trail: Wedding

Should Wedding Invitations Have + Ones As a Rule?

All right, here's something to liven up the conversation the next time you get together with your friends - when you get married, should you or should you not allow a +1 on every one of your wedding invitations? I admit that I wasn't really keeping up with the times when I got my first invitation that didn't carry a +1 for my boyfriend whom I'd been living with for longer than the bride had been with her fiancé. It seemed especially unfeeling, since my boyfriend and I had spent some really good times with the couple who were to getting married. So I just popped off an RSVP that said "we" were were really glad, and "we" would show up at the appointed time. What followed was really embarrassing for me, and much more so for the bride. She stuttered and stammered and said over the phone that there just wasn't enough space, that things were running seriously over budget as it was, and they couldn't just change the rules for me when they had left out the +1's on every other invitation. The next wedding that came up was three months later in the fall. This one was really funny, because it was my sister's wedding. I slaved away for this wedding, and I still didn't get a +1 invitation from my own sister. If I wasn't married to him, she wouldn't hear of it. I thought that was particularly cutting. Somehow, - I'm really resentful of wedding invitations that show evidence of a less-than-welcoming spirit. I pay close attention these days, and they seem to use every feeble trick in the box to pare down the number of people who will be showing up. Sometimes they say it's okay if you're living in, but only if it's been longer than three years. But as passionate as I am about this, wedding planners seem ten times more so in keeping it small and trimmed down. They just hate the way that large guest lists can send costs soaring and practically bankrupt everyone involved. How on earth did weddings get to be such exclusivist gatherings? When did loving people attending seem like an unnecessary extravagance, but not a hundred doves set free or some other silly indulgence? Isn't this is the worst of commercializing love and all that's good and pure? The wedding industry has us believing that we need to up the ante on high end weddings with the most expensive crystal, the most precious rose-and-lily centerpieces, and perfectly expensive wedding favors. Meanwhile, we aren't making any more money than we used to, and we are paring down our wedding invitations list until it looks more like a barbecue than an actual wedding. A wedding is a celebration; it's supposed to be about being welcoming - with open arms no less. It's about having a great party. You don't have a great party by keeping everyone out and limiting things to the people you absolutely know well. And how much life are they going to bring in anyway? How many times have you seen bored invitees who have been to a dozen of these hanging around and drinking by themselves or fiddling away with their iPhones watching videos? Why not bring some fresh blood into these events - weddings are, famously, places where unattached people look for someone nice. Let's give them someone nice, and send out as many wedding invitations as possible. More guests won't have to mean too much more money. Parties can be about happy people, and not expensive decorations, you know? It only has to get so beautiful before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. So let's invest our wedding money in getting in lots of people to share the happy event with, and not lots of expensive knickknacks with few people to enjoy them.

Should Wedding Invitations Have + Ones As a Rule?

All right, here's something to liven up the conversation the next time you get together with your friends - when you get married, should...

Grooms Cake For Your Wedding Day

If you want to add a little fun to your reception, and also want to do something nice for the man that you are about to marry, think about getting a grooms cake made up. These are usually cakes that are set aside as an alternative to the cake you are going to cut together. These are usually a more rich cake, and the cake is often a very fun way to celebrate a hobby or personality trait of the groom when so much of the wedding usually focuses more on the bride than the groom. One of the best features of the grooms cake is that it does not have to look like a traditional wedding cake. In fact, most of them look like anything but a wedding cake. They look more like a really great birthday or special events cake. There are some very creative ideas out there for a grooms cake that you can find if you search online. If you can imagine it for a cake, someone may have already done it. If you have watched any of the shows on TV that show cake companies and their creations, you have seen some examples of what people have done for these cakes. The grooms cake can and should be a different flavor than that of the wedding cake. Many grooms like to have a deep chocolate cake or something rich like a spice cake as long as it is different than the wedding cake. This can is usually much smaller than the wedding cake, and can be eaten during the reception so people have more dessert choices, or you can save it for later. Much like the top of the wedding cake can be saved for the anniversary, some of this can can be as well if you choose. If you don't want to have a grooms cake at your reception, this is something that you can have at another time. For the most part, these are usually served on the wedding day, but traditions are often broken, and this is a rather new one anyway. You could have it at his bachelor party, though you would not be there to enjoy it with him, or you could have it if you are having a couples shower rather than a bridal shower as more and more couples are doing today. The adventurous bride could make the grooms cake on her own if she has the tools to do so. These are easy enough to find if you have an idea as to what you want to do for the cake. If you are not sure, ask friends and family what they think most fits with his personality. It could be that you have more than one idea for the grooms cake and you have a hard time choosing which one would be best. If this happens, think about the one that would be more obvious to everyone else. You want them to look at the cake and think that it fits him to a tee.

Grooms Cake For Your Wedding Day

If you want to add a little fun to your reception, and also want to do something nice for the man that you are about to marry, think about g...