Your Wedding Wine Options

Arguably, the food and wine tasting for your wedding menu is one of the most fun parts of planning. Of course, not all couples will decide to have wine at their event, but if you do, make sure to ask your caterer about his or her venue’s full wine list.

There are certain wines that are traditionally served at weddings, but if you want to break away from tradition, just a little bit, keep these types of wines in mind:

Red

• Syrah or Shiraz. A very popular, darker grape, with a powerful, full-bodied flavor.
• Malbec. Grown around the world, the Malbec grape is known for having a slightly plum flavor and blended with other red Bordeaux wines.

White

• Sauvignon blanc. This green-skinned grape is found in many dessert wines and has a range of tastes from mildly bitter to almost tropical.
• Moscato. Moscato is really a derivative of the word muscat - a family of grapes. Typically sweet in taste, this wine can range from a very light color to a very dark color.

Photo by sxc.hu, andrewatla

How to Never Spend Valentine's Day Alone

Invariably on February 14, 2010 some people will smile and some people will cringe. There are those individuals, couples, friends, even co-workers, however, who have found that the day is not solely meant to be spent in pairs.

Valentine's Day, makes a great excuse to host a memorable event. The theme is implied and instead of exchanging loving glances and holding hands with one person, maybe you decide to play love songs or "anti-love songs" with your closest friends. You could also set certain fun rules that no couples are invited to your party or that couples have to treat their significant others like people they are just meeting for the first time. Yes, it sounds a bit like role playing, but I don't think you'll receive any complaints.

So you have the theme and the decorations should be easy. Heart decorations, rose-scented candles, and colors of red, pink, white, all spell Valentine's Day. If you want to add a bit of mystery to your event, try adding some dark purples or even black tones to your Valentine's Day floral decor. As gift favors, you can give guests little boxes of chocolates or flowers that are personalized with a ribbon bearing your name or better yet - from "a secret admirer."

What kinds of ideas do you have for your Valentine's Day party?

A Few Tips for Planning Your Wedding

While you’re planning your wedding it may seem that everything around you somehow relates to the upcoming special day. Whether it be a commercial or some conversation that you overhear at Starbucks, you start to imagine how the wedding day will go, infused by images of things that you particularly feel strongly about like décor, the wedding dress, the cake, the venue location and more.

If you are trying to develop your vision of the big day, but don’t know where to begin, try these tips to help you on your way!

1. Start with your favorites spots. You and your fiancé should revisit some shared favorite places, like a restaurant, park, or even a movie theater. Just pick places where you love to go and write down or talk about why you love that place so much. Not only will this help you think about what kind of venue you want to have, but the tone and style that you want to achieve.

2. Consult with an expert. You probably want to bounce your ideas off of an impartial party or need help to extract and combine your particular tastes. You may discover that when you talk with a wedding consultant that the impossible may be possible with a bit of creativity.

3. Look through old and new photographs. If your family is involved in planning your guest list, then you could suggest sitting down with photographs to determine the guest list. You may not have pictures of everyone that you want to invite, but it’s a good start to know who matters most to your family. Looking through photos is a good refresher for everyone about your guests' names, especially if the list is long!

Photo by bea29sm, sxc.hu

The key question isn't, 'What fosters creativity?' But it is, 'Why isn't everyone creative?'"

The wedding can be built around tradition and heritage, your personal style and taste, couples' interests and hobbies. It is a priority for everyone to ensure the success of this memorable moment.

So, where do you begin? How do you envision and create an environment for your guests from scratch, the one that they will remember long afterwards?

Over a decade, I have been privileged to help people to plan and design their weddings. Although every event or wedding is unique, similar components are always present. Most likely, a wedding will have a ceremony and reception, flowers for the bridal party and attendants. The décor for every segment of the wedding may be elaborate, simple or traditional and can be summarized with one common word - elegant. Therefore, we need to determinate what style suits you best and start designing an event that is truly yours.

Be original. Your guests will certainly be charmed and excited by what you create because it is unlikely for you to be ordinary. A wedding is all about details every step of the way. Today I would like to concentrate on the reception area. In most cases, it would be a place where your guest will spend the majority of time. The table settings will be a focal point that commands the attention of everyone. Depending what kind of space you have to work with, you have to consider a few aspects while designing the centerpieces for dinner tables; scale, texture, color and even sense.

Lighting could be the most important design element, it evokes a different atmosphere.

If a wedding is a formal seated dinner in a ball room with a twenty four foot ceiling you probably will want to fill the empty space by building six/seven foot arrangements.

Most likely, you would want to add more texture by dressing the table with an elegant overlay and napkins. In the areas where the ceiling will not allow you to use the high arrangements, you may want to create an interesting composition of different size lower glass containers and flowers. Whatever the case might be, we need to allocate the budget for our table setting and frankly it could be very costly, especial in our trouble economy.

Don't worry. There are ways to create elaborate events without spending a fortune. Let's look at some options.

Visualize the overall look that we are trying to achieve. If we were to build a high centerpiece, wouldn't you say that using small flowers might not be feasible? On the other hand, flowers like hydrangea, gerberas, and lilies would cover a lot. A lot of times my clients don't want to see any greenery. Ok, not a problem. Use less expensive flowers like carnations as a base. It just happens to be that carnations are very beautiful, sturdy and colorful flowers, but if you do not particularly like them, not to worry, you will not see them. Use them as filler and a base.

If your theme is more towards the natural look, you can use branches with flowers attached. I love to work with curly willow. When using a proper container you can build a centerpiece that would be over six feet high and still cost under a hundred dollars. Another option is to use natural trees. For example, a six feet tall Manzanita tree gives you a spectacular, chic and unique look. Again, although those trees are very pricey you may easily find a company who rents them.

Recently we built a six-foot crystal chandelier centerpiece with silk orchids attached. Our client saved a ton of money and still had a million dollar look on her wedding day. There are event design companies who specialize in building custom designs. You can save money and yet craft a unique wedding.

I remember, about seven years ago we created our first life-like silk centerpiece. Over sixty high quality flowers in true natural colors were used in each arrangement. It was a "million dollar" look then and it still is. Today you will find a few companies that rent silk centerpieces for your event for a fracture of cost.

Keep in mind dimensions if you need to create low table arrangements. Pending on your theme, use different size glass containers. There are so many options. The containers can be filled with different color gel and LED lights, sea glass, marbles, green leaves, fruits and more. You can use the same flowers in all of the containers or fill each container with a different flower in a different color. The possibilities are endless.

My advice to you is, find an event/wedding design company near you, make an appointment and see what they have to offer. Tell them your budget and see what they can do for you. You will be surprised how easy it could be.

Michael Heifez

How to Choose Your Wedding Professionals

Eight most important principles to consider when choosing your wedding professionals:

Reliability, Experience, Reputation, Honesty, Ethic, Personality, Professionalism, Cost

A wedding professional with all of those values is the one you want. The real challenge is to find one. Newly engaged couples have to select qualified wedding experts from unqualified ones.

Because in today's advanced internet era it takes just a few hours to create a spectacular website, then a few minutes to insert raving reviews by imaginary wedding couples, less than a hundred dollar payment to the top wedding sites for advertising and off you go. Online you would never know the difference! You hear a lot of horrifying stories how the florist did not show up to the wedding or photo albums did not come in, or wedding video got lost and it goes on and on. Unfortunately it is true. In today's economy, it is obvious that price determines the sale. You will find people who will promise you an exceptional deal for a very low cost. Just be aware that grapes are not always sweet and even the best deals sometimes fail. We all know that the value of quality, honesty and reliability cannot be priced. Indeed we are not suggesting clients to overpay just because some vendors have been on the market for 20 years.

Always check the credentials or at least ask for valid references. Any vendor should not be offended, he or she should be happy to provide you with a list, because word of mouth is the best advertising. This does not apply to situations, where your sister already used the services of the same professional, it applies to professionals you do not know.

I would suggest meeting the vendor before reserving his/her services. If you have three similar offers from wedding professionals in pricing, quality and services - who will you hire? You need to establish a bond and understanding with that person. Personal qualities are important and you have to assure that you feel comfortable. There are some exceptions; for instance being an out of state bride makes it difficult to meet with the vendors in advance. In that case, I would either call up the banquet hall or ask for references.

Also, don't forget to ask for a contract, read it carefully and then mutually sign it. Make sure that the person you are meeting with is actually the one performing the services on your wedding day, and if not, ask to meet with the one who is. The last thing you want is to spend all that time and money to find out on your wedding day that the job is subcontracted to a totally different person or a company.

If quality is important to you, don't only consider the price, find out about how reliable and experienced the vendor is. You have to keep in mind that most of the advertisements in different wedding magazines and sites are "paid advertisements" and do not necessarily always mean high quality service. As I said before the best advertising is word of mouth. If your friend is raving to you about a wedding designer who decorated her/his wedding, definitely check that professional out.

by Kristina Valdmaa