When planning to decorate the church and reception area, consider that many places are already decorated during the winter season. This can drastically cut down on decorating costs for you. Use theirs or add to it. Flower garlands make beautiful swags for doorways, windows, railings, and balconies. A snow theme is perfect for winter weddings. Decorate with icicle lights and snowflakes and even hire a snow-making machine! Use diamonds, pearls, rubies, and other sparkle items for glamour effect. Thread the room with tulle material intertwined with icicle lights for a softer mood. White birch branches add a dramatic element. Drape icicle lights around the branches, and put the twig bouquet in huge vases. You can also hang crystal beads from the branches for shine.

Keep up your winter theme with a reception room housing a big fireplace. Play winter music, such as “Winter Wonderland” or “The Gift.” Serve hot chocolate or eggnog as guests walk into the reception area, and give them roasted chestnuts in paper bags. Pick foods to serve which have warm winter memories for you. This will add a special touch to the food line.

For a fun entrance into the reception room, have a bouquet of mistletoe hanging over the entryway. On tables, place wreaths with candles in the middle of them or decorate with holly and candles. Find candle holders and wine glasses the same as your main wedding color and use them on the tables. Place red cranberries in bowls of water with floating tea candles or be more playful and place gingerbread houses around the room. A seasonal ice sculpture is stunning on the main table.

Decorate the layers and top of your cake with your wedding flowers. White, frosted pinecones are a wintery addition, as well. As an alternative to a cake, serve cupcakes on a tiered cake stand. On the top tier, have a small cake so you can cut it as a couple. Top with a sugar sculpture.

For guest favors, hand out cookie cutters with a recipe attached with your names, wedding date, and “truly cut out for each other.” Or place a sticker with your names and wedding date on the bottoms of gold- or silver-wrapped Hershey kisses. Wrap white bon bons in cellophane and tie with wedding color ribbons. 

Ready to leave your magical event? Ride away in a horse-drawn sleigh. Or a white stretch limousine never goes out of style. Have your guests throw white rose petals or, for an evening wedding, wave sparklers.

Popularity: 5% [?]

What does winter conjure up for you? Hot chocolate, a roaring fire, snow? Winter time lends magic to the air! Why not turn your romantic ideas of winter into the perfect, enchanting winter wedding for you?

Choosing the right colors makes the whole wedding come together. Traditional colors are reds and greens combined with ivory and gold. Mix and match them together for your favorite effect, such as red/white with highlights of green or gold. For a more modern and winter wonderland look, use silver and white, or silver and royal or light blue. Silver and white are striking combinations, as well.
               
Winter weddings dresses are exceptions to the popular strapless dresses. Opt for warmer, luxurious dresses. Look for a high-low hem (slightly shorter in front and long in the back). Add faux fur added to the hem, sleeves, and neckline. Or add a fur wrap for an elegant (and warm!) look. Long sleeves are best, while bell sleeves are a romantic alternative. Do not be afraid to add a splash of color to your dress, such as a ribbon around your waist or wearing a richly colored cape. If you want to make a statement, wear a red, velvet dress. For a snowy effect, add beads and sequins onto your dress.

The perfect accessory for your dress is long, silk gloves or even short, fur-trimmed gloves. Not only do they look elegant, they help to keep you warm! Or carry a fur muff instead of a bouquet. If you want a bouquet, carry a crystal one, especially for a snow wedding.

Your bridesmaids’ dresses should be long. Add a shrug or jacket to strapless styles. Their dress colors depend on your theme colors. Greens and reds are striking with gold accent ribbons. Light or navy blues are complimented with silver. Instead of flowers, have them carry candles, or if you are carrying a muff, they could carry one, too.

Style hair with flowers from your bouquet. Use holly, ivy, or baby’s breath and tiny berries to add a festivity or delicacy. A sparkly tiara works with silver colors. Do you have long hair? For a soft look, leave your hair down in loose curls.

The groom can wear a cummerbund matching the bridesmaids’ dresses. Or, if you are wearing a colored wrap, match the cummerbund with your wrap. If the groom and groomsmen wear vests, match them to the bridesmaids’ dress colors. A white tuxedo looks striking for winter occasions, especially with the blue/silver colors.

Red roses, while beautiful, are not the only perfect wedding flowers to choose. More inexpensively, use holly and berries. These work well together with red and green colors. Ivy is a graceful addition. Add pinecones to bouquets, along with red and ivory poinsettias. Baby’s breath adds a spray of snowy white.

Color and clothes choices made? Start coordinating them with the church and reception plans!
 

Popularity: 6% [?]

Guest Author: Ellen Bell

Outdoor weddings are enormously popular in the summertime. Few of us can escape the months of June, July, and August without receiving at least one invitation to an outdoor nuptial ceremony. For those planning and coordinating these events, decorating becomes a special challenge. The great outdoors isn’t a clearly defined space like a church or reception hall. Where do you begin? In this article, we’ll cover some of the basics that you’ll need to know for decorating an outdoor wedding of your dreams.

In an outdoor wedding ceremony, there are three primary areas of decorating that need to be addressed: the entrance, the seating area, and the altar. By defining each of these areas with unique and meaningful decorations, you will help set the tone of your wedding and a theme, if so desired. We’ll address each of these areas separately.

The Entrance:

First impressions are everything. When your guests arrive, you want them to feel excited about the special occasion they are about to witness. This can easily be accomplished by creating a unique pathway to the wedding site. The beginning of the pathway should be marked and recognizable. Consider placing garden fountains on either side of the path or an arbor draped in flowers for your guests to walk through. Large urns of flowers can be used and also placed along the path to lead the way. If you are having an evening wedding, consider including landscaping lights to outline the pathway and provide lighting.

The Seating Area:

Seating is always a challenge at an outdoor wedding. You’ll likely have to rent chairs for your guests to sit on. You’ll want your guests to feel like they are part of an intimate setting, so be considerate of how the chairs are arranged. Make sure that each person has the best possible vantage point of the bride and groom. When decorating the chairs, consider using strings of flowers and ribbons along the backs of the last row of chairs to add an elegant touch to the seating area. If your guests are entering and exiting from a center isle, you might consider draping the outsides of the rows with flowers and ribbons, as well. Consider placing urns of flowers or even free standing patio trellises along the outside of the chair rows. This can add a burst of color, as well as some privacy for your ceremony.

The Altar:

The altar is arguably the most important part of decorating in a wedding ceremony. After all, the bride and groom should be the center of the day. It is important that your guests have the ability to see and hear you during the ceremony. If it will be a large outdoor gathering with more than 50 people, you may want to use a sound system so guests in back can hear you.

If the ground is relatively flat, you might also want to elevate the bride, groom, and officiant. This can easily be accomplished with a sturdy platform to stand on, and the platform can be decorated as desired with flowers, bows, and cloth. You may also want to create a special backdrop or surround for your vows. An overhead structure such as a wedding arbor or garden pergola can be a great option for this. Arbors and pergolas can easily be purchased as ready to assemble kits, and they come in a variety of colors, sizes, and configurations. After the ceremony is over, the garden structure can then be gifted to the happy couple for their new home.

Planning any wedding is a lot of work, but decorating an outdoor wedding doesn’t have to be. By paying attention to the three most important areas, the entrance, seating area, and altar, you will ensure that the event is beautifully decorated and your guests are dazzled on your special day.

Home Products ‘n’ More offers a variety of wedding arbor kits with free shipping and handling! Visit us today at http://www.homeproductsnmore.com/Arbor_Plans_s/92.htm.

Popularity: 35% [?]

A typical wedding can often be fun, lively and very memorable. However, it will still be typical and so will lack the novelty that a slightly different kind of wedding can provide such as an eco-friendly wedding. The current interest in going green should have made you also become aware that you can still celebrate the big occasion in a more novel way while also considering factors such as pollution (including noise pollution) and think about ways and means by which you can turn your wedding into an occasion that does not contribute to the woes of the world and instead helps preserve our delicate environment.

Recycled Candles In An Eco Friendly Wedding

A simple though effective way to ensure a more eco friendly wedding is to make use of candles that have been recycled and to also prefer using soy candles over paraffin candles. You can also opt to use Mason jars that are adorable especially when decked with some satin ribbons or vintage organza. The centerpiece could be created in the shape of a heart that is made from seashells.

As for eco friendly catering, you can achieve this goal by choosing a local caterer that only makes use of natural ingredients in their foods. As mints are very candy you can replace Jordan almonds or traditional forms of table candy with organic chocolates as well as Fair Trade certified candies. If you need to find these and other organic foods check out some of the organic stores including those such as NaturalCandyStore.com.

For the wedding dress it is possible to go green by shopping for organic as well as vegetable dyed fabric for the bride as well as bridesmaid’s gowns and even for the flower girls. Here again, there are several good online stores that specialize in these kinds of green dresses and Getconscious.com in particular is a good option.

Similarly, there are several good ideas for green and eco-friendly wedding invitations including using pure cotton paper and for flowers, you can choose potted plants or cut flowers (organic and certified) rather than the traditional floral arrangements. Antique or traditional rings or those which are used from generations will be good for wedding. An eco friendly honeymoon is the best choice?

The wedding flower is important for the big day and so should be chosen with great care. In fact, if not chosen properly they will, besides not being able to provide the extra life to the occasion, will also prove to be unnecessarily costly as well.

Popularity: 23% [?]

A wedding can be one of the most joyful things in a woman’s life. Whether small or large, it can bring joy with its uplifting atmosphere, but wedding planning is not a picnic. While the actual wedding might be a joyful breeze, wedding shopping is not quite as easy. It requires time and dedication.

During wedding shopping, one needs to address certain topics including: the amount of money being contributed, the theme of the wedding, the wedding attire, and the wedding stationery. Money can help tremendously in a wedding. With a lot of money, a soon to be bride can choose an experienced wedding planner.

Wedding planners help take some of the crushing stress that wedding shopping can cause. A great deal of money contributed to the wedding may even cause a bride to feel more relaxed when planning a wedding. Even though money can help a bride achieve a beautiful wedding, lack of money is not an obstacle While it is imperative that a wedding is planned with enough of a time gap, it is even more important when saving money.

A bride will need time to look at a lot of different prices when wedding shopping. There are many ways to cut corners. One way is buying a small wedding cake for display and having a large sheet cake to eat. If it is possible to rent something, one should rent it instead of buying it. While flowers from professional florists are lovely, a bride should check to see if there are any local floral design schools in her area. Checking out the work of the schools, she may be impressed, and their price is drastically lower than a florists.

The date of the wedding will even drop the price. The bride should consider having the wedding on a Friday instead of a Saturday. When wedding shopping, the theme of the wedding is very important. The theme of the wedding can determine the wedding stationery, the decorations, the attire, the food, and even the location. The theme should reflect both the couple. There are numerous themes. Most themes are from a time period, ethnic tradition, or from something that the couple admires. Some examples of themes are The Seaside, The Renaissance, A Night in Paris, or an African Celebration. If the couple chooses, they do not have to go with the traditional themes. They can create their own atmosphere. The theme wholly depends on the couple.

The wedding attire is one of the most exciting things during wedding shopping. It includes the wedding dress. Often it is one of the main things that women dream of that is related to weddings. Shopping for the perfect wedding dress can make the stress of wedding shopping worthwhile. It is okay for a bride to bring her family and friends when shopping for a bridal gown, but she should not bring them with her when she is shopping for the first time. While their opinions are interesting and important, the bride’s opinion is even more important. Her family and friends should not alter her viewpoints. She is the one who has to wear the dress down the aisle. The groom’s tuxedo should match the bride’s elegance. While the bride’s dress has to look the best, the bride maids’ dresses should be beautiful too. Their dresses shouldn’t look like they were just last minute additions.

Wedding stationery is a very important aspect of wedding shopping. It includes invitations, programs, Thank You cards, envelope seals, and many other things that go along with these items. Invitations are one of the first types of stationery that is needed. Thank You cards are one of the last things that are needed, but they are just as equally important. The stationery can be made or ordered. Depending on the numbers of guest coming to the wedding, the stationery can be a big task. With so much to buy the plan carefully, build a budget and try and stick to it. Take the money side seriously but have some fun while you shop.

Technorati Tags: Wedding Shopping, Wedding Planning

Popularity: 52% [?]

This isn’t your Aunt Mabel’s wedding! You’ve got attitude and it’s your day to say it! colour your wedding! Vibrant, exciting? You don’t dress in pale colour and you don’t have to dress your wedding that way either!

Here’s a list of colours and their meanings in our society:

WHITE: Brides have been dressing in white since 1840, when Queen Victoria married in a white, opulent gown. Before that, brides wore any colour but black. White symbolizes purity, the innocence of childhood. In the Christian liturgy, it symbolizes the brightness of the day.

GOLD: In Christian liturgy, gold, like white, symbolizes the brightness of the day. In our culture, it often symbolizes riches. As a trim or accessory to earth tones (brown, green, orange) it may give vibrancy and glow. It also works well with bright and full colours such as burgundy, deep green.

BLACK: The traditional colour of mourning, but recently it has become the colour of sophistication. For a svelte wedding, it is perfectly acceptable to dress your bridesmaids in black, perhaps with white accessories and trim. It also can make a maturing accent with a bright or light main colour.

PURPLE/VIOLET: Way back to early Egypt, purple has represented royalty. During the Renaissance, purple, deep red and black were royal colours and, at time, ordinary people could be arrested for using those special colours. But you can use them! Purple, in Christian liturgy, symbolizes the sovereignty of Christ and repentance of sin. In China, though, purple is the colour of mourning.

RED: Usually a symbol of blood and fire, it is a conflicted colour: One side expresses war and violence, but the other side expresses love, warmth and compassion. Our brides don’t usually wear red, but in China it is the traditional colour for a wedding dress and symbolizes good luck. It is traditional in India, also. Consider using red, if you love it, at your wedding.

GREEN: Symbol of growth. Combines the spiritual aspect of blue and the emotional vibrancy of yellow. It combines beautifully with other earth tones as well as gold tones. In China is represents the Yin, the passive and receptive principle.

BLUE: colour of the sky, this colour is associated with spirituality, feminity (although it is true that boy babies often wear it,) fidelity, cleanness and freshness. There is very little negative aspect associated with this colour!

PINK: This is a "new" colour, invented in the 17th Century to describe the colour of the flowers called pinks. We think of it as a feminine, sweet colour, but in Japan, adult movies are called "pink" movies. In Catholicism is symbolizes joy and happiness.

YELLOW: Shine, light, knowledge, happiness, and joy. On the other side, it suggests deceit and cowardice. In Egypt it is traditionally associated with mourning, in Japan, courage. The Chinese connect it to the Yang principle of Yin-Yang–the active, creative male side.

ORANGE: It is reported that people who love life like orange. It is stimulating but warm. It adds verve to earth tones and, when used with white, reminds people of those childhood treats, vanilla ice-cream wrapped in orange Popsicle.

BROWN: Could be dull, but it is considered natural, down-to-earth, friendly, dependable. A neutral you can mix with many other colours to warm your celebration.

So consider your wedding image: Vibrant? Responsible? Warm? Gentle? Compassionate? A forever, steady relationship? Think about what your colours are saying!

About the Author: Sue Redman, Costumer/Owner of Costumes Galore at http://www.costumesgalore.com

Technorati Tags: wedding colours, wedding themes

Popularity: 100% [?]