Every wedding should be as unique as the couple getting married. Be sure to put your personal touch on your wedding day by creating a brand, offering unique food and drink or choosing meaningful music.
Recommended resources:
Having a small budget doesn't mean you can't have a great wedding. Your wedding can be elegant and stylish or modern and chic no matter how much money you have to spend. Just be flexible and keep everything in perspective while planning. Shop for bargains, and eliminate the wedding elements you don't need so you have more money to spend on everything else.
Recommended sites:
Eco-friendly, green weddings are a relatively new trend where brides and grooms make environmentally conscious decisions in planning their weddings. If you are planning a green wedding, look for products (like wedding favors and dresses) that are labeled green or environmentally friendly, and ask companies and vendors about their environmental policies.
Recommended links:
Check out my latest article on eHow, "How to Plan a Low Budget Wedding." You truly can have a beautiful, elegant and stylish wedding no matter what your budget, and the article shares a few ideas on how to plan a wedding on a budget.
Topics include:
If you are looking for the best books to help you plan your wedding, we can help! Introducing the Perfect Memories Wedding Store, where you'll find our picks for wedding planners, DIY projects, wedding style, etiquette and more.
Visit the Wedding Store today and browse our favorite wedding book titles. And if you have a favorite book you'd like us to add, let us know!
I'm a huge fan of Real Simple Magazine, and was excited to see that they have a bunch of free wedding checklists on their Web site. You can download everything from a wedding budget worksheet to lists of questions for vendors to recommended shots for your photographer.
Check them out (as well as some other handy checklists and forms) here.
Pingg
This online invitation Web site offers a comprehensive invitation solution: send invites via email, snail mail, text message and social networking sites. The site features modern, stylish invitation designs. Some of the special features available for the invitation include:
Integrated Options: Not all of your guests may be Web savvy, so send them a postcard version of your online invitation. Connect with your more modern friends by sending them a text or connecting the event to Facebook.
Event Fund: If your guests are pitching in, they can use PayPal to send you dough for the party--perfect for bachelorette parties and more.
Registry Information: You can add a link to an Amazon.com Wish List or to Changing The Present (a great option if you'd like your guests to donate to a charity of your choice in lieu of gifts) on your invitation.
The site also allows you to upload photos and videos, and let your guests do so if you choose. Pingg gives you all the tools you need to manage your event and guest list, from tracking RSVPs to exporting lists to adding event news.
Don't miss my reviews of two other online invitation sites: MyPunchbowl and Evite.
MyPunchbowl
This online invitation Web site features a streamlined approach to creating event invitations. With modern, clean designs to choose from, you can send save-the-date emails and online invitations to your guests in style. Some of the special features available for the invitation include:
Potluck and Party Supplies: Add a list of items you would like guests to bring to the event, and as guests check items off, the invite automatically updates what is still needed. You can also create a master list for yourself to keep track of what you need to buy, and find local party stores with a built-in search.
Registry Information: You can add a link to an Amazon.com Wish List on your invitation. This is not the most wedding-friendly feature, but could be ideal for other parties, like birthdays.
After Party: After the event, invite your guests back to the MyPunchbowl to chat about the party and share photos and videos with each other. It's a good, easy way for all your guests to connect.
You'll also find party planning advice via articles on the site. A "Reasons to Party" list lets you find any excuse to host a get-together. Most impressive, a widget powered by Kayak allows you to search for flights and hotels, perfect for out-of-town events.
Don't miss my reviews of two other online invitation sites: Pingg and Evite.
Paper invitations may still be the most popular route (as well as the most traditional and formal) for weddings, but with all of the other wedding-related events, electronic invites can play a part: for engagement parties, save-the-dates, bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, post-wedding brunches and more. Plus, more and more couples are using online invites for the big day, because they want a more casual wedding, want to be a little more green or just want to save some money.
Web sites offering free online invitations have existed for years now, but the features they offer continue to improve. In my next three posts, I'll take a look at three of my favorites.
Evite
This online invitation Web site has been around since 1998, which has given the company a lot of time to perfect its product. Evite offers a large amount of deigns to choose from within each theme, and you can even create a custom invitation by uploading your own images and choosing your colors. Some of the special features available for the invitation include:
Potluck, Supplies and Cash: Add a list of items you would like guests to bring to the event, and as guests check items off, the invite automatically updates what is still needed. You can also request payment from guests to contribute to the party fund.
Polls and Suggestions: Get input from your guests by adding a poll (e.g. Where should we go first for drinks?) or by asking them to suggest a date or time.
Registry Information: Integrated with Gifts.com, you can choose to add links directly to your wedding registries. Or, add a link to Gifts.com's search tool and let guests find it themselves.
Plus, Evite gives you more than just an invitation tool. The site also wants to help you plan your party. Poke around on Evite and you will find:
Ever wish you had a better way to remember all of the guests at your wedding? Something other than fuzzy photos or stammering best wishes as the videographer makes his way around the room during dinner?
Check out FlashBox Media, a new and innovative product, and an alternative to a Pittsburgh wedding videographer, that's sure to be the talk of any event. A FlashBox Video Kiosk is set up at your wedding reception, and your guests can approach it at any time to record their messages when they are ready to do so. This results in video clips that are personal, heartfelt, funny and sweet, creating a unique keepsake for years to come.
And FlashBox is something you'll find only in Pittsburgh. A team of Carnegie Mellon graduates developed the technology, and the service is currently only available to events in Western Pennsylvania. No other brides in the country can have this at their wedding receptions.
At your reception, a FlashBox director will monitor the kiosk throughout the evening, encouraging your guests to record a message and assisting them in doing so. Guests can share a favorite memory or embarrassing moment, sing a song, give marriage advice or even perform a skit.
Then, after the wedding, comes the best part! The team at FlashBox will professionally edit the video footage and can even integrate still photos from your wedding. Network-TV caliber computer graphics give your video the look of a television show produced in Hollywood. You'll receive the finished DVD with a personalized keepsake case.
Visit FlashBox's Web site to view sample videos and learn more. And be sure to click on the KDKA icon to see the kiosk featured on Pittsburgh Today Live.
Help the environment out and save a few trees as you send out information about your wedding. You might not be ready to skip a paper wedding invitation, but some other typical wedding correspondence can certainly be done paper-free:
I was so excited to read yesterday that my new favorite site, The Sugar Network, announced the return of IDoSugar for the height of wedding season.
The Sugar Network features 15 lifestyle and entertainment blogs for women, and is also a social networking site. What I love most about their IDoSugar (which, according to the site, they published during last year's wedding season as well) is that it features entries about weddings from the different perspectives of the Sugar editors. So SavvySugar may add a post about budgets, BellaSugar about wedding day beauty, BuzzSugar about TV weddings, PetSugar about involving your furry friends and so on (for a complete list of the Sugar sites, visit TeamSugar).
I'm excited to see all of the content and ideas they share over the next few months. In the meantime, check out the site!
Choosing a signature cocktail is a great way to personalize your wedding reception, and picking a drink that's color matches your wedding is a great idea. Absolut's Web site can help you find the cocktail recipe that is perfect for you, with their color picker on the right sidebar.
This drink recipe tool is one of the best I've seen, and it's not just for drinks made with Absolut vodka. You can find tons of cocktails made with gin, rum, tequila, whiskey and brandy as well, to help you plan your entire alcoholic drink menu.
And the volume of recipes is impressive. Click on "Blue Drinks" (perfect for a "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" specialty cocktail) and you'll discover 245 choices. "Red Drinks" will you give you 2,476 options--happily, the drinks are sorted by rank, to help you pick the best ones.
Image from Absolut
Head over to the Perfect Memories Facebook page to test yourself on our new quiz, "How Pittsburgh is your wedding?" This slightly tongue-in-cheek quiz tests your knowledge and love of the most popular Pittsburgh wedding traditions. Find out what kind of Pittsburgh bride you are!
To take the quiz, visit our Facebook page and click on the link in the discussion board. Have fun!
Perfect Memories now has its own page on Facebook, thanks to the new business pages now available on the site. Check out the page and become a fan.
Right now, you can start or join a discussion on the discussion board, post a question on the wall and network with other brides. I'll be posting useful and fun Facebook tools for your wedding and maybe creating a few of my own.
You can also add photos from your own wedding to share with other brides. The page can become whatever you want it to be, so please become fan and help create a great resource for brides-to-be.
UPDATE: I just added the first Perfect Memories quiz to Facebook. Visit our page to test your wedding IQ!
Hey, brides aren't the only ones with a say in the wedding, right? Here are a few sites for all you grooms out there:
If you and your hubby-to-be have decided on taking a cruise for your next honeymoon, great! Now, which one to choose? With so many cruise lines, so many ships and so many destinations, where do you even start?
Enter Cruise Critic. One site where you can find professional reviews, advice from real-life cruisers and even shop for bargains (though I recommend shopping around other sites and/or travel agencies before booking to make sure you're getting the best deal).
This site provides an overwhelming amount of different types of information, so know what you're looking for before going in. To start, use "Find a Cruise" to check out options that fit what you're looking for. This tool will sort itineraries by your style--for example, honeymooners looking for good cuisine. You can also sort by price, destination or cruise line.
Once you've narrowed it down to a few ships, start looking at specific reviews for those trips. The professionally written reviews are a good place to start to get a big picture of what the cruise offers, but remember that the writer probably got to stay in a big suite and took advantage of a lot of paid services on board, like spas, exclusive restaurants and pr icy excursions. You may find the member reviews to be most insightful. Browse through them, looking for red flags that may indicate likely problems. Not every traveler will have a good time, but multiple people having the same bad experience is pretty good warning sign. Also look for reviews from other travelers like you (for a honeymoon, advice from a young couple will be more beneficial than advice from a group of retired friends or a family with lots of kids).
After you've booked your trip, come back to the site before you depart to look at the reviews again. This time, pay attention to specifics. Jot down any tips, like which restaurant is the least crowded for breakfast or what the best time is to visit the shore excursion desk. Remember which paid excursions people liked the most, and which ones didn't make the cut. Take a look at what sorts of things people were able to do onshore without the benefit of a ship-sponsored trip.
Cruises can be a great idea for your honeymoon, but you'll have an even better time if you do your research in advance. Whether you work with a travel agent, book with a cruise line directly or find a bargain online, take the time to know what your sailing into for a romantic week or two of your life.
If you're trying to visualize the look and feel of your wedding, please visit Snippet & Ink. Every post features a different inspiration board around a particular theme. . .and every one is just as inspiring as the next.
Today was a bonus: two boards in one! I had a hard time choosing which Gatsby-themed board I liked best. Check out the Gatsby By Night board below--my ultimate choice only because I think it would play well with a fall wedding as well!
It's Blog Action Day, a day for bloggers to post about environmental issues. Within the wedding blog community, however, it seems like it's been blog action week, as many have already taken the challenge issued by ready2spark: share how you are trying to minimize your impact on the environment.
DIY Bride took on the challenge today, and invited others to "tag" themselves. So I thought I would. Here are four things we currently do to help the environment:
One of my favorite online wedding tools is David's Bridal's Dress Your Wedding. You can create virtual models of your wedding party and try out different looks. Here are a few that I created:
Beach wedding
Winter Wedding
Garden wedding
I love this tool because it lets you see how different styles will work together and helps you visualize whether your attire matches the formality of your wedding. I also like that you can play around with putting bridesmaids in different dresses, and even different colors to see what it will look like.
Even if your dresses and tuxes aren't from David's, you can still take advantage of this tool. Just pick outfits close in style and color to your own, and you'll get a pretty good idea of the big picture.
Of course, if you do shop with David's Bridal, after you create your look online, you can print a convenient shopping list to take with you to the store. A definite time saver when you're looking at hundreds of dresses on the rack!
