Now that your wedding plans are coming along nicely you will have time to think about some of those small but important details.

How do you present your rings on the day?  There are a couple of options;

Traditionally there is the ring cushion; a small cushion with the rings loosely tied on, usually carried by a page boy.  Ring cushions are generally white or ivory made from satin and lace and adorned with pearls and ribbons.

A ring cushion might not be for you if; the best man will be presenting the rings on the day, or your wedding is a more modern and stylish arrangement.  Don’t despair there is another option…

The fresh approach to this dilemma is an elegant handcrafted ring box, which is in keeping with a modern, tasteful ceremony.  They come in two styles; the Classic Box (a lovely natural wood finished in a satin wax), or Alume (a beautiful combination of rich wood and aluminium) and can be personalised with your own special message.

After the ceremony the box is a beautiful everlasting memento of your wedding day – also a great way to ensure your anniversary date is never forgotten. Use it to put your rings into each night, or as a safe place to keep your rings when you’re not wearing them.

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Authored By Nicolette Jones - co founder of The Ring Box Company

So much planning goes into a wedding - location, flowers, food, favors, the DRESS! You want everything to be perfect, and to reflect who you are. But what about the true heart of your wedding day, the ceremony?

You might be a traditionalist who wants to walk down the aisle to “The Wedding March,” or you might picture yourself dancing your way to your vows accompanied by your favorite song. You might want to include some religious rituals that are especially meaningful to you, or maybe you’re a free spirit with definite ideas about what you want to do - or not do.

With many couples choosing locations other than churches, temples, synagogues, etc. there is a growing trend toward creating a wedding ceremony that really reflects the personalities of the couple. There’s no need to sacrifice elegance or dignity, if that’s your style, or to give up your laughing nature and stand quietly in front of your friends and family like a statue. If you want violins and a wine ceremony, or funny stories about your dating days that make your guests chuckle, or your kids from a previous marriage handing you the rings and singing a song with you, then it can be incorporated into your ceremony.

You can remember absent friends and family, choose ancient rituals or have new ones created just for you, include your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and best friends, or have a simple ceremony with just a greeting, your vows, and an introduction. It’s really up to you.

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Maggie Morris is a certified Celebrant and ordained minister who has been creating personal wedding ceremonies since 2007 for couples in western and central PA. She loves meeting new couples, learning about their lives and their visions for their ceremonies, creating and writing the ceremonies and collaborating with couples to get everything “just right.”

Please visit http://maggiethecelebrant.com to learn more about her services and about Celebrancy.

The ceremony was beautiful now its time for the reception. Food, dancing, fun, thank yous and toasts.

Your guests have come out to join you on your special day and you should take the time to say thank you. It is also an opportunity to thank those who have not only supported you during the wedding planning but throughout your life. It does not have to be a long speech, it should be a sentiment from the heart. You can decide whether you will give the toasts or whether your husband, or maybe even both.

Hold your glass in your hand, look around to acknowledge everyone and begin. Giving some thought and possibly writing down what you would like to say is definitely important, it will help you to have your thoughts organized and a lists of all of those you wish to thank. If however you happen to forget all of the individuals that you wish to thank, be careful with starting to list names beyond immediate family to avoid hurt feelings. If you will be using a quote from a poem or book, rehearse it so that when you speak it flows naturally and seems unrehearsed.

Do’s and Don’ts

* Do choose a story general enough for every listener to understand
* Don’t include slang (unless it’s in such wide use that everyone will get it): you’re thanking all your guests, so you need to include everyone.
* Don’t embarrass anyone (at least not in a mean-spirited way) and forget foul language.
* Don’t give a toasts if you are drunk, it’s a horrible idea ( you should not get drunk at your own wedding, anyway). It’s a toast, not a roast
* Do try to limit your speech to two - three minutes. Speak slowly and clearly
* Do keep it simple. It’s nice to tell a quick, illustrative anecdote, but launching into anything too lengthy makes you hard to follow

Technical checks:

Be inspired by the Masters, integrate their words into your own speech

Here are some starting lines, resources provided by The Knot

(”As Shakespeare said…”; “In the words of the poet Nikki Giovanni…”), relating them to bride and groom. The idea is to get the crowd to feel the universal significance and emotional impact of the words.

1. May your love be like the misty rain, gentle coming in but flooding the river.
– Traditional African

2. In so much as love grows in you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
– St. Augustine

3. We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in full glow of love for others.
– Walter Rauschenbusch

4. To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
– Lao Tzu

5. Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

6. One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
– Sophocles

7. Night and day you are the one,
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
– Cole Porter

8. At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
– Plato

9. Love is a fire that feeds our life.
– Pablo Neruda

10. Love is friendship set to music.
– Anonymous

11. Marriage is like a golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.
– Kahlil Gibran

12. The strongest and sweetest songs
yet remain to be sung.
– Walt Whitman

13. We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
– Gwendolyn Brooks

14. In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.
– Marc Chagall

15. We love because it’s the only true adventure.
– Nikki Giovanni

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Kattia Gordon is the owner of Aleximani Events, in Copiague, NY. She also writes a blog with lots of wedding tips and ideas.

You have booked your venue, bought your dress, picked your favors. Have you registered? Wedding registries today have gone beyond china and bed linens. See what is new in the world of wedding registries.I searched online for unusual wedding registries this is what I found:

Spa certificates

If you’re honeymooning at a spa (or having a destination wedding at or near a spa), consider asking for spa gift certificates.

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Authored By Kathy G

Kattia Gordon is the owner of Aleximani Events an event planning service in the NY/Long Island area. She is passionate about her work and works hard to ensure that you will have the event of you dreams.

For more inspiring wedding tips and ideas check out her blog at www.aleximanievents.blogspot.com

Recently, our wedding invitation designer has been helping plan her niece’s wedding. While using the Martha Stewart website she found an article about using a cookie press. We thought that this is a wonderful idea.

Your invitation design can be made into a cookie press and used when you bake. Using the cookie press is easy to do and an uniquely fun way to continue sharing your design with others. Cookies can be made for a wedding shower, reception or any time after the wedding.

I decided to use one of our monogram invitation designs to test making the cookies. My first attempt I just used the cookie press it push the design into the cookie. I was very excited when I put them into the oven but I don’t have photos to show you because my husband found them while they were cooling! I guess it might be better to cook them when no one is home and hungry.

There are many ways to use the cookie press to decorate cookies. This is a fun way to enjoy some time with the girls before or after the wedding while sharing your personal design with everyone.

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Authored By Colleen of Invitations by Ajalon  View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.

It’s amazing the strong connection we can have with words. I’m a deep lover of words - I collect poems and quotes, and firmly believe in their power to uplift and inspire. Incorporating someone else’s words, a favorite piece of poetry, or selection from a novel is a great way to personalize your ceremony, as well as imbue it with that wonderful feeling and strong emotion that only the well written word can instill.

When I’m writing a wedding ceremony, and want to include someone else’s words, that first things I think about are, “What is the theme of this wedding?”

Finding Words to Fit Inspiration

I’m not just considering the actual theme of the wedding, as the bride and groom have set forth (like Autumn, Rock & Roll, Vintage Glam, Renaissance, Literature), but the direction that I see the ceremony going on - I consider the relationship of the couple, the love story, their sense of humor.

I did a wedding that took place in the couple’s backyard - they were all about family, about turning their house into a home for their family. I immediately jumped online and began searching to find some quotes that I could use in their ceremony. And I found the perfect quote!

Jeannie & Tom’s beautiful backyard wedding

As someone once said, “It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home.” Tom and Jeannie have opened their hearts not only to each other, but to everyone in their lives. This love is what makes their house into a home.

I always ask my couples who their favorite artists, performers, and authors are - and who their heroes are as well. This gives me another jumping off point to find beautiful words that really fit well with the rest of the ceremony.

Let me give you an example - in a recent wedding I did, the bride told me she loves Abraham Lincoln. I don’t think most people would think to include a quote by President Lincoln in the wedding ceremony, but I found this lovely quote that felt very much like the couple - and included it in the end of their love story.

And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

As the bride’s love for President Lincoln was a bit of an inside joke, I got a few laughs with the quote, too.

Finding Inspiration from Words

Often times, couples will tell me of a poem or reading they would like to incorporate as well - and I often use these as ways to extrapolate the theme of the ceremony, the overall feeling that the couple would like their wedding to evoke. It’s kind of the backwards version of when I search for a quote - instead of trying to figure out the theme from the ceremony outline and THEN find a quote, I take the quote, find the theme, and keep that in mind when writing the ceremony. It’s kind of like the wordy version of those wedding inspiration boards - a poem or reading suggestion can help me better understand what a couple is looking for.

I had a bride this past summer who came to her meeting with two passages she just loved and wanted to include in her ceremony. They also wanted a very short ceremony, with little to no Love Story. I adapted the passages into their Love Story, relating it to their relationship and their lives. It worked out really well.

A good marriage must be created.
In a marriage, the little things are the big things.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is standing together and facing the world.
It is forming a circle that gathers in the whole family.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is not only marrying the right person - it is being the right partner.

Lynn and Joe have clearly found the right partner in each other. Joe says that Lynn is his inspiration. Her selflessness, big heart, and drive to help others never ceases to amaze him.

The love and support that Lynn receives from Joe have been above and beyond her wildest dreams. She admires the way he cares for her, provides for her, and protects her. She says that he is always willing to help others, through good and bad, no matter how tough it is - whatever it takes.

Joe and Lynn, today you are marrying the right person - you have found your perfect partner. It brings us immense happiness to see that you have found each other, and to witness your marriage today.

Joe & Lynn’s Love Story

I love that passage - it’s in my Celebrant arsenal - I like to use it in my closing remarks. Thanks, Lynn!

Ways to Include Words in Your Ceremony

You’ve probably heard of the old standard to include poetry or a text selection in your wedding - add a reader to your program. This is an especially nice way to include family members, close friends, or bridal party members into your ceremony. Make sure that you’ve told them before hand that they’re going to be reading, and, if at all possible, send them a copy via email so they can become familiar with it!

I always bring a copy for the readers, so they don’t have to worry about folding a piece of paper and sticking it in their pockets or purse. Talk to your officiant about it, or see if you can leave a copy at the front, on your props table - it makes everything run much more smoothly if they don’t have to worry about that extra piece of paper.

The Matron of Honor reads e.e. cummings

As I’ve mentioned, if the couple doesn’t want to have a reader, I will often use the selection in the ceremony itself - perhaps in the Love Story or the closing remarks. I like to weave it seamlessly into the ceremony, so it doesn’t feel weird to have me all of a sudden speaking in verse or reciting Shakespearean sonnets.

You can also include a quote or short poem in your programs, or even on your invitations! This is a really nice way to have your theme of your ceremony expand throughout your wedding.

Something I love is to include them in your vows. I recently found a poem that just took my breathe away - and made me cry each time I read it. It spoke really clearly to me, and I’ve tucked it away to use in my own wedding vows (and I can’t share it here because I know he reads my blog!).

And please, as always, feel free to think outside of the box! I’ve had couples incorporate song quotes from musicals in their vows - or read song lyrics like a poem - or put a poem to music! - recite a passage in two languages (a great way to have a bilingual touch to your ceremony!). The possibilities of including other people’s words in your ceremony are near endless, and incredibly inspiring. Start your own quote collection today!

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Authored By Jessie Blum

Jessie Blum is a certified Celebrant and wedding officiant serving Northern and Central New Jersey. She is passionate about personalizing wedding ceremonies, and strongly believes the only rule about weddings it that there are no rules! She’s currently planning her own wedding for 2010, and lives with her fiance in Bergen County, New Jersey.

After the last bridal show in Austin Tx, we got together with some friends for dinner and the conversation shifted to the cost of wedding photography and why it can be so expensive. When someone books a 5-6 hour wedding with us they may not be aware that our true time commitiment to our customer is about 30 hours.

We want our customers to understand that a professional photographer does more than “just shoot and burn a disk”. The wedding day is just the beginning. As professional photographers we always photograph in camera RAW format. This means that our workflow after the wedding is a day or so to process the 800-1500 images. Yes, we do check/adjust each image for color balance, exposure, composition etc as part of our processing. Then, we upload the entire wedding to the internet so family and friends can enjoy the photos. It takes quite a bit of time even with page templates and upload scripts to create/upload the 800-1500 thumbnail images, larger images and web proof pages.

A few months after the wedding, our happily married couple contacts us to go over their initial selection(s) for inclusion into their album and for prints. Many times we meet again and go over the 1st draft list, then select album covers, inserts or work up album page layouts. The images then go “off to the lab” for printing/processing. The appointments, lab transportation, phone calls, emails, etc add a significant amount of time to a wedding client.

Anyway, as you go about selecting your photographer or vidographer, please consider how much time and commitment your photographer is including in the “5 hour job” as you look at the cost for capturing your most special day – your wedding.

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Authored by Raymond of EverafterImages.Com

You are about to start on one of the most exciting journeys of your life. If you have just started planning your wedding, it can be difficult to know where to start planning. Before you get overwhelmed, here are some steps to take:

1. Pick Your Date - Start by picking the season you would like to be married. Then narrow it down to a few select dates.
2. Set Your Budget – Look at how much you have and can save by your estimated date. Avoid going into debt for your wedding.
3. Estimate Your Guest Count – Before talking to vendors, it is good to know your approximate guest count.
4. Pick Your Venue – Narrow down your venue list to those that can handle your guest count, is in your budget and is available on your date.
5. Book a Photographer – Most of the good photographers book very quickly. It is advised that you start talking to photographers as soon as you know the date.

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Events by Elaine is a hands on wedding coordinator for budget minded and DIY brides.   Elaine is based near Nashville, Tennessee.  However, she travels around the country helping brides on their special day.

Events by Elaine offers lower rates that all brides can afford. www.eventsbyelaine.homestead.com

Just as it is hard to choose the right vendors for your wedding, choosing a good videographer can be complicated.  Photographers and videographers will each argue the point that one is needed over the other.

A good photographer can capture moments that are breath taking and use their editing tools to add their own unique spin to a photo.  Videographers are no different.  They can do many, many things with the film they capture from your event.  However, the events and how they occurred should be the upmost important.  Reason is, 30-50 years from your wedding, time will decrease your memory of you and your spouses glorious day.  By hiring a video artists, they can ensure the moments last, no matter what the effects of time.  But if your whole wedding isn’t film and filmed correctly, it may lead to confusion of the actual events that took place.

What you want to look for in a videography service is not only the editing style, but the capture style as well.  Traditional videographers just capture the event in it’s entirety, while more artistic videographer can produce film products in many different creative ways in addition to the true footage.

Some of the questions that should be on your mind while selecting a videography/photography vendor/artist is: What shots do they capture during, before, and after a wedding?  Is the services they offer the services I need or want?  How do they capture audio during the event?  What do they do that makes them different from the rest?  What different products do they offer?  Are the prices reasonable for the work I want done?  How is the product packaged?  How long is the turn around for the product from the day it is filmed?  Will I get to proof the product before the project is finished?  What is the quality of the film/camera used to capture the event?  How responsive is the vendor to my questions?  Is the vendor easy to get along with?  Each of these questions are highly important and should be asked during the selection phase of both a videographer and photographer.

Don’t be afraid to ask the videographer/photographer of your choice for sample work to make sure their style is compatible with yours.  If you like the vendors style or chemistry in conjunction with your own, tell them exactly want and make sure they can produce the product you want.  Or if you feel comfortable with the videography service you selected, you may want to just give up the stress and let the video artist create a magical and unique product for you.

It may also be nice to let your videographer/photographer know who you have hired for the wedding so they can speak before the event if they need too.  While your event is going on, most of the time, the photographers and videographers are dancing around each other to make sure they capture those perfect shots they need and want to produce your product.  So on occasion, it is nice for the two to get together before the event to discuss what they want and workout a situation that is perfect for not only the vendors, but the client.

Remember, this is a time when your mind should be on enjoying your event.  This makes each selection prior to your wedding paramount to ensure true satisfaction.  Keep in mind, there is also engagement products you can choose to tell your true loves whole story.

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nFocus Pictures is a videography company which specialize and video editing and artistry.  No two weddings are the same and they create unique products for each client based on the couple and each artists creativity.  nFocus Pictures also contracts out photographers who have passed their quality tests to make vendor selections easier for the clients.  Visit their website for product packages, prices, or contact them with any questions.  See your event and life as amazing as it really is.  But most importantly, keep what matters the most, nFocus

Who else would like to know the difference between photojournalistic and traditional style wedding photography?

There is a much confusion surrounding the different styles of wedding photography that professionals are shooting today. Most couples want the style and glamour that they see in magazines. They often don’t know exactly what that style is called and how a skilled photographer can make them look as good as the bride and groom in the latest trend-setting celebrity wedding. Other couples are looking for a more traditional style of wedding photography.

These are the two most common types of wedding photography; traditional and photojournalistic. While similar equipment is used in both, there are significant differences in technique and approach.

Traditional photographers concentrate most of their efforts on posed portraits, and rarely capture candid moments. The quality of traditional photography is usually judged by sharpness, lighting, correct skin tones, and the use of the background. Most traditional photos are instantly recognizable, as many poses are standard for all weddings.

The more glamorous, or modern style of photography is called Photojournalistic. It is also called documentary photography. While similarities exist between traditional and photojournalistic approaches, the main expectations of each style are very different. Traditional style is portrait oriented. Photojournalism is candid oriented. The photojournalist’s goal is to take pictures while people are not aware they are being photographed. By blending with the crowd, a photojournalist is able to capture the action as it unfolds - the true emotions, the real expressions, the happiness and joy. Instead of the traditional formal portraits and posed photos, this approach produces a more intimate, artistic take on a wedding. Photos will reflect a fleeting, unposed moment that conveys the emotions of the day.

Photojournalism means to capture the real, true thing. Visual perception of an experienced photojournalist will add a unique charm to your pictures and you will end with up emotional and artistic photos capturing the very essence of your wedding day. The Album will resemble a storybook, rather than just be a series of posed portraits.

If you are a bride that loves wedding photojournalism, it is still a good idea to choose a photographer who recognizes the value of certain aspects of traditional photography and will work aspects of that style into their wide variety of shots. The photographer will gently coax a situation, and with a little guidance and interaction with their subject, get the shot that has the look and feel of a candid, photojournalistic shot, but the compositional beauty of a traditional one. A few familiar wedding poses, mixed in with the glamorous photojournalism, can also satisfy the desire for traditional portrait style poses that many people grew up with without taking away from the overall photojournalist style.

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Renee Leveille, the principal owner of Wedded Bliss Photography, is a lifetime resident of the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada. She is a graduate of the prestigious Western Academy of Photography and has combined her rigorous photographic training with a unique artistic flair. She has spent years traveling the world looking for that “perfect shot” and it shows in her world class portfolio. Renee’s academic background also includes a B.Ed. from Trinity Western University and she has taught photography internationally.

Her work has been hailed as, “the perfect blend of craftsmanship and artistry”. A quote that Renee is happy to live with, as her goal with Wedded Bliss Photography is to transform every precious memory into an actual work of art.