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.

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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