Wedding Planning Guide - How To Save Money Planning Your Own Wedding

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Our secrets to a memorable wedding that everyone enjoyed

I was recently married, on September 9th, 2006.  I still remember all of the time and energy we spent planning our wedding.  I'll be sharing some of our wedding planning tips to help you create a wedding to remember as well.  The key is to not get overwhelmed by all the wedding planning.



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Don't forget to check out our featured wedding favors from Hanson Ellis.

Thanks to all my visitors from my goal setting newsletter.  Look out for more goal setting articles coming your way soon.

Kevin

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Choosing The Wedding Ring

Selecting A Wedding Venue

The Wedding Dress Makes The Bride

How Much Wedding Cake Is Enough For The Guests

Choosing Your Bridesmaid Dresses

Some Photos From Our Wedding 

Creating Your Wedding Day Emergency Kit 

Penny Olson

Items To Have On-Hand All Day

These articles are things that you should have in your purse or have given to someone that will be easy to find all day long, like your Maid of Honor or your Mother. You will find that you'll be very thankful that you have all of them, even if it turns out that they weren't utilized.

-Hair Brush

-Nail File

-A Pair of Panty Hose

-Hair Spray (make sure that the cap is on tight and it has a lid)

-Mints or breath strips

-Small Mirror (nonbreakable)

-Bobby Pins

-Handkerchief

-Perfume (just a little on a cotton ball, stored in a tiny ziplock bag)

-Makeup



Items for General Maintainence

Have these items in a handy place for yourself and your bridesmaids. I think that you will find that most of the woman sharing in your big day could find use for a lot of these products.

-Straight Pins for Corsages

-Cotton Balls and Q-Tips

-Comfy and Pretty Slippers

-Makeup (Bronzers or multi colored beads that will add color to any complexion)

-Nail Polish (Excellent fix for runs in hosiery)

-Black marker for scuffs on rented shoes

-Spot Remover (test it on a swatch before using)

-Static Release Spray

-Extra Garter

-Chalk (Covers dress mishaps)

-Wrinkle Release Spray (test it on a swatch before using)

-Lint Roller

-Sewing Kit:

1. Buttons

2. Needle

3. Thread that matches the wedding dress, bridal party dresses, tuxes

4. Safety pins

5. Scissors

 

Toiletry Kits for Restrooms

Put these items in pretty baskets, decorated to match your color scheme. Place them in the Men's and Women's bathrooms. Your guests will thank you for being so thoughtful.

-Aspirin and Ibuprofen

-Band-Aids

-Saline Solution

-Deodorant (Spray, just in case you need to share)

-Eye Drops

-Unscented Lotion

-Moist Towelettes

-Smelling Salts

-Tampons and Pads

-Tissues

-Mouthwash

-A couple of diapers for small attendants or guests

-Tums or Rolaids

-Odorless Insect Repellant (For outdoor ceremonies)

-Suntan Lotion



You just never know

Hopefully you won't need any of these, but just in case, take them along and you can be sure that any oversights will not lead to a disaster.

-A small amount of cash

-Identification

-Umbrella

-Watch

-Dry Snacks (granola bars, raisins, M&M's, nuts)

-Duct Tape (For quick repairs to decorations, or to control unruley garments)

-Disposable Camera

-Bottled Water

-Maps or directions to the reception

-No-Slip pads for the soles of new shoes

-List of contacts and phone numbers including family, the wedding party, florist, DJ, Caterer, etc.



You can't go wrong! With this complete kit, everyone in your party and your guests will have all the OOPS covered. No Sweat! Have an incredible and worry-free wedding day.


Penny Olson is the owner and designer for Brilliant Wedding Jewelry.
Visit us for Swarovski Crystal Wedding Favors. Browse our collection of wedding articles.


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Wedding Albums: Tips For Selecting The Perfect One 

by Chad Barker

Wedding albums come in all shapes and sizes and they often have just one goal. That goal is to provide you with the memories that will last a lifetime that came from your wedding. Your wedding was a wonderful day, filled with laughter, love and unique smells, sensations, tastes and even touches. For those reasons, when you want to keep those memories alive, you should create a wedding album that somehow brings these things through.



There are many different ways that you can do this. The most important will be to select the right style of wedding album for you. Not only do you want an album that is safe to your pictures with no acid in the pages and something that will preserve them for years to come, but you also want to be able to add in special touches. Here are some ideas.



  • To remember the smells of your wedding day, add the flower petals from that day into your wedding album dried and preserved. Just one or two is all that's needed.

  • To remember the sensations of walking down the aisle, include a piece of fabric that's like your wedding dress. As you walked, your dress brushed your legs.

  • To remember the sights of the day, make sure to include pictures of the flowers, the aisle runner, and the wedding favors.

  • To remember the tastes of that day include into your wedding album a picture of the cake, the dinner that you ate and perhaps even a photo of the deserts you enjoyed the most.



When you add these things into the wedding album, you allow yourself to re-experience everything. Each element comes back at you, like a wave of emotions. While the pictures are the most important thing in your wedding album, recreate the day by choosing a wedding album that helps you to experience all of your moments that day.


visit http://www.pictureframesplanet.com and read more of Chad's articles.


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Selecting A Wedding Dress Without Breaking The Bank 

Our wedding dress was a steal! It was last years model, and it was on the discount rack, because a future bride trying it on created a makeup stain on the inside. If your hard to fit, it ill take sometime to find a dress and get it altered. Be sure to account for the time needed. Also, keep in min that cleaning a wedding dress is very expensive. In our case, it was actually more than the dress.

We also had a hard time finding a dress with sleeves. Which is hard to believe in Utah. Our venue was outside in the foothills in September so the evenings were cool, and Laura didn't want a strapless dress that most of theshops are carrying these days. Many wedding shops will add sleeves, but the alterations add up fast.

Choosing The Perfect Wedding Dress

Selecting A Wedding Cake All Will Enjoy 

The cake should really suit the mood of the reception hall. If your setting is moe formal, you'll want a more traditional cake. If it is Avante Garde, you can go wild. Be sure to talk to your caterer about how many guests you will have, and how many layers you need.

Each layer can be a separate flavor. Be sure to have a taste testing of the available flavors while your planning.

Choosing The Perfect Wedding Cake

20 Ways to Make the Most of Your Wedding Budget 

by Amber Cleveland

1.) Use your favors to decorate your place settings or table.

2.) Double your center pieces up as décor for the aisle during the ceremony.

3.) After you finish pictures have your bridesmaids put their bouquets on the cake table as decorations

4.) Rather than offering a fully stocked bar offer beer, wine and a signature cocktail.

5.) Attach your place cards for reception seating directly to your favors.

6.) Use framed pictures of you and your fiancée (both separately and together) as additional décor for the venue.

7.) Don't over-do the servings of cake. Most wedding cakes are twice as much as a needed.

8.) Using lots of candles is an expensive and beautiful way to decorate (make sure the flames are covered!)

9.) Ask your photographer if getting your photos on a CD and making prints yourself is an option.

10.) Give your DJ all the details about the layout of the venue to avoid incurring unforeseen set up charges.

11.) Use disposable cameras on each table that way your have tons of extra pictures for minimal additional charges.

12.) Select an invitation that is standard size to avoid additional postage charges.

13.) Burn a CD of you and your fiancée's favorite songs and print your picture on it as a favor.

14.) Rather than a full bouquet have your bridesmaids carry a single long-stemmed elegant flower. It can make a dramatic impression.

15.) Opt to not have a groom's cake.

16.) Have your bridesmaids wear their pre-owned dresses; just make sure they are all the same color and shade.

17.) Simply have a champagne toast than an open bar at the reception.

18.) In lieu of a gift pay for your bridesmaids' manicure, pedicure or facial the week of the wedding.

19.) Use white Christmas lights for décor on stairwells or railing for inexpensive décor.

20.) If you don't have to get married of Saturday night, go for the afternoon, or anytime Friday or Sunday. Space rental is likely to be much cheaper.


www.beyondeventsinc.com
www.beyondevents.blogspot.com


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Choosing Your Bridesmaid Dresses 

For our bridesmaid dresses, we decided to stay with a central color theme and look. Some brides like to change it up a bit and have different dresses.

Other brides like an informal wedding, and just have the bridesmaids wear whatever they already have.

Our dresses originally came from David's Bridal, but we were able to find several on EBay. David's Bridal does not take returns, so many of the extra dresses end up on EBay when the sizes change between the plannng stage and the actual wedding. You can also get great deals at the wedding shops on last year's designs. There will usually be a discount rack where you can find some new dresses from lat year at deeply reduced prices.

Choosing The Perfect Bridesmaid Dress

Stuff from David's Bridal Currently on Ebay 

We bought many things for our wedding from Ebay. It's a great way to save a lot.

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eBay

7 Things To Consider When Choosing A Wedding Band 

1) Can they play the song you want for your first dance? If not, you can always play a cd or mp3 player for that song.

2) Do you want a band for the ceremony and the reception? If so can the same band cover both sections?

3) What powe is available on site where the band wil be setup? Bands need alot of plugs for their equipment, always remember to consider this and make sure the plugs work.

4) Is there any songs you don't want them to play?

5) What songs do you want to make sure they can play?

6) Be sure o get a demo or see them play before your event to prevent any surises when they show up for your event.

7) How do you want them to dress? s casual ok,or i more formal needed?

Wedding Favors from Hanson Ellis 

The Perfect Wedding Invitation Ideas 

by Moses Wright

Everyone wants a perfect wedding where families and friends can remember, cherish and enjoy for a long time to come. For that to happen, a perfect wedding would require intensive planning and coordination.



The first step to the perfect wedding would be the invitation; its job is to announce your big day and should ideally not only represent the couple personality and style but also be distinctive and unique. Here's a list of wedding invitation ideas to help you get that special invitation out.



1. Recently Married Friends - Ask to see if anyone around you are preparing or just went through their wedding. These groups of people are the best consultant for advices since they have gone through all the work of researching the best printers and designers in the area where you live in. Check out the quality of their invitation, designs and prices so that you can have a good feel of how much each invitation would cost.



2. Websites - With current technology and the advancement of online business, a search engine search on wedding invitation would bring out at least 20 similar sites dealing in wedding invitation. Most of them would have either catalogs or close up of their invitation designs for potential clients to access the quality of their work. Many also sell paper and printing material online. What you can do is to use these sites as a research tool.


 

You can look at the design of their work to collect ideas on how you want to design yours and the type of paper material you can use to print your invitations. A careful detail look would give one tons of ideas especially for those would like to design their own invitation.



3. Magazines - There are so many wedding magazines out there, online and offline. For a quick start, you can search for the online magazines first. You would be amazed by how many ideas you can generate from a magazine alone.



4. Wedding Forums - Do not belittle the power of forums, they may be mostly ordinary people like you and me. But that does not stop them from being creative. Throw in a topic or question and you will be amazed by the number of people who are more than willing to help you generate free ideas.



A wedding is such a special day for the brides and grooms. It is not surprising to see most couples keep a copy of their wedding invitation to remind them of this special moment. If you want a special unique invitation, you would have to invest in more time and effort. I'm sure it is worth the effort at the end of the day.


Moses Wright is the founder of All Weddings. He provides more useful information on Wedding Invitation Card and Wedding Invitation Design on his website. Webmasters are welcome to reprint this article if you keep the content and live link intact.


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Here are some of our favorite books to help us plan our wedding. 

The Wedding Ring 

For my wedding ring, we decided to get a special celtic band from Ireland. It was ordered over the internet and i has secial meaning to us because of how we picked it out and where it came from. My ancestors are Welsh, and Laura's are Scottish, so it made sense to have a celtic band. Around teh outside of the band is "My Love Forver" in Gaelic.

For Laua's ring, we had it made by a custom jeweler here in Salt Lake. For a number of reasons, we decided to have a cubic zirconia set in her ring instead of a diamond. One of the possibility of it being a conflict diamond. This is before the "Blood Diamond" movie even came out. Laura is a social worker and works with refugees from Africa and other parts of the world. So we were already aware of the implications of blood diamonds funding the war efort in many countries in Africa.

Learn More About Choosing A Wedding Ring

Choosing The Wedding Venue 

We were married in beautiful Red Butte Gardens in downtown Salt Lake City. Stay tuned for our tips for planning a garden wedding.

Choosing The Perfect Wedding Venue

Is A Destination Honeymoon Right For You 

For our honeymoon, we decided to go to Costa Rica. It was really easy to wind down and relax in such a wonderfull country. We actually took two weeks off to take in the most we could. We spent most of our time on the Caribbean Coast in Puerto Viejo. We found a great beach bungalow on Playa Negra (Black Beach) on VacationRentals.com. VacationRentals.com and VRBO.com are great places to find houses to rent around the world instead of staying in hotels. The house gave us a lot of privacy, and a very unique experience.

Please tell us what you remember most about your wedding 

or a wedding you just attended

Lensmaster

The_Perfect_Pear wrote...

Wow very informative lens!!

ReplyPosted June 30, 2009

Lensmaster

stemcells wrote...

Thank you for this Excellent Information

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ReplyPosted May 04, 2008

Lensmaster

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ReplyPosted November 21, 2007

Lensmaster

Awesome and informative lens. Good tips on keeping costs down! Kudos to you.

ReplyPosted September 30, 2007

Lensmaster

leslielewis wrote...

Wow! Great lens! Lots of great info. 5 stars to you! Cheers :)

Check up mine - How to Choose Right Wedding Dress

ReplyPosted September 06, 2007

Lensmaster

Tom_Antion wrote...

Wow! Lots of great information. Please visit my Wedding Toasts! Site. Thanks!

ReplyPosted July 31, 2007

Lensmaster

Abby wrote

Nice blog! I am a blogger for an internet jewelry store and I was interested in purchasing a link from your site. Is this something you'd be interested in doing? Please let me know. You can email me at blog.pletter@gmail.com. Thank you very much! Look forward to hearing from you!

Reply Posted June 28, 2007

Lensmaster

loan offer wrote

I am Mrs Lisa, the owner of lisa Loan Investment and Estate. I am a lender who gives out loans to those business and private people with low rates of 5%. I give Collateral and Non Collateral loans with a range amount of $5,000USD to $5,000,000USD. If you want a loan and you have a bad credit, no pro

Reply Posted June 15, 2007

Lensmaster

loan offer wrote

I am Mrs Lisa, the owner of lisa Loan Investment and Estate. I am a lender who gives out loans to those business and private people with low rates of 5%. I give Collateral and Non Collateral loans with a range amount of $5,000USD to $5,000,000USD. If you want a loan and you have a bad credit, no pro

Reply Posted June 15, 2007

Lensmaster

loan offer wrote

I am Mrs Lisa, the owner of lisa Loan Investment and Estate. I am a lender who gives out loans to those business and private people with low rates of 5%. I give Collateral and Non Collateral loans with a range amount of $5,000USD to $5,000,000USD. If you want a loan and you have a bad credit, no pro

Reply Posted June 15, 2007

Lensmaster

EasyW wrote...

Nice lens! Check out mine Free Wedding Toasts and Bridal Shower Games ;)

ReplyPosted June 10, 2007

Lensmaster

Sean wrote

Great len! very informative and useful. Thank you!

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PSP Downloads

Reply Posted May 31, 2007

Lensmaster

LilaEmily wrote...

Cool lens! I'm building a lens on fairy weddings! Fairy Wedding Lens

ReplyPosted May 28, 2007

Lensmaster

Sweeppicker wrote...

Great lens! I'm building a lens showcasing wedding videography. Check it out and rate it for me! Mark :)

ReplyPosted May 27, 2007

Lensmaster

Susan1 wrote...

Great jog I am glad I found you! I have added you to my lens weddingwine

ReplyPosted May 12, 2007

Lensmaster

Denisee wrote...

wow Congrats ! your lens is very informative!

ReplyPosted April 19, 2007

Lensmaster

Plato wrote

Hi Kalvin, that's great! remember to pray for me while I look ahead for my own "D"day

Reply Posted March 27, 2007

Lensmaster

CliveAnderson wrote...

Outstanding lens Kevin. Highly useful and informative. Clive.

ReplyPosted March 24, 2007

Lensmaster

RichardK wrote...

A very nice lens, Kevin, the graphics, the flow and the information. And the personal touch is great. My oldest daughter was married in a glass enclosed room at a historic restaurant in Amherst. Unusual and very pleasant (I'm stealing the button idea, just can't resist)

ReplyPosted March 23, 2007

Lensmaster

flaminglacer wrote...

Superb Lens - I love all the graphics and the natural flow of the modules. Good luck in the competition

ReplyPosted March 23, 2007

Lensmaster

Chip_Westley wrote...

Kevin, what a fantastic lense. Also, congratulations on your recent wedding. Here's wishing you both all the best!

ReplyPosted March 19, 2007

Lensmaster

Melinda01 wrote...

Wow! Weddings are so great and you have so much of useful information here. Great Lens! Keep going.

ReplyPosted March 18, 2007

Lensmaster

HotbuttonPress wrote...

What about the invitations? Great lens, Kevin! And real pictures make it even better. ~ Ele

ReplyPosted March 17, 2007

Lensmaster

writertiff wrote...

Congratulations, Kevin! My husband and I got married in a family only ceremony but my favorite part was our reception was held in an elegant wine cellar at a historic Ft. Worth hotel. It was beautiful! Great lens :) Tiff

ReplyPosted March 17, 2007

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Choosing The Right Wedding Candles 

Chrystal Holman

Colors have to be perfect, flowers have to be fresh, dresses have to be perfect, vows have to be written, and many other arrangements have to be made for the wedding to be perfect. And of course, the right candles have to be chosen to complement the event. Without the right candles the wedding ambience will simply not be everything it can be.


It is important to understand the role of candles in the wedding ceremony and in the celebrations afterwards.


First of all, let's consider the role of wedding candles in the religious ceremony.


Candles are used as an important part of wedding ceremonies in many different religions.


They symbolize the hope and the everlasting nature of the bond that will be formed between the husband and wife, and they represent the light of the love that binds the new couple together.


Usually candles are held by people close to the couple, symbolizing guideposts to a new united life while acting as witnesses to the solemn ceremony.


In addition to the symbolic value of candles, they also play an important decorative role in the wedding ceremony.


They add ambience, elegance and luster the ceremony performed in the church. In addition, they add atmosphere to the celebration afterwards.


A wedding celebration without flowers and candles on the tables appears to have some critical element missing.

 

Wedding candles have for a long time not been playing their original role anymore; that of bringing light to the guest tables. Their primary role is to bring joy, ambience and a sense of comfort to our souls.



Picking your wedding candles is an important task. They have to be the right size; not too large to be overbearing and not too small to look cheapskate. They also have to fit in with the color scheme of your wedding.



Wedding candles of simple yet elegant design work best because they need to play a background ambience role and not divert attention away from the star of the day, the bride.


Chrystal Holman recommends these beautiful scented and unscented, wax, soy, and gel candles. Making your candles? Check out this must-have book on how to run your candle making business more efficiently.


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