Inexpensive Centerpiece Decorations

July 2nd, 2009

Inexpensive Centerpiece Decorations

wedding-centerpiece

When planning a wedding, most brides focus first on the church, lining it with flowers and ribbons. By the time costs for the wedding are taken care of many couple’s find that they are skimming close to their budget. It’s good know that the centerpiece decorations at your reception can not only be inexpensive, but tasteful and original.

Try this idea and score a perfect ten for creativity when planning your centerpiece decorations. Start by buying cute small frames as you see them on sale. Insert photos of you and your groom growing up through the years. Guests will not only love the originality of the idea but they will also get to see what you both looked like when you were younger. Of course, if they have known you your entire life, then this will give them a chance to reminisce about you.

If you are planning on a fall wedding use baskets and terra cotta pots to add a fall touch to your centerpiece decorations. Fill the baskets and pots with tiny pumpkins, apples, corn stalk and gourds. This will add that little extra touch to the season while filling your table with inexpensive decorations.

For a more romantic look, use inexpensive single fish bowls. Fill these centerpiece decorations with water, which can be colored with liquid dye, and add a floating candle. You may also find inexpensive artificial flowers that can be snipped at the tops and laid around the candles. This will create the mood of romance and add candlelight to each of your tables.

For a Christmas time wedding, use poinsettias and gold ribbons for centerpiece decorations. If you have extra money to spend, buy miniature Christmas trees and decorate them with lights and wedding charms for ornaments, which can be found at most bridal decoration stores. Place the trees in the middle of the table and let the guests try and guess what meaning each of the charms hold!

Let your guests get involved in your first day as man and wife by using paper and pens as a centerpiece decoration. Buy decorated paper and pens, placing them at each sitting. Leave instructions for the guests to give you the best marital advice they can. You may also have the guest make up a love poem to give you. This will get them involved and also give you a keepsake to read on your honeymoon. You may also add a long-stemmed rose at each place setting that they can take home with them.

A popular trend added to centerpiece decorations are disposable cameras with ribbons and bows tied around them. You can also type a note to hang from the camera letting guests know to take pictures throughout the night and then place the cameras inside a designated box as they leave. Just imagine the different photos you will have once the film is all developed.

No matter what you choose as centerpiece decorations, you can create a mood and atmosphere that represents your style, at an inexpensive price. So, hang balloons from the ceiling, let the cameras start clicking and begin your life together with friends, family and a lot of good times.

Choices in Wedding Reception Music

July 2nd, 2009

Choices in Wedding Reception Music

wedding-music

An important decision you’ll make during the course of creating your perfect wedding is that of wedding reception music. After all, what’s a wedding reception without music? Do you hire a band, hire a DJ, or just throw on some tunes for everyone to dance to? The choice is all up to you from what type of music you want at your reception to how it’s delivered.

One possibility that a number of people opt for is to hire a band to provide their wedding reception music. A lot of working “cover bands” (musicians that specialize in performing spot-on renditions of popular songs) are available to work wedding receptions.

The cost for hiring a band varies according to the experience and popularity of the band itself. A band that is highly skilled tends to be highly sought after and therefore more expensive to hire. A live band brings a certain level of excitement to the party atmosphere of a wedding reception and your guests are sure to enjoy the interactivity that comes along with live wedding reception music.

Some couples forgo the band in favor of hiring a DJ for their wedding. The advantages of hiring a DJ as compared to a band are threefold. First of all, a DJ tends to cost much less to hire than an entire band does. In addition to the monetary savings, the DJ will have access to original recordings of popular songs. Your guests can shimmy to Baby Got Back or The Locomotion by the original artists rather than a rendition performed by an unknown singer.

Additionally, the DJ will have access to a far greater number of recordings than any band is likely to have in its repertoire. For these reasons many couples enjoy hiring a DJ to supply their wedding reception music.

Another option is to simply supply the wedding reception music yourself. Armed with a computer that is equipped with a CD burner you can create CD’s full of .mp3 files to play at the reception. Because of the .mp3 file compression, nearly ten hours of music can be squeezed onto one CD. You can choose exactly what songs you want, place them on the CD in the order that you like, and just pop it in to play at the reception.

This is possibly the most cost effective option as it will cost very little or nothing at all to compile the CD. The downsides are that you’re left with just a group of songs and no live interactivity whatsoever and you must have a specific type of CD player in order to play a disc full of .mp3 files. You will also need to provide a decent sound system unless the reception hall happens to come equipped with one.

There are a number of options available for providing music for your wedding reception. Choosing which one is right for you is merely a matter of deciding what you want and what you can afford.

The Rise of Wedding Chapels in Las Vegas

July 2nd, 2009

The Rise of Wedding Chapels in Las Vegas

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” the television ads tells me in the hushed tones of an illicit lover as if I’m the only one listening at that particular moment. Frankly, I don’t understand the reasoning behind the clandestine attitude since everyone already knows what happens in Vegas. What happens in Vegas, besides people gambling and people visiting pawn shops in order to gamble, is a massive number of weddings.

Making wedding vows

Making wedding vows

People love to get married in Las Vegas. In fact, there are more wedding chapels in Las Vegas than there are pawn shops. That’s saying something. There are almost as many wedding chapels in Las Vegas as there are casinos. That is really saying something, especially considering that many of the major casino/hotels along the Las Vegas Strip are also home to at least one wedding chapel each.

In the late 1940s and early 1950’s, that magical American time of prosperity after the end of the Second World War, Las Vegas began to become known as a tourist destination. Celebrities began to flock to Vegas like it was a great cultural Mecca and, for a while, it was. Everyone who was anyone would be seen in Las Vegas and soon celebrities started getting married there.

The attraction for Las Vegas weddings was the tourism trade coupled with the comparatively lax Marriage Licensing regulations in Clark County. Blood tests and waiting periods were the norm in most other places at the time, but that was not the case (and still isn’t) in Las Vegas.

Eventually the average folks started coming to the City of Sin in vast numbers and getting married there. The influx of couples seeking to tie the knot spawned a new industry and soon there were several wedding chapels in Las Vegas.

Over the years, Las Vegas has maintained its reputation as the Wedding Capital of the World and approximately 100,000 weddings are performed there annually (some quick math involving the $55.00 license fee in Clark County will tell you that marriage is an industry worth over $5 million a year to the county alone.) There are now so many wedding chapels in Las Vegas that it’s next to impossible to travel through the city without seeing several of them.

There are traditional wedding chapels in Las Vegas and there are drive-through wedding chapels in Las Vegas. There are wedding chapels in Las Vegas where you can be married by Elvis Presley. Despite the silliness of the Elvis-themed weddings at the wedding chapels in Las Vegas, however, it is possible to have a “nice” or “traditional” wedding there as well.

While many of the wedding chapels in Las Vegas take advantage of the city’s wedding reputation and capitalize on it with a gaudiness that is possible in no other place, there are a number of wedding chapels in Las Vegas that offer a truly beautiful wedding alternative.

Las Vegas is a favorite for destination marriages as well. If you’re considering getting married in one of the wedding chapels in Las Vegas, don’t be afraid. You don’t have to be married by The King. And remember, 100,000 married couples can’t be wrong.