Wedding

With most contemporary weddings there is a huge entourage of individuals who are extremely important to the success of the big day. Bearing this in mind, it seems only fitting that these people should be recognized for their time and effort with specifically chosen wedding gifts all of their own.

Who Should Receive Wedding Gifts?

The obvious answer is anyone who helps out to the extent that the bride and groom feel that they deserve special wedding gifts. Typical individuals who should be considered for such wedding gifts include bridesmaids, best men, ushers and the parents of the bride and groom.

Wedding gifts are also often given to the professionals that help make the day happen, such as your hairdresser or the wedding planner, although these gifts are more token gifts and can be as simple as a nice card or a small bouquet of flowers.

With larger weddings, it is also common practice to offer a small gift to every guest in the form of a favor, placed at each place setting. Due to the large quantity of these wedding gifts that you are required to purchase, they tend to be much smaller and cheaper such as sugared almonds or small chocolates.

Choosing Wedding Gifts

Of course, your choice of wedding gifts depends largely on the known likes and dislikes of the people whom you have invited to attend your wedding party. If you have a small number of people involved you may be able to purchase individually chosen, more expensive wedding gifts such as a special ornament or piece of jewelry. But remember that it is the thought which counts, and token wedding gifts such as cufflinks, teddy bears and mugs can be just as effective.

As part of the wedding speeches, bouquets of flowers are often given to the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom; this is particularly the case with more traditional wedding ceremonies.

A great cheap way to please the wedding party guests is to offer them pictures of the day as well as any attire that you have purchased especially for them. It is very difficult to think of anything else to do with the bridesmaid dresses and jewelry, so why not use them as unique wedding gifts?

By giving the critical members of the wedding party wedding gifts you will ensure that your important helpers feel that their efforts have been noticed and they will feel that they have truly been a vital part of your big day.

Giving wedding gifts to guests may seem a little odd, but why not share the good fortune of your day and spread a little happiness?

Elsie Gilbert offers great insights to all different types of wedding ceremonies, wedding styles, wedding accessories. From traditional to the exotic she makes it easy for the bride and groom to review and choose. For more details on all types of wedding ideas visit this site now http://www.weddingfinery.com

When you’re planning a wedding, you don’t want to forget the gift table. Not only will this be covered with your presents and money gifts, but it will also be out in the open. And although you don’t want to think that anything could happen, you might want to put a few precautions in place.

Better to be safe

The gift table is best kept safe by being out in the open, where everyone can see it. You might want the deejay next to it, or at least nearby, because people will be going up that way all evening.

However, you also want to keep the gift table somewhere where your guests can find it to deposit their gifts or cards. A nice slit top box works well for cards (maybe you could put a locked tin inside so that no one can peek except you) and a card table with a table cloth is fine for the wrapped gifts.

You may also want to have the guest registry next to the gift table so that you have an idea of how many presents should be there when you finally get to opening them. If there seems to be a discrepancy, then you will be able to find out if something was lost or stolen.

What to do with the gifts at the end of the night

You will need to have a plan or someone in place to take care of the gifts once the reception is over. You may want to enlist one of the members of your bridal party to load them into their car and drive them to the hotel, or perhaps, a parent can take them in order to have a brunch the next morning—where you open the gifts for everyone.

Either way, you will want to store them somewhere safe. It’s generally not a good idea to leave them in a car overnight. First of all, a car is easily broken into and two, you don’t know if the gifts are sensitive to temperature changes. You don’t want to ruin anything.

The gift table is just another detail that you want to be aware of. Most of the time, there are no problems with people upsetting the gifts or raiding the envelopes, but if it makes you feel better to have a back up plan in place, go right ahead.

Amy Spade is an expert on planning weddings, and she has written an amazing totally free minicourse on how to make sure that you have the day of your dreams, and avoid wedding day disaster!

Get the free course “Your Special Day from Start to Finish” now at at http://www.weddingdata.com

In case you’ve been living on another planet for the past several months, you may not have heard that Star Jones was getting married. For the rest of us here on planet earth we couldn’t escape this joyous news unless we swore off pop culture icons like Entertainment Tonight and People magazine.

Star Jones, current co-host of TV’s chat fest The View with Barbara Walters, recently married Wall Street banker Al Reynolds in an elaborate, pull-out-all-the-stops wedding extravaganza fit for a queen - or maybe a successful diva.

That’s right. Star Jones is a world-class diva. Okay, anyone familiar with Star knows her penchant for pampering herself with the finer things in life. So, it shouldn’t be any big surprise that she went all out to have the wedding she’d been dreaming about since she was eight years old.

Star’s fairytale wedding included such niceties as a wedding gown with a 27-foot veil topped with a crystal tiara, a 60-member Broadway choir, more attendants than Princess Di had at her wedding, and a custom made 7-carat princess cut diamond wedding ring.

Of course, as soon as the juicy wedding details surfaced in the media, the Star Jones haters came out of the woodworks - - often expressing their mean-spirited views of Star, Al, and their special day with vicious glee.

All right. Maybe Star went just a teeny weenie bit over the top. But so what? In the end, it’s just one couple’s happy wedding day. Theirs just happened to have a lot more bling bling than most folks.

Admit it. Most of us would have loved to have sneaked a peak into the star-studded event, if only to gawk at celebrity guests like: Angela Bassett, Kim Cattral, Chris Rock, Hillary Clinton, Vivica A. Fox, Barbara Walters, Lisa Ling, Kelly Ripa, Al Roker, Blair Underwood, and Donald Trump.

Whew! Now that’s a lot of star powered bling right there.

When it comes right down to it, one person’s overblown extravaganza is another person’s Cinderella fairytale come true. It’s a matter of personal style and taste. I say, do whatever makes you happy. That’s all that counts in the end.

About The Author

Copyright 2004

Donna Monday
One special moment. One special ring.
http://www.1-love-rings.com

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Do you want to play wedding gift roulette, or would you rather lessen your chances of receiving a ceramic sombrero chip bowl or a clapper by taking the time to fill out a wedding gift registry?

A wedding gift registry is the perfect way to let all of your guests know just what you need to start your new life together. A gift registry is a service offered by stores to couples that allows them to compile a personalized gift registry wish list that will help well wishers in choosing the perfect present.

You may even be surprised to find out just how many stores offer a gift registry, both on-line and off. Be sure to fill out a gift registry for both to accommodate guests who prefer on-line shopping as well as guests who like to shop in person.

Gift Registry Made Simple

Whether you plan to use an on-line gift registry or a gift registry at a local store, the process is very much the same for both.

* Ask for a gift registry form at the store or click on the

gift registry link at a website in order to receive a

detailed list of gift ideas.

* Take time to browse through the suggested items to find a

brand that you would prefer for certain items, and check

out other gift registry items you hadn’t previously

considered, or may have overlooked for your gift registry

list.

* Place a check by the gift registry items that you’d most

like to receive, and if applicable, the number you need

such as eight place settings.

* When you have finished, either return your gift registry

list to the store’s customer service department, or submit

your on-line gift registry.

There is one sticky gift registry issue that many couples find difficulty handling. What to do when you’d rather receive money than fill out a gift registry?

Many couples would simply like to receive a monetary gift that will help them pay for a honeymoon trip or the down payment on a mortgage, and skip the gift registry all together. But can you just ask your guests to give you money without seeming rude? The answer is probably not. Why? Because your guests are just that; guests. While receiving gifts from a gift registry is nice, it shouldn’t be implied as a requirement for attending.

The best idea would be to provide a list of stores holding your gift registry list, while simultaneously having your closest friends and relatives ‘leak’ out the information that you could really use a monetary gift much more. This way, many guests will get the message, and you get to avoid the impression of being rude.

Gift Registry Tips

* Register with at least one national chain store’s gift

registry as a courtesy to your out-of-town quests.

* Be sure to choose items in all price ranges on your gift

registry.

* Include a list of stores that have your gift registry list

when you send out your shower and wedding invitations.

A wedding gift registry simply makes good sense. Unless of course, you really want to pull that sombrero chip hat out of the closet every time Aunt Hattie comes to visit.

After struggling with her own wedding, Michele Neisler created Wedding-Wisdom.com to educate future brides.
No matter what your wedding related needs, Wedding-Wisdom.com promises to create “marriages” between all members of the bridal community.

Brides and grooms want awesome imagery from their wedding, period. They want the unscripted moments captured, but they also want a photographer that can get very creative during a portrait session. That’s why couples everywhere are donning their wedding finery and not only descending into caves, but plunging into breakers, walking through abandoned amusement parks, wandering through cornfields, wading into forest streams and chasing other wild pursuits in an increasingly popular ritual and edgy extension of wedding photojournalism called Trash the Dress (TTD).

Destination weddings offer stunning scenery and exotic atmosphere, providing the conditions needed to enhance those fabulous memories. However, since these types of weddings are often at resort locations in foreign countries, they’re subject to the unusual and the unexpected.

Shooting wide vs.

For one day, the two of you are the focus of attention. The concerns of the world slip away as your sweetheart and you take center stage for the moment you’ve long anticipated.

Weddings can be chaotic, noisy affairs where emotions are displayed publicly, so one of your biggest challenges can be capturing their quiet, intimate side.