An often irreverent look at weddings from an industry insider
Sometimes I get tired of seeing the same old set-up for escort cards: lovely cards surrounding elaborate floral centerpiece. Why not do something a little different with either the display or the ‘card’ itself.
The first three are cards but displayed in an interesting way.
The next three are unique items used as escort cards and the last three are full on favors. I just think that idea is wicked cool.
All of them are very DIYable. OK, so maybe not that last one is a little trickier than the rest. I promise you it is doable, I did about 100 for a bride once. They were time consuming and tedious, but doable none the less.
You see it everywhere, the average wedding in America is $28,000. Well do you know where that number came from? I do, and it’s wrong!
There are 2 entities perpetuating this myth, The Wedding Report and The Knot.com.
Here is the problem with that number. They took the total spent on weddings in America and divided it by the number of wedding. What happens is you get one or two million dollar wedding and it skews the whole number. Kind of like the old joke about Bill Gates walking into the homeless shelter and suddenly the average net worth of everyone there is over a million bucks. It just isn’t true.
I have dissected these numbers to death on Think Like A Bride and I don’t know why I never shared it with you. Here is the truth, 82% of the weddings in America fall below that $28,000 benchmark. 82%! How is that for skewing a number?
The truth is that the Average Wedding in America falls more realistically at $14,000 and below. They powers that be in the wedding industry want you to believe the higher number so you will spend more.
If you have ever read the sidebar then you know I am not a big proponent of bigger is better when it come to weddings. It’s time to end this myth.
Here are a couple of blogs to get you started on the road to not breaking the bank.
If you want to see pictures of what other brides are really doing as opposed to what bridal magazine and website editors think you should be doing there is no better place to look than the websites of real wedding photographers. Well kiddies, I just found a bonanza!
WedFog is a directory of wedding photographers designed as a resource for brides. I know, big deal, right? What makes this one Dish worthy is the searchable gallery.
Wedding photographers from all over the US and Canada upload their images in hopes of getting you to hire them for your wedding. So what you end up with are tons of beautiful images of real weddings. Then WedFog went the next step and made the whole thing into a searchable database. Cool. Looking for pink, summer bouquets? Bingo. Looking for red shoes? Bingo, I found over 50 by doing a search. What fun.
I warn you, this is one of those sites where you could get lost for hour, days, weeks. Have fun and send me links to your favorites in the comments. I would love to see what everyone is loving.
Back you beast!
How about a little bridal humor today? I was traipsing around the internet today and ran across an entire
page of simple hilarious wedding lore on of all places Snopes.com.
One of my particular favorites is about the bride that gave her baker the wrong bible verse for her wedding cake. Rather that extolling the virtues of love it made some crack about her five husbands!
Then of course there is a page that explains where all the superstitions we hold near and dear actually came from. Did you know that brides wear veils to hide their “shattering loveliness?”
They (veils) were originally worn to conceal the beauty of the bride from both easily-tempted evil spirits and “friends” of the groom who might otherwise be moved to make off with her. It was felt that that a bride’s shatteringly loveliness put her at immediate risk of abduction.
Now aren’t you happy to know that the mere act of being a bride bestows upon you
“shattering loveliness”
Keep laughing. Especially as you walk down the aisle with that gold coin in your shoe rubbing your foot!
If like me you are a fan of gorgeous wedding DIY, then this is the week for you. Abby over at Style Me Pretty is posting wonderful DIY projects submitted by her reader all week. It’s only Tuesday and there are already several that I love, love love.
My favorite so far is the apothecary jar table numbers.
Here is a tip, see if you can rent the jars before you go out and buy them all. It will save you money and you won’t have to worry about what to do with them when the wedding is over.
Do checkout Abby’s blog and if you are a crafty bride looking for some great DIY projects. Be sure to check out her DIY archives.
Fruit and Candle Centerpiece
I Autumn Centerpiece with Fruit
Centerpiece with KumQuats and Dahlias
In all honesty, not much is easier than a footed bowl filled with a variety of seasonal fruit with a few blooms and a couple of leaves tucked in to hide any hole. Sometimes nature at its simplest is all you need.
I just ran across the trailer for the upcoming movie, Bride Wars. Oh my dear readers, I can’t wait. Starring Kate Hudson and Ann Hathaway as BFFs turned bitter rivals when their wedding are double booked at the Plaza hotel. Throw in Candice Bergen as the wedding planner and you have a festival of bridal angst!
The movie is set for theatrical release January 9, 2009. That is just too long to wait. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer
