Wedding Help

Engagement parties are not supposed to be as big and elaborate as your wedding is going to be, not by a long shot. Yet many people feel like the celebration of their engagement is cause enough to invite everyone on their wedding guest list, rent out a reception hall, and spend a ton of money that they don’t have to do. (Unless of course you are royalty or filthy rich) Traditionally, engagement parties are attended by immediate family and close friends, and are much more laid back than a typical wedding reception. That could be because not many families are not used to throwing engagement parties, they really really want to celebrate this engagement, or they just don’t know about any other options when it comes to engagement party ideas. There are lots of different engagement party ideas to use that can help you tailor the engagement party to the newly engaged couple’s tastes and preferences. But, if you’re having trouble coming up with something, here are some great engagement party ideas to get you started.

Consider A Theme

While some people feel that choosing a theme for an engagement party, or any party for that matter is unnecessary, I beg to differ. Having a theme that you can decorate to will help you to search out your options more efficiently than just a tad of this and that here and there. Some popular themes for engagement parties are : a tropical beach party, a romantic evening in Paris, a night under the stars, or even funny themes such as ball and chain. So if you choose to have a theme with your engagement party, and I really advise that you do, you’ll find decorating the party will be much easier.

Find a Location

While tradition states that engagement parties should be small, making them formal or informal is merely a personal choice. You could host your engagement party in a friend or family member’s home, at a nearby restaurant or even a park. Some other popular engagement party ideas for locations can include amusement parks, sports bars and other fun centers.

Engagement Party Activities

There are certain rituals and activities that are expected to take place at any engagement party. Of course, the activities differ from couple to couple, but overall they ring pretty true. First of all, there is the announcement of the engagement (especially if the engagement is a surprise). Sometimes the family plays some games together, and of course talk about the wedding! This is also a great place and time to ask your friends to be in your bridal shower, announce your wedding day, colors, ideas, etc. Also, be sure to expect many toasts and well wishes from family and friends on your upcoming nuptials.

Engagement parties are typically a great time for everyone involved. It allows the family to celebrate together as well as to get to know the people who will be joining their family very soon. Whatever engagement party ideas you go with for your planning, just be sure that it is centered around the tastes and preferences of the couple. What a truly memorable time you’ll have.

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There are typically several different wedding speeches given throughout the wedding reception. These wedding speeches can include the father of the bride, the maid of honor, the best man, and any other family members or friends who would like to get up and give their well-wishes to the newly married company. While some members of your family and friends may want to give heart felt and totally serious wedding speeches, there are others that will feel more comfortable giving funny wedding speeches followed by something a little more serious. Funny wedding speeches are a great way to liven up the mood at the wedding reception, and to get everyone involved in enjoying the wedding speeches that are taking place. If you are looking at having to give a wedding speech in the near future, and are looking at some funny wedding speeches for some ideas, then here are some basic steps to take and places where you should think twice about going.

What to Look for in Funny Wedding Speeches

To help you create some jokes for some great wedding speeches, you’ll find the Internet to be a great resource. You can find some great one-liners on the Internet that can make a great opener for your wedding speech. Also, you can think back a little ways when you remember how the bride and groom met, or other funny stories during their dating lives about when you knew they were made for each other. Another idea is to find a little poem that is meant for weddings and has some humor about married life.

Funny Wedding Speeches - What to Avoid

While some jokes and material you may come up with for your wedding speech may sound funny to you, be sure to consider the total audience you will be speaking to at the wedding. Make sure that any material you come up with will not be offensive to parents, grandparents, and will not have to be censored from small children. You get my drift here. Embarrassing stories are another thing you may want to be careful with. The last thing you want to do is to humiliate the bride and groom on their wedding day in front of all their friends and family - on the most important day of their lives thus far. Stay away from anything that could cause a fight between the bride and the groom, such as the romantic past of the bride and groom, or secrets they may not know about each other. Also, if you can at all help it, try to stay away from inside jokes that only you and the bride or groom will understand or you’ll alienate your audience.

One thing you need to remember about putting together some funny wedding speeches is that you don’t want your whole speech to have people rolling. A few openers and jokes in the beginning are fine, but at some point near the end you’ll need to get serious about wishing the bride and groom good luck in their new lives together. Let them know how much they mean to you, and how much you look forward to the good times ahead. These simple hints for keeping your funny wedding speech under control can help you to really do honor to the bride and groom on their wedding day. For more tips and ideas on wedding speeches and jokes, check out my previous articles, Best Man Speeches and Maid of Honor Speeches.

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I have to admit, taking care of your wedding registries is one of the most fun parts of wedding planning that you’ll get to do. Even if you don’t really like shopping ( which I don’t), it’s still kind of fun to go around the store with your scanner and your fiance and pick out stuff for your new home together. Plus, one of the great things about wedding registries is that there really isn’t a limit on how much you register for, the number of stores you register at, or what is in your wedding registry. So basically that means, the sky is the limit. Of course, if you’re having a teeny wedding with only 50 in attendance, it wouldn’t make much sense to register at four different stores for hundreds of items. Wedding registries are a great way to tell your guests what you’d really like to have for your new home together, and wedding guests will typically appreciate not having to think of a gift themselves. Traditionally, wedding registries only consisted of dishes and linens, kitchen appliances and other odds and ends, that isn’t the case anymore. There are lots of different types of wedding registries that you can go for, which can really come in handy when you’re looking at your wedding registry.

The Traditional Wedding Registries

As I mentioned above, traditional wedding registries consist of handy items for the home’s function and decoration. This includes silverware, dishes, table linens, bath linens and towels, kitchen appliances, and other cooking utensils. Typically, this is still the most popular kind of wedding registry.

Entertainment Wedding Registries

It’s a known fact that couples are getting married later in life than they used to. Therefore, many couples already have the items they want or need for their new home together. Therefore, many couples choose to have an entertainment wedding registry. Entertainment wedding registries can include televisions, DVD players, DVD’s, board games, video games, sound systems, or more.

Wedding Registries for Tools

Another popular wedding registry that many couples are looking into is creating a wedding registry for tools and power tools. This is helpful if the couple plans on re-vamping their home and doing some home repairs. It can include gift certificates to home repair stores, and much much more. This can be very handy for the fixer-uppers some couples seem to love.

Wedding Registries for Money

Many couples who already have everything they need for their new home can also create a wedding registry which basically just asks for money for a particular purchase they plan to make. Many loan companies and honeymoon packages can set up accounts where your guests an go make make donations towards the honeymoon of your dreams or towards the down payment for a new home.

Wedding Registries for Charity

This is something I ran into a while ago that didn’t even know existed. If there is a charity you feel very strongly about, there are some charities that can set up a wedding registry for your guests to donate money to your favorite charity in lieu of gifts.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to creating your wedding registries. Some guests may be offended if you only ask for cash, so it would be a good idea to create a traditional wedding registry as well for wedding guests who would prefer to buy a gift that will last instead of donating money.

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For some reason, I’ve been pretty interested in looking into engagement parties lately. Maybe it’s the celebration before the celebration, or it could just be the fact that I really never heard that much about it before when I was planning my wedding.  Engagement parties are meant to only be for close family and friends, and kind of a low-key affair. While some couples choose to throw an engagement party for themselves, it is still better if someone else, such as a parent or close friend throws it for you. You want to have a great time at your engagement party, and you want everything to be perfect, so what kind of engagement party invitations are you supposed to use to invite your guests? Are you supposed to send formal invitations to an engagement party, or can you go with something else? I’m sure these are questions on any person’s mind when they are planning such an important event as an engagement party. Here is what engagement party etiquette has to say about the whole situation, and some different ideas for engagement party invitations.

A Formal Engagement Party Invitation

Unless you are planning a formal engagement party, you don’t really need to send out a formal engagement party invitation to all of the guests invited to the shindig. A formal engagement party invitations involves having invitations printed, and look a lot like wedding invitations. Typically only the extremely wealthy throw large and lavish engagement parties with this kind of engagement party invitation.

A Casual Engagement Party Invitation

Most engagement parties that couples plan fall into the casual range. This includes activities such as a nice dinner in someone’s home or in a private room of a nice restaurant.  A casual engagement party invitation can include anything from store bought invitations to homemade invitations made either by hand or on the computer. These casual engagement party invitations are charming, and will help your guests remember the date.

A Totally Informal Engagement Party Invitation

If you are planning a casual or a very informal engagement party, then you don’t really have to send out engagement party invitations at all. In this scenario, a phone call or an email would serve as an excellent invitation to the event.

Engagement party etiquette states that since an engagement party is supposed to be an intimate affair by nature, that you shouldn’t have to send out invitations at all, and that a phone call or email would work. However, due to human nature and the preferences of the couple, engagement party invitations may be necessary to make sure your guests don’t forget about your engagement party.

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Chances are, if you’ve never lived by yourself, or have had to set up your own home before, then you might not realize how many things you need to keep everything looking great and running smoothly. This includes setting up your wedding registry to make sure that you are registering for everything that you both will need to set up your new home together. A wedding registry checklist is a great place to start looking. A wedding registry checklist is basically a categorized detailed list of items in the different areas of your home. Of course, depending upon your situation or what you already have, you may not need to register for everything on your wedding registry checklist. Before we went and did our wedding registry, I looked at several wedding registry checklists just to get an idea of everything out there, what I might need, and sometimes even a quick definition of what that item was. Here are some great advantages to using a wedding registry checklist when working on your wedding registry.

Wedding Registry Checklists are Everywhere!

It seems as though every store that has a wedding registry also has a wedding registry checklist, and thats fine. You can also find them in bridal magazines, on the Internet, and even in books and other wedding planning kits you’ll find with a little bit of research.

A Wedding Registry Checklist Leaves Nothing Out

With as much stuff as you have to remember and take care of while working on your wedding planning, your wedding registry shouldn’t be a huge headache or a hassle. Having a wedding registry checklist will make sure that you don’t forget to register for something important that you need. Plus, if you have multiple wedding registry locations, you can make sure you’re not registering for the same thing twice by bringing your checklist to compare.

A Wedding Registry Checklist is Optional

You really don’t have to use a wedding registry checklist, although it can make your life easier. I looked at a few before we went in to do our registry…so I kind of knew what to expect. Plus, at our wedding registry store, we had a representative take us from area to area within their store and tell us what we would need from that area, or what is popular with brides. She was so great in her knowledge of a wedding registry checklist that we didn’t really need one in the store. While we didn’t always go with her opinion, she was very handy and full of information and advice.

As I said before, you can find many different wedding registry checklists nearly everywhere you look. Collect a few of them and compare which items they have to make sure that one is not leaving anything out. Then, cross off anything that you don’t want or already have. That is a great place to start for your wedding registry. Then, take your scanner and have at it!

Tags: wedding registries, wedding registry, wedding registry checklist