Holiday Weddings

A holiday wedding sounds like a great idea. The long weekend will make it easy for your guests to attend, and some holidays, such as Christmas, add a unique beauty to that special day. A Christmas wedding is also easy to find décor for! However, there are some drawbacks to holiday weddings that should be considered:

Price: You may find vendor prices go up when a holiday date is chosen. If you expect a vendor to give up his holiday expect to pay dearly for it.

Scheduling: This is an especially common problem for Christmas weddings. Venues are already booked up at that time of year for Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve bashes. It may be quite difficult to find an available venue and it most certainly won’t be your first or second choice.

Weather: Again, this is especially a problem for Christmas weddings, but can be a factor at other times of the year too-for example you may not want to schedule a Labor Day wedding in a coastal location prone to hurricanes! (Of course any wedding planned in an outdoor location should have a bad weather plan-just in case!)

Traffic: A 4th of July wedding on the beach may sound like a lot of fun, but consider that your guests and vendors will be fighting thousands of holiday beachgoers to get there!

Finally, consider your guests. At first glance having your wedding on a long weekend may seem perfect-it allows your out of town guests to enjoy your day without having to rush back in order not to miss work. However, think about the flipside. They may not want to give up a precious 3 day weekend to travel back and forth-for some it may be one of the few days off they get all year! It’s a good idea to get a feel for how your guests would feel about a three day wedding weekend before setting your date in stone. If they are all for it, go ahead and have fun!

Holiday weddings can be fun and memorable-they just take a little extra thought and planning first!

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Renaissance festivals are becoming more popular with people these days. Places that did not have them before are getting one near them and people attend them on a regular basis. Weddings at such venues are becoming increasingly popular as well. Having a Renaissance wedding at a festival is a great way to get your wedding ceremony and reception site in one location.

A wedding at a Renaissance festival can help cut down on costs and give your guests something to do before or after your wedding. This is because many festivals have two time slots available during their open days for weddings. This gives more brides a chance to get married in an unusual atmosphere and the Renaissance festival makes more money. Any festival that offers wedding packages will have at least two available. Some have more packages than that. A few have several to chose from, starting at a very basic package all the way to a full scale princess style wedding.

Renaissance wedding packages vary from festival to festival in price and what is included. The festival where I got married had three packages at the time, they now only have two. I have seen some festivals that only offer a basic and premium package. The price difference can be minimal to very expensive, depending on how you view things.

Wedding packages include at the very least tickets to the festival and something special for the bride and groom. Some festivals give gifts for the wedding parties such as head wreaths for the bridesmaids and pouches for the groomsmen. Others give special certificates to the bride and groom only. Depending on the site you can also get meal coupons for the wedding party and guests at the Renaissance festival. I have even seen one festival that had a package option where the wedding could be held in their castle with a full meal served by caterers in Renaissance gear. This was an extremely nice package but very expensive.

You do have to have a smaller wedding with Renaissance festivals. Packages don’t normally include many tickets for all guests you will have. Although you can purchase additional tickets at a reduced rate, depending on how many people you invite this can get extremely expensive and make the all inclusive Renaissance site more expensive than a standard wedding. But you can always check to see if the festival will let you trade in things in the package you do not want or need for additional tickets instead. My wedding was held onsite at a local festival but our reception was offsite. So we traded in the value of the reception tickets, flowers, and champagne for additional entrance tickets for guests.

Submitted by: Diane

What exactly is a child-friendly wedding? If you invited children to your wedding, they are your guests, too, and as hostess you should make every effort to plan for their needs. Yes, the parents should look out for their children, but you can make it simpler for them with just a few basic provisions. Read on for some child-friendly wedding ideas.Accommodations: A designated Kid Room near the main room or banquet hall at your reception is a must. This gives kids a space to regroup, interact with other children and play away form the potentially overwhelming bustle of the wedding. Set it up with some tables and chairs as well as mats and rugs. Child-size furniture is a huge plus.

Planning a wedding with a theme? They can be fun and a lot more work than a normal wedding, depending on what your theme is. Themed weddings can be more memorable for some, however, because they are not the norm and this can lead to a nicer wedding for the guests. These days almost anything can be a theme for a wedding. From parks that have wedding packages available to have your wedding at a Renaissance Fair to having a Halloween theme were even the bride wears black, nothing is off limits these days.

Some themes are easier than others to set the mood for the bridal party and the guests. A Halloween or Christmas theme is a matter of purchasing the items needed during the holiday previous to your wedding and then deocrating your ceremony and reception site for the wedding. These major holidays are also easier because there are places that sell decorations for these kind of themes all year.

However a fantasy or wild west theme can be more difficult because many things are not readily available in stores to create the theme you desire. You need to be creative and make several items for a wedding with “special” themese suck as theses.

The Internet is a good place to help, however. With so many online stores and auction sites, almost anything can be found. Some times its a matter of time or price. I have found some items are cheaper online than you can get in a store, such as fabric for your dress or favors for the guests.

Joining a message board that specializes in your theme is a good idea too. You can bounch ideas off of other women who are either in the process of planning their own wedding, or have done the same theme and want to pass along words of wisdom. These people can tell you what works, what doesn’t, and even point you in the direction on where to find those really hard to get items you want or need.

A themed wedding however can leave a lasting impression on some guests. If it truly unique for them, it will be talked about years later. My own renaissnace themed wedding was still talked about three years after the ceremony because it was something my bosses at work had never experienced and they thought it was wonderful to plan the entire thing for the guests.

Just remember if you are having a special wedding, to include the guests if you can. They will feel like they were a part of your wedding and not just attending it.

Submitted by: Diane

Have you ever wondered what some of the American wedding traditions mean, and where they come from? I am willing to bet that you have been curious about it at one point, or will be at one point: your wedding. In celebration of my upcoming fifth wedding anniversary, I decided that I wanted to look at some of our wedding traditions to see what I missed when I planned it the first time around.

The Wedding Ring: Okay, so this one is perhaps the most obvious of the list, but as it is the most important part of the wedding (because it’s the only thing besides the spouse, and the memories that you walk away from the ceremony with) it is certainly worth mention. The circular shape of the ring represents the never-ending bond between the couple. It is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, as there is a direct connection to the heart, making it the perfect place for symbolic purposes. The material that the ring is made of has changed over the course of the years, but gold is the primary choice because of its durability and beauty, further symbolizing the bond of love. There is still debate on the order the bride should wear the rings. Some believe the engagement ring should remain behind the band, as you were engaged first. Other say, however, you should place the band behind the engagement ring, so that the wedding band is closest to the heart. At this point, it’s a matter of personal preference and belief.

Unity Candle: This one is obvious too, but I wanted to mention it because of the heavy symbolism, and the fact that it is not part of all ceremonies. Two candles, one held by the bride and one by thwe groom, which symbolize themselves and their families, join together to light one candle, to symbolize the unity of the heart, soul, and families of the couple.

Giving away the Bride: In early history, women were regarded as property of their fathers, to be given to the husband, and this practice was seen as the official transfer of ownership. Now, this tradition is symbolic of blessing and support of the union. Giving the bride away today shows that trust and affection to the Groom.
 

Bride stands on Groom’s left side: This tradition stems from early Anglo-Saxon days, when standing on the left side of a mate left the sword arm free so that the man could protect and defend his love. What it symbolizes now, is nothing more than freedom to give that same protection and defense.

Taking the right hand: The right hand is symbolic of strength, purpose, and resource. When the couple takes each other’s hand, it symbolizes that they can now depend on each other for strength and what they bring to the marriage. The joining of the hands is symbolic of the two lives joining together as one, like the lighting of the unity candle.

The Kiss: Even though every ceremony has this, I never really thought about the symbolic value and reason behind it until recently. It is much more than I had given it credit for before, and makes me wish that I had made more of mine when I had the chance! The kiss used to represent the legal bond that sealed the marriage contract. Today, however, it represents more than just affection. It is now symbolic of the transfer of a piece of your heart and spirit to your spouse’s soul, where it will stay forever.

 If you are married, congratulations. Think about which traditions were present in your wedding ceremony, and why you included them. If you see something here that you didn’t include in your ceremony, think about whether you would add it to a renewal ceremony. If you are still waiting to tie the knot, I hope that this has given you some ideas about what you want to include in your ceremony and why. Best of luck to you in your marital bliss! Submitted by: Cindy

The most important part of your wedding day is the ceremony itself. Everyone knows the traditional vows and while they will always be cherished, here are some ways to personalize your ceremony.One of the most popular ways to personalize your ceremony is to ask relatives that mean a lot to you and your groom to do a reading. At my wedding my aunt and uncle did readings from the Old and New Testaments and my husband’s aunt read a special prayer. Special prayers are another great way to add a personal touch to your wedding. Choose one that means something to the two of you or one from your particular culture or ethnic group.If you’re having programs, this is a terrific way to personalize things. Add a special prayer or note; a memorial to loved ones no longer with you, or even a treasured family photo or two. Our programs had Irish and Polish wedding blessings (I’m Irish, hubby is half Irish half Polish) a special family prayer, and a memorial to our deceased family members.