What Should the Mothers of the Bride and Groom Do?

With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, it’s a great time to think about what your mom can do to help with your wedding. Both the mother of the bride and mother of the groom can play an important role in the planning and on the day of your wedding.

For many brides, their mothers are an unofficial member of the bridal party. She can help with choosing the wedding dress, attend the bridal shower, and assist with wedding preparations. If you mom isn’t able to do all of that, or if you don’t want her to do it, she can still have a special part in the wedding day. The bride’s mother is traditionally the last one to be seated at the ceremony, and her being escorted to her seat marks the start of the procession.

The mother of the groom also has a special role to play. Depending on the bride’s relationship with her new mother-in-law, she might even take part in activities along with the mother of the bride. She will also get to have a special dance with her son during the reception. This gives her a moment in the spotlight for all the work she’s done in raising the groom.

Mothers can be a huge help in your wedding planning, and can be thanked for their years of hard work at your wedding. To find out more about how to involve the mothers of the bride and groom in your Arizona wedding, give us a call today!

 

Photo: Flickr/Quinn Dombrowski

Creative Wedding Menu Ideas

One thing that can make a wedding really special is a great menu. The food you serve at your wedding can reflect many things, including your cultural heritage, your personal preferences, and your theme. They can also just be a bit of fun!

Food stations

A huge trend at the moment, food stations allow your guests to customize their food. This can often work like a buffet, but might require servers or chefs. Your guests are given a basic version of your food — whether it’s nachos, mashed potatoes, or ice cream — and a whole host of toppings to add to them.

Family style

If you want to include some of your family favorites, serving them family style can reinforce this idea. This means serving large portions to each table, allowing your guests to serve themselves as though they were at home.

Food trucks

Similar to food stations, food trucks are an excellent choice for outdoor weddings. This is a great trend and very fun. They are also a good addition as an evening snack for guests!

Fusion cuisine

If you and your fiance are from different cultural backgrounds, a fusion cuisine menu can be a great way of representing your union. This can be done with a creative caterer, or a combination of catering.

Creating your wedding menu should be a fun experience for you. If you need help with this or any other part of planning your Arizona wedding, give us a call today!
Photo: Flickr/Maria Luisa Buccella

4 Wedding Invitation Etiquette Mistakes You Might Be Making

Wedding planning is an etiquette minefield, and the etiquette of weddings today is different than what your parents, or even an older sibling, faced when planning their big day. While there’s a lot of things that have gotten looser, there are still plenty of faux pas to be made. Are you making these four common etiquette mistakes?

1. Printed address labels. You have all your invitees’ addresses stored on your computer, but that doesn’t mean you can just print off labels during your lunch break. Wedding invitations should be hand-addressed, as this shows your guests that it’s a formal event rather than a work function. Also, always put a stamp on each envelope, even if you think you could get away with putting them through the franking machine at your office!
   
2. Location-free save the dates. Save the date cards are a popular addition to wedding stationery these days, but they’re more than just engagement announcements. They should give your guests the basic information to begin planning whether or not they can attend. This includes the date, of course, but also the city and state where you’ll be holding your wedding.
3. Including the wrong time. You want guests to arrive with enough time for them to be seated when you get to the aisle, but it’s never right to put the wrong start time. The time on the invitation should be the start of the ceremony. If you want to ensure nobody is late, change the phrasing to include a time for guests to be seated as well as the ceremony start time.
4. Ignoring save the date responses. When you sent out the save the date cards, you may have had some friends tell you they were unavailable on that date. In this case, don’t send them an invitation. While you might think it’s a nice gesture, they can feel bullied into giving you a gift or feel awkward telling you (again) that they won’t be able to attend.

When you work with a great Arizona wedding planner, you can avoid many common etiquette mistakes. To find out more about what we can do to help plan your perfect wedding day, give us a call today!

Handling Unsolicited Wedding Advice

You’re excited about your upcoming wedding. So are all your friends and family. Unfortunately, this excitement often comes out as unsolicited advice about what you should be doing in planning your big day.

Unsolicited advice is never easy to handle, and with the stress of wedding planning, it can be a recipe for disaster. It’s worth remembering that the advice is almost certainly coming from a desire to be helpful. As such, be polite in your reply.

At the same time, though, it’s worth holding your ground. Thank them for their suggestion, but remind them that you have things under control and that their idea might not fit in with everything else you have planned.

Another way to handle unsolicited advice is to tell the advice-giver that you are working with a fantastic Arizona wedding planner. If you’re still looking for the perfect wedding planner, give us a call today!

How to Plan a Vintage Wedding

Vintage weddings are a beautiful trend for Arizona brides. Planning one is much more than just adding some lace touches to your wedding decor, though.

The first thing to consider when planning a vintage wedding is what era you want to use as your inspiration. Vintage means a lot of different things, so choosing one era — whether it’s 1940s or 1900s — and sticking to it will make your planning easier.

It’s also worth thinking about how important historical accuracy is to you. You should never forget that your event is a wedding first and foremost, though. Deciding that you want the food to be true to the time period is fine, but don’t feel that you must make every piece of your wedding fit your theme.

You can also plan a wedding that is vintage inspired without having to plan a strict vintage theme. Vintage inspired often means using stylistic elements, but not worrying about applying the style to every part of your big day.

Whatever your preferred vintage era, and whether you want a vintage theme or vintage inspiration, working with an experienced Arizona wedding planner can make the process much easier. To find out what we can do to help plan your vintage wedding, give us a call today!

Celebrity Weddings to Inspire Your Big Day

This year has given us some big celebrity weddings, with a few more highly anticipated nuptials still to come. Even if you aren’t up on all the latest celebrity gossip, looking at their wedding choices can help give you ideas for your own big day.

Several celebrity couples have chosen to go with a country house vintage style. Whether it’s the intimate French style of Keira Knightley or the Gothic inspired wedding of Avril Lavigne, these weddings draw on classic romance in beautiful venues.

Another big trend for 2013’s celebrity weddings has been a return to tradition. White gowns and tuxedos, seated meals and fabulous cakes have been the order of the day for Aaron Paul, Michael Jordan, and Jay Cutler.

When you plan your wedding, you don’t want to copy anyone else’s wedding, whether they’re a celebrity or not, but they can provide plenty of inspiration. To find out more about how to incorporate some of the year’s big celebrity wedding trends into your Arizona wedding, give us a call today!

What’s Your Wedding Planning Timeline?

Wedding planning takes time, and this time can be a big part of why the average engagement is just around a year. Creating a wedding planning timeline can help you keep track of how long you’ll need for everything or how to fit everything into the time you have available.

Provided you don’t have any time limits for setting your wedding date, look to give yourself a full year to plan everything. Choose a few possible dates, and begin checking out venues and vendors.

Around nine months before your wedding date, begin to prepare for your invitations. This includes shopping for the stationery and gathering up all the addresses you’ll need.

At six months, you’ll need to finalize arrangements with vendors and order your wedding cake. You should also begin choosing your wedding favors and gifts, which you’ll need to order around four months before your wedding date.

In the final two months before your wedding, be ready for lots of last-minute preparations. This includes vendor meetings, dress fittings, and rehearsals.

Of course, the best way to create a custom wedding planning timeline and make wedding planning much easier is to work with an experienced Arizona planner. To find out how we can help plan your wedding, give us a call today!

How Many Guests Can You Expect?

When it comes to weddings, so much depends on your guest list. Your budget will often come down to a price per person, especially for things like the meal. The size of your guest list can also determine the venue you use. One question many brides ask is how many people they can expect for their big day.

When you create your invitee list, not everyone will be able to attend. The reasons can vary greatly, but in general most brides will have around 30 percent of their initial invitees say they are unable to attend.

This can be an opportunity to invite additional people, such as coworkers and distant relatives who didn’t make the first cut. It can also be a way of planning a slightly smaller wedding. (It can be dangerous to expect a lot of unable to attend replies, as there is always the chance that everyone you invite will be free and happy to come!)

You should also make a plan for plus-ones on your invitations. It is customary to invite couples, even if you only know one of them well. However, it is up to you when it comes to the “plus guest” part of your invitation. If you don’t state it, the assumption should be that you are only inviting the person whose name is on the envelope.

The best way to plan your guest list, and get an accurate number of guests, is to work with somebody who has done it many times before. If you’re looking for an experienced Arizona wedding planner, give us a call today!

Is a Receiving Line Necessary

The receiving line at a wedding can easily feel like a chore. The newlyweds and their bridal party have to stand up as all the guests line up to quickly pass and say hello. There’s always an inevitable hold up as a distant relative wants to get into a longer conversation, and by the end, everyone just wants to sit down and have some food. It’s no surprise that many couples are looking to skip the receiving line altogether.

If you’re planning on not having a receiving line, though, some of your guests might feel they don’t get a chance to say hello and give you their well wishes. If you have a large guest list, it can be difficult to get a moment with each and every guest.

The best solution to thanking everyone and having a bit of interaction with each guest is to give a brief thank you and welcome at the start of the meal. This doesn’t take the place of toasts or speeches, but is simply a way of offering thanks for everyone’s attendance. During the first course or dessert, the newlyweds can also visit each table to have a quick, more personal chat with all the guests.

Of course, you can also think about moving the receiving line to a different time in your wedding. An after-dinner receiving line can solve many of the problems of hungry guests getting impatient! To find out more ways to keep your wedding running smoothly, and keeping you and your guests happy, give us a call today! We can help with making sure our Arizona wedding is the day of your dreams!

When Should You Plan Your Wedding Photos

Everyone has been to a wedding that is disrupted by the wedding photos. While the guests are all ready to eat, drink, and be merry, the bridal party is swept away, leaving everyone waiting. Here are a few ways to get the wedding photos you want without disrupting your day.

• Keep it short: If you’re planning on having a photo shoot for the bridal party immediately after the ceremony, keep it short. Don’t have a huge list of combinations and you can almost certainly get through your photos before your guests have finished their first cocktail. Ask your photographer to fill out your wedding album with non-posed shots throughout the night.
• Keep guests occupied: If you want a photo of all your guests, work with your photographer to snap this before they leave the ceremony venue. This allows your guests to carry on to the reception for a cocktail hour while you pose for the remaining photos, rather than waiting around with nothing to do.
• Keep your own time: While after the ceremony is the usual choice, don’t feel like you have to do photos then. If you aren’t superstitious, consider taking photos before the ceremony. If you still want to keep your dress a secret, push the photos until after the meal. Look for times in your wedding day when you can sneak away without your guests noticing.

If you want more tips for creating the perfect schedule for your wedding day, or want help planning your perfect Arizona wedding, give us a call today!