As you probably know by now, I take great pride in my writing ability. As such, I took great care in designing and drafting our wedding invitations. The wedding invitation is probably one of the only documents created and prepared by you as a couple that the most people you both know will ever see.
The quality of the invitation absolutely sets the tone for your wedding day. If the wording on an invite is formal, guests will probably expect a pretty classy event. Sometimes, I find the use of an overly formal tone can come off as slightly pretentious. On the other hand, you don't want to be too informal in your language and tone. Everyone says your wedding day is one of the most important and happiest days of your life, so you definitely want to convey that through your word choice. There are many wedding invitation wording examples available online. (Google was certainly my best friend for this particular project!)
I can't stress this point enough - have multiple people proofread your invitation. Whether drafted yourself or professionally, there is always a potential for human error. Check spelling, grammar, dates, and times. Double and triple check, and then check it over once more!
These days, it is so easy to create your own invitations! For the DIY lovers, you can definitely find some great products to make your own by hand. With Pinterest, it is so easy to find inspiration and tips. There are also numerous websites where you can design your own, and easily match RSVP cards and envelopes.
I really enjoyed designing and ordering our invites through Vistaprint, and would recommend them to anyone! It was so easy to navigate the website and customize the designs, text, and colours. Additionally, I was able to easily order RSVP cards, envelopes, return envelopes, and stickers to match our invitation design.
Typically, a wedding invitation is a series of several cards providing information on event details, accommodation, food choices, and gift preferences. When it comes to providing information, consider including anything that the guest would absolutely need to know. For example, if you are requesting monetary gifts, you really don't have to say so. Not only do I think this is tacky, but most people assume that if the couple is not registered anywhere, they would prefer a cash gift. This is definitely information that can be eliminated from your invitation package.
Furthermore, including too much information on multiple cards/papers can be quite overwhelming for your guests. It is quite likely that some people will lose certain components of the invitation between the time you send them and the time of the big day. It is a good idea to condense this information as much as possible.
Being the economical bride that I am, I decided to get everything printed double sided. That way, there were only two card components to our invitation package. On the back of the actual invitation we detailed our registry information, and on the back of the RSVP card we listed the menu options. We received great feedback from our guests on the simple layout of our invitations.
Many couples are choosing to send out evites instead of a hard copy. I would highly encourage this. Although I wouldn't trade our invitations, I do wish we had decided to send them via email instead. Not only is this a great green choice, it is also cost effective and extremely efficient. With paying for both the invitation packages themselves and the postage to mail them, our invitations quickly became a larger expense than we had anticipated. Also, we had several of our invitations go missing in the mail system, which was extremely frustrating.
To streamline the whole RSVP process, having guests respond via email is definitely the best route. Although you will still have to follow up with those who have not responded, you won't be relying on them to do anything other than click through a few prompts. So far, following up on RSVPs has been the most agonizing and annoying part of planning our wedding. We definitely wish we had looked into online invitation options! ~♡~
Sunday 26 June 2016
Tuesday 21 June 2016
Bridesmaid Dresses and Appearance Guidelines
As a bride, it is very difficult to please every bridesmaid with your choice of bridesmaid dress. Friends of mine who have previously been bridesmaids are constantly complaining about the dresses they were forced to wear to their friends' weddings in the past. Unflattering fits, styles, and colours are the main complaints, but a high price ticket is also a common objection.
If you really want your bridesmaids to shine on your big day, make sure they are comfortable in what they are wearing. When choosing bridesmaids dresses, you should consider a style that works well on any body type. Also, choose something that your girls would actually want to wear! For my bridesmaid dresses, I narrowed it down to a couple that I liked and turned the vote over to my bridesmaids.
I often hear how difficult it is to find bridesmaids dresses in a particular colour that has been chosen ahead of time. In my case, I chose the girls' dresses before we even had our colours picked out. Of course I had a few colours in mind, but I was pretty flexible. The dress I ended up finding was only available in two colours, navy and blush. We ended up going with the navy and our other colours (ivory, gold, charcoal and merlot) just flowed from that.
In addition to choosing a dress, brides also often dictate how their bridesmaids' hair is styled, which shoes to wear, what jewelry to wear, and how to wear their make up. I can imagine all of these stipulations must be quite overwhelming for bridesmaids. As a future bride myself, I can definitely understand why you want to define some guidelines for your bridesmaids. You want everyone to look like a cohesive group, and that's totally fair. However, I do think you need to consider both cost and practicality when coming up with these guidelines.
If you really want your bridesmaids to have their hair and make up done, I think that is something you should offer to pay for. I gave my bridesmaids the choice of whether or not to get their hair and make up done. Sure, I would love to offer to pay for each of them but our budget simply won't allow it. I think offering them the option to do their hair and make up themselves to save money is more than fair. ~♡~
If you really want your bridesmaids to shine on your big day, make sure they are comfortable in what they are wearing. When choosing bridesmaids dresses, you should consider a style that works well on any body type. Also, choose something that your girls would actually want to wear! For my bridesmaid dresses, I narrowed it down to a couple that I liked and turned the vote over to my bridesmaids.
I often hear how difficult it is to find bridesmaids dresses in a particular colour that has been chosen ahead of time. In my case, I chose the girls' dresses before we even had our colours picked out. Of course I had a few colours in mind, but I was pretty flexible. The dress I ended up finding was only available in two colours, navy and blush. We ended up going with the navy and our other colours (ivory, gold, charcoal and merlot) just flowed from that.
In addition to choosing a dress, brides also often dictate how their bridesmaids' hair is styled, which shoes to wear, what jewelry to wear, and how to wear their make up. I can imagine all of these stipulations must be quite overwhelming for bridesmaids. As a future bride myself, I can definitely understand why you want to define some guidelines for your bridesmaids. You want everyone to look like a cohesive group, and that's totally fair. However, I do think you need to consider both cost and practicality when coming up with these guidelines.
If you really want your bridesmaids to have their hair and make up done, I think that is something you should offer to pay for. I gave my bridesmaids the choice of whether or not to get their hair and make up done. Sure, I would love to offer to pay for each of them but our budget simply won't allow it. I think offering them the option to do their hair and make up themselves to save money is more than fair. ~♡~
Monday 6 June 2016
Losing Weight
Everyone wants to look their best on their wedding day. For many brides and grooms, this involves losing a few extra pounds. Not everyone can lose weight easily, let alone to fit into a dress or suit within a very short period of time.
I think losing weight is something that always has to be done for the right reasons. If you make your health a priority, weight loss will most certainly follow. Whenever my goal is to lose a bit of weight, I aim to do it in a really healthy way. I definitely take an interest in nutrition and exercise so I make short term goals to eat even cleaner and workout more often/harder/longer.
I always thought it was silly when girls said they wanted to lose weight to fit into a dress, but now this has become my reality! In my case, I bought my wedding dress in a size 12, which is actually a normal size 8, the exact size of the sample I tried on. When I initially tried on the dress it was a little tight through the hips and thigh area, but it fit me beautifully everywhere else. I could have ordered the size 14, but it would have been 2 inches larger all over! I didn't want to run the risk of the dress not fitting me like it should, so I made the decision to go with the smaller size and try to shed a few pounds. My dress should be arriving in a few short weeks, so we'll see where I'm at when I finally get to try it on.
The real setback lately with trying to drop some weight has been indulging at all of these wedding season events! In addition to our own wedding, we have 4 others to attend this year along with all of the events leading up to them. Food and drinks galore! Also, there never seems to be enough time to squeeze in a workout the day of to offset all of this indulgence. I've never really been one to workout at home, I either need to be outside or at a gym. I'm hoping the beautiful weather we are having here will inspire me to get outside running more often! ~♡~
I think losing weight is something that always has to be done for the right reasons. If you make your health a priority, weight loss will most certainly follow. Whenever my goal is to lose a bit of weight, I aim to do it in a really healthy way. I definitely take an interest in nutrition and exercise so I make short term goals to eat even cleaner and workout more often/harder/longer.
I always thought it was silly when girls said they wanted to lose weight to fit into a dress, but now this has become my reality! In my case, I bought my wedding dress in a size 12, which is actually a normal size 8, the exact size of the sample I tried on. When I initially tried on the dress it was a little tight through the hips and thigh area, but it fit me beautifully everywhere else. I could have ordered the size 14, but it would have been 2 inches larger all over! I didn't want to run the risk of the dress not fitting me like it should, so I made the decision to go with the smaller size and try to shed a few pounds. My dress should be arriving in a few short weeks, so we'll see where I'm at when I finally get to try it on.
The real setback lately with trying to drop some weight has been indulging at all of these wedding season events! In addition to our own wedding, we have 4 others to attend this year along with all of the events leading up to them. Food and drinks galore! Also, there never seems to be enough time to squeeze in a workout the day of to offset all of this indulgence. I've never really been one to workout at home, I either need to be outside or at a gym. I'm hoping the beautiful weather we are having here will inspire me to get outside running more often! ~♡~
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