Wedding Help

With the Christmas season now passed, many couples are looking around for some great winter wedding ideas. Winter can be a beautiful time of the year to get married, and winter weddings are just as beautiful and romantic as spring and summer weddings. One thing you’ll find in winter weddings, is that unlike the typical Christmas weddings, winter weddings do not usually include Christmas trees or anything like that, but instead, incorporate other of their favorite parts of the winter season. So if you are looking at planning a winter wedding, and need some winter wedding ideas, here are some great ideas and tips to get you going. In fact, there are so many different winter wedding ideas that I have decided to split this subject up into a small series, to be able to cover everything that I want to without creating a huge article. So here we go.

Winter Wedding Ideas - Colors

There are plenty of colors that go perfectly well with winter weddings, so don’t think that you are limited to only red and green. Perhaps to most popular winter wedding colors are a darker and rich colors such as burgandy, cranberry, or hunter green. But don’t assume that your colors are limited to darker colors either. There are many light colored, shimmery colors that will be perfect in a winter wedding such as a shimmery blue or silver. But don’t forget that the winter season hosts the most romantic day of the year, Valentine’s Day. What a great day and time to celebrate the love that you have for each other. If you choose to have a Valentines themed wedding, then you may want to use red and pink wedding colors, and your winter wedding ideas would gear more towards that romantic day.

Winter Wedding Ideas - Centerpieces

There are many great ideas for winter wedding centerpieces that the options are limitless, but here are some great ideas to help you get started and maybe get your creative juices flowing. Winter fruit can be a beautiful and unique winter wedding centerpiece. Fill large glasses or hurricane vases with plastic cranberries, or even real cranberries from the store (they are inexpensive). Then, place a large candle or other item in the cranberries for a breathtaking winter wedding centerpiece. Another popular idea is to use large plastic or foam snowflakes. Hang them from a small stand and let them turn and move on their own, or cut out large foam snowflakes and spray paint white and add glitter for another eye-catching winter wedding centerpiece. Stand these large foam snowflakes alone on the table, or several at different heights for a more eye-catching design.

Whichever kind of winter wedding ideas that you come up with, be sure that they give off your favorite aspects about the winter season. Do you find the winter season relaxed and cozy, or dramatic? Go off of these unique feelings and views that you have about the winter season, and you won’t have any trouble at all coming up with some great winter wedding ideas that will really make your wedding stand out from the pack.

Tags: winter themed weddings, winter wedding centerpieces, winter wedding ideas

My sister called me this morning with a great idea for an article for today’s post. You see, a few days before Christmas a friend of hers got married, and my sister was the maid of honor in the ceremony. As she was telling me the story about what happened, I realized that this could be a mistake that many brides make while they are planning their wedding reception, and thought it would be a great piece of advice for brides. With so many things to remember while doing your wedding planning, it is easy to make a mistake, leave something out, or make some kind of assumption that you really shouldn’t be making. Such is the case with my sister’s friend. Let me explain the situation before I go on any further.

My sister’s friend got engaged about a year ago, and planned her wedding to be just a few days before Christmas. They planned a large wedding, with over 400 people on the guest list. They wanted to have a large wedding, and yet still have a wedding on a budget, (which is possible by the way, check here for more information). Now, in the small Texas town where we live, there are only one or two places around that will hold that many people,  and neither one of them is a church. But that isn’t the main problem that my friend faced, which was the wedding reception.

The mistake that my sister’s friend made was in her wedding reception. With a guest list of over 400 people, she rented a reception hall that would hold the number of people she needed, and had the trays of food for a Snack Wedding Reception, and then she made her major mistake. She only provided three tables and a total of eighteen chairs for people to sit down, assuming that everyone would want to stand or walk around and mingle. Big mistake. From my observation, you will have people who want to stand up and mingle, but a majority will want to sit down to talk and watch the festivities. Not only that, but add plates of food, and people will really want to sit down instead of having to balance a plate of food and glass of punch. In the end, her guests really only stayed about thirty minutes at the wedding reception, with many leaving before the bride and groom made their departure.

When planning your wedding reception that you want to last awhile, then be sure that you have enough chairs for everyone, and if not, then at least some taller tables placed around the room for your guests to stand around and be able to rest their plates of food. Don’t let this wedding reception mistake happen to you.

Tags: Wedding Reception, wedding reception mistake

I hope that everyone had a truly wonderful Christmas this year. In my last article that I wrote before Christmas, I gave a simple piece of advice to those planning a wedding during this time. I advised that all wedding planning be set aside for this Christmas season for you to enjoy the time of celebration and fellowship with family and friends. I know that in the past, you may have had a particular set of Christmas traditions that you and your family do every year.  But get ready for this, your husband (or your future husband) and his family most likely have their own set of Christmas traditions with their family that they do not want to miss, and you will need to take them both into consideration, and it could be hard knowing what to do when. With your first Christmas married, or your last Christmas as a single person, you’ll need to figure out some way to celebrate Christmas with both families, or come up with some other plan. So here are some great hints for you on celebrating Christmas with both of your families on how to work the whole new family situation.

Switch off Years for Christmas

If your respective families live far apart, then it may not be feasible for you guys to visit both families for Christmas. One method for this that many couples do is to switch off years between celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with the different families. For example, my cousin and her husband live in Tennessee, with her parents living in Texas, and his parents living in Florida. One year, they will do Thanksgiving in Texas with her parents, and Christmas in Florida with his family. Then, the next year, they will do Thanksgiving in Florida and Christmas in Texas. Both families understand the arrangement, and it works out very well for them being able to spend time with both families.

Travel Between Families

If you are like my husband and me, our family all lives pretty close by, just a couple hours of driving time between each. What we have chosen to do this year is to celebrate Christmas with both families. We went down and saw my husband’s family before Christmas ans Christmas day, and the day after Christmas we will go and visit my family to have our own Christmas with my family as well. This works out well in that we are able to visit both families for Christmas and celebrate.

It is important to remember your family is not more important than his family, and understand that he may want to spend time with his family during Christmas as well. After all, after the wedding, they will be your family too, and you need to make sure that you spend time with both families. It will make for a much more enjoyable Christmas when one isn’t sad and missing their family.

Tags: celebrating christmas with two families, married chrismas

With all of the things to remember while doing your wedding planning, you can quickly and easily get stressed out and exhausted. It’s no fun being stressed out, and when you’re stressed out, sometimes it can be hard to sit back, relax and enjoy the little things in life, or to take a break and have a little bit of fun, but this is so important. When you are doing your wedding planning, many people try to use every spare moment to work on their wedding planning, and that’s really not a bad thing, it is called good time management. But a balance between good time management and being able to take a break and have fun is important as well. I know that when I get stressed out, not only can I not sit back and relax, but I also am short with people, and impatient over things that don’t matter all that much, especially with those closest to me. That is no fun way to live, for you or for those around you. So this Christmas season, I would like to give a little piece of advice for those planning a wedding. It’s not rocket science, but it is important, and can really make a difference. Have I built up enough suspense?

This Christmas season, take a break from your wedding planning. I know, I know, there are still so many things to do and decide, create and to plan, but just for a few days over the Christmas holidays, set those things aside and spend some real quality time with your friends, family, and of course your spouse to be. My uncle died in an accident two weeks before Christmas a few years ago, and I know that now his family would give anything for just one more Christmas, one more day even. Treasure those around you while you still have them with you. Sit back, relax, and let yourself enjoy the Christmas season. Make some happy memories with those around you that can be treasured forever.

Tags: Wedding Planning, wedding planning at christmas

One of the best things you can do when you are working on your wedding planning is to either create or purchase a wedding checklist to keep for yourself to make sure that you don’t forget anything. Trust me, once you start thinking about all of the things you need to plan and keep track of for the wedding, you’re going to want to have some kind of an organizer or planning a wedding checklist to keep yourself from forgetting anything. There were times during my own wedding planning when someone would ask me something like, “Well, what are you going to do about your ___? (insert wedding photographer, wedding programs, music, I was asked them all)”, and I would realize that I hadn’t even thought about doing that particular part of my wedding planning. Stink. So I started searching on the Internet where I could find a free planning a wedding checklist that I could use, and I found a bunch. But none of them really had everything that I needed, or they had items that I wasn’t planning on using, such as a DJ, and packages for out of town guests. But planning a wedding checklists are great, and overall they can really help you out a lot. Here are some great benefits for using a wedding checklist.

Find out How Early to Plan Each Thing

One great thing I loved about wedding checklists is that it let me know how early out I needed to start working on things, such as when to send out my wedding invitations, as well as when to have other things either picked out, places reserved, and much more to help me maximize my time. That way I could do my wedding planning in an order that made sense to me, since I had never planned a wedding before. Plus, it kept me from making my wedding favors when I should have been spending time picking out a wedding dress, or putting money down on a reception hall.

Remembering Where You’ve Been

I make a lot of lists in my day to day life. Not only because I have a ton of stuff to do and remember each day, but also because if I don’t have a list then I know something will be forgotten. Perhaps the best thing about a wedding checklist, or any checklist for that matter, is the satisfaction of being able to cross something off the list, and seeing your list get shorter as time goes by. For me, being able to cross stuff off of that planning a wedding checklist really helped with my stress level.

There is a link in my sidebar to one of my favorite sites called, Wedding Budget. This link will take you to a great site that has all kinds of documents and spreadsheets for helping you find ways to save money while doing your wedding planning, and it has at least 5 or 6 great bonuses that come with it. One of those bonuses is a wedding checklist. The whole set of documents and spreadsheets costs under $30, and with all the great bonuses you get with it, makes the money totally worth it. I found it really helpful, and I think you will too.

Tags: planning a wedding checklist, Wedding Budget, wedding checklist, Wedding Planning