The Guide to Wedding Flowers by Season

Planning your wedding day is like baking a great chocolate cake. You want to use a tried-and-true recipe, the best ingredients for the most flavor, and all the right tools for a glorious, rich dessert that looks and tastes like a million bucks-but without breaking the bank.

One of the most important decisions you will make about your wedding day is what flowers you will use for your wedding bouquet, bridesmaids bouquets, wedding centerpieces, boutonnieres, flower girl flowers and pew flowers. Nothing sets the mood for a wedding like flowers.

As the second most expensive item you'll choose (next to the wedding gown), it's important to choose wisely so that you get the most for your money and the atmosphere you desire. Just as in preparing a delicious meal, buying seasonal and local ingredients gives you the best results, both in expense and flavor. The same is true for flowers. Most flowers are distinctive to the seasons, so if you can take advantage of their ready availability, you will not only save money, but also have the best seasonal "ingredients" for your wedding day.

Keep in mind that it's not necessary to use all the same flowers for all your wedding needs. Using a variety of flowers, colors and designs is the trend for today's weddings. According to leading floral expert, Rebecca Cole, "Wedding flowers follow fashion trends, and today, individuality, rather than convention is in style."

While most flowers bloom in a particular season, there are several that bloom year-round. Roses, anthuriums, orchids, tropical flowers, lilies and gerbera daisies are available anytime of the year. Read the rest of Seasonal Wedding Flower Guide »

2009 Entertaining Calendar

Just as clothes, cars, and music change, so does the art of entertaining guests. Over the years, styles and fashions of many different types of parties may have changed, but the desire to host a fashionable and memorable event certainly has not. Guests will look forward to your seeing old and new friends in a comfortable yet exciting atmosphere.

Hosting monthly parties yourself or rotating hosting responsibilities through a group of friends is a great way to get together and have a great time. For 2009, the entertainers guide to hosting great parties is all about creativity. Below we have gathered some ideas to assist you in making a year of entertaining not only memorable for guests, but also effortless for the host.

New Years Day

New Years Day party ideas are usually quite standard, but because there is no real theme to the New Year you can let your creativity and your imagination really flow. Decade theme parties are always a blast. This New Years Day party, host a 70's or 80's themed party fully embracing the theme through music and clothing. Guests dressed up in themed clothing help set the mood and provide much of the decoration for the event. Also, disc jockeys have a tremendous library of music to keep your decade-dressed guests dancing all night long.

Valentines Day

Romance is in the air for the month of February. Entertaining for Valentines Day calls for a romantic dinner party for couples to come and enjoy good company and great food. Dinner parties are low key social get-togethers that allow all guests to really socialize over a gourmet meal and maybe enjoy some subtle entertainment such as a professional pianist resounding soothing romantic music. To assist the host in planning for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner, a professional chef may be of service in presenting a fabulous meal to guests, which allows the host to entertain guests as they arrive.

St. Patrick's Day

Green leprechauns, though always appropriate, are a little bit cliché for St. Patrick's Day parties this year. 2009 calls for creative floral arrangements and imaginative food creations. With the help of a professional florist and caterer, a St. Patrick's Day party will be as easy as 1, 2, and 3.

First, arrange for a florist to create "all green" floral arrangements for the tables of the party venue. Whether a dinner party or cocktail party, these great St. Patrick’s Day arrangements will be the center of attention. Second, great food is the key to a great party. A professional caterer or chef can assist the party host in creating unique "green" dishes from appetizers to desserts. Each course will bring a new exciting layer to the St. Patrick's Day party.

Easter

Easter is the time of year when spring is in the air and new life is brought about by the new season. Easter parties such as teas or luncheons are very appropriate for the spiritual holiday. Delicious desserts paired with tasty teas suit the season as well as the theme of the party. Easter decorations are most exemplified by fresh flowers. Creative, edgy designs using pastel colors can bring a modern twist to an otherwise traditional arrangement. Simple table arrangements with modern tableware will add to the contemporary Easter theme of the party.

Cinco de Mayo

Nothing says "summer" like a sizzling Cinco de Mayo party. The yearly Cinco de Mayo party seems to be the unofficial release of summer. Fresh grilled pineapple shrimp and chicken paired with an assortment of mixed drinks will be sure to keep your guests entertained all night long. Spice things up at your Cinco de Mayo party with a professional mariachi band to entertain guests with festive music. With great grilled food and sensational live music, your Cinco de Mayo party will surely be a hit.

Independence Day

July 4th is the ultimate time for a backyard barbeque for family and friends. Get creative this year for Independence Day by hosting a barbeque contest. Invite guests over, grills in tote, to face off in the ultimate Independence Day cook off. Not only does the competition give purpose to the party, but also provides other guests with delicious food to munch on all day long.

Labor Day

Also a big grilling holiday, Labor Day parties signify the end of the summer season. Step up your classic outdoor party this year with a professional band to play live music as guests enjoy great food and good company. Create great memories for guests by hiring a professional photographer to take pictures of guests enjoying themselves. Combine the action shots with a fun photo album and you’ve got yourself a creative souvenir for all of your guests.

Halloween

Costume parties are always appropriate for this spooky holiday. However, 2009 brings a new spirit to the ghostly affair. This year, create a creepy haunted house atmosphere for your Halloween party with dim lighting, fake spider webs, antique décor, and several candles of all shapes and sizes. Candles filling a room with just enough light create such a spooky ambiance and a great setting for a Halloween party. Don’t have enough candles to create the look? Several party or wedding vendors carry candles to buy or even rent for one time use.

Thanksgiving

Tradition is tradition for the Thanksgiving holiday. Nothing beats a Thanksgiving celebration like some good food and great company. Invite friends and family over to celebrate the fall season over a fabulous meal. To simplify the hosting duties, hire a caterer or a professional chef to do all the work. Utilizing professionals while hosting a party can relieve stress and allow the host to visit with guests instead of messing with hosting duties.

Christmas

Holiday parties can be as serious or as carefree as the host desires. Sit-down Christmas meals are always appropriate for a traditional get-together. However, with so many families having traditional sit-down dinners, friendly gatherings usually try to embrace a more relaxed side of Christmas. This year try hosting an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, where all guests are required to wear a Christmas sweater that even their tacky great aunt would be ashamed to wear. Your guests will be laughing all night long.

As the years pass, so do the trends of entertaining. Just remember that classy and creative is always in style when it comes to entertaining guests. As a host, let your personality shine through in the atmosphere of the party and don't forget to use the professionals every now and then to ease the workload!

Contributor: Jordon Robinson

Have Your Cake and Top Too!

Colors! Cake! Flowers! Music! So many decisions! Anyone who has witnessed or is planning a wedding can attest to the multitude of design decisions to be made when planning a ceremony and reception. It’s a list that goes on and on. The location sets the tone for the event; the flowers add whimsy; photos, pets, and music add personality. Today, the amount of the opportunities for conveying individuality is ever increasing as the wedding industry has begun to acknowledge and cater to the qualities of each couple rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all ceremony.

Almost every aspect of a wedding day is available for tweaking. This includes the flowers, vows, bridesmaids dress, and endless other details. The reception carries this trend with everything from centerpieces to entrées, and even napkins. However, few parts of this day can be preserved and taken home as a souvenir of the launch of a new life.

One item that has become a shining example of personalization-meets-tradition is the wedding cake and more specifically the wedding cake topper. It was once the epitome of mass-produced tackiness that was the demise of past wedding ceremonies, and it is now a traditional piece used to display the couple’s identity, whether it is goofy, geeky, or glamorous.

The official origin of wedding cake toppers is unknown, and there are as many stories as there are choices. However, most historians agree that cake toppers can be traced back to the 19th century when the tradition of the bride and groom in formal attire symbolize atop the cake began. The trend took hold in America in the 1940s and has become a staple in wedding cake design ever since.

Like many elements of today’s weddings, the demand for unique wedding cakes and wedding cake toppers has led to a tremendous amount of choices ranging in everything from the quirky and humorous to the elegant and traditional. Even once a couple decides on a direction for their cake topper, they’re still left with a dizzying array of choices to further enhance their wedding cake design.

A popular option for many cakes today is to top them with a monogram of the either the couple’s combined initials or the first letter of their last name. It is a sophisticated way to display individuality and the uniting of two people. Couples can choose the font, size, and material of the piece. Ideas monogram toppers include for etched glass, cut mirror, or metallic materials. Some choose to take it a step further and add rhinestones, flowers, or crystals to add extra glitz to their cake.

For a wedding on a beach, a tropical-themed cake topper would be a great way to tie-in the wedding cake with the nature of the ceremony. Ceramic figurines depicting a couple in their favorite beach attire is a light-hearted touch to a normally casual event. There are also sculptures of beach scenes and items like shells and palm trees in a variety of materials. Like most other toppers, the design of these can be incredibly detailed, showing facial expressions, sand on the beach, or patterns in clothing, or they can be monochromatic, lyrical pieces full of movement and grace.

Wedding cake toppers for an avid hobbyist are ideal for laid-back ceremonies or grooms’ cakes. Golfers, baseball fanatics, and car enthusiasts can all find a topper to suit their interests and are sure to make guests chuckle. Geeks can also find their niche by choosing geeky groom toppers such as sci-fi themed or techie options. The possibilities are endless when it comes to finding the perfect topper to match a matchless personality!

Other themed wedding cake toppers choices include those for the sportsman, fisherman, musician, and the farmer. The list never seems to end! A great idea for a musician is a microphone-shaped cake topper or a music note. And the fisherman is sure to get a kick out of a bride and groom donning waders and fishing poles! Brides who enjoy shopping can find a number of choices of shop-a-holic brides, and grooms who enjoy a friendly game of golf can find a golfing groom to complement his game.

Religious cake toppers are another choice for couples who are devoted in their beliefs and want a wedding cake that reflects their faith. For example, grooms wearing kippahs are available for Jewish ceremonies, and lovely items, such as crosses and doves, are offered for Christian weddings.

What’s more, members of the military can even find a cake topper to suit their needs. If the groom wears his dress blues in his wedding, he can find a cake topper to match. Usually, highly specialized cake toppers such these are sold alone. By opting for the interchangeable cake toppers, couples can find a perfectly suited arrangement the fit their personalities to a tee.

Every couple is unique and together they possess a dynamic unlike any other. Modern wedding planning seeks to display that special something that makes them work so wonderfully together. Each aspect of wedding can contribute to this goal, including the cake. Choosing a wedding cake topper is another step towards making a wedding one-of-a-kind.

Contributor: Ashley Slayton

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The Center of Attention In Party Decorations

Unique Centerpieces for all Occasions

Tired of the same boring, round centerpiece with dull, lackluster flowers used for every occasion? Bump up the creativity and excitement with a unique centerpiece by using bright, energetic colors and distinctive personal touches. Vast, striking, stargazer lilies accented with silver tinge embraced by a sleek glass vase is a quite modern centerpiece that is full of life and a perfect for any occasion. A beautiful, vibrant table centerpiece is the focal point of the room and can capture the attention of guests within moments of arrival. Themed centerpieces, regardless of the occasion, bring decoration and conversation to the party setting in a matter of minutes. With simple assembly in minimal time, these unique centerpieces will give you amazing table decorations without running down the clock.

Wedding Centerpieces

There are so many ways to create a beautiful wedding centerpiece. Utilizing vibrant colors and personalized touches in unique wedding centerpieces is a great way for the wedding hosts to make their festivities distinctive and memorable. Soft, lush, floral centerpieces are always appropriate for weddings and can incorporate any color scheme or flowers the wedding party desires. Spring, summer, winter, or fall, floral arrangements can be created using any kind of flowers the bride and groom choose.

Floral centerpieces can also incorporate candles into the arrangement, creating a romantic glow Read the rest of Unique Table Centerpieces »

Wedding Shower Etiquette: Keeping The Love

What could be better than being in love, surrounded by your closest friends and family, and receiving beautiful gifts from those who know you best? A wedding shower is a lovely event full of both tradition and creativity that is only rivaled by the wedding ceremony itself. Just like a wedding, a shower is an intimate celebration of the beginning of a life together. Good food, gifts, and loved ones–what’s not to like?!

Nevertheless, being the honoree at a wedding shower has its responsibilities. Wedding shower etiquette is something many brides-to-be find intimidating and sometimes a little outdated. However, by adhering to a few tried-and-true rules and suggestions you can ensure that everyone (including you) will have a wonderful time at this special event!

The first thing you need to consider is that, although someone else is planning the party, you as the bride need to have a say in a few key areas such as the guest lists. By keeping a master list for yourself no one will be invited to more than one shower and certainly only those on your wedding invitation list will be in attendance at your showers. Programs like Microsoft Excel are ideal for keeping track of your guests, their contact information, and what shower they attended. You can also add what gift they gave you to make writing thank-you cards a breeze!

When it comes to inviting people to your wedding shower they must first be invited to your wedding and Read the rest of Wedding Shower Etiquette »

Invite Excitement With Creative Party Invitations

Of all the responsibilities of throwing a party, the invitation is often the most overlooked—and the most important. The party invitation is the first thing guests will see. It gives them an idea of the theme, atmosphere, and basic information about the party. If you rigorously work to throw a party, you want the invitation to show it!

For every type of party, there are hundreds of invitation possibilities. While creativity at a party is somewhat optional, it is a must for the invitation. It’s the “calling card” for the event. Invitations represent the event in its entirety.

Add A Personal Touch To Party Invitations

Invitations for common events, such as weddings and birthday parties, are opportunities to display some uncommonness and personality. Elaborate invitations are always an option; however, the more personality injected into an invitation, the more effective it will be. For example, with birthday parties, try a snapshot of the guest of honor in his or her youth with information on the back or, for something more formal, place the photo inside of a more intricate invitation.

Find a humorous or endearing photograph from a scrap album, have copies made at any photography development counter, and add the time, date, and location on the back or on the rest of the invitation. Imagine getting a photo in the mail of a friend dressed like a cowboy as a four-year-old and how difficult it Read the rest of Party Invitation Ideas »

Wedding Favors: Past to Present

Wedding favors have been a wedding ceremony tradition for many years and are still an exceedingly common practice among modern day wedding ceremonies. Though the actual favors have come quite a long way, the etiquette of the wedding favor remains the same. Presenting guests with a small gift as they leave the wedding is a gesture of appreciation for attending the wedding festivities from the bride and groom.

The wedding favors themselves started out as simple and traditional gifts. However, these days unique wedding favors are desired by the bride and groom to add originality and personalization to the wedding festivities. Discover the journey of the wedding favor and the true meaning behind the sustained tradition.

The Wedding Favor Tradition

The tradition of distributing wedding favors as a gesture of gratitude is a very old one. Many believe that the first wedding favor was a bonbonniere which was common among European aristocrats. A bonbonniere is a Read the rest of The Wedding Favor Journey »

Gifts Your Wedding Party Will Love

Summer is undoubtedly wedding season across the U.S.A. Couples are happily “tying the knot.” To mark this occasion these couples often give gifts to loved ones that participate in their wedding. Often family and friends truly go the extra mile to make that wedding a truly memorable occasion – so it is important for a couple to show their wedding attendants gratitude in a special way.

Ideas For Bridesmaids Gifts

What would a bride be without her bridesmaids? Every bride counts on her bridesmaids from the moment she gets engaged to that very important walk down the aisle. Ideal bridesmaid gifts include Read the rest of Wedding Attendant Gifts »

CAPTURE ROMANTIC FANTASIES WITH UNIQUE WEDDING IDEAS

You’ve dreamed of this day ever since you were a little girl—your wedding day. You’ve imagined wearing a magnificent gown and being the glowing bride carrying a beautiful flower bouquet. You’ve dreamed of the music, the lighting, the bridesmaids dresses, and of course, walking down the aisle toward the groom—the man of your dreams. Your wedding day is a day of dreams coming true and celebrating your love for each other. It should be a dream day wedding that you remember forever. Why not make it truly memorable by going above and beyond with one of these unique wedding ideas inspired by nature? Read the rest of Unique Wedding Ideas »

Wild or Classy – Bachelorettes Just Want To Have Fun

The bachelorette party is either the most dreaded or the most anticipated of events leading up to the wedding ceremony. Either way, it’s almost always the most memorable. Usually overlooked by the bride, planning for the bachelorette party is often left to the bridesmaids.

The first thought bridesmaids often have is the wild night out. This normally involves a male-shaped something-or-other and an inebriated limousine ride looking for ways to cause trouble and generally embarrass the bride-to-be … in a good-natured way, of course. This is the stereotypical bachelorette party portrayed in the movies, and it’s usually a threat or reality for brides-to-be. Remember: hide the photos.

Girls Nite-In Bachelorette Party Ideas

For a more respectable and relaxing evening, bachelorette parties can either Read the rest of Bachelorette Party Ideas »