First, make sure that you have the dress professionally cleaned. Find a dry cleaning service that specializes in bridal clothing. They will ensure that your wedding dress, which might be delicate or have fragile accoutrements or accents, will get the careful handling that they need. Verify that the dry cleaner that you use dry-cleans the garments by hand and that they do all their work onsite. Rough transport can be as rough on your dress as rough cleaning. Before you put a wedding dress into storage, let it hang for a few days to dissipate any cleaning chemicals.

Inspect your dress for any repairs that need to be made. If the dress has become torn or damaged after the wedding, make sure that it gets fixed by a clothing repair service that has experience with bridal dresses. These dresses are frequently very delicate and care should be taken when they are being mended. After the dress has been cleaned and mended, it is ready to be hung up and stored.

Storing your wedding dress appropriately is an important part of making sure that it stays in good condition. Wrap the wedding dress in undyed muslin fabric or in acid free tissue paper. Then it should be loosely folded and placed in a museum-quality, acid free box. These boxes can be ordered online or bought at wedding dress stores. Keep the box itself in a location that is cool and dry, and where the temperature and the humidity do not fluctuate too much. Attics and basements are poor choices for this, as the wedding dress can pick up mildew or heat damage in either location.

It is far better to store the wedding dress in a box instead of on a hanger. Over time, the wedding dress on the hanger will place more and more pressure on the shoulder seams, which will create unattractive sagging throughout the dress and which can deform it. A box or even a chest designed to hold wedding dresses is a far better choice.

Whether you want your children to wear your wedding dress or you are more interested in saving it as a memento for yourself, take some time and consider how you are going to be able to keep it looking great. Preserving a wedding dress for the future is something that can be taken care of very easily, so make sure that you pay attention to all of the little details.
 

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Vintage doesn’t just belong in the past – a trend that is held dear to our hearts should be used with gusto for our big wedding day! Vintage wedding dresses are easier to find than you might have thought possible – in second hand stores or charity shops, they are not hiding – but rather in the places you would expect from a vintage dress!

If you are planning a vintage wedding day, then a good start is by choosing the perfect vintage wedding dress – to set the trend and the mood! Dresses from yesteryear are not only glamorous and inspiring, but they can also come at a much more favorable price than the more modern styles of today. If you are really lucky, you might have a relative who has held on to their dress since the swinging sixties or perhaps your family have a vintage wedding dress that has been passed down from over the decades – as far back as the twenties, forties or fifties! If you don’t have any classic wedding dresses in the family, then you can look for second hand ones on the internet or in specialist clothing stores.

Besides, where there is demand there is supply – and this is so true of vintage wedding dresses. You might not be overly enthusiastic on a complete vintage wedding. You might be a lady who likes the idea of mixing modern with classic. Your wedding gown might be the only vintage element of your wedding – but one thing is for sure – you will look the princess on your big day!

Finding a vintage wedding dress can be so much more fun than browsing the stores or internet for modern dresses. The term vintage can include fashions from an armful of decades, each with their distinctive styles. Once you have your dress, you will probably feel so happy in your recreation of the past, that you will want to extend vintage to your accessories too – shoes, jewellery and headdresses.

Lets take a closer look at the typical styles of wedding dresses from the past:

•    1920´s – The wedding dresses of the 20’s were clean-cut and elegant. Daintybeading or chic lace were common décor on the wedding dresses of those days, reminiscent of the Art Deco movement. Top the look by adding a feather or two in the hair or a jewelled headdress. For bittersweet romance, wear the hair with full bodied curls.
 
•    1930’s – Dresses made from silk or satin are a good choice for the 30’s vintage dress. This was the time when Hollywood glamour was a major influence on everything! Look for a gathered bust and fitted body, flaring out from the knee down.
 
•    1950’s – Moving onto the fifties vintage wedding dress and a high waist and fuller skirt. This was the age of the true princess gown and was delicate yet still with a hint of glamour. Alternatively, you could still carry something from the Hollywood glamour of the thirties and fine tune it to match the style of Marilyn Monroe.
 
•    1960’s – The 1960’s were moving towards free love and the hippie lifestyle, wedding dresses were more experimental and more flirtatious – even mini skirts were commonplace! Lace was also common of the 60’s dress.

If the costs of a vintage wedding dress are still too high, you might want to consider renting one. If cost is not the issue and you have a bad feeling for wearing someone else’s wedding dress from times gone by, then take things one step further and have your very own vintage wedding dress designed and made from scratch!
 

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If you have chosen a popular time to have the wedding like Valentine’s Day or in June, you will need to hire a photographer months in advance.  Start interviewing early, because this person will follow you around all day, recording your preparations, wedding, and reception, and it won’t be a good experience for you if you don’t like and trust him.

Inform him of everything you want done; who is in what group shot, whether you want a video of the ceremony, if you want candid shots throughout, and what kind of packages you expect to purchase.  Ask questions!  You need to know detailed costs of what is included.

You might want a DVD, a slide presentation, a collage of candid shots, your formal sitting album and a separate album of the unposed shots. How many hours is he willing to spend? Will he be working alone or have more than one camera covering the event?  Can he do a photo montage that follows the history of your relationship?  Learn the price of every single extra.

To cut costs you might want to follow the trendy method of placing disposable cameras on every table and collect your candid shots compliments of the guests!  If you hate the idea of those cameras marring the beauty of your table setting, set your bridesmaids to making little paper covers to slip them into!

If you are saving the wedding gown, it should be dry cleaned professionally as soon as possible after the wedding, so that any stains can be safely removed.  Vacuum sealing the dress in plastic has been found to harm delicate fabrics.  It is better to fold it loosely, wrap it in acid free tissue paper, and then pack it away in an archival box. The veil can be stored in the same box, but wrap it separately.

Several methods can be used on the bridal bouquet, depending on how long you wish to preserve it, how you want to store it, and how much effort and money you want to invest in the process.  Easiest for you is to have a service coat the flower arrangement in its original form and then store it in an air-tight shadowbox.  This must be done within a day of the wedding before it wilts.

You can dry the bouquet by hanging it upside down in a dark place. This will not last forever. Sometimes it is enough to simply press a few flowers from your bouquet between wax paper and a couple of large books.  Then they can be arranged in a scrapbook…another good thing to keep to preserve special memories of your wedding day. Keep all those important reminders of your day in a scrap book – order of service, the invitation, perhaps a copy of the speeches or a piece of material from the bridesmaids dress.

By taking a little time to preserve these moments, you’ll ensure that memories of your special day will last a lifetime.
 

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In 1840, Queen Victoria was married in a white gown.  Prior to this, the normal policy was to wear a good, new dress, which could be used for formal occasions afterwards.  While not street clothes, they were certainly intended for occasional wear.  Nobility would wear very expensive clothes, often with gold thread, and the length of the train symbolized the degree of influence on the Royals.  Yet the popularity of Queen Victoria was such that by the end of the decade, marriage handbooks said, “from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue.”  Even two or three generations after in the US, it was normal to purchase a good dress for use as a wedding dress, rather than a special gown that is never used again. 

Wedding gowns grew more and more elaborate in Britain until the arrival of the First World War.  Styles became simpler, and the changing role of women led to the abandonment of the corset and shorter skirts.  In the US, as late as the Great Depression it was normal to marry in a white gown, and then dye it blue or some other color for normal wear.  Typically, the collar and cuffs would be left white to show the original use of the dress.  During World War Two it was normal for brides to give up the fancy wedding, not least because so many marriages had very short engagements without time for planning.  It was even normal for women in the service to marry in her uniform.  Women not in the service would again pick a good, preferably new, dress to wear for the wedding. 

After the war, prosperity allowed special gowns that need serve no other purpose than the wedding ceremony.  Much as the wedding of Queen Victoria, the wedding of Princess Grace of Monaco set the standard for many women in the contemporary era, showing them and those who came after them the standard for the perfect wedding.

In theory, the white wedding dresses of the Victoria era symbolized the innocence of the childhood the bride was leaving behind.  Somewhere along the way, this became tied to virginity in the common belief. 

In the current era, the pendulum has again swung.  Now the individuality of the bride and wedding are the most important factor and choosing some color other than white is simply a convenient way to do so.  A more subtle factor allowing that is the ability to afford a wedding coordinator for women who are not wealthy, since this allows the luxury of coordinating the color scheme of the wedding, with gowns, tuxedos, flowers, decorations and other accoutrements all creating a harmonious and seamless whole.  Despite this, there remain traditionalists who wouldn’t dream of a color other than white for a wedding gown. 
 

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Solution: rent you wedding dress

Chances are your fiancé has already suggested that you rent your wedding dress, but you’ve probably resisted in favor of buying your long-imagined wedding dress. But give him credit. Renting a wedding dress is not such a silly idea!

Reasons not to rent your dress

Common arguments against renting a wedding dress include the fact that it’s not yours; someone else has already spent their special day in it. While that is true, what about the groom and his groomsmen? Most of the male participants in a wedding will rent their suits rather than buy them. If it’s good for the boys, it must be good for the girls as well! Like a rented suit, your rented wedding dress will have been thoroughly dry-cleaned and will be in good condition – there is nothing to be afraid of in terms of cleanliness. Other brides take a sentimental argument – the dress will be a special reminder of your wedding day and you may one day be able to pass it to your daughter. The likely scenario is that fashions will have moved on by the time your daughter gets married, and she may not want to wear your dress. As for memories, what about that expensive photographer you’ve got booked?

Renting will save you money

The difference in cost between renting a wedding dress and buying your own (or having one made for you) can be staggering. Conservatively, a designer wedding dress could set you back $2500, while renting a wedding dress may cost you less than $250. The difference can be used to put towards a more extravagant honeymoon, or even towards a house deposit.

Things to consider before you rent

If you are willing to rent a wedding dress, there are several things to be aware of. First, you need to shop around to find a dress that fits you well. More often than not, all but the most basic alterations are not possible on rental garments. Bear in mind that many brides gain or lose weight due to stress prior to their wedding. The money you have saved will be cold comfort if you spend your wedding day waiting for your dress to fall down!

Renting: the fine print

Once you have chosen a dress to rent, speak to the shop owner about reserving it for you. This will usually require a half deposit, or in some cases the full wedding dress rental fee. If you are completely in love with the dress, it is best to make a deposit straight away, to save the heartache of returning to the store later to discover it is no longer available. While you are in the store, it is a good idea to confirm the exact nature of your obligations under the rental agreement. Find out when you need to return the dress and whether you need to dry clean it before you do. It may also be worthwhile to speak to the rental company about accessories: veils, tiaras and wedding purses can be costly to buy and, like your dress, are items that you may not use again.

For the non-sentimental bride, wedding dress rental is an option that can save you hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars. With rental, you can have the dress of your dreams and your wedding cake too!

With everything a bride has to choose for her wedding, often times, the color is the most exciting and the easiest to pick.  Since the color generally sets the entire tone and feel of the wedding, it is important to pick a color that represents both the bride and groom’s personality.  So when picking a color for your upcoming wedding, be sure to consider how the color will play out in the overall wedding.  Once you have chosen your color, you can then move on to other aspects of the wedding.  

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Many brides are lucky. They may search low and low, braving chilly dept stores and in your face bridal shops, but eventually they come face-to-face with The One. They know this is The One as they start crying, or their mum or chums all start crying instantly. All of the planning …. the tone, the tone, the right kind of venues …. it all springs to life.

Other brides aren’t as lucky. They’ve searched just as hard, working their way through shops across 3 or four states, but they have not found The One. Instead, they’ve found three or four Contenders, all of which are serviceable and nice, but not earth-shattering sufficient to tell them that now is certainly time to stop the searching and get on with the planning. These brides have it harder.

Even if you’re the 1st sort of bride, purchasing the dress is sort of a significant call that you run a risk of falling into that wallet-skinning class known as the Two-Dress Bride. These are some tips for picking the perfect dress and avoiding that awful fate.

1. Bring the entourage, but don’t buy. It is fun and useful to bring your mother, friends or sisters on the dress-shopping expedition. It gives you a buffer against an overbearing sales staff, and it’s entertaining to see whether your impressions of perfection are shared by your family and friends, not to say how they’ll love being an element of such a critical call. But whatever how ardent everybody gets over a certain dress, don’t buy in the heat of the moment. Give yourself time to rethink and buy with a cool head later, alone. The overwhelming majority of dresses are non-returnable, so when you have purchased it, you have acquired it.

2. Don’t buy too early unless you must. Bridal robes can take four to 10 coming months from the maker, but there’s no reason to buy over a year ahead of time, unless your chosen style is going to be abandoned. Give yourself some time to sit on your call. When you pick a robe, you can see a hundred others almost like it. You can become a walking encyclopedia on that style of gown. All the better if you still have room to choose.

3. If you have acquired "The One," stop shopping. Any more window-shopping at this point will only lead you down the line toward the dreary land of Two-Dress Brides. What you want to do instead is remember that ecstatic sense of having tried on The One. Go get The One out of the closet, put it on and stand out front of the mirror. You will remember precisely why it is the One.

4. If you have acquired "The One" and can’t stop shopping, get a 2nd standpoint. Show your first and 2nd selections to other brides. Be truthful — tell them you’ve already remortgaged your apartment for the 1st dress, but you think this second dress might be It. They’ll be truthful, too — the first one was better. You can feel reassured.

5. Don’t tell yourself "I’ll sell the old dress and select a new one." This old saw of the Two-Dress Bride just won’t work. You can never get more than a fragment of what you paid for your first dress if you purchased it new.

6. Don’t be afraid to aim high — irrespective of what your budget. Some brides knew from the start they wanted a designer label, but life just did not cooperate by making them heiresses. Yet all is not lost if you are prepared to shop courageously. At any given moment, a better-heeled bride is selling her once-used St. Pucchi or Ulla-Maija on eBay. She paid thousands upon thousands, but you, smart patron, will pay half that or less. To take this road, you have to shop sooner than other brides so you may have a choice of gowns.

7. Shop online, but never send a check. Bridal robe companies infrequently have a technique of vanishing overnite. Irrespective of what the proprietor tells you, never make a purchase as large as a marriage robe without the chargeback protection of a credit card. If they assert they cannot take plastic, move on.

8. Don’t hold out forever for The One. Some brides never find The One. What they do find is a few dresses they look gorgeous in. If you are this bride, try beginning your planning from the theme rather than the dress. You will potentially finally get sick to death of dress shopping. When that happens, "good enough" really will be good enough. Concentrate on other aspects of the marriage that mean a lot to you, like the venue, the food, or the inevitable adoration of your soon-to-be husband.

Is this article useful and educational? If yes, visit yourweddinggowns.com to learn about the many types of wedding gowns. You should also have a look at bridal dress.

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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.

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