When a bride gets to the point in her planning process where she picks out the music in her ceremony, it can be a daunting task. Please use this as a guideline for the six (6) major parts of the wedding ceremony music.

1. Prelude

• Song(s) played as guests are seated
• Choose a cheerful, yet subdued music
• Begins 15-20 minutes before ceremony

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I found the idea of picking wedding songs to be very challenging. Mr. Cherry is very into Punk and metal music. He is not really into the mushy wedding songs. Even though we have been dating for 9 years we still have had a very hard time choosing the music for our wedding. I wanted to share my experience with you of what has made this relaxing and fun.

One evening Mr. Cherry and I kept going back and forth on how he did not like my wedding song selections. He is a musician and this is a very important part of the wedding to him. I suggested Elton John’s “Your Song” because he is a very big fan of his Live in Australia album. I was shot down. Then I suggested, “Stand by Me” and this was too cliché. My frustration was starting to grow.  I even told him just to pick it and surprise me. I was done thinking of options! Mr. Cherry then made a great suggestion. We got his IPod and a bottle of wine. We decided to lie down on the floor and spent the rest of the evening listening to songs. It was such a fantastic night. It was perfect. We looked up the lyrics to each song and realized how many songs were wrong for us. They did not describe us at all. It was very surprising how many songs we didn’t really know the words too! It was a great night of laughing and just enjoying each other’s company.

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…that you never wear white to someone’s wedding. (Unless you’re a bridesmaid in a British wedding then that’s traditional.)

Rumor spread to me that a wedding guest who will be sitting on the groom’s side of the church, fully intends to re-wear a very expensive WHITE dress to our wedding. It upset me so much, that I nearly cried. (The guest is not British, nor in the wedding party)

A beautiful dress to wear somewhere other than a wedding {Image from: lafemmefashion.com}

It really should go without saying that the bride is the only person in white on her wedding day. And I’ll be devastated if a guest shows up in a very expensive white dress, especially since my wedding dress was in the same price range. Forgive me if I start sounding like bridezilla, but this is like a huge slap in the face that this girl is already planning to wear white to my wedding.

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If a picture says a thousand words, why are we all writing long invitations? Can’t I just post card everyone a photo and just leave it at that? Sounds like a good plan to me.

Engagement photos can say a lot, especially if you’re including them with invitations and on wedding blogs/websites. It’s more than just a documentation of how you looked on that day. Just as the style of the invitation may say lot about the wedding so can the photo. When the invitation arrives in the mail the invite is the first peek that the guests have at the theme and style of the wedding. Is it going to be formal, causal? Beach style, Vintage, dress-up, casual, a BBQ or picnic? If that invite can convey that much, even before reading the details, then a photo included can say even more. What does your photo say about you? What does your photo say about your wedding?

The number one thing for me would be for the friends/relatives that know us well to look at the photo and say, “that’s so Daisy Bud and Mr. Daisy.” I spent a long time debating if we were going to include engagement photos in our invitations, we decided to do it because the only decent picture of us together was one taken on a cell phone 3 years ago. (it really is a pretty cute picture), But, we thought it would be good to have something a bit nicer. The hard thing about photos for us in general is that Mr. Daisy is a photographer and so we almost never get in a photo together.

We have a great Wedding Photographer, Vanessa Menendez. She primarily does editorials, headshots and pageant photography. Fortunately she’s a good friend and we were able to snag her for the wedding, engagement photos, and a session of head shots for me.  We met up in a sweet location about 20 minutes away from where I live and we took my headshots (of which I was in desperate need) and then headed off to the park to do the engagement photos we’re hoping to include in our invites.

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I’m having a destination wedding that will have (likely) over 100 guests. Everyone is traveling so I’m torn between doing Welcome Bags for them.  I understand they traditionally are done for out of town guests but since everyone is traveling from afar (Cymbie Dude and I have the longest drive), do we save the money and skip them?

http://blog.myweddingfavors.com/index.php/2008/08/25/wedding-welcome-bags-they-cant-wait-to-open/

[For those wanting a quick and easy DIY on welcome bags, one can be found on The Knot's website here.] Here’s a little back story on “hospitality bags” that I found interesting as well.

Let’s be honest! It is expensive to be a bridesmaid or a groomsman in a wedding! Because of the cost & the stressful moments our wedding party will endure, I want to make sure we get them the best gifts ever!

Poinsettia Dude & I have thought long and hard and we finally have the gifts for half of the wedding party figured out.    We plan on getting the guys some items to finish off their wedding day look – 1. skinny black tie 2. Black watch  & 3. Black Chuck Taylors

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Thank you notes are extremely important and as a bride who attempts to be organized, I have failed in getting my shower thank yous out in good time.

But in my defense, I’m trying to finish my senior year of college without pulling out my hair (since that is very important for the wedding). But alas, I have written all of my thank you notes and they will be mailed quite soon.

Thank you notes made for my by my wonderful MOH

It is sometimes hard to thank someone for towels or knives or basically anything else aside from saying, “thank you for ____.” But it is possible to approach thank you notes differently. When I wrote my shower notes I kept it short. For example:

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Ok, so I’m attempting to not rant about RSVPs before I actually send out invitations (which is soon!) so instead, here is the letter that I will not be sending to our guests, but wish they knew.

Dear friends and family,

We have invited you to our wedding and reception and we sincerely want you to be there. With that being said, there is a dollar sign attached to your head. We are will to pay for you, which is obvious because we invited you.

We have no desire to overpay for a wedding reception if we don’t have to, I’m sure you can understand wanting to get the best price and not wasting money. So please, as soon as you know if you are able to attend, please use one of the three RSVP options to let us know. We don’t want to pay for you and have an empty chair where you should be sitting.

Please pass inform me of your attendance status before May 5th, because if I call you, I want to be calling you to chat, not to find out whether or not you’re attending my wedding.

Thank you,

The Bride

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Is it just me or do you find it extremely annoying when you get bombarded by vendors you’ve never inquired from?  For those of you who just got engaged or have not yet, this post will help you save countless voice mails, emails, and phone calls from bombarding vendors.

When I first started wedding planning, I would give out my information to vendors like no other through bridal shows and websites that had listings for music wedding bands.  I thought, why not..it doesn’t hurt right?  Yea, it doesn’t hurt, but you’ll just end up getting annoyed by so many vendors trying to contact you to get your business.  A lot of times, they won’t just contact you once and hope for you to call back…they’ll call you at least 3-4 or more times until you call them back.

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