Trinity's Wedding Boutique

Male and Female Perspective

For any newly engaged couple, the excitement of this magical time is captivating. So many ideas, so many resources, so many influences to take into account and all for one day.

With all these new and exciting stimuli it’s easy for the bride to become consumed in the detail and logistics of the wedding and for the groom’s voice to become lost.

This is the same story that happens with many couple and was repeated in our case.

My husband and I have known each other since we were 2 years old and are very lucky to be best friends and partners in every sense of the word, but when it comes to weddings normality goes out the window.

As part of my dream job organising events and weddings, I should have known better, but as we started planning the wedding I became completely immersed in the detail and I had not thought how to make Leigh stand out in the wedding party and also be the centre of the attention with me on our wedding day.

There are a huge amount of resources for brides and grooms, but not for couples to manage the process jointly. Grooms may not have strong ideas about colours, favour ideas or ribbon choices. Grooms may not be acting as Bridezilla or wake up worrying about meticulous detail. BUT grooms are still nervous and excited about their big day. Grooms want to enable their gorgeous fiancé to have the day or her dreams and also to feel a part of their big day.

It is so important that right at the start of the planning process ideas from both the bride and groom are taken into account. At myriad genii this is at the heart of how we start working with our clients planning their big day, by finding out what both parties want. As a husband and wife team we have the ability to understand the bride and groom’s mentality enabling everyone to bring their ideas into the wedding plan and make sure that their is a strong presence of both the bride and groom on the wedding day.

If you are not looking to use a wedding planner) then it is really important that right at the start you both start to listen to what each person wants in their wedding day. One idea to achieve this is to write down a list of questions for both people to answer such as “What is your ideal size of wedding?” or “Do you want a formal or informal wedding?” Then go into separate rooms and really think about what you want before answering.

Once this is done come back together and go through the answers, over a nice bottle of wine would be good. Make sure that you really listen to each others answers, without ridicule or dismissal or it could be a very short engagement!!

Compromise – this was one of the teachings in our wedding lessons and it is so important in wedding preparations. You don’t have to compromise on your dream wedding, but it is a union of two people and the wedding may well reflect and celebrate a union of two styles.

Article by Laura Payne from myriad genii luxury occasion management

Some fun videos

Here are some videos I found on youtube. I think they great.

Back to basics planning tips

1) Set a budget. This little piece of advice is as old as the hills but it’s so important and allows you to build a firm foundation for your wedding. Many couples struggle to set a budget because if you’ve never planned a wedding, it’s hard to know what is realistic and how far your money will go. However most people know how much they can realistically afford and how much they are comfortable spending on one event: it really is worth spending some time researching and getting your budget right at the beginning. Until you have a budget, you can’t begin approaching suppliers and all of your plans become a series of confusing ‘what ifs’. It’s much better to start things off properly with a good idea of what you can spend in each area.

2) Clarify your priorities. Unless you’re on a very large budget, you will have to compromise on some aspects of your day. Identify your top 5 priorities at the outset so that you can concentrate your budget and energy on doing a few things really well rather than spreading yourself too thinly and doing everything badly. We tend to find that for most couples that as they focus on a particular part of the celebrations that aspect becomes THE most important part of everything and that it becomes very tempting to overspend. Formally setting your priorities at the outset helps to guard against this and saves lots of heartache down the line.

3) Get the basics in place first. From the second that engagement ring is on, planning a wedding can be an overwhleming whirlwind of well meaning people asking questions and giving their opinion. Rather than allowing yourself to be swallowed up into the insanity of it all, take a couple of weeks to soak up your new status and to slowly chat your ideas through with your partner. Once you have a rough idea of what you want as a couple, you can begin (slowly and rationally) putting the basics into place. You’ll need to start with finding your venue and you’ll be able to narrow down the options by budget, availability and style. Once your venue is confirmed you will have a date and this will allow you to begin approaching the other suppliers. Here, our advice is to focus on those suppliers who can only do one wedding per day e.g. photographers, transport, entertainment, hair and make up artists. After booking these suppliers, you can relax and start thinking about the visual aspects of the day and finding items such as dresses and stationery. Don’t be tempted to do these things before you’ve confirmed your basic suppliers as you will only tie yourself up into stressful knots and end up making little if any progress.

4) Finally, view your wedding holistically. It’s easy to view your wedding as one long to do list but it’s vitally important that you don’t make decisions (especially regarding visual elements) without considering other aspects to ensure there is a thread of continuity running throughout your celebration. For example, it’s easy to rush out and buy a dress before you’ve really thought about items such as your venue or entertainment. However, the style of your dress should be heavily influenced by your venue and how formal your celebration will be. This in turn will effect the type of entertainment you choose, the style of your flowers and even the type of menu you serve. As bizarre as it sounds, it’s really important to consider all of these items together because if you don’t your wedding will lose its sense of flow and can end up feeling as though it has lost it’s soul.

By its very nature, being engaged doesn’t last forever so enjoy it while you can; take things slowly and don’t be tempted to wish it away. There are no second chances with weddings!

Source: Zoelingard

Wedding Photography Tips - Achieving Perfect Wedding Photography

Your wedding photographs will be your lasting keepsake of your special day, so this is one area where you should try to spend as much as you can afford and to make sure you get the right photographer. You should also look at the number of shots you want and how you want them to look. Here are a few wedding photography tips to help you get the most from one the most important aspects of your day.

If you have been to at least one wedding before, then you will probably know that the photography can take an age to complete particularly if the bride and groom have given their photographer an incredibly long list of shots or if there is a large number of guests. What this does of course is eat into your valuable party time, so it is worth planning your wedding photography well in advance to minimize the amount your guests are left milling around.

Arrange to meet with your photographer and discuss the list of shots you want and those he advises. Make sure he knows exactly how many pictures you want and make certain of how you will be charged – by the shot or by the hour. Listen to the tips and advice they have to give when drawing up your shot list, they are the professional and will know best which shots will work and which won’t.

Think about the type of photography you want for your wedding pictures. Traditional or formal poses, reportage or contemporary are all types of photography and mixing any of these can give you a wonderful range of shots. Formal style pictures will appeal to those having a formal wedding, whilst contemporary or reportage work well for a less formal affair. Again your photographer will be able to provide tipson which style would suit you best.

Plan in advance where the pictures will be taken. It is common to have pictures before and after the ceremony and then more at the reception venue. Weather will also play a part, as will the light at your venues. Outdoor photographs tend to be more flattering, but it is always worth having a contingency plan in place in case of inclement conditions.

Brief your best man to round up all the key guests that you want to appear in the photographs. Guests often have a tendency to go walk about whilst waiting for the photographs to be completed, so have someone in charge of making sure no time is wasted in looking for wayward guests!

Whilst professional photographs are wonderful, issuing your guests with disposable cameras is a great way of getting some ‘as it happened’ shots of the day’s events that you may otherwise miss. You can also ask guests who bring their own cameras to share the pictures they have taken with you – most will probably do this without you having to ask.

Source: 1 Wedding Source

Custom Made Wedding Dresses

Choosing your perfect wedding dress is one of the most important decisions you will make and for some brides this can lead to a very long and drawn out process of looking high and low for ‘the one’. Custom made wedding dresses can provide brides who cannot find the perfect dress in store with the option of having their own wedding dress designed and made for them, with plenty of input from themselves.

There are a number of reasons why a custom made wedding dress may be perfect for you. Perhaps you have a very specific idea of your wedding dress and you simply don’t like the dresses you have seen in bridal stores. Or maybe you are having trouble finding a dress to fit and having a custom made dress would be more cost effective than greatly altering one from a store.

Your first consideration with having a dress custom made is the time it will take to complete. Like many other wedding suppliers, seamstresses who specialize in wedding dresses can be booked up many months in advance, so if possible to plan your dress a year in advance for the best possible chance of it being made in time.

Finding a good seamstress is your next task. Fabric stores are usually good places to find seamstresses advertising their services, and some may also advertise in bridal stores. While you at the fabric store it is worthwhile browsing through the pattern books and the bridal fabrics to get an idea of the styles and fabrics you like. Larger fabric stores often have a special bridal department where you can browse through many different bridal fabrics such as silks, satins and laces.

When you find a seamstress and attend your first meeting, don’t be afraid to take along some pictures of dresses you like from magazines. Try to be specific about what you want, including fabrics and trimmings such as beading, embroidery and patterns. Your main advantage here is that you can tell the seamstress what you like and what you don’t like, for instance, you may like the skirt on one dress but the neckline on another. This will give the seamstress something to work with and she look at combining the details from different gowns to create the dress you want.

A good seamstress will be able to bring much experience and advice to your wedding dress design, so listen to what they have to say. She will be able to guide you to styles and fabrics which will flatter you and will know how to design a dress that will fit you perfectly, coordinate with your wedding style, time of year and which will hold its shape throughout the day.

Source: "1 Wedding Source"

Wedding Guest Etiquette

If you have been invited to a wedding, then brushing up on your wedding guest etiquette skills would not be a bad thing. Many of us think we know how to conduct ourselves in public, but in practice can often let the sense of occasion (and the free flowing champagne) cloud our judgment. And whilst a drunken reveler at a wedding reception may seem like good entertainment on the wedding video, it is a potential headache for the other wedding guests and the bride and groom!

To begin with a dress code may have been specified by the bride and groom. Often referred to as black tie, evening dress or perhaps a specific theme, each guest will be expected to arrive suitably suited and booted as it were and to not do so would be considered rude in the eyes of wedding etiquette. If you are at all concerned about what you are expected to wear then a polite phone call to the bride’s mother or to the maid of honor should help you.

For the wedding ceremony each guest is expected to arrive around twenty minutes before the bride. If you are late do not enter the ceremony venue but instead go directly to the reception venue, you can give your excuses to the couple later. To enter the ceremony part way through what will be an emotional time for the bride and groom is very unsettling and can spoil what would be a romantic atmosphere.

When shown to your seats at the ceremony, make sure you have turned off any mobile phones and pagers and that you are comfortable - some ceremonies can take a long time so try to visit the bathroom before you sit down! Try not to make any blasphemous comments if the ceremony is a religious one and be careful of your language!

The wedding reception is the part everyone looks forward to the most, but this too is often filled with many traditions and customs that require a degree of etiquette to be applied from the invited guests. Don’t take advantage of your host’s hospitality too early on! A welcome drink is usually on supplied one to each guest, so make it last unless a pay bar is available. Depending on the style of the wedding and the hospitality laid on you maybe offered a refill, but try not to get roaring drunk before the first speeches have been given!

Make yourself available for the wedding photographs and don’t disappear off to the bar at the first opportunity! Many couples like to have a photograph of themselves and all the wedding guests so whether you are close to them or not, make sure you can be found when called upon. Peaking too soon on the free Champagne and wine is one of the biggest problems faced by wedding guests and the bride and groom. No-one wants a drunken reveler loosing all their inhibitions and shouting out comments about the bride or what the groom got up to on the bachelor party! Keep the drinking in check at least until the evening party is in full swing, then you can let loose!

Taken from the site: "Wedding Source"

Wedding Dress History

Over the centuries wedding dresses have changed, but a bride has always wanted her dress to be special, to make her look more beautiful. Centuries ago, only the rich could afford materials of red, purple, and true black; therefore, the wealthy brides would wear dresses of color adorned with jewels. The bride would actually glitter in the sunshine. The dress with flowing sleeves or a train was a status symbol, for the poor had to use material as sparingly as possible. Factory-made materials, with their lower costs, caused the lost of the original meaning of the train of a wedding gown, but it became a tradition over time.

Fashions changed from gowns of color to ones of white, or a variation of white, but since it wasn’t a practical shade for most purposes, blue became another favorite, as did pink. In the 1800’s, gray became a color for wedding gowns for brides of lower classes because the dress became re-used as the bride’s Sunday best. For those who had to wear a dress that would be used for regular occasions after the wedding, many brides would decorate the dress for the special day with temporary decorations.

The “traditional” wedding dress as known today didn’t appear until the 1800’s. By 1800, machine made fabrics and inexpensive muslins made the white dress with a veil the prevailing fashion. By the nineteenth century, a bride wearing her white dress after the wedding was accepted. Re-trimming the dress made it appropriate for many different functions.

As times passed, women’s fashions changed. Hems rose and fell, but the long dress, with or without a train, remained the length preferred by brides. Sleeve lengths and neck styles changed with the current fashions, but mainly remained modest. Full sleeves, tight sleeves, sleeveless styles came and went and came again. Simple designs to elaborate have been found over the years.

Today’s wedding dress fad appears to be the strapless dress, which looks lovely on some figures. Some brides still want styles of the past.

The main consideration for a bride-to-be is what is appropriate for her to wear. Style should match her figure and her financial means, as well as the setting for the ceremony. For example, a larger framed woman should try on the dresses she likes, and then choose one that flatters her. Every bride wants to look lovelier on that special day. If she has $500 to spend on a dress, then she shouldn’t be looking at $5,000 dresses. If the wedding is to be held in a garden, a heavily beaded dress maybe should be avoided.

Appropriateness is the key word as a bride searches for the perfect dress, whether in real life or written into a story. A full length mirror often tells the truth either place.

Passage taken from the site "Your Wedding Day"

Dancing at your wedding

I saw these two wedding videos on youtube and thought it was really funny and sweet. A bit of dirty dancing for a first dance and father and daughter having their dance, adding a little special spice for their audience. Why not try something like this for your wedding day, it will be the highlight of the evening, everyone will be talking about it for months.