Archive for the ‘Alternative Ideas’ Category

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So You’ve Called It Off. Now What?

Monday, October 22nd, 2012


You’ve just interrupted your ‘I do’s’ by running off with the man your mother thought wasn’t good enough for you (but was plenty good enough for her to seduce!) and are getting on a bus with no idea where it’s going. But what about all those deposits?

Okay, if you wait until that point, chances are there’s nothing you can do but pay all those wedding bills or declare bankruptcy.

If, on the other hand, you decide a bit earlier in the proceedings that things just aren’t going to work out, there is a way to recoup some of the expense you’ve been to and help another couple have the nice wedding of your dreams.

Bridal Brokerage is there to help you pick up the financial pieces and get you on your feet again.

You enter your details in a handy online form, and Bridal Brokerage does the rest. They contact the vendors and find another couple who are in need of a wedding much like yours. You receive a percentage of your wedding expenditures already made, cope with your own broken heart, and contact your own guests, but after that you don’t have to deal with the details of canceling your wedding beyond that.

On the buyer’s side, well, you fill out a similar form telling Bridal Brokerage when you’re hoping to tie the knot, how many guests you plan to have, etc. and they’ll contact you with weddings that might suit your needs. You choose the one that best fits your preferences, and buy it at a deep discount.

Again, Bridal Brokerage steps in to the rescue with the details. They’ll send out save-the-dates and invitations to your entire guest list and prepare programs, too.

I’m wondering, is there anyone out there who has used this service or one like it? What were your experiences like? Is this a service any of you out there would consider using on either end?

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Budgets, Vendors | Comments Closed

Destination Camp Winnemucca?

Monday, September 24th, 2012


Image via Evantine Design Blog, where you can see more pictures of this gorgeous wedding)

Okay, I’ll admit it. I haven’t paid a lot of attention to trends in destination weddings over the past few years. They slipped through the cracks for me.

And so it was with great surprise that I read this article in the friday New York Times about the current popularity of rending summer camps for destination weddings.

That’s right, couples getting ready to tie the knot are renting out summer camps at times when camp is not in session. Weddings held this way usually involve an entire weekend of activities making use of the camp facilities for things like canoeing, hiking, and holding campfire sing along/s’mores making marathons.

A wedding like this is more often handmade with loving hands from home than designed by teams of professionals, though the photo session from the couple illustrated up top does prove the latter happens, too.

While I have to admit that destination weddings have never really been my thing, I have to say I kind of like this idea. Asking friends and family to come up with the cash to fly to Tahiti or Maui and stay in a hotel there has always seemed something of an imposition to me. Asking them to drive to summer camp, well, that’s a much more reasonable distance to go. And while you can ask people to stay on the grounds, if it’s a problem for someone to sleep in a cabin there are still going to be hotels and quaint little inns and RV parking nearby enough that they can go there and just show up for the big events.

Keep your plans reasonable, warn your guests not to wear stiletto heels, make sure there’s plenty of sunscreen and mosquito repellent to go around, consider wearing a tea length or shorter gown, stay flexible because Mother Nature doesn’t always consult you when making her plans, and fit the style of your wedding to the site.

Oh, but before you consider having an archery contest at the reception, do make certain everyone understands basic safety when dealing with missile weapons.

And don’t invite my brothers. They built a catapult and laid siege to the mess hall one summer at Boy Scout camp.

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Wedding Venues | Comments Closed

LOVE/HATE: Morning After Photo Sessions

Thursday, August 16th, 2012


It’s the morning after your wedding. You’ve spent the last few weeks (possibly months) having your entire world turned upside down with parties and racing from appointment to appointment and ever-present cameras documenting your transition from singleton to married bliss. You’ve finally had a few precious hours alone to enjoy one another’s company and nurse your first married hangover… when there comes a knock on the door of the honeymoon suite and you let the photographer in to do the professional shots of your post-nuptial (post coital?) bliss.

Yes, this is apparently something people are now doing. In fact, Refinery 29 has an entire gallery of images couples have had taken the morning after the wedding. The illustration above comes from that gallery. Okay, it’s only four images, but that still counts as a slideshow, and they all appear to come from different shoots.

You know, there was a time when a couple got one photograph of their wedding process. It was a single formal portrait of the happy couple looking stern in their wedding finery. By the time I was old enough to even notice the whole getting married thing, everyone expected to have an album of wedding day photos taken at the Big Event proper. Photos of the bride getting dressed and made up were fairly common well before I tied the knot, and that was where I drew the line. I needed ten minutes to myself that morning and that was the only chance I had to get them.

Frankly I cannot imagine inviting a photographer to come by the next morning, run me through hair, makeup and wardrobe, and then give me directions on how to look rumpled and sated for the cameras.

So yeah, I’m going with HATE on this one. In fact, I’m going with hate with the power of twelve massive supernovas here. That’s how much I HATE this.

Besides, are you really ever going to want anyone who isn’t you to see this? And if so, why? And even if you must do this, why not give yourself a little breather between the wedding and the next TMI photo shoot?

Or am I just a backwards old fart with no clue how special this can be?

Posted in After the wedding, Alternative Ideas, LOVE/HATE, Photography | 3 Comments »

If Mohammed Won’t Come to the Mountain….

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

… then the mountain must come to Mohammed, right?

And if you’re in Las Vegas and don’t feel like going to the wedding chapel, well, now there’s a wedding chapel on wheels that will come to you.

The Las Vegas Wedding Wagon will meet you anywhere in Sin City to get you hitched for $99.00. Just call or text and tell them where you want to get married. All you need to provide is your own marriage license, and they’ll even help you with getting that on their handy website. Oh, and they do point out the license is unnecessary if you’re having a vow reaffirmation or a commitment ceremony. You only need it if this is a legal wedding ceremony.

Included in the price is a fifteen minute ceremony, the licensed minister, the witness, and up to five candid photographs. But for a little extra, you can buy matching tee shirts, too. There are no hidden fees, they announce on their website, but gratuities are cheerfully accepted if you feel like giving them one.

All in all, I’ve heard a lot worse ideas… like the Vegas firearms shop that features actual shotgun weddings.

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Ceremonies, Fun stuff, Officients, Unusual Weddings, Wedding Sites | Comments Closed

Wool You Marry Me?

Thursday, July 19th, 2012


If you’ve been reading this blog for more than two minutes, you know I’m a huge fan of DIY for weddings. Choose your projects carefully, give yourself plenty of time, and it’s possible to save big as well as add uniquely personal dash to your big event.

The lady shown above is an excellent example of How It’s Done Properly.

When Ash Pears asked lady love Lydia Taylor to marry him, she did try on some commercially made wedding gowns… but only for inspiration. She designed and made her own gown. In point of fact, she knitted it.

Watching as much bridal reality as I do, I know well that moment when the bride walks into a bridal salon and announces she has only two grand to plonk down on her wedding gown and accessories. They do their best not to react, but you can always see a flash of worry and an involuntary breath taken in on the part of the consultant. Bridal runs to big bucks.

But Taylor’s elegant knitted frock set her back less than two hundred pounds and needed no alterations, since it was made to measure.

Between knitting her gown, finding reception plates at garage sales and thrift shops, making her bouquet out of fabric flowers and a vintage brooch or two, creating her own favors by hand (pear shaped pin cushions) and doing her own decorations, Taylor and Pears kept their overall wedding budget down to around five thousand pounds… allowing them enough left over to have an eighteen night honeymoon in Bali and Singapore as well as a down payment on a house to raise a family in.

Would they change anything if they had had more money? Says Taylor:

‘If we had won the National Lottery the only change we would have made is a free bar for our friends.’

Fair enough. I have to say, I love that gown.

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Brides, DIY, Dresses, Real Weddings, Wedding Dresses | 2 Comments »

The Wedding Ring That Fell to Earth

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012


(Image via Imagur where you can see the entire process of how this ring was made)

No, this is not the One Ring to Rule Them All. It’s the wedding ring of Reddit user laporkenstein. What’s so special about it? How about the fact that he made it himself from a meteorite.

The meteorite cost him about $200 online, and then he got started forging. No, there is no matching ring. The lady had already fallen in love with something else, and neither insisted their rings had to be an exact match.

According to laporkenstein, he and his wife are now happily married for three years with a small daughter.

May this ring – and the marriage it represents – never be unmade.

But this does raise a question I’m curious about: how do you all feel about mismatched wedding rings? Love? Hate? Don’t care? Tell me what you think.

For my part, I think rings are a truly individual choice. I’m very much down with either choice, so long as both parties are happy with it.

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Grooms, Rings, Wedding Rings | 7 Comments »

Get Her to the Registry Office On Time

Monday, April 9th, 2012


When most women dream of their wedding day transportation, they think of limos, party busses, horse-drawn carriages, classic convertibles, or even helicopters. Jenny Klochko, however, hails originally from the Ukraine where it’s something of a tradition for brides to walk to the church so that everyone can see her and enjoy the festivities vicariously.

And so it was that she chose to take a city bus part of the way to her wedding at the Sutton Register Office in London. She and her bridesmaids walked the rest of the way.

The one downside to her choice? Says the bride:

‘I think they thought it must be a practical joke. No one even offered me their seat.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2125534/Bride-Jenny-Klochko-takes-BUS-to-church-Sutton-south-London.html#ixzz1rSuVpman

After the wedding the entire wedding party climbed aboard a party bus chartered for the occasion to take them to the reception in Wimbledon.

I don’t know about any of you, but I rather like the simplicity, practicality, and charm of a bride sharing the joy on public transportation… not that there’s anything at all wrong with a carriage or a limo. But life is a little more whimsical when at any moment a bride and her attendants might join you on a bus ride. I’m in favor of more whimsey in the world.

All the same, I think the groom was right in advising Jenny to give herself two hours’ leeway in case of snafus. You just never know with public transportation in some areas.

Posted in Alternative Ideas, Real Weddings, Unusual Weddings, Weddings | 2 Comments »

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