If you are one of those brides-to-be who are planning a huge wedding with all the bells and whistles of tradition, then a long train is in your mind, and so should a long veil the blends into the train. The bridesmaids would need to do their duty in keeping it laid out and pretty. Shorter veils used with long trains are okay as well, though less stylish. The choice of veils these days are truly works of art, with multiple styles to pick from as you shop. The veil that covers the face is a rare one nowadays, but some still pick this style.

The veils chosen more often today are the headpiece veils. The beautiful designs are elegant and fit with any style of wedding dress. What needs to be remembered about wedding veils are location of the wedding and the style of the wedding dress. With varying lengths, the style of dress, and its color, will rest entirely on the veil, so long as neither distract from the dress and the natural beauty of the bride. The headpiece can be one with or without a veil.

If hair clips or combs come as part of your bridal accessories, then you should have them with you as you shop for your veil. Wedding veils can take on an entirely different look when placed against those accessories. Against popular belief, white is not the only color of choice when it comes to wedding veils or accessories. There are any number of popular colors these days, from black, red and blue, to the traditional white and all related pastel versions. It is not a bad idea to have a white dress with a pastel veil.

These wedding pieces have come a long way through the years to become what they are today. What was in style and welcome years ago are now passe and to be avoided. Wedding veils have become more of an accessory thses days, and less of a traditional piece. Think these days that your veil is more of an accentuation of your hair and your dress. This is the same way to think of your hairclip and flowers, and all of these should go well with your bouquet. Remember that accessories are designed to go well together, and pay a compliment to the bride. Ask any wedding photographer.

The Price of the Wedding Dress

If you have a budget and most brides do, then the price of the dress is the easiest way to choose between the different designers. This is because different designers will have their dresses and prices aimed at the different market segments. If you look through the dresses created by the designers you will be able to gauge their price range and decide if they fit within your budget. This way you only need to look at wedding dresses that you will be able to afford. While this option is a good starting point for those who are very conscious about how they spend their money, this method doesn’t narrow down the choices of dresses as much as some of the other methods will.

Previous Collections of Wedding Dress

You’ve probably been looking through magazines and online for bridal gowns that you like the look of. When you find one you particularly like, note down the designers name. Once you know who they were created by, you can look through the rest of their wedding dress collections and see what other dresses you like. This isn’t guaranteed to find you your perfect dress, but it should open you up to similar dresses that you will also like the look of.

Well Known Wedding Designers

Many brides know the name of at least one wedding dress designer and automatically choose them. You may be able to save money as there may be less expensive dresses within their range or your may be able to pick up last seasons gown for less. There are also wedding dress designers who are known to create very expensive wedding dresses. Dresses from these designers are a status symbol. If the designer of the bridal gown is the most important factor for you, then choose the designer and then pick a dress from their collection.

Bespoke Wedding Dresses

You may decide that you want a completely unique wedding dress. Look for previous dresses from the designer to see if you like their style, then approach them to make your wedding dress. For a number of brides this is the only way they’ll find their perfect bridal gown. Having a bespoke wedding dress created by a designer is the most expensive route.

Different brides will select their dress by using different methods. Focusing on wedding dress designers may be the quickest way to find the dress. I suggest that brides use the factor they’re most concerned about to narrow down their choices further, such as cost and status.

Using our natural elements such as water and fire

It’s easy to create stunning table decorations using our natural elements as the inspiration. Create your table centre pieces from earth, water and fire in interesting ways such as fire floating on water or small water fountains. Try and be unique and make each table slightly different so they will be plenty to look at.

Choose to use your wedding colours as your table centrepieces

If you have wedding colours then use these as a starting point for your table decorations such as vases, flowers, balloons, favour boxes, name cards and candle holders.

Use Colour Coordinating Disposable Cameras

Adding further colour and dimension to your reception tables, disposable cameras are a great way to ask your guests to share there moments throughout your reception with them. By placing them on the tables you’re asking them to take pictures for you. When you develop those pictures you’ll have loads to choose from for creating another wedding album. It’s a nice touch because it lets your wedding guests get really interactive and is a fantastic ice breaker.

Different Heights of Vases on the Same Table

Different heights of the objects making up your table centrepieces add interest. Most couples only consider having their table decorations at one height. Using different heights will give you a more professional look.

Tasty Reception Table Decorations

Reception table decorations that your guests can eat are a great idea. There are two very different types of edible wedding table decorations. These are sweets and fruit.

Fruit arrangements are difficult because as the reception goes on, the appearance of the nicely cut fruit diminishes. If you want to look more into using fruit as your centrepiece there are many companies who specialise in this.

Sweets can be a great way to keep your guests happy while they’re waiting to be fed. Place the sweets in decorative bowls or wide vases.

There’s no limit to the things that could be used as table decorations at your wedding. The best thing to do is to try and make them unique and reflect the overall theme of the wedding. You want your guests to remember how brilliant they were. Since you want all your hard effort that went into creating your wedding table decorations to be noticed, take your time on deciding exactly what you want because it’s your table decorations that make your reception decorations.

Beach weddings have so many plus points it’s easy to see why more and more couple go down this route instead of having a traditional wedding. Since your wedding is no longer traditional, your wedding dress shouldn’t be either.

Many brides struggle with finding the perfect beach dress or find the perfect wedding gown for them only to realise while it was perfect for them it wasn’t perfect for the beach.

To make sure you don’t make that mistake follow these simple rules.

1. Make sure your beach wedding gown is the right length

A traditional bridal dress generally hits the floor and has a train this isn’t going to work on a sandy beach. If you still want a long dress make sure it stops around your ankles. This will help keep you cool as well as not getting in the way when you walk along the beach and getting stained by the sand. Depending on your style and your personal preference it’s perfectly acceptable to wear a shorter dress on the beach, if you want to show of you legs opt for something above the knee if you feel like your legs aren’t worthy of being shown off then try a calf or ankle length dress.

If you know that the beach that you’re getting married at is known to be windy you need to consider the effect this will have on your bridal gown and your hair. An ankle length dress could prove difficult to walk in if the wind keeps wrapping itself around your legs. If you’ve got any layers or ruffles then the wind will constantly catch these and you don’t want to spend your wedding ceremony pushing ruffles back down so you can see what’s going on. In fact its better not to buy dresses with ruffles or layers and sand likes to find a way into these nooks and crannies and you’ll never get it out before you head back to your hotel.

2. Make sure your wedding dress is created with thin, light breathable material

If you’re getting married on a beach, I’m going to assume you’re getting married somewhere sunny and hot, the last thing you want to do is overheat and sweat all your make up off on your wedding day. Choose fabric like cotton, chiffon or silk to keep you cool, these fabrics are also light and thin so wedding dresses created from these fabrics are easily transportable.

3. Make sure you can transport your wedding dress

If you’ve tried on traditional wedding gowns in the bridal shops then you’ll know that there’s no way that a dress like that is going to fit into your suitcase. Plus do you remember how heavy they are? Just think of the excess baggage you’ll end up paying. Your beach ceremony dress should be made from light thin material so it’s easy to transport.

Putting together a guest list is one of the trickiest parts of any wedding planning. There never seems to be enough room for all the people that you’d like to include, and it always seems that when you invite one person, you need to invite someone else. In this article, I will discuss the first steps in putting together your guest list: choosing the reception size and counting up first tier of guests.

The first decision is to decide on the size of your reception. In general, you should invite anyone whom you invite to your wedding to your reception, though not necessarily vice versa. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with having a very small wedding and a large reception. Once you have made this decision, you can move onto the next step.

Second, you should include the mandatory guests. This includes yourselves, your wedding party, the celebrant, and the parents of child attendants. You also must include the spouses, fiances or live-in partners of any of the above. (Note that this is a general rule of invitations. If you invite someone, you must invite the spouse, fiance or live-in partner of that person).

Next, you’ll probably want to invite your close family, including your siblings, parents, children and grandparents. Strictly speaking, it isn’t mandatory to invite people from these groups, but it is the usual custom. However, if you are very estranged from someone, you are not obligated to invite that person. Again remember to invite spouses, fiances and live-in partners.

Once you’ve done this, it’s time to see how much room you have left. You might be surprised just how many plates are taken up by just mandatory guests and close family. At this point, you’ll have a number of seats you can use for your other guests.

Lilac is a perfect choice as the main colour for your wedding theme.  It’s soft and romantic so a fantastic alternative to pink as it’s slightly less girly and will probably be more acceptable to the groom.

A lot of individual elements create a wedding theme so we’ll take a look at them in turn.

Lilac Wedding Invites

You probably already know that wedding invites give your guests a taster of the wedding to come so it makes sense to kick off your lilac wedding theme with lilac wedding invitations.  If you have the time you can create your own lilac wedding invitations using lilac paper, ink, ribbon or even lilac flowers.  If you don’t have the time or patience to create your own lilac wedding invitations then you can always buy them.  The Flowered Lilac Wedding Invitations from Wedding And Gems Invites shown below are fantastic if you want quality invites without having to spend a fortune.

Lilac Wedding Decorations and Favours

While the lilac wedding invitations give you guests a hint of your wedding theme your table decorations will be the main element of your lilac wedding theme at your wedding reception. You have loads of options on decorating your reception tables for example Lilac Wedding Favours.  We thought these wedding favours from Pink Products were great, they’re inexpensive, easy to assemble and can be glammed up with ribbon or beads like shown in the image below.  I think what i like about these lilac wedding favours the most is that they’re not the typical cube wedding favour.

Lilac wedding favours on their own won’t create a successful lilac wedding theme but they’re a good start in bring lilac to your reception tables.  Another area you can bring lilac in is name cards.  These particular name cards are part of the Flowered Lilac wedding stationery range at Wedding And Gems Invites so you can see them within the image of the lilac wedding invites image above and can be bought from Wedding And Gems Invites.

You can also use lilac napkins or standard white napkins tied with a lilac ribbon and lilac balloons as your centerpiece.  If you don’t want to use balloons then opt for lilac candles or plain white candles wrapped in lilac craft wire to give a dramatic effect.  Lilac silk petals are also great to give the table interest and are inexpensive.

Lilac Bridesmaids Dresses and Accessories

The main element of your wedding colour theme will be your bridesmaids dresses and their accessories.  Whether you choose lilac dresses for your bridesmaids or dresses with a lilac accent such as embroidery or sashes.

Many brides give their bridesmaid gift that double up as accessories on their wedding day.  Such as these bridesmaids earrings shown in amethyst which will match lilac bridesmaids dresses perfectly and there also a necklace to match too.

I’ve only touched on some of the elements for a successful lilac wedding theme.  Feel free to add your opinion or further suggestions on creating a lilac wedding theme in the comments box below.

You need to wear your wedding heels all day, from walking down the aisle to dancing at the reception so they need to be bearable if not comfy. While it is acceptable to take your wedding heels off at the end of the night (after your first dance of course!) it won’t look fantastic and you might trip on the hem of your wedding dress – you’ve seen all those wedding videos right?

When choosing the height of your wedding heels, first think about the size of the heel you normally wear. This is a good indication of what the height of your wedding heels should be. For example if you’re used to wearing flat shoes don’t choose a wedding heel higher than 2 inches, otherwise you may struggle to walk down the aisle in a graceful fashion and you might not even make it to the first dance without ripping them off and tending to your painful blistered feet. If you normally spend your days in a 3 inch heel then anything up to 4 inches will be fine.

A good rule of thumb is that for every half inch increase in heel height than you’re used to wearing, will hurt your feet 30 minutes earlier than normal due to the extra pressure on your feet. There are also a wide range of shoe cushions available such as party feet which can help to alleviate the pressure that some wedding heels can put on your feet.

Once you’ve chosen your wedding heels make sure you wear them in by wearing them in the house for a few days, this will allow them to stretch to your feet and if they are going to rub then any sensitive skin or blisters they may cause will be healed by your wedding day and you’ll be aware of any problems your wedding heels may cause before your wedding day.

We’ve put together some of the best wedding heels available from Amazon, click here to take a look Wedding Shoes

Why use bridal bouquet gems

The most simple bridal bouquets can transformed with strategically placed bouquet crystals or gems.  These can often be bought by the florist but you might want to buy them yourself on line to save costs or if you’re feeling a little creative you could make them yourself.  All you need is the beads that you want to make into the bouquet gems and craft wire.  Craft wire is available in a wide range of colours but I tend to use either silver or gold plated wire to give a more elegant finish.  The type of crystal or stone which you use depend on the effect your trying to achieve and it would be better to match it to the stone that your bridal accessories are created from such as Swarovski crystal, pearls, or diamante.

Creating your own Bridal Bouquet Gems

It’s pretty easy to make your own bridal bouquet gems all you need is the crystals, craft wire, wire cutters and some time.  For this example I’m going to use Swarovski crystals in clear AB.

Take your crystal (for solitary bouquet gems uses crystals the are 6mm in diameter, thread through a length of 0.4mm craft wire at least double the length you want the stem to be so the crystal sits in the centre.  Bend the wire so the ends of the wire meet and hold between your finger and thumb with your spare hand hold the crystal and twist until the wire is twisted all the way to the bottom.  It will look something like the image to the right.

For those who are used to working with wire, you could always use a thicker wire 0.6mm and thread the crystal on to the top of the wire, wrapping the wire under the crystal to give a neat finish.

If you can afford to use Swarovski crystals as these are the highest quality of crystals available and nothing else achieves such as wonderful sparkle for bridal bouquet gems.  If you’re looking for cheap Swarovksi crystals, eBay is always a good place to start and you can see all the 6mm crystals available for sale by clicking this link  - Swarovski crystals.

How to use Bridal Bouquet Gems

Bridal bouquet gems can be placed in between flowers or pushed in to the centre of flowers such as roses to add further interest.  If you are planning on pushing the bridal bouquet gems through the centre of flowers you will need to make them with 0.6m wire with a short stem so they can be inserted without bending out of shape.

The bridal bouquet gems can also be wound around the handle of the bouquet adding further interest and holding any ribbon in place.

Before you begin creating your handtied bridal bouquet, you need to decide on the type of flowers and colours that you want to use.  It will be better to find flowers in are available in the colours that you need, rather than decide on a flower and hope it’s available in the appropriate colour.   You main colour should be something that ties in with your bridesmaids dresses as well, for example my bridesmaids were in antique gold and we had mango (yellow / orange) calla lillies as the main focus of our wedding bouquets.

To add texture and interest to your bouquet add foliage or chunky twisted wire.  How about glueing butterflies to the end of the twisted wire, so they can be seen between the silk flowers?

Handtied bridal bouquets are really easy to make, generally they have a dome shape to them and this is done by moving the flower slightly while holding the bunch in your hand.  Once the dome of flowers is perfect, ribbon can be tied around the stems, giving the you something soft to grip.  The following video explain how to create a handtied bridal bouquet fully using fresh calla lillies and it’s concepts can easily be transfered to silk flowers.

Calla Lillies are the third most popular wedding flower at the moment but don’t be afriad to be different, mix your flowers to create more texture in your hand tied bridal bouquet or add crystals between the stems.

The only reason I’ve suggested silk flowers for creating a handtied bridal bouquet is that they are cheaper and last longer than fresh flowers and every bride I have come across is looking for ways to keep their wedding cost down.  If you do want to use fresh flowers to create your handtied bridal bouquet then you may want to practice with silk flowers first to prevent any costly mistakes.

There’s a very good solution to your problem, it can turn planning your wedding into a smooth and enjoyable journey again, this is what Sarah Hanes said about it:

“When I started to think about organising our wedding my initial reaction was WHERE DO I START?! I bought this as soon as I got engaged and I am really enjoying filling it with all manor of things for our special day.”

You can read the rest of Sarah’s review here and find out exactly what she’s talking about here – Read more of Sarah’s review.

If you didn’t follow the link and still want to know what Sarah’s referring to it’s the Wedding Bible Planner.  This wedding planner isn’t your bog standard file with pockets and poor quality dividers but something you will treasure – believe me.

The Wedding Bible Planner was a result of the sucess of the wedding planning book the Wedding Bible.  The author, Sarah Haywood, has been nicknamed the ‘wedding doctor’ by Amazon.  Personally I couldn’t think of a better compliment.

Kelly Evans passed on some very useful advice about the wedding bible planner for those of you on a tight wedding budget.

“As the folder has the main gist of the book in it I don’t necessarily think you need to buy both. Although the book does go into more detail and is just as beautiful as the folder, but if you are on a budget then definitly go for the folder.”

So what is so special about the Wedding Bible Planner and how will it be useful to you?

• It’s categorised sections full of hints and tips will keep you blissfully organised
• It’s inspirational ideas and photo will have your imagination running wild and you’ll be able to put your wedding theme together in no time at all.
• Pockets and it’s ring binder mechanism allows you to safely store business cards, leaflets, invoices, letters
• There’s a space for a photograph of your wedding day completing the wedding planning journey and turning the Wedding Bible Planner into a wedding keepsake.
• It’s hand checklists help keep you on top of everything and act as a fail safe, so you don’t need to worry that you’ve forgotten something.

You can view more reviews about the Wedding Bible Planner at the following page:
Wedding Bible Planner Reviews

If you want to read more about the Wedding Bible Planner then head over to the bookshop using the link below.

Click to see more information on the Wedding Bible Planner