WEDDING NOTES™ - Do I Need a Receiving Line?

In our conversations with brides, we are frequently asked this question.  Many brides seem to feel that receiving lines are out of date and awkward.

In our more casual society, many people see receiving lines as being "too formal" and a throwback to days when "rules" governed how people behaved.  They think that they will informally greet every one of their guests at some time during the reception.  And if it is a small wedding/reception - they just might achieve that by "making the rounds".

However, we urge our brides to rethink their view of receiving lines.  Until someone comes up with a substitute that will allow all guests to be greeted on arrival and departure, a receiving line should be included.

Your reception is a huge party given by your family to celebrate this significant milestone in your life.  You have invited guests to help you celebrate.  The least you can do is to greet them as they arrive.  One alternative is to hold a receiving line at the end of the ceremony and greet your guests and thank them for coming at that point.  Included in the receiving line should be both sets of parents (or at the very least - both mothers) and the bride and groom.  Other members of the wedding party can be optional.

No matter where the receiving line is held - after the ceremony or at the beginning of the reception, it is a nice touch to acknowledge your guests by toasting them.  The bride and the groom should both offer a toast to their guests who have come together to help them celebrate this very important day.  You may offer the toast as a couple or each of you may offer a few words.  You may give this toast during the meal (usually best) or just before you cut the cake.

WEDDING NOTES™ - Your Invitations and Paper Needs

If you are planning to celebrate your wedding over a holiday weekend, or your invitation list will include a number of out-of-town guests, Save-the-Date cards should be an important part of your plans.Generally, they are sent out as early as six months prior to the wedding.  Because they will give guests a sneak preview of the degree of formality and tone of the wedding, try to select cards that are consistent with the invitations you will send later.

Formal wording and paper styles should be used for invitations to formal and church weddings.  Traditional fonts would be appropriate.  If your wedding is expected to be less formal and held in a hotel or reception facility, you may use a somewhat more informal style with your wedding papers.Individuality can be expressed by choosing unique sizes and textures of papers.  You may also choose to add color, overlays and/or ribbons.

Know that announcements are nice to send to those who live far away or who are unlikely to be able to attend wedding.  They are addressed, stamped and ready to be mailed immediately after the ceremony.  Usually the bride's mother (or trusted associate) is responsible for mailing them.

Unless the wedding is a totally informal and intimate event, plan to include a printed reply card with a self-stamped, preaddressed envelope.

Optional enclosures you may wish to choose are cards for dinner preferences, or if the wedding is planned as a weekend event, guest may be give the option to choose activities they may wish to attend.

Plan to mail your invitations ten to twelve weeks prior to the event. 

WEDDING NOTES™ - What If?

The old saying - "The Best Laid Plans..." should be considered when you are actively planning your wedding.  It's not bad luck to anticipate potential areas of concern and have a Plan B.  Our consultants are creative realists and can help you develop a fabulous Plan A but they know from experience that backup plans (Plan B) are wise.

Here are some of the recommendations from our experience wedding planners.

*Have an emergency kit packed and ready.  It should include a sewing kit that has thread in all the colors that are in your wedding party - white, ivory, black/grey or other tuxedo shades, colors for bridesmaid gowns and both mothers.  It should include needles, pins - safety and straight, scissors, a few paper clips, mending tape.  One bride related that during the receiving line she leaned over to kiss a relative and in the process, he unknowing stepped on the front of her gown.  When she stood up, the entire front of her gown's skirt ripped out at the waist.  A quick repair job with the contents of her emergency kit saved the day.  Also include Kleenex, spot remover cloths, aspirin, breath lozenges, feminine products, make up, hair spray and any necessary medications.  And always have a bit of florist's tape.

*Have a backup plan to cover the what ifs.  If someone has to drop out of your wedding party at the last minute - what will you do?  Find someone in the same size to replace the person or consider how important is it to have the exact number of male and female attendants?  If you are planning an outdoor wedding and reception, what will you do if it rains or storms?

*Remember that everything can be fixed in some way.  Use your imagination and try to anticipate some possible solutions.  So you are one boutonniere short - it's not the end of the world.  Clip some blossoms from either the maid's bouquet or the bridal bouquet.  Go to you emergency kit for the magic green tape florists use to fashion arrangements and voila!  Problem solved.

*Trust your feelings.  If something doesn't feel right, pay attention.  Your instincts are probably right.  Plans that feel right to you are the ones to go with.  Others can make suggestions but the final choice is yours.

Your wedding will be wonderful.  Mishaps can occur but if you don't panic, neither will anyone else.  At one bride's wedding, the processional was complete and the ceremony about to begin when she noticed that the altar candles had never been lit.  No one else noticed so she wisely ignored the lapse.  Her wedding was beautiful.  Yours will be too!

WEDDING NOTES™ - Themes and Centerpieces

All parts of planning a wedding can be fun and exciting.  Our experienced consultants can help you with all aspects of the wedding so feel comfortable asking our advice.  We love to help brides plan all parts of their upcoming wedding, but centerpieces and party themes are among our favorites.

Selecting the flowers and interesting pieces that will decorate your celebration can be a daunting task but the results from carefully chosen centerpieces can be a dramatic way to pull together the theme of your wedding.  We have many, many suggestions.  The most obvious one is that centerpieces should relate to and emphasize that theme.

If your wedding is around a holiday, the theme and its expression is obvious.  Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Independence Day all suggest the colors and elements.  Other themes require more thought but are just as fun to create.

Is your wedding and reception near water?  If yes, use ship's lanterns or bowls with tropical fish swimming over shells and sand in the bottom.

Is your reception in the country at a farm house or barn?  Use checkered tablecloths and make a ceramic or straw rooster the center of each table.  Add miniature bales of hay and/or summer flowers and greens in milk bottles or canning jars.

Incorporate seasonal fruits in centerpieces.  Big bunches of strawberries in the summer, gingham tied baskets of apples in the early fall, pumpkins and gourds with fall leaves would also work.

Celebrate your heritage with national colors, flags, patterns and fabrics.Oriental poppies, tartan plaid table linens, silver trays piled high with Mexican wedding cakes all make a statement.

Create a circus atmosphere with balloons, candied apples, popcorn and candy floss.

If both the bride and groom are teachers, the school house theme is perfect with paper chains, chalk boards, posters, report cards and lots of numbers and letters.

WEDDING NOTES™ - Invitations for the Frugal Bride

You are planning a beautiful wedding on a budget that you definitely plan to stick to.  You are looking for areas where you can save money but have heard expensive stories about all the things you'll need to print.  As with all areas of your wedding there are varying prices depending on how much you want to spend.

Here are some workable and valuable tips to consider before you place your printing order.  You can spend big or you can spend modestly.  It depends on your budget and your tastes.  Certainly it is true that the invitation sets the tone for the wedding to follow.  It can indicate degree of formality to expect.

However, there are ways to save money without sacrificing quality.  Here are a few tips that our consultants have gathered.

·         Know that pricing for invitations is usually a la carte.  You'll pay a base price for invitations and envelopes and virtually everything else costs extra.

• ·         Whatever paper style you select, plan to buy for the number of households, not the number of guests.  Most of your guests are likely to be couples so you'll need one invitation per address.  Make that your base order and then order extras in multiples of 25 or 50.

• ·         When you place your order, round up to the next lot size.  Usually invitations are sold in lots of 25, 50 or 100 and larger lots are generally less expensive than smaller groups.  So if you need 130 invitations, order 150.

• ·         Plan to order extra envelopes to cover any mistakes in addressing.  They are not "thrown in".  Your order will include the exact number of envelopes as invitations, so order an extra pack of 25.

• ·         If money is tight, skip foil lined envelopes.  They look nice but unless you MUST have them, omit.

• ·         Really look hard and the number of inserts you are ordering.  Unless yours is a very formal wedding (which requires the full complement of inserts),you can get by without some of them.
  * Skip the reception card - especially if your ceremony and reception are in the same place.  A nice corner copy will do just fine.
  * You may wish to give guests alternative RSVP options.  Rather than print up separate cards, return envelopes (with postage affixed) print a simple card that suggests a RSVP to your wedding website.  If that doesn't feel right to you, use a postcard for RSVP.  They don't require an envelope and postage is less.

WEDDING NOTES™ - Bouquet Alternatives

Perhaps you have decided that a bouquet of fresh flowers is not your choice to carry in the processional. Not to worry - there are many other options that may work for you.

If you or your groom have flower triggered allergies, consider silk/artificial floral arrangements.  They can be just as lovely as real flowers and won't leave you red eyed and sniffling.  If your talents don't run to assembling bouquets yourself, you can order them through many craft stores.  Or you can abandon flowers all together and consider carrying a bouquet of feathers which are gorgeous and unusual, or carry strands of crystals, or origami birds.

If you have a special passion for poetry, use that as a theme for your "bouquet" of rolled parchments bearing lines from some of your favorite poems written in ink that matches your color scheme.  You might also carry that poetry theme into decorations for the reception.

Or, you could bypass bouquets altogether and carry a fan, a special bible, a small parasol, a rosary or a small clutch handbag.  If you are planning on a unity candle in the ceremony, carry a lit candle down the aisle instead of a bouquet and light the unity candle early in the ceremony or place your candle on the altar.

Check your ethnic background for other wedding traditions that you may like to utilize.  For example, Irish customs call for the bride to carry a horseshoe for good luck (with the open end up so the luck doesn't run out).

You've seen or maybe received an edible bouquet. Consider a lollipop arrangement in the colors of your wedding.

There is a vendor that will make fabric roses out of vintage fabrics, scarves, even neckties from someone dear to you and arrange them in a lovely bouquet.

Of course, you could elect to carry nothing at all.   It is your choice.

WEDDING NOTES™ - Let Them Eat Cake or Pie or?

At one time choosing a wedding cake was easy.  You figured many quests were expected, you went to your neighborhood baker, you picked white or chocolate layer (s) and gave the baker the address for delivery and a deposit.  Done.

Today's couples are busily going to cake tastings, bringing swatches of material to determine the color of the frosting, debating between marzipan and cream frosting, debating about size and shape and then repeating the process for the groom's cake.  It doesn't have to be this way.

Here are some cake ordering tips that can save you money.

• ·         Unless you really want one, don't order a multi tiered cake.  Instead, order several round single layer cakes.  Place one of them on a tall cake stand and surround it with the other round layers on varying heights.  It provides visual interest for the desert table and costs far less.
• ·         If you wish to have a tiered wedding cake, order a smaller version and have sheet cakes available for serving to guests.  It will taste exactly the same but cost much less since the time invested in frosting/decorating the sheet cakes is far less.
• ·         Order one show cake that you can feature in the photo of the cake cutting, but have your baker or caterer, make enough smaller cakes to be the centerpieces at guest tables.
• ·         Order enough cake for 3/4th of your planned guest count.  Some people will leave before the cake is cut and others just don't want desert.
• ·         Let your cake cutters know that you want 2" slices cut rather than giant hunks of cake.  It is a substantial dessert portion and much more in line with people's view of dessert.
• ·         One bride we know chose to serve plates of cookies and biscotti to each table prior to cake cutting.  It gave her and her groom a chance to greet all of the guests and thank them for coming.  Cookies cost less than cake and many people prefer that to cake.  She ordered only a small "show" cake for the photo.
• ·         You don't NEED to have a cake table.  Many brides are opting for a dessert table with a variety of offerings.  You can have an ice cream station, pies, cupcakes, cheese cake or even a fountain of chocolate for dipping fruit or pretzels.