Bridesmaid dresses

I ordered Alfred Angelo dresses online from House of Brides. I chose HOB based on their testimonials, however so far I have been unimpressed by their (lack of) customer service and would not recommend them to any of my friends or colleagues getting married. I chose Alfred Angelo dresses because of their reputation for outstanding quality.

Ordering from HOB saved me a ton of money compared to buying them at one of the Alfred Angelo distributors here in Calgary, but it turned out to be a huge fiasco and was not worth the money I saved!

The good news was that the dresses came on time even though I only ordered them 5 months before the wedding. Upon arrival of the dresses, I inspected them for any damages or flaws, as their terms and conditions state. However, I could not try them on since they are not my size. And my bridesmaids were unavailable to try them on at that time.

A month later, when my bridesmaids where available for a fitting, they tried them on and we went to a seamstress here in Calgary to get a quote for alterations since the dresses were slightly large on both the girls.

The seamstress took a look at both dresses and said they were sewn defectively and had they arrived in her store for retail she would have sent them back immediately. The size 2 dress has been sewn will too much fabric in the bust area and is all bunched up and the line
along the chest has been sewn crookedly.

The size 4 dress had one breast cup that has been sewn completely defectively. It has a huge out-jetting of fabric and came to a huge point in the middle. It looks terrible!

With my wedding 3 weeks away, I was in a bind. The seamstress said it will cost me $85 for each dress to fix the imperfections since she will have to pick apart all the seams and re-sew them. She also said it would take her 2 weeks to fix them.

I asked both House of Brides and Alfred Angelo (who passed the buck to HOB) what they could do to help me. I suggested they reimburse me for the cost of the alterations, providing I could send photographic evidence of how bad the dresses were sewn. Or, I suggested they send me new dresses ASAP? This would be a risk as the new ones might have to be altered as well.

This is the reply I received from HOB:
"Return authorizations can only be given within 5 days of receipt of the merchandise. This policy is very strict and there are no exceptions. You have had the dresses so long that Alfred Angelo could not correct any problems within the time frame you have given us.

The average cost for alterations is $80 per dress. $85 per dress is your case is standard in the industry."

Moral of my experience: If you chose to order from HOB, inspect and try on your dresses immediately so that you can return them within 5 days. Also, order them early so that you have time for them to be replaced if they are sewn badly. Another option, order from another company!!!

Top ten wedding favor ideas

Wedding favors are a great way to thank your guests for coming, providing a souvenir and also work great to decorate. I believe wedding favors should be customized with your name and wedding date and they should also be functional!

Here a 10 ideas I've brainstormed to help you:
1.) Sport's theme. Do you play sports together? This is a great way to get your guests hooked on something you enjoy. Give them personalized golf balls, a hockey puck, baseballs, poker cards.

2.) Candy, candy, candy. Fill organza party favor bags with your favorite    treat. Let your guests know how sweet you really are. This allows you to personalize either the bags, the candy or both!

3.) Personalized Mint Tins. Not only will your guests have fresh breath, but they'll also have a nice souvenir that easily fits into any pocket or purse!

4.) Candles are a useful and romantic gift that everyone can use.

5.) Soap is a gift that will never go bad and will look nice on display if your guests choose not to use it right away.

6.) Destination wedding? How about a beach-themed favor?
flip-flop luggage tags, embroidered canvas beach tote, or custom sea shells.

7.) You'd be hard pressed to find a guest that doesn't appreciate coffee or tea! Brew your love with personalized tea or coffee packages.

8.) What guest doesn't love chocolate? Give them sweet chocolate wedding cards.

9.) Photo Coasters.

10.) Nicely decorated donation envelopes. Make everyone feel good about themselves by contributing to a charity of your choice.

Bridal Fairs

Most bridal fairs happen in January or February to allow enough time to plan for a summer wedding. As such, we have missed most fairs across Canada for this year. However, there is a bridal fair coming up in March!

Details:
Bridal Trends
March 29-30, 2008
Vancouver Convention Centre
999 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC
Saturday & Sunday: 10am-6pm

Wedding Registries

Choosing a registry can be a difficult task as nowadays there so many options. The Bay, Canadian Tire, Walmart, Linen 'n Things,Stacks and stacks...just to name a few.

Many vendors will go to bridal fairs to explain their registry options. I will shed some light on my experience. Note: I have no affiliation with HBC, these are comments based on my experience.

My husband and I registered at the Bay. It is the most popular place to register, and now I understand why. Not only can your fiancé have fun with the scanning gun and add a whole bunch of fun things, but it is another great opportunity to spend time together. Also, you feel like you're on a shopping spree! The variety of merchandise is fantastic.

Be careful not to get carried away however. Stay focused and have a plan before going in. Don't feel pressured to add everything the first time as the number of trips in to scan are limitless.

You can add all sorts of things. Furniture, appliances (sometimes when you add a bed or big ticket item you will receive gift cards), clothing, household items, food. The only things that generally can't be added are seasonal or discontinued items.

The best reason to choose The Bay is for the discounts you receive after your wedding. Anything remaining on your registry can be purchased at a discounted price (sometimes up to 50% off and a minimum of 10% off) for an entire year after your wedding date!!! Also, you can add additional items onto your registry in that time. Go shopping, add it to your registry and buy it that day and save!!

If you can swing it, suggest people buy you HBC gift cards for your wedding. That way everything you buy is on sale, whereas your guests have to pay full price.

TWO MORE TIPS:

1.) Save all your receipts from the Bay in case you want to return anything. If not, they will assume the gift was bought on sale and from an HBC member so they will set the value of the return way less than the actual price payed.

2.) Sign up for the HBC credit card for any large purchases. This gives you 10% off your purchase whenever you buy something off of your registry. In addition, the day you sign up you are entitled to 10% giving you a total of 20% off your first day. You only have to put 1/2 of you purchase on your credit card and the other half can be payed with by cash or gift cards.

Hope your experience goes as well as mine did!

Financial Wedding Advice

I Now Pronounce You Paid In Full: Who Pays for What During the Wedding Celebrations

There’s no two ways about it: weddings are expensive. Paying for every detail is enough to drain any family’s financial coffers and – even worse – leave them wrestling with debt. Especially for new couples paying their own way during the wedding, the expenses quickly add up.
The following is a traditional guide to dividing expenses equally and fairly among the four major participants in planning the four main parts of the wedding celebration: rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception, and honeymoon. These are guidelines more than rules, and are intended to show tradition more than carved-in-stone etiquette.

The Bride’s Family

There’s a popular misconception among the unmarried of the world that the bride’s family foots the entire bill. That’s not entirely true, though unfortunately it may feel that way for the father of the bride! Traditionally, the bride’s family finances the reception dinner with all its facets: the food, drink, venue, service staff (including tips), flower arrangements, wedding favors, and any other miscellany. The bride’s family also pays for many of the necessities leading up to the ceremony: these usually include the bridal gown, the wedding invitations and save-the-date reminders, as well as the engagement and wedding photographs.
Finally (!) the wedding ceremony costs, the photographer and videographer fees, the cost of the ring bearer and flower girl accessories, the transportation costs and bridesmaids bouquets are all picked up by the bride’s family. Honestly… if you’re the parent of a young girl, start saving right now.

The Bride

Compared to her family, the bride gets off relatively easy. Brides traditionally pay for the groom’s wedding band, gifts for her

bridesmaids, the bridesmaids’ luncheon, her blood test fees, and the wedding day lingerie. In the strictest traditional sense, the bride should also pay for her out-of-town bridesmaids accommodations.

The Groom

Okay, guys. Time to pony up. Following the engagement ring (that two-month’s salary guideline is passé, by the way) you’ve still got a few things left to buy. You’ll pay for the honeymoon, the marriage license, and gifts for your groomsmen. The gentleman groom, however, also pays for the bridal bouquet and corsages for your mother and your new mother-in-law.

You’ll also pick up the boutonnieres, ties, and accessories for the groomsmen, and finally the bride’s wedding ring. Gifts for the ushers and for your parents go the extra distance to showing your class. You should also pay the honorarium for the judge, justice of the peace, or clergyman who officiates the ceremony, too.

The Groom’s Family

Besides their own attire, the groom’s family is responsible for the rehearsal dinner and all its details.

The Maid of Honor

Bachelorette parties and wedding showers are the responsibility of the maid of honor. This includes all the details, top to bottom.

The Best Man

The best man is master of ceremonies and godfather of the bachelor party, from the planning to the execution to pouring all the guests into cabs at the end of the night. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

The Groomsmen and Bridesmaids

Most of the attire – for example, the tuxedo rental and costs of the gown – are the responsibility of the individual wedding party member. They also give a gift to the newlyweds. Groomsmen arriving from out-of-town are also expected to pay for their accommodations.

My Wedding Favors has a complete selection of elegant yet inexpensive wedding favors to fit any taste and style. We also carry a complete selection of groomsmen and bridesmaids gifts. Visit us online at www.myweddingfavors.com to browse our complete catalog.

Wedding Invitations

There are many details to include on a wedding invitation. There is a balance between finding the perfect wording and providing information to your guests. I offer the following tips:

1.) Check with your parents to find out if they have any opinions on wording. Conversely, you may draft something and show it to them and ask their advice. You may want a very formal approach where the parents names are mentioned followed by the full names (middle names optional) of the bride and groom. For example:

Mr. and Mrs. Bride's parents
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Bride
and Mr.Groom son of
Mr. and Mrs. Groom's parents
Date
Time
Address Line 1
Address Line 2
Address Line 3

2.) The bride should be listed first, using first and middle names only. Then the groom should be listed, using both title and middle name. Less formal names would appear:

Bride
and
Mr. Groom
Together with our parents, invite you to join in a celebration of our love.

3.) It is traditional for the date and time to be written out in completion:

Saturday, the eighth of August
two thousand and seven
at half after ten o'clock in the morning

Or less formally it can appear as :
Saturday, August 8, 2007
at 10:30 a.m.

4.) If there is going to be a reception to follow the ceremony, the details can either be included on the wedding invitation or on a separate reply card.

5.) Don't forget out of courtesy, you should mail your wedding invitations no later than 6-8 weeks before the wedding. If you are nervous about people making plans on your wedding date before receiving their invitations, I recommend calling, emailing or sending "save the date" cards.

6.) Be sure to include a date by which your guests must RSVP and information how to RSVP. Set the RSVP date for at least 3 weeks before the wedding. This allows enough time to give a head count to the caterers, arrange for beverages, make place cards, order Wedding Favors, etc.

7.) For more fantastic suggestions on invitation wording visit www.versethis.com

Is marriage really forever?

Imagine a scientific breakthrough that allowed you to live FOREVER! Would you still say "I do"?

If someone gave you the chance to live frozen at age 20 for eternity, would you say "I do" to that? A fellow blogger, Scott Wainner, has a challenge right now offering $20 for blogging about Longevity Research. Following a recently attended an Emerging Technology Conference, he brainstormed the top 6 reasons why people are opposed to the idea, but he also gives tons of reasons supporting it.

After reading his very informative article (highly recommended), it made me think long and hard about the concept. Your cells would never age, you would never suffer from age related diseases and every birthday would be your 20th! Also, your husband or wife would always look just the same as the day you first laid eyes on him/her.

As you prepare to walk down the isle and speak your vows, be sure that you have found your life-long partner because that technology might just be around the corner!

Choosing your wedding guestlist

Deciding who to invite to your wedding can be very challenging. You'll want to have all of your friends and family present, but some things can limit inviting everyone you know. Budget tends to be the biggest limiting factor. Once you calculate dinner and drinks and favors for everyone, you're looking at upwards of $100 a head. By limiting the number of people, you can save a ton of money, but sometimes at the expense of people's feelings.

Another big challenge is space. Will your ceremony and reception venues hold enough people?

Lastly, you may just have family or friends who don't always gel. For example, did two people just break up and want to come, but with their new dates? Now you've gone from 2 happy people to 4 people who would rather not be in the same room. Not to mention divorced families and battling inlaws!!!

Here are some tips to help you design a guestlist:

- Start by writing down EVERYONE you'd like to invite. Include even those that are acquaintances and low probability, just to get names down on paper and brainstorm so you don't forget anyone.

-Now, start classifying each name with a category. I recommend the following scheme:

1) Definitely going to invite

Tally up your definites. At this point you have to compare to your budget and space.
You may have to decrease this number further by regrouping everyone by priority.

2) Maybe

For those guests in the "maybe" category, I offer a few suggestions:

a) Determine if the both the bride and groom feel the same way?

b.) Will feelings be hurt by not inviting someone?

c.) If you play on a sports team or club, it can be difficult to draw the line, but impossible to invite the entire team or club. I had this dilemma and invited only those who had either been to my house (or I had been to theirs) or those who I hung out with regularly outside of the club.

d.) Can you afford to invite everyone?

3) Unlikely

Maybe send out a second wave of invitations if a bunch of people say no.

** Please note: Statistics show that approximately 20-25% of wedding guests will not attend the wedding, and as you increase the distance, the rate of attendance also decreases.

No matter who you invite in the end, what matters is the happiness of the bride and groom. You should feel like you are surrounded by all of the important people in your life on your special day. Once you have it figured out, time to send out some invitations!

Don't know what information to write on your invitations? Stay tuned for my next blog!

Making your own Wedding Invitations

I decided to make my own wedding invitations. I've included a picture to show just how well they turned out!

Top 6 reasons why I would suggest making your own invitations:

1.) You can incorporate the exact wedding colors you have chosen in every aspect of the invitation. As you can see, my wedding colors were pink and yellow. You can add color by using different types of paper, ribbon, gems or flowers. Different textured paper and layering also can create a nice effect and allows multiple colors to be incorporated. Velum paper adds a very nice and delicate effect, for example. I bought all of my paper and rhinestones at Michael's (a popular art and crafts retailer).

2.)  Wedding planning can be chaotic and moments together, away from family and all the turmoil become important. Making invitations together is a great way to spend time and bond with your future husband or wife on a creative project.

3.) It is way cheaper than paying someone else to do the assembly. I priced three different alternatives: a.) for a company to make my invitations (most expensive), b.) buying a kit that I assemble myself (expensive), or c.) making my custom designed homemade invitations. The third option was definitely the most cost effective. Weddings can be extremely expensive it is important to save money whenever you get the chance.

4.) You can bring out your creative side. Try a bunch of practice invitations until you come up with a template that you like. Try gluing something here or tying a bow there. Once you find one you and your partner are happy with,  begin mass production.

5.) It adds that personal touch that everyone will love. Anyone can go out and buy invitations, but when you receive a handmade one, you appreciate so that much more knowing how much thought and time went into it. Every time I went over to a friend's place and saw it displayed on their fridge I was proud of my creation.

6.) You will have an end result that is very unique! You definitely won't risk ever sending an invitation that someone has seen before. If you get married around the same time as all your friends or family you don't want to risk the horrifying possibility of a duplicate.

The only thing to keep in mind is the amount of time this option will take. Otherwise, I say do it. You might even surprise yourself. I sure did!

Top five ideas for a bachelorette party

Now that all of the important aspects have been taken care of (dress, caterer, venues), it's time to start doing the fun planning: an event for you an all your close girl friends.

A bachelorette party is a great way to relieve some pre-wedding stress. The planning can be left up to the maid of honour and bridesmaids to add an element of surprise, or can be planned by the bride to ensure it has all the components she desires.

Here are 5 ideas for a super entertaining stagette:

1.) A night out on the town. Head to your favorite night club for a night of dancing. A theme with costumes is fully encouraged. BuyCostumes.com offers the largest selection of costumes and party supplies online. Dress up as the bride's favorite sport's team or celebrity. Be sure to dress the bride-to-be in something flashy so she is sure to stand out and get the attention she deserves!

2.) Alternatively, stay in and have a house party. Games, movies, snacks. It will be sure to remind you of slumber parties back in the day.

3.) Vegas, baby! Party capital of the universe and non-stop entertaining guaranteed. It will be one of the more expensive options, but worth every penny! Go to shows Las Vegas Event Tickets, stay on the strip, head to a fancy nightclub or even do a bit of gambling. Luck should be on the bride-to-be's side!

4.) Head out of town for the weekend on a nature retreat. Grab some tents, sleeping bags and some marshmallows. It surely help to stress relief in the calming outback away from the decisions for a while.

5.) Hold a lady's day at your house. Invite a make-up artist or a pedicurist/manicurist for all the women to get pampered. You can plan this closer to the wedding so everyone has nice fingers or toes for the wedding day.

Also, don't forget to use the stagette planning as an excuse to get all the ladies together for a brainstorming session If you need to improve on my suggestions, Bachelorette.com helps you plan a great bachelorette party.