How to Get Your Fiance Involved in the Wedding Planning

He worked up the courage to pop the big question, but now that you’ve started planning the wedding, he’s mysteriously M.I.A. And even if you manage to tear his attention away from Call of Duty 15 or the latest episode of Archer, he’s disconcertingly noncommittal. “Whatever you want, babe"? seems to have become his mantra, and it’s really starting to irk you. You don’t need him to jump over every detail, but you think he’d take at least a little interest in what will be the biggest day of both your lives!

How to Get Your Fiance Involved in the Planning

Welcome to the first test of your married life. How do you get him involved in planning the wedding? The first thing to do is ask his opinion. If you need to, set up a time where the two of you can sit down and go over details without distractions (although a glass of wine – or three – could make him a bit more pliant).

Listen to Him Really

Next, and most important, listen to what he has to say! If you’re like most women, you ask what he thinks, but you really just want a sounding board to figure out what YOU think. If you insist on including him in the planning process, you’d better be prepared to consider his opinions and (gulp!) compromise, especially if you think you might want his help later in life. A misstep now could set an unfortunate precedent in which he feels that you ask for his opinion and then ignore it. This could jeopardize future communication between the two of you, so tread carefully! You want this to be something you share, not an exercise in futility.

Define His Tasks

That’s right, sometimes you have to spell it out for your fiancé (more often than you’d like). If he knows specifically what you want him to do it will be easier for him to meet your expectations. If you’re not clear with him, understand that he isn’t a mind reader and guys aren’t as motivated and pumped about wedding planning like we are. Also, don’t assign tasks and then take over. He needs to feel like he is appreciated and has a say. Ultimately, you should assign things to him that you are confident he can pull off. Don’t have him hire the wedding band if you hate his taste in music!

Finally, have fun! This is the beginning of the rest of your lives together, so don’t get so serious and stressed out that he regrets ever asking for your hand. Who knows, maybe you’ll even discover that you’ve nabbed the next Calvin Klein or Frank Lloyd Wright!

Hottest Trends for Wedding Flowers

Whether you die for red roses or cringe at the sight of a carnation, modern wedding trends vary to suit every bride-to-be’s taste. Gone are the days of standard baby’s breath filler and the same votive accented arrangement you have seen a dozen times. This post includes some of the hottest wedding flower trends that are blooming this year.

Pink and Green

Every woman has a special place in her heart for pink and green. Whether you are a glam goth girl or a preppy princess, a pink and green wedding flower color palette is so hot right now. This trend can be interpreted in many different ways…no need to stick with the typical bright pinks and greens to imitate this trend. Try deep rosy hued blooms and dark, waxy green leaves for a special spin on this style!

Bling Bling

If you attend a wedding in 2010, you are sure to find yourself blinded by bling! Modern brides are accenting their bouquets, centerpieces, and corsages with all shapes and styles of stones. If you want to incorporate this trend in to your wedding, try accenting flowers with rhinestones, crystals, or pearls. For a unique look, pin a brooch on the wrap of your bouquet! Scour thrift shops or your grandmother’s jewelry stash for your bling-tastic “something old!"?

Orchid Blooms

Orchids are quickly becoming one of the most popular flowers for contemporary wedding affairs. The unique blooms have been incorporated as groomsmen’s boutonnières and are also seen mixed with traditional flowers in centerpiece arrangements. If you love this modern wedding flower trend, be prepared to fork over the big bucks. We suggest using orchids sparingly if you are pinching pennies!

Keep it Simple

Beautiful, colorful flowers do the talking for themselves…there is no need to distract from their natural beauty with flashy vases and arrangements! Keeping it simple with your wedding flowers can save you time and money! If you are spending oodles on beautiful blooms, why bother covering them up with distractions? For this modern trend, less is truly more!

Not Just Flowers

Bold brides in 2010 are thinking outside the box for their wedding flower choices. In fact, many women are selecting more than just flowers! Feathers are an extremely popular wedding trend in 2010. Feeling flashy for feathers? Try using dazzling peacock feathers to mix up your bouquet and arrangements!

How to Have a Green Wedding

You boycott plastic and spurn Styrofoam. You recycle. You bicycle. In short, you’re one of the many people who strives to keep our planet in good working order. And you want your wedding to follow suit. But where do you start? First off, green means sustainable, handmade, renewable, natural, organic, recycled or reusable. It may sound expensive and time consuming, but in fact, the growing interest in eco-friendly products has made shopping online for all your green needs fast and easy. So here are a few ways you can go green and keep the earth (and your wallet) happy.

Invitations

no need to denude a forest while informing friends and family of your impending nuptials. There are a multitude of green choices available. Some can be expensive.For example, 100% post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled cards with wildflower seeds embedded in them (yes, your guests can plant the wedding invitation and it will grow) might run about $4.00 per card…actually less expensive than vellum card stock, and infinitely more eco-friendly (yes, vellum is shiny, no, it cannot be recycled). At websites like www.greenprinter.com you can find 100% recycled papers for half that price. Like any other aspect of wedding planning, there is a bit of shopping around to be done.

Wedding Favors

from organic chocolates to handmade candles and soaps, there are just as many green options as there are ones that go straight to the landfill.

Flowers

the simple answer is to use a local grower, and while it is always good to support local, it may not be the least expensive option. A website like www.organicbouquet.com may offer better prices and a larger selection. Another option is dried or silk flowers, which will last forever.

The Dress

you don’t want to wear your mom’s dress (poof sleeves with peekaboo lace? The ‘80s were not kind to fashion…) and hemp is, well, a little too hippy chic, even for a self-proclaimed greenie. Luckily, there are literally hundreds of websites that cater to women seeking vintage, recycled, or organic fabrics and dresses. There’s even eco-coutour! God, I love the internet!

We are lucky to live in an era where green is good and products can be purchased at the speed of…well, that depends entirely on your ISP, I suppose. The point is, it has never been easier to plan a green wedding. With eco-friendly products and services at your fingertips, you can have the wedding you always dreamed of, secure in the knowledge that the happiest day of your life won’t contribute to global warming, pollution, or the apocalypse (kids notwithstanding)!

Don’t let Future In-Laws Ruin Your Wedding

You’re madly in love and the day is soon approaching when the whole world will know just how much you and your husband-to-be mean to each other. You envision mothers dabbing their eyes with hankies as you walk down the aisle. A radiant light will shine down, angels will sing, and all will be right with the world…at least it would be if every event attended by your in-laws didn’t turn into a reenactment of Westside Story. If you’re one of the many, many women out there acting as referee between your family and your future in-laws, here are a few simple steps to break up the brawl and ensure you get the fairy tale ending you deserve (sans wicked stepmother).

Keep the Moms out of the Wedding Planning

The first thing you need to do is keep them out of the wedding plans (the mothers especially)! You thought two moms would be even more helpful than one, but now you’re worried they’re going to go UFC on you over whether to make the napkins off-white or ecru. Every woman wants to think her taste is impeccable, but if you need some help, for god’s sake, hire a wedding planner. Save yourself (and your mothers) the stress and seek professional help (before you need the other kind of professional help). No one will be disappointed. If you absolutely have to include the mothers in some of the planning, split it up. Take your mom to look at dresses and his mom to taste cake. This way, you get the best of both moms!

Separate Your Mom and his Mom at Pre-Wedding Events

This leads to my second point: separate them. There will be a number of events leading up to the wedding that will require you to include members of both immediate families (dinners, bridal shower, etc.). Just go formal and make seating charts for everything. Some of them may think you’re going overboard, but hey, if it avoids a bloodbath, it will be well worth any grumbling from the peanut gallery. Also, it might not be a bad idea to declare a moratorium on alcohol at the events leading up to the wedding. Nothing shreds the mien of civility faster than a couple of boozy grannies hitching up their garters and throwing the gauntlet.

Enlist Your Fiance, You Need His Help

Finally, talk to your groom. Weddings put a lot of pressure on everyone, but most especially the bride. The onus of planning the perfect soiree, not to mention keeping everyone happy, falls squarely (and heavily) on your shoulders. Take time to keep in touch with the man you love and if you need to, vent a little. He wants to help, so let him do this for you. If you don’t get it out a little at a time, you will suffer a major blow-up before the big day…probably one that makes your in-laws look like toddlers in a sandbox!

Wedding Planning Advice Every Bride Should Ignore

How many phone calls do you make when planning your wedding? Too many to count, right? Riddle me this, brides-to-be…how many phone calls do you get from friends, relatives, and in-laws giving their “advice"? on how to go about planning your wedding? Probably just as many! Between the second your guy puts that engagement ring on your finger and the second you shut the hotel room door after the reception with a sigh of relief, you’ll get more advice then you could ever want. Some of it should probably be taken to heart, especially if it’s tips on how to save money or referrals to vendors from satisfied brides. Other advice, however, should definitely be dismissed with a wave of your chewed on fingernails:

“Stick to your budget, no matter what!"

While all brides can agree to having a budget and following it, it’s the “no matter what"? part you should ignore. Nothing is worse than sacrificing a quality service of say a highly recommended photographer in favor of your Aunt Betty’s godson who is taking high school photography classes. Sure, it might be a money saver, but is it worth it when most of your pictures come out with heads cropped off and out of focus? Definitely follow your budget and your plan, but be prepared to stray a bit outside it sometimes. Look for reasonable bargains instead of cheap corner cutters.

“This is the bride’s day! Who cares what your groom wants?"

Ok, most grooms aren’t exactly able to tell a hydrangea from a peony. And bless their hearts; we listen when they want their favorite football team colors as the wedding colors. But just because men don’t usually throw themselves into planning like brides do, doesn’t mean you should brush off requests made by your fiancée. Sometimes, having an outside opinion from someone who knows you well can bring in ideas you never even thought of. Most importantly, this is their day, too. And while they’ll never admit to caring about chair covers, they still might want certain songs on the playlists or a certain arrangement for his family’s seating. Marriage is about compromise after all. Better get used to it, hon.

“________ is so cliché. Toss that idea, everybody does it."

Yes, you want your wedding to be original and special. That’s every bride’s main goal. But remember, it’s about making it special for you two. So what if dancing to “Butterfly Kisses"? with your daddy has been done a thousand times before? If that song is special to you and your dad, then by all means, dance away! If there is a certain tradition that you want in your wedding because you’ve always dreamt of it (say, the bouquet toss?) then no one should make you feel bad about choosing to have it in your wedding. Being original is important to planning a wedding, but so is making your day special. Remember that above all, and do whatever you want! You’ll get lots of people telling you what’s “been done"? and “so overused"?. But just ignore them and think about why you want that aspect in your wedding. After all, “something borrowed, something blue, something old, and something new"? is still around for a reason.

Don’t Get Caught Without a Prenuptial Agreement

When entering into wedded bliss, no topic is more touchy than that of the dreaded prenuptial agreement. Nobody wants to think about getting a divorce when they haven’t even hit the honeymoon, and they certainly don’t want to think they’ll hate each other enough to try to steal their spouse’s money (or hold back their own). But with one in three marriages in America ending in estrangement, you can’t be too careful when it comes to protecting yourself, especially where financial independence is concerned. And if he’s the one with the money, just remember that a pre-nup can be in your best interest, as well.

Who Has More Money?

Chances are, whoever has the cash is going to broach the issue first. If it’s him, try not to be too startled. Surely you knew he had money, and if he wants to protect his assets, don’t consider it stingy. It is often the case that people with wealth are targeted for handouts. This may cause him to become a bit of a cynic. The truth is, if you love him for who he is, you don’t care about the money anyway. However, there’s no need to be a sucker.

A prenuptial agreement can also benefit the less financially fortunate partner. You can ask for amendments that include spousal support for infidelity or early termination of the wedding contract, and yes, marriage is indeed a contract that both parties enter into willingly. As such, you may want a lawyer of your own to make sure your interests are looked after if he insists on a pre-nup.

Don’t Feel Guilty for Protecting What’s Yours

If you’re the one with the upper hand in the financial arena, congratulations on being one of a growing number of women who earn more than their mate! That said, you are well within your rights to safeguard your hard-earned cash from a two-bit house husband. Okay, okay, we are talking about the man you love, here, but don’t let that cloud your judgment. It wasn’t that long ago that divorced women were finding themselves middle-aged, with no resumé and no personal credit (due to raising kids and being listed second on everything from credit cards to deeds and pink slips).

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT feel guilty about protecting what you worked so hard for. A marriage is built on trust, for certain, but a contract sure can help ease your mind. If he loves you as much as you love him, he’ll want you know that he’s not after your money. If you stay together forever, as you intend, the pre-nup will become a moot point. But if, by some unfortunate circumstance, you happen to separate, you’ll be glad you did the deed.

Should You Allow Your Single Guests to Bring a Date?

You have a lot to worry about as your ‘big day’ approaches – you’re setting a date, booking a location, and finding a caterer among many other things. Now, you need to decide on who you are going to invite to the reception. Your time is too precious to waste worrying about the politics involved in who you should and shouldn’t invite. Hopefully, this advice will make your ultimate decision much easier than it would have been.

First, ask yourself what your motivation is for asking this question. Is it because you want the party to be an intimate gathering amongst only people you know, or is it because it will cost a lot more money to feed all of those extra guests? Answering this question will help you think clearly about all further considerations.

If anyone does complain, be sure to explain your plight in a clear and calm manner. Getting defensive could add unneeded stress to an already very-stressful time. Many people will be extremely understanding of both reasons for wanting to restrict the guest list. Therefore, if you do decide to exclude dates of single guests, you will be able to explain yourself without worry of being judged. It is, after all, your special day. If you want it to be an intimate affair, who’s going to criticize you? Wanting to conserve money is also an understandable reason. It is common knowledge that weddings cost a lot of money and people will understand if you and your partner are trying to be conservative before you start your new life together.

The next question is: Where do you draw the line? Who will you define as a ‘single’ guest and who do you see as being in a relationship? Although they may not be married, many couples will be in a solid enough long-term relationship to be considered ‘together’ in your eyes. Will you invite them or consider all unmarried couples to be single? It may be best to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. When you send out your invitations, make sure to invite each person by name. This will clear up any confusion that could possibly arise.

Another reason for limiting your guest list is to ensure that your wedding will be remembered as a strictly positive event. If you allow your guests to bring along a casual date, and then they break up, not only have you wasted your money on someone you don’t really know and will likely never see again, but you have also opened the possibility of your dear friend associating bittersweet memories of their ex with your special day.

Keep in mind that if you do decide to restrict your guest list, it would be courteous of you to seat all of your single guests in appropriate places. It’s the least you can do to accommodate them. If you are single, it can be boring or even downright depressing to be seated at an all-couples table, even if you are friendly with everyone there. Therefore, try to seat single guests together so they do not feel lonely or excluded. Who knows, may be doing this will cause your guests to find their special someone at your wedding!