Your Wedding Ceremony: 5 Best Tips For Creating A Personalized, Fun & Memorable Ceremony!
So, you are getting married! Not only do you have a wonderful celebration to plan but you also have a wedding ceremony to ponder and think about.
Wedding ceremonies are changing. Big time. Today, couples are shaking up the traditional wedding ceremony by contemporizing key elements within a ceremony and making the moment truly their own.
As a non-Denominational Wedding Officiant and Minister, I work with couples of all faiths, traditions and beliefs to craft/create and deliver a personalized, meaningful and joyful ceremony. And here is what I know for sure in doing this work: if you keep your ceremony “real” and “authentic,” you are setting the stage for a beautiful and poignant ceremony and post-ceremony celebration!
As you work with your Officiant or Minister to create and deliver your ceremony, I offer these top tips to help you work your way through the wedding ceremony maze:
- HAVE FUN - Yes, it’s true. No matter if your ceremony is religious, spiritual or secular, your wedding ceremony is not only a sacred joining but it is a joyful and uplifting celebration of your love story. Humor is very, very good – use it!
- DOGS & KIDS – A beloved dog walking down the aisle or a little person zig zagging down the aisle with a pile of petals brings such joy to your wedding party and guests. Have “Boomer” strut his canine stuff down the aisle as the “ring bearer” and let little petal girl Cara boomerang those petals for all to see. Joy – it’s all about joy.
- PERSONALIZE YOUR VOWS- Vows are not “I promise this,” “I promise that.” Vows are your statement of commitment to your partner and to yourself – what you offer to your relationship, what your partner can expect from you (how you’ll show up), what you admire/respect about your partner – i.e., vows are more of a personal statement than a litany of promises. Personalize, personalize, personalie…
- CREATE A MEMENTO - Within your ceremony, you have the lovely opportunity to create a memento to take home from your ceremony. When I work with a couple, I look for something unique. Last night, I wrote a ceremony in which the bride/groom would write short notes to their three children (second marriage) and the notes would be given to the children on their wedding day. Just an idea…go for it and create something that is uniquely your own.
- GRATITUDE - Your ceremony is a moment to recognize and authentically honor your parents, family and friends. Consider a contemporary “blessing of support” from both parents/families or perhaps offering surprise roses and note cards to your parent(s) at processional. An attitude of gratitude is classy, thoughtful and kind – and when well done, creates sweet memories.
Annemarie Juhlian is a Seattle-based Non-Denominational Wedding Officiant & Minister, working with couples of all faiths/beliefs and traditions. For more information: www.annemariejuhlian.com or 425.922.1325
Getting Married, Change Name Services Save You Time
If you just got married, you definitely need to legally make a name change (maiden to married – yeah!) But is it true that you could find all the forms you need for free and not use a “married change name service? Yes, of course, you “could.” But the real question is do you really have the time? You just got married, “change name” is probably at the bottom of your list of things to do — spend time shopping together for a new bedroom set; now we’re talking! I mean it could take hours and hours of tedious research, and I mean hours. First you even have to figure out all the different things you even need to change your name for, not to mention tracking down all their individual forms and finding out where to submit them to. Just the organizational part of it sets my head spinning.
You just got married, “change name” is probably at the bottom of your list of things to do — but it shouldn’t be and doesn’t have to be an ordeal.
We’ve all heard the saying that time is money. Well, when it comes to using one of these bridal change name kit services versus doing all the legwork yourself, be thankful there are some great services out there that make this process a piece of cake. A study has shown that the average bride can save over 13 hours of research, form completion, and filing mishaps through using a name-change service.
So, if you are looking to make a name change from maiden to married, the two name-change kits that we especially like are MissNowMrs.com and the Official New Bride Name Change Kit:
- Simple three-step system that is completed online
- Answer questions, print all of the necessary forms that contain your answers, and file
- “The Best Wedding Websites from A to Z”
- Contains instructions, checklist, all government name change forms and mailing labels
- Forms are customized based on your state and zip code
- Each kit is delivered to your door in an elegant pink box
What’s the difference between the two? The main difference (besides if packaging sways you one way or another and you have a preference for pink or blue), would be that the MissNowMrs.com married change name kit is completed online and if you do everything with a computer, like me, then you might want to lean toward this one. The Official New Bride Name Change (“maiden to married”) Kit is equally reliable and filled with all the necessary forms, but it is an actual “kit” that will be shipped to you for you to manually fill out the forms. I think MissNowMrs.com could be a bit more of a time saver from that perspective, but again, it boils down to how you personally like to deal with things – on a computer or more hands on.
By Cheryl Cox, Editor of YourWeddingDollars.com. See “Note from the Editor” for more information on Cheryl and her credentials.
“Create Your Own Wedding — Own Your Style, Not Someone Else’s — and do it all while keeping money in your pocket!”
It’s Your Wedding, Own Your Style
Okay, I don’t know about you, but there are way too many options out there when planning a wedding. It’s like when you go to the grocery store hungry and everything looks good. You find yourself coming home with much more food than you intended to buy and a lot of it you really won’t even eat. Maybe you thought you wanted it at the moment, because it looked good because you were hungry, but it’s not you; you’ll never eat that ice cream (good girl!). My husband and I like home décor (I know, his friends tease him terribly) and our personal style sways to the more traditional than contemporary, but we often see contemporary homes that we think were done beautifully and we truly appreciate; however, as my husband puts it: I just love that, it’s not for me, but I just love that!
“When planning the style of your wedding… own your style. Know your style. Really think about it.”
The same goes for your wedding style. You can appreciate and even like all the different wedding gowns, wedding flowers, venue locations, hairstyles, and music, but it doesn’t mean they are for you. When planning the style of your wedding… own your style. Know your style. Really think about it. You might love the picture in Bridal Magazine of a flowing dress with miles of train, and quite frankly you know you would look darn good in it, but if you’re a rocker and that’s what you intend to do at your reception – rock out, miles of fabric on your body would not be a good thing!
So before you plan your big day, you need to know what type of wedding is right for you. Is your style elegant and classic, or colorful and casual? When you have a party, is it your style to invite the whole neighborhood or just your “A” list of friends? Is your favorite food a perfectly grilled hamburger rather than a dish that you don’t even know what it is — like Tomato Tarte Tatin (which as I understand it is made with savory, herbed tomatoes baked with puff pastry in individual pans – yummy). You and your fiancé are starting your life together and your wedding should be a reflection of you both are individually and as a couple. So, start thinking about it – It is YOUR Wedding, Own YOUR Style!
By Cheryl Cox, Editor of YourWeddingDollars.com. See “Note from the Editor” for more information on Cheryl and her credentials.
“Create Your Own Wedding — Own Your Style, Not Someone Else’s — and do it all while keeping money in your pocket!”
Wedding Ideas on a Budget for Creating a Stylish Wedding
As mentioned in the first part of this series on Ideas for Creating a Stylish Wedding even when on a budget, couples often fear that a “low-cost wedding” is a “sad-looking wedding”. Well, it is far from it! You can achieve a stylish look without borrowing money from friends, family, and your bank, so you don’t start your marriage in debt. So, let’s put wedding ideas on a budget in perspective and look at more great suggestions for staying within your wedding budget that are primarily focused around the flowers and décor portion of your wedding planning.
- While most popular bridal flowers are available year-round, some traditional ones – for example, peonies and lily-of-the-valley – can be difficult to find and expensive out of season. Choose blooms that are locally available, rather than ones that must be shipped in from afar. Just ask your florist for help choosing blooms
- Keep in mind that approximately half of your florist’s bill will be for labor: try to select bridal bouquet ideas that are hand-tied (wrapped at the base with a ribbon matching your color scheme). Elaborate, cascading bridal bouquet designs will cost significantly more because they take more time to make
- For great bridal bouquet ideas without flowers, consider carrying candles, books, bibles, a rosary (like Melania Knauss-Trump did at her wedding), a single flower trimmed with ribbon streamers, wicker baskets or a decorated fan
- Talk to your venues and see if any other brides have booked for the same day. If the two of you can coordinate flowers and split the cost, you will save a lot of money. Just make sure that your styles match
- Make floral arrangements do double duty. If ceremony flowers are an appropriate size, they can serve as centerpieces on your reception tables; otherwise you can use them to decorate guest-book, seating-card, and favor tables. Bridesmaids’ bouquets will be perfect on the cake table
- Instead of decorating tables with large arrangements, float a few flowers in a variety of shallow bowls or glass cylinders filled halfway with water
- Reuse your pew markers to decorate doorknobs or other areas of your reception site
- Bowls or containers filled with seasonal fruits or vegetables can replace expensive floral presentations at a garden-style wedding
- For a winter wedding, mix berries, pine cones, and other economical non-floral embellishments with costlier blooms to fill out bridal bouquets and table arrangements
- As an alternative to traditional flower centerpieces, group favors together on the table. Wrap them with a paper matching your color palette or some of your stationery pieces (use a rubber stamp with your monogram, for instance)
- Flowering bulbs, such as amaryllis, narcissus, and hyacinth, often cost less than regular flowers and look great rising from a layer of stones set in clear containers
- Your florist won’t have to supply (and charge for) vases for your centerpieces if you have a collection of containers, such as urns that belonged to your grandmother, jelly jars or milk jugs. Filled with flowers, such vessels make pretty displays that tell about you and your family
- Consider renting large potted plants such as tropical palms or ficus: it is definitely less expensive than buying large flower arrangements. They visually fill a lot of space, and will enhance the setting at your ceremony site or warm up your reception. If you decide to purchase these large plants, you can use them in your backyard afterwards.
- Instead of costly escort cards, print a list of guests’ names and table assignments on elegant papers and display them in embellished frames, matching your color scheme
- Votives, tapers and lanterns are inexpensive, particularly when purchased in bulk, and they have an exciting effect on party décor. Place votives alongside your centerpieces to cast a soft glow, and add tapers to give the arrangements greater height. Rows of hanging lanterns are ideal for dramatically illuminating any outdoor path or walkway
- You don’t have to use those white tablecloths that come with your reception site. Some venues offer options: explore them and, if possible, select linens in a bright hue or with plenty of texture (stitching, beading and so on) to create a personalized look
- Raid stores like IKEA, Pier One and Cost Plus for things like candle holders and charger plates. It is cheaper than renting them, and then you can sell them online after your wedding
- Colored ribbons, tied around wine and champagne glasses and cake serving set for accent, add a distinctive touch without a greatly added expense
- Have a calligrapher letter only the cover of the ceremony program; print the interior pages using favorite fonts on your own computer. Consider creating menus, seating cards, and place cards with your computer as well
As you can see there are many ways to look at things for Wedding Ideas on a Budget and still create a stylish wedding. Check back for Part III where we go over money saving tips for the catering portion of your wedding plans, or better yet subscribe to YourWeddingDollars.com so you will be notified when Part III is published.
Weddings that tell a beautiful story: Yours. This is what Sabrina Cadini, Professional Bridal ConsultantTM, and owner of La Dolce Idea in San Diego, California, is passionate about. Each wedding should reflect the couple’s personality, and Sabrina adds that magic touch to make it an event that couples and their guests will always remember. By offering truly personalized service and money-saving solutions for every budget, she fuses creativity, Italian-style (where she’s from) and professionalism into impeccably planned celebrations. Find out more about Sabrina at www.ladolceidea.us
Creating Wedding Website — 6 Great Reasons to Have One
What exactly is a Wedding Website and is it worthwhile to create your own personalized wedding webpage? In a nutshell, having a wedding website keeps you and your guests up to date on your wedding planning progress from day one all the way up until the day before the wedding. Creating wedding websites can actually help you save quite a bit of money on printing and postage costs and of course goes a long way with saving trees so if you create wedding webpage you will be not only helping your wedding budget but also keeping things “green” by being eco-friendly. But more specifically, here are quick reasons for creating a wedding website for your wedding:
Reasons for Creating Wedding Website:
- Save Money – Engagement announcements, save the date announcements, invitations, directions, etc. can go through this website
- Help your Out of Town Guests – They will have a lot of questions: where should we stay, what is the weather like, what else is there to do when we get there, how far is the airport from the hotel, etc. Instead of having to write to each one individually or call each one (which we know can be a time saver cause you know how long Aunt Gertrude is going to keep you on the phone!), you can have this information detailed on your site and all your guests can find quick and easy answers to all their concerns just by opening up your website.
- Getting Back RSVPs – Your can offer your guests the option fo RSVPing online via your website. Getting your RSVPs is very important, it makes a difference in your budget knowing whether 50, 100 or 150 people are going to show up. So many people use email nowadays that giving them one more easy way for them to respond to you is an added benefit to your planning process
- Sharing Pictures & Stories – Everyone loves a “love story”!! Even grumpy Grandpa!! Have fun sharing your wedding planning process and your love for each other with quick notes and pictures that everyone can see and truly feel a part of your life. Afterall, anyone you are inviting to your wedding I would certainly hope they are a person who means a lot to you and you want them to be involved and excited for you.
- Get the Gifts you Really Need and Want — Most wedding website programs offer links to your registries. Your guests will appreciate the time savings this offers by giving them quick access to your gift wishes and them being able to just push a button to buy it, have it wrapped, and delivered all without them having to change from the their PJs. And, this way you are more assured of getting the items your really hope for because your guests won’t be forced to step out there on their own giving them the opportunity to maybe pick up something “they” like more than you might like.
- Keeping Track of it All — Many online wedding website services have terrific tracking and planning tools as well.
There are many ideas for creating wedding websites and there are also many online services out there to help you. Some offer free trials, some don’t; some offer planning tools, some don’t; some are easier than others and some are more customizable than others. With all these things in mind, YourWeddingDollars.com researched several out there and our favorite thus far to help you in creating wedding website for your special day is Wedding Tracker. If you want to read more about our findings, please see our Review of the Wedding Tracker program in our Resources & Reviews section.
Can you put your wedding together without having a personalized wedding website? Of course!! But is it as much fun? No. That’s just the truth.
As always, here’s wishing you a wonderful planning experience, a stress free wedding day, a long and beautiful life together, and money left in your pocket!!
By Cheryl Cox, Editor of YourWeddingDollars.com. See “Note from the Editor” for more information on Cheryl and her credentials.
“Create Your Own Wedding — Own Your Style, Not Someone Else’s — and do it all while keeping money in your pocket!”
Review of Wedding Tracker for Creating Wedding Website
As we all know, whether your wedding style ideas are for a small wedding, a large wedding, simple or elaborate, there are still a certain number of things that need to be attended to for all wedding styles that require your undivided attention. And, forgetting the planning phase for a minute (just a minute though), what about FUN! Online personal wedding websites offer a wonderful way to keep a diary of sorts through the whole wedding process and be able to share it with your family and friends.
Two of my favorite wedding website created on Wedding Tracker are Carrie & Chris’s and Judson & Martina’s.
Well, as you can imagine, just like for everything else, there are many options out there when it comes to finding a service for creating wedding website for our special day. But as online hosts for the creation of wedding websites go, we found Wedding Tracker to be our first choice because is is a very diverse program and they seem to have all the bases covered that you might be interested in and all in an easy to use, flexible layout. However; don’t let my having said that scare you into thinking it might be “too much” of a program for you to deal with because that’s my favorite part of this program – it’s Easy to Create! Creating your wedding website couldn’t be easier with their 12-step wizard.
And, if you all you care about is creating a wedding website to share pictures and stories, then that’s all you need to use of the program and it is perfect for that with the many professional designs you can choose from and the capability to upload over 200 photos. But there’s so much more you can do with this that is so simple to implement and so helpful such as creating beautifully customized wedding invitations, have your guests RSVP right on your webpage, creating a calendar of events for everyone to see and even track gift registries and the gifts themselves.
And two of my other favorite pluses is 1) that this is a web-based program, so there is no dealing with downloading programs and you are always assured of having the latest and greatest as it is automatically updated whenever they make upgrades to the program, and 2) when the wedding day has passed and you’re ready to “turn off” your website, you can order a keepsake copy of your website on CDROM and preserve the memories for a lifetime – way cool!
If you would like to check it out more, you can start with a 2-week FREE trial and Wedding Tracker has offered YourWeddingDollars.com visitors 25% off a 1 year Wedding Tracker subscription — just use promo code AFF25. Start your free trial today! By the way, while there, click on the “Home Page” link and then click on “Featured Real Couples Sites” to get ideas from couples who have created their personal wedding website with the help of Wedding Tracker.
By Cheryl Cox, Editor of YourWeddingDollars.com, See “Note from the Editor” for more information on Cheryl and her credentials.