of their day to the notion that formal portraits with many people is a necessity. As a wedding photographer, I encourage my clients to keep family formal portraits to a bare minimum…and by this I mean keeping group shots exactly that: group shots.

Often times there’s a silent pressure to capture every possible portrait combination (i.e. Groom with aunt and uncle, Groom with aunt, Groom with uncle, Groom with maternal cousins, Groom with paternal cousins, etc.), but in reality those pictures are harbored away because people don’t want to remember a single person in a single moment, they want to remember everyone captured as a sliver of their wedding day…more like a delicious side dish to a wonderful meal instead of focaccia bread that’s served at the beginning as a stale filler.





I encourage brides to set aside a large portion of time to spend alone with their groom and photographer. During your first few moments as husband and wife, make sure the photographer can capture the joy and elation of the day without pressure from family members rushing to get to the cocktail hour. Afterall, most couples want a wedding album with a mix of candid and traditional photographs of them on their wedding day…and not pages of formal pictures and poses. A wedding album is the first heirloom a couple will create for future generations, so I want to stress the importance of giving enough time to relax with the photographer and capture timeless moments as husband and wife.

Be sure to take a step back and decide in advance exactly what formal portraits you want captured…and then set aside time to enjoy your wedding day with your new spouse and photographer. You’ll be able to look back at see the delicious fruits of your decisions for years to come!

–Jasmine Star
Website: Jasmine Star Photography
Blog: Jasmiine Star Blog

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