Category: Wedding Ideas

The bride put a different spin on the father daughter dance: instead of having everyone simply focus on her and her dad, about 30 seconds into the song, they invited all fathers and daughters to join them on the dance floor. The guests were delighted to share in this moment.

I have to confess I am personally not a huge fan of cake, so I love that more brides are moving away from serving a traditional wedding cake and offering more creative wedding desserts. I’ve attended a few “cakeless” weddings in the past year, and I really enjoyed how personal and unique these dessert presentations can be.

Everyone likes to talk about how stressful wedding planning is, but there’s plenty to enjoy. For example, looking for a wedding location gives you the excuse to try out different locales with a pre-wedding date—just the two of you. I was reminded of this last week as my husband and I shared some cozy bench time outside the Ferry Building. (Cheap date: we were craving the fig paste, arugula & CowGirl Creamery cheese sandwiches from Acme Bread, plus steaming cups from Peet’s.)

At a holiday networking event in San Francisco last night, I got the chance to to catch up one of our Certified By The Guide floral designers, Laurel Winzler of Laurel Designs. She was recently cited in San Francisco Magazine’s December article, “101 Shortcuts to Elegant, No-Stress Entertaining”, on stands now. Since I had her attention (and I didn’t have a copy of the magazine with me!), I had to ask: What IS hot in the entertaining world this holiday season?

I recently blogged about using a Wish Tree in lieu of the traditional guest book and got such great response from brides that I wanted to tell you what you would need to make your own. By purchasing the materials to make your own Wish Tree, you’ll be able to use it again for other types of parties such as baby showers, birthdays, graduations, etc. Think of it as the Wish Tree that keeps on giving.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I set off amid a picturesque drizzle from my home in beautiful Ojai to beautiful Santa Barbara. The occasion? A Day Celebrating Weddings, a boutique bridal fair put on by our stylish friends at Your Wedding Day Magazine. What better place to track down the latest event trends and cool wedding ideas?

A great way to collect your ideas while planning your wedding is to create an inspiration board. As you are making decisions it really helps to have a visual reminder of all your thoughts right in front of you. It can be a bulletin board, a piece of foam core, or you can create it on the computer in Photoshop or a layout program.

With just 20 days to plan their wedding—from first phone call to the ceremony—my super-capable friend Debbie, along with her betrothed, Richard, pulled off their own wedding at their Alamo home last week.