Bachelorette Party Fun!!!

Bachelorette Party Fun!!!

This is one fun event that occurs before the big day that I look forward to the most! Whether it’s a weekend, a night, a day, whatever you chose it will be a blast and a great bonding time for you and your bridesmaids! The best part of this party is that it can be whatever you want it to be…unless you have your bridesmaids surprising you, in this case it can be anything!! Depending on where you live, your budget, and if you want to travel, you can go into a big city such as NYC, Vegas, or Atlantic City! Or if you are looking for a more outdoorsy event, hit the beach or have a great getaway, relaxing ski trip! If you are looking for a great bachelorette party during the daytime you and your girls can treat your selves at the spa or an afternoon at tea. As far as night time goes the possibilities are endless. Night clubs are always associated with great bachelorette parties, gambling at Vegas, Atlantic City, or Mohegan Sun is a good option, funny comedy/improve shows are a hilarious way to put the brides on the spot and have all the attention on the bride to be, erotic male dancing clubs (A.K.A. male strip clubs), and my personal favorite dinner cruises where you can dance, drink, and eat out on the water all night!! If you want to keep the cost low, have a girlie slumber party! The slumber party should be filled with fun games, funny and maybe inappropriate baked goods (we all know we`ve seen these before), your favorite movies, and your best girl friends!! Whatever you do for your bachelorette party it should be all about you and your girls, and celebrating this special time in your life!!

(Kim celebrated her Bachelorette Party when engaged to Kris Humphries, with family and friends at a night club in Vegas!)






Happy Planning!!
Melanie

Anyone Fancy a Bridal Shower?

Anyone Fancy a Bridal Shower?

Alternative Bridal Shower Ideas

So you’re throwing a bridal shower… Now what? Should you take the traditional route with classy invitations, tea cakes, and gifts from the registry? Or should you go over the top with a “Helen from Bridesmaids” Parisian themed shower? Lots of ladies are taking up the trend of throwing lingerie showers with sexy sultry themes and showering corsets, lacy panties, and racy nightgowns on the bride for her first few months of marriage and honeymoon of course! But there are lots of other ways to throw a shower that your bride will absolutely love and maybe even more than the traditional cookie-cutter parties!

“Bridal Bakery”

A Sugar Sweet Shower.

For the Martha Stewart Bride who can whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch that taste like heaven or anyone who loves to bake- this shower is for you! Rather than spending the day gabbing and snacking, you ladies can spend the afternoon showering the bride with fun baking-related gifts and then baking all kinds of fun treats! Instead of purchasing food for the shower, the host will purchase the ingredients for the treats and drinks to make while baking! Also check out these cute ideas for decorating the shower- cupcake liner garland!





Gift Ideas: Guests will all bring a bakewear item for the bride… ideas to suggest would be a cake pop maker, electric hand mixer, decorating kits, aprons, etc.







Fun Drink Ideas: Bridesmaids could serve dessertinis while the ladies are baking to go along with the sweet theme of the shower! Chocolatinis, White Chocolate Raspberry, and there is even a recipe for a Puffs Marshmellow Martini… how cute!

Invitation Ideas: Recipe cards (ingredients substituted with shower details), invitations shaped like cupcakes, or even send out cake pops with invitation details attached! 

 “The Perfect Pair”

A Wine-O Shower

Have a merlot-minded bride on your hands? Spend the day tasting wine and drinking some too! You could decorate the shower like a Tuscan winery, a vineyard gardens, or like a Napa Valley cast room. Why not have each guest bring the bride a bottle of wine to stock her new home? As the host, decorate with vines and rustic wood, have cheeses, chocolates, and crackers to go with your liquid delights… as well as plenty of glassware to go around for the tasting. This is such a fun and classy alternative to the traditional shower!

Gift Ideas: Each guest could bring a bottle of wine to help the bride start her wine cellar collection or the ladies could bring wine accessories as gifts. Accessory ideas: wine aerator, wine openers, cute wine charms, Bordeaux glasses, white wine glasses, champagne flutes, wine racks (there are lots of neat wall mounted racks and decorative stands out there!)… the guests could even all chip in to purchase a wine cooler for the bride!

Another cute idea is a wine basket with a bottle for each important night in the bride’s upcoming weeks: a bottle of champagne for the wedding night, a nice red for the first night of the honeymoon, a Prosecco for an afternoon on the beach while they watch the sunset, one for their first anniversary… with tags on each to let them know which one to drink!

Invitation Ideas: Attach a wine cork to the invitations as a cute additional decoration, shape the invites in the form of wine bottles, send an empty wine bottle and tell the guests to bring it back as a gift for the bride (They can paint it, chalkboard it, put flowers in it, message in a bottle, etc.)

“Drink and Be Married”

Champagne Showers

We’ve all heard of “stock the bar” parties or showers where guests bring bottles of the bride’s favorite liquor to stock the bar in her and her groom’s new home. Obviously not a shower for every bride, but if your lady of honor was a party girl in college or still enjoys her afternoon margaritas- why not throw her a bridal cocktail party (literally)!



Have the guests wear little black dresses, serve specialty cocktails, stock up her bar, and have a fun afternoon showering her with gifts and maybe even some champagne! You could hire a bartender to serve up the fancy drinks or make them yourselves for an entertaining afternoon of cocktail party fun. Whoever throws the shower will be in charge of getting the ingredients for 3 or 4 specialty drinks, ensuring the proper glassware is in order (you can always rent it if you do not have it yourself), decorating like a swanky lounge, and serving up a few snacks so the girls don’t get too out of hand! A fun snack idea would be candy served in martini glasses or cute cocktail inspired cupcakes!

Gift Ideas: Similar to our baking shower… start a registry! The guests can choose from martini glasses, margarita glasses, cocktail shaker sets, blenders, and other specialty drink-making goodies. Each guest bringing a bottle of liquor to stock the bar is a necessity- but you could also have everyone come together to make a gift basket like the wine-o shower! A bottle of vodka for a night on the town, a bottle of whiskey for when she’s feeling frisky, Grey Goose to get her feeling loose- anything that’s cute and fits her personality! Don’t forget about the groom and what he likes too!

Invitations: Mini Bottles! Warning: Some states have particular laws about mailing alcohol- so be sure to look this up before you go mailing mini bottles of Little Black Dress Vodka! Try creating drink recipes, but replace the ingredients with party details. Cut out invitations shaped like martini glasses or margarita glasses with salt on the rim (gluing white glitter to the rim of the invitation will give the illusion of salt). 1oz Bride to Be (insert Bride name here), dash of your favorite alcoholic gift, garnish with your favorite cocktail dress, and arrive at time and location to Drink and Be Married! Make it your own and have fun with the details.

“Tea Party”

A classic and traditional shower idea- the tea party. Biscuits and English tea with beautiful china in the garden… what could be classier? Have the ladies bring a gift of their choosing and fit the invitations to the event- perhaps lace or floral patterns to go with the dainty theme.

“Day at the Spa”

Everyone loves a little pampering, especially a stressed out bride-to-be! Throw her an indoor spa day (or even a garden spa day with the smell of fresh roses and sound of water running to calm her nerves). The guests can bring spa gifts such as treatments, specialty oils, or even gift certificates for massages, manicures, etc. and the host will supply relaxing candles, music, light snacks, and hire a masseuse for the day to treat the ladies. If that is out of the budget- the host could purchase products at a local spa or Bath and Body Works type locale and the ladies can treat each other to massages, manicures, and treatments while chatting, listening to music, and sipping on refreshing cucumber Skinny Girl martinis.

                  




The options for throwing a fancy bridal shower are honestly limitless! The homebody bride may love a “Blockbuster Shower” where you all stay in, watch movies, and eat movie theater style popcorn. You could throw a pool party shower with strawberry daiquiris, bikinis as gifts from each guest for the bride to wear on her honeymoon, and fun pool games. Or even try a “Recipe Shower” where each guest submits a recipe with her RSVP and the host creates a cookbook for the bride-to-be as a gift from all of her friends with their secret family recipes. Get creative and don’t forget about your bride’s personality. And with so many fun options… who is to say she can’t have more than one shower?

XOXO,

Audrey

Can a Bridal Party be Too Big?

Can a Bridal Party be Too Big?

Bridesmaids: Is there such things as too large of a Bridal Party?

Bridal parties come in all shapes and sizes from small too big. I know that brides want to try and include all of the special people in their lives but should people put a cap on how many people they should include? Here are a few things to keep in mind when deciding on your special number.

Do their have to be the same number of groomsmen as bridesmaids? It used to be tradition to have an equal number of people on both sides of the aisle but that is no longer a requirement. If the bridesmaids outnumber the groomsmen have some of the bridesmaids walk down together instead of with a groomsman. Don’t feel like you have to cut people out if your fiancé does not have the same number.

Choose your bridal party for you, not for others. Try not to let others convince you that certain people have to participate in your bridal party. However if someone has to participate in the wedding  and you already have enough (what you think is enough) bridesmaids have them read a special poem or sing a song at during the ceremony. That way they can still participate without having to be in the actual bridal party. This is a great compromise.

The more people you have, the more opinions that will want to be heard. If you have a bridal party of 12 that’s 12 people’s thoughts and opinions they will have on the dress, the hair, and other aspects of their appearance. If this could be an issue for you then that could determine how many people you include in the wedding party.

It is ok to say no to some people. Don’t worry about hurting people’s feelings of they are not included. If they are really your friends (or family members) then they will understand why they could not participate. Remember that this is your day and you can limit or expand to as many people you want in your party but the decisions are yours and your fiancés.


Kathryn Heyder

Personalizing Your Special Day

“Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something YOU”

Personalizing Your Special Day

With so many details going into the “Wedding Day” procedures and the public eye watching from all around, how can a modern bride tweak traditions and play with the necessary details in order to make her special day extraordinary and unique? No one wants to hear their guests chatting by the dessert table saying, “Oh, I’ve seen this display before” or “Well, Jamie had that cake at her wedding.” NO WAY! Each bride deserves to have her own personalized and unique details that give her wedding an extra sparkle and wow factor for everyone in attendance.

Here are some ideas for personalizing Your wedding…

The Bridal Party!

1. Personal Notes: An emerging trend on social media websites such as Pinterest and various bridal magazines is brides writing a personal and heartfelt note to her bridesmaids on the bottom of their shoes. This is a way for them to not only feel more included in the process, but to provide a unique touch straight from the bride… They will also have one more keepsake from the day!

2. Monogrammed Necklaces: Something brides struggle with is the jewelry or lack of jewelry that their bridal party will wear… so why not give them a monogrammed necklace as a bridal party gift AND a way to set them apart from other bridesmaids! (You could also get one for yourself with you new initials to wear at the reception.) 

3. Bridesmaid Garters! Check out this fun and personalized idea for your bridal party- most brides wear the traditional garter, but what about the bride’s maids? But with a fun and unique twist added on, the bride can personalize this fun detail by giving each bridesmaid a mini bottle of her favorite alcohol (for when the day gets extra stressful).

Table Numbers

1. As the Years Go By… Make each table number a year and pair it with a picture of the bride and groom in that year! Or if you have a smaller wedding (less tables) you could stick with the 1, 2, 3- and have a picture of the bride and groom at that age. No worries that the mister and misses to be didn’t know each other at age 3: just resize the photographs on the computer and print them out together.

2. I remember when- Associate each table number with a memory about the bride and groom or some significant “number-related” fact about them. 5: A day in May that we met (as seen in the example to the right). 10: Day in September that Joey proposed to Samantha. 25: Number of months we dated. Make it fun, sweet, and cute so everyone will have a fun surprise and unique personal touch when arriving to their table! 

3. Memoire Folders: One bride told Bridal Guide of how she chose to make each table number a folder and on each table there were paper and pens for the guests to write the bride and groom a note to open on their anniversary. The table numbers correspond to their 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and so on anniversaries! So they will have “x” amount of folders to open depending on how many tables they have at their wedding- what a great idea! You could also have disposable cameras and develop each table’s photographs on that anniversary for a fun treat and memory of your special day.  (Idea from Bridalguide.com)

4. Street Signs: For a local wedding or a wedding in a big city, why not use street signs instead of table numbers? Each table is a well-known street and you could even give your guests a map to locate their table. For a bride and groom from the same hometown or well-seasoned travelers: what a special way to add a personal touch rather than sticking to the traditional number system!

Cake, Cake, Cake, Cake

Brides have found many ways to personalize their wedding through the centerpiece of the reception- the wedding cake! Putting your favorite poem or song lyric on the side of the cake is a unique way to put a personal touch on the reception or the “split personality” cake where the bride and groom’s personalities are represented by each side of the cake!

Another way to insert your personal touch is by an individual cake for the bride and the groom. Perhaps in addition to the main cake or instead! The bride’s cake can resemble her dress or represent one of her passions and the groom’s cake can resemble a tux or represent something that he loves to do! At my uncle and aunt’s wedding, my uncle actually had a cake modeled after a cigar box with luxury cigars in it as he is an avid cigar collector- it was so cute! 

Speaking of cute, check out these PERSONALIZED cake toppers for the really outgoing bride and groom!! Available for purchase at Etsy:

When thinking about how to make your wedding, reception, and ceremony extra special- there are thousands of different outlets and small details that you can choose to personalize. From personalized napkins, to monogrammed glassware, and individual cakes- the options are limitless. The question is which ones you want to choose to personalize and specialize your wedding in order to set apart your day from everyone else’s. Be sure not to choose TOO many as to not overwhelm your guests, but they will be sure to appreciate these small and special details. So make sure to include Something YOU when planning your special day!

Xoxo, Audrey