Posted by Anak Desa
Weddings can be very expensive but many brides are finding creative ways to save money without compromising on quality. There’s nothing to stop you from getting the wedding you’ve always wanted. You just have to think a little out of the box and more creatively. Here are some ideas to get your juices flowing.
1. Choose or find a venue that is already beautiful and lush with flowers and well kept lawns. There are usually parks or gardens with these characteristics.
2. Plan to use wedding flowers that are readily available and in season. This will save you a lot of money. Although it may seem like a good idea at first, holding a wedding during February is not cheap. In February, flower prices are very high due to Valentine’s Day.
3. As far as possible, hold your wedding during the festive season i.e. during Christmas or Easter when most Churches are already decorated with beautiful flowers! You just have to find a church with the type of wedding flowers that you like.
4. If you know someone else who is getting married about the same time that you are, you can save even more money by coordinating flowers and splitting the cost.
5. Use the internet to shop around for the best deals on flowers and consider buying from www.theflowerexchange.com. You can use a product comparison website to locate suppliers with the cheapest prices without compromising on quality. The Flower Exchange.com guarantee fresh flowers so you don’t have to worry about whether or not the flowers will be fresh when they arrive.
6. Another money saving idea is to arrange your own flowers such as bouquets of simple roses tied together with a ribbon. If you’re not confident enough to do it, you can find simple guides online on how to arrange flowers for weddings. You can also just ask a friend or a family member to do it for you.
7. Cheap flowers such as carnations when used in abundance so that the blooms are packed together can be quite striking. Visit some online florist websites and browse their pictures of wholesale flowers in the weddings section for some ideas.
8. Avoid imported or exotic flowers unless they are cheaper than the ones that are locally available.
9. Using very large arrangements can be very expensive so it’s a good idea to use as few as possible. You can save even more by limiting the number of people in your wedding so that you don’t have to do many bouquets!
Labels: wedding flowers
(more...)
Posted by Mary of mywedding.com
Photography by The Wiebners – Joel and Rita Wiebner – see more at www.thewiebners.com
There are lots of reasons to be married al fresco, and you don’t have to be limited to the hot summer months! With contingency plans, you can tie the knot in the great outdoors during any time of year (yes, even winter). Here are some things to consider:
They say that if it rains on your wedding day, it is supposed to bring good luck to the marriage. This is only true for those couples that have a backup rain venue, or a ton of umbrellas.
During the summer, an evening wedding might be preferable due to excessive heat during mid-day and even through the late afternoon. Also, the reception will then go into the night, when there will surely be some relief.
This means providing shade if it’s going to be hot, or a source of warmth if it may be chilly (consider a heated tent – although this isn’t exactly cheap; blankets are a cozy alternative and can be shared…how romantic). Give special consideration to elderly and handicapped guests, for whom the elements and terrain of the venue can present increased difficulty.
I mean the real-live creatures here, people. Save the figurative ones for your honeymoon. Critters can be the most relentless wedding crashers, and will prove to be even more annoying than the drunkest guest at the reception. Plan to provide citronella spray or candles around the site, or handle the pests in some other way…but do plan for them.
This could greatly affect your guests’ ability to hear the ceremony. There are other factors that could affect the sound quality also, so be sure to visit the ceremony site during the time of day (and time of year) that your wedding will take place and make note of any external or environmental noise that will likely be present. Had I done this myself before my own lakeside wedding, I would probably have realized if you choose to get married in front of a busy marina, your guests are far more likely to hear the boat engines than your vows.
This is an especially important consideration if it will be hot and particularly if there will be a buffet or other food set out. Talk to your caterer about timing and cooling of food in order to keep it appetizing and, most importantly, safe! Nobody wants to eat shrimp cocktail that’s been baking in the sun for four hours.
If you’re getting married during the warmer season, offer non-alcoholic beverages before the ceremony, such as water with lemon or iced tea. Alternatively, if you’re planning a winter outdoor wedding, you may want to provide hot cocoa or some other steamy beverage to warm them up upon their arrival.
No, I know you’re both consenting adults. I’m not talking about that. If you’re getting married at a public place, such as a park or beach, check to see if you need permits, especially for alcohol on the premises. Your guests don’t want to see the happy couple leave for their honeymoon handcuffed in the back of a squad car.
Provide information to your guests about environmental factors that you anticipate and that they can prepare themselves for. For example, if your wedding site will be soft and grassy, you may want to advise the women (and maybe some of the men, depending on your guest list) not to wear heels. This information should be included in the invitation rather than the welcome packets, so that they have the time and resources necessary to plan for the event.
Plan for inclement weather.
Consider time of day.
Make your venue accessible and comfortable for guests.
Don’t forget about the birds and the bees!
Will it be windy?
Will your food survive the elements?
Keep your guests hydrated.
Are you breaking the law?
Keep your guests informed.
Use The Right Wedding Flowers
Make sure to order wedding flowers that can last on the outside, stay away from hydrangeas, gerberas and lisianthus, you can use flowers like poms, roses, orchids (they are very strong), athuriums, callas and minicallas.
(more...)
Posted by Susan Hawkins of myweddingfavors
Photography by Anna Kuperberg – see more at www.kuperberg.com
If you’ve rented the centerpieces for your wedding flowers reception tables, giving them away to guests is obviously not a good idea. But if you’ve created centerpieces and want to make one guest at each table feel like a lottery winner, give them away, but do it fairly. Here are a few ideas – some mundane and some a bit of fun – for dispersing your highly coveted reception table centerpieces equitably!
Put a gold star or some other sticker under one chair at each table. At some point during the festivities, have the DJ, emcee or best man invite everyone to look under his or her seat for the gold star. Whoever has it wins the centerpiece!
Have the reception DJ, emcee or best man announce that the centerpiece at each table goes to the person who traveled the farthest to attend the wedding. This way a small token of your appreciation can be given to your dear friend who’s made the trip out to be a part of your special day. Don’t forget to personally say thank-you before the reception is over!
With a nod to respect for elders, announce that the oldest person at each table is the recipient of the centerpiece. This is where female guests must decide which they want more-to keep their age under wraps or your centerpiece. Then again, there may be women who want the centerpiece so badly that they’ll add a decade or two to their age just to get it.
The “Hot Potato” centerpiece giveaway ploy is silly fun. The emcee first requests that someone at each table pull out a dollar bill, which will be returned. Then, without telling them why, the emcee has the guests play “hot potato” with the bill. As the music plays, the bill is passed around in a circle from guest to guest. The centerpiece goes to whoever is holding the bill when the music stops. Remember to have the winner return the dollar bill to its owner.
For this method, the emcee can announce up front that it’s time for the centerpiece giveaway. The emcee then says, “The first person at the table to pull out foreign currency from pocket or purse wins” or “the first person to pull out a cell phone that isn’t black wins.” Make sure the emcee has prepared several options in case it takes three or four rounds to give away all the centerpieces.
Finally, if you and your groom share a bizarre sense of humor or simply want to make the evening go quickly so you can get down to a more personal celebration of your marriage, here’s your centerpiece giveaway. Have the emcee announce, after the salad plates have been removed, that the centerpieces go to the person at each table who finishes his or her entrée first. Then sit back and enjoy the next few minutes. It’s fun to see how many people will inhale their food to get that centerpiece
HQ37NVTSPVHS
Category:wedding flowers and wholesale flowers
(more...)
Posted by Gretchen of mywedding.com
Photography by Anna Kuperberg
Getting married in the next couple cold months ahead? Bring the frosty and wintry magic to your reception with simple touches like in the photo above.
Here are a few items that you will definitely need to capture the perfect winter wonderland decor:
- Twinkling white lights
- Branches (spray painted silver is optional)
- Candles
- Hanging crystal strands
- White wedding flowers
- Snow berries
- Glass vases
Vendor Credit:
Event Planner: Allison van Every
Event Design and Flowers: Water Lily Pond and Pod & Seed
Contemporary Furniture by www.zientte.com
(more...)
Posted by Lucy of mywedding(dot)com
Photography by Viera Photographics
Looking for a ceremony reading or blessing? Here are five of my favorites. Which ones are missing from the list? Share with us your favorite wedding readings!
To Love is Not to Possess
By James Kavanaugh
To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one’s self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one’s self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another–and to one’s inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon’s own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child’s scars
Or an adult’s deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are–and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
Somewhere I Have Never Traveled
by e.e. cummings
omewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near
our slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
Blessing of the Apaches
Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.
Pathways
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Understand, I’ll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
You come too.
Thoughts on Marriage
By Mark Twain
A marriage…makes of two fractional
lives a whole;
it gives to two purposeless lives
a work, and doubles the strength
of each to perform it;
it gives to two
questioning natures
a reason for living,
and something to live for;
it will give a new gladness
to the sunshine,
a new fragrance to the flowers,
a new beauty to the earth,
and a new mystery to life.
For more information on wedding tips and wedding flowers you can go to www.theflowerexchange.com
contemporary Furniture on this site by www.zientte.com
(more...)
Read More Posts From MyWeddingFlowersBlog
Working...