Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Tips for planning your wedding & Prepare wedding gift lists

Colours and flowers you want in your bouquet
Planning a wedding is exiciting but at the same very strenuous. It requires a lot of patience and management to plan a wedding. The bride, the groom and their parents are all engaged in planning the most special occasion to make it a memorable one in the years to come. Everything needs to be planned and arranged in an orderly and proper manner from setting the budget for invitations to the reception party.

Start your planning well in advance, ask friends and family for help as much as possible and chart out the details months in advance of the wedding. Always prepare a check list to avoid any confusion later.

Planning the wedding is definitely not an easy task and can be quite stressful. However stay organized and you will have a wonderful time planning your wedding. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Set a budget: To begin with set your budget properly. You should know how much you want to spend on the different wedding details and make sure you dont exceed the amount you have set for yourself. In some cases, the parents of either the bride or groom are willing to pay for specific things.

Select a theme: The theme should be selected keeping in mind the occasion. It doesn’t have to be something specific but can be anything that gives you a wonderful feeling throughout your wedding celebration. Make sure the theme is easy to plan and decorate. Everything should be consistent with the theme.

The size of your wedding: Decide about your wedding size. You can talk this over with your fiance.

Choose the wedding venue: Even church venues can charge fees.

Talk with your church pastor to perform the ceremony: Go and talk to your pastor and if he doesn’t charge a fee to perform the ceremony, be courteous enough to pay a generous amount for their time.

Set the date: The factors that play a vital role in selecting your wedding date includes the availability of the destination or venue of your wedding, friends and family.

Send out invitations: Send out invitations well in advance of the wedding day may be a month in advance so that you can make arrangements accordingly. You can utilize your creative powers and make your own cards adding a personal touch to the wedding cards.

Choose your wedding gown: Start looking for your wedding dress months before the wedding. This way you will have a lot of time to make your choice and thereby take care of the fitting.You can also select the wedding rings at the same time. Doesn’t this sound exciting.

Find a photographer or videographer: Engage a professional photographer and videographer to capture the special moments of this special occasion.

Decide the kind of food and refreshments you will serve at the reception: The food is the most important part of the wedding reception and hence a little thought should be given while deciding about the food. Make sure that the feast is a delight so that it is remembered by the guest in the years to come.

Choose a cake: A tremendous change has been witnessed in the variety of wedding cakes available nowadays. The wedding cake designers have become more creative and produce beautifully decorated creamy delight for all ocasions. However before selecting a cake make sure you taste a sample of it.



Preparing a wedding gift list is the most practical way of letting your guest know what you want for your wedding gift.

The tradition of preparing wedding gift list did not start long time back. The wedding gift list was prepared by the wealthy and upper class families and some brides were known to have placed very expensive items on their wedding gift list which many guest could not afford.

However during the 90’s a trend was started whereby ‘voucher’ books were prepared at home with pictures cut out from magazines and shop catalogues. These books were posted or given out to the guests’ months before the wedding. The guest made their choices by taking out a page from the book that they desired to buy for the bride and groom. In this way gifts were purchased by the guest and presented to the bride and groom.

The wedding gift list proved to be worthwhile for the couple as it helped to reduce the doubling up of the wedding gifts.

Modern Home Decor
Nowadays home furnishing have undergone a tremendous change and today’s modern woman likes her home to be more co-ordinated. She likes to choose her own colours, patterns and style for her home decor. Therefore it becomes important to let your guest know beforehand what you would prefer for your wedding gift. This way you can avoid things you dont need.Wedding gift lists can include a variety of items and be flexible. It does not necessarily include only household items.

Popular things you can include in your wedding gift list:
Home or Garden Makeover
Couples planning for home renovation or garden makeover need huge amount of money for fulfilling their desire. The couples can ask for help from their loved ones either through cash or vouchers.

Charity gifts
If you are lucky enough to have everything you need for your wedding and dont need anything more then maybe you would like to return something in gratitude to your favorite charity in some way, you could do this by asking your guests to donate gifts of money to them.

No Gifts
If you dont want any gifts for your wedding you can always mention this while giving invitations to your guest.

Household Items
Household items are the most popular items that can be included in the wedding gift list. Wedding gift list is the most practical way of letting your guest know what you need for your new home.

Small and Large Gifts
Prepare the list keeping in mind the fact that there are guest who cannot afford expensive items but still have to buy what is on the list. Therefore small items like books and music vouchers, candles, towels, fruit bowels, door mats that are not expensive can be added to your list as these things are needed for everyday purpose.
If you need something that is costly you can also ask two people to pool in money to purchase it for you.

Send Gift List with Invitations
You can send the wedding gift list with the invitations or if you do not wish to do so you can send it separately later on.

Wedding Gift List Department Store
There are big department stores that provide you with a wedding gift list. You can some spend time and go through the list to make your choices. Thus these department stores help those guest that live in far off places and save them the worry of carrying the gift to you on the wedding day.

Some stores that offer this service are:
Debenhams
Marks & Spencer
Harrods
Argos
British Home Stores
John Lewis
Selfridges (only offer vouchers)

Shop for your wedding gift list until you are satisfied that it is going to offer you enough variety, has a number of stores nationwide and is a renowned supplier.

Some stores are willing to offer discounts for incentives and some will charge you a consultation fee. The important thing to remember is that you need to find a company that will look after your guests and at the same time provide you what you want.

When choosing a store be careful to guide your wedding guests to a place where there is a lot of scope and variety for their purchases.

Wedding Gift Lists Gives Couple More Security
The wedding gift list has provided couples immense freedom and security whereby they are no more worried about unwanted gifts being piled up.

The couples can also keep their gifts safely in the store until they return from their honeymoon.

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