The OurWeddingDay Blog

Is a Videographer Right for My Wedding?

OWD — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:11:33 -0400

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Meet OWD's Real Brides: real OurWeddingDay.com Brides-to-be sharing their experiences. It’s not about the “right” way to plan; it’s about each bride planning the wedding that’s right for her

Jenn from Jefferson Valley, NY writes:

To video or not to video? That is the question.

My fiancé is a big "home video" guy. His parents before him were also believers in home video. No one in my family owns one. I’m not the biggest fan of being photographed to begin with, and the idea of being videoed simply gives me the shivers.

Surprisingly, when I broached the subject with my honey, he didn’t really feel strongly one way or the other about having the whole affair videoed. To be honest, I’m still going back and forth on it. Maybe we should tape the ceremony. Maybe we should tape the whole thing. Maybe… maybe… maybe.

I know for sure that we need a still photographer. Over the summer we were invited to a friend’s step-daughter’s wedding. I contacted the bride and asked her for any recommendations. She forwarded me her photographer’s name. Prior to meeting the photographer, I was emailed a link to her Flickr page so I could see her body of work.

Upon meeting with the photographer my fiancé and I discovered that her wedding package was different that most of the others that we’d seen at the bridal shows in the area: Instead of having us select a specific number of poses to have her put together into a wedding album for us, we’ll get a CD of all of the shots that she and her assistant take – between 500 and 700 – along with the rights to use them. Armed with those CDs, we can then make whatever we want using an online service like Shutterfly or Snapfish.

The photographer will be with me and my girls while we’re getting ready at my parents’ house in a town 20 miles away from the wedding. Her assistant will hang out with the men at our house while they’re getting ready. Then both photographers will be at the wedding and reception.

Prior to the wedding we’re to have provided her with a list of all the posed shots we’d like along with the names of the people involved. UGH! Here’s the part I’m not looking forward to at ALL! I’m really not a fan of having my picture taken. I don’t feel like I photograph well. The idea of having to sit/stand for almost an hour is making me itch already! I probably should get in touch with the photographer and tell her, and see if she’s got some words of wisdom or something, huh?

But, as to the first question, I think it’s a "no." Having a still camera follow me around is frightening enough. I think adding a videographer to the mess will just drive me bonkers.

Whaddya think?

Lots of Accessories and Decorations for My Wedding This Week!

OWD — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:30:05 -0400

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Natalie from Irving, TX writes:

Well, we finally secured our photographer and videographer this past Friday; what a relief to have those wrapped up. Still communicating with the florist to put together the perfect package that will meet our needs for the wedding day, while still staying within our budget. So at the moment, we are fine-tuning the order to get it just right.

My wedding gown has arrived, so this Wednesday I will be picking it up; my Matron-of-Honor and Bridesmaid #2 will be there with me to share in the excitement. The cake topper in Austrian crystals arrived on Friday, along with the guest book, ring bearer pillow, engraved cake server and knife, my garter and my sixpence. I was so excited to see just how beautiful they were in person, because I had ordered all those online from WeddingDepot.com. I highly recommend that site based on the quality I received.

On Saturday, I picked up an antique-looking treasure chest from Hobby Lobby for guests to place their gift cards, checks or cash -- it will be elevated as the centerpiece of the gift table with its lid open. I also picked up some more gem confetti (because you can never have too much ;), plus I picked up materials to make the bridesmaid gift bags; ivory organza sachet bags with a dangling crystal border and then a decorative trim to wrap around the entire bottom end (front and back); my fiancé was impressed with how pretty and professional looking it turned out. This bag will hold the earrings and bracelet I purchased for all my girls.

Oh, and over the weekend we added a 7th Bridesmaid, a 7th Groomsman and 2 more Ushers to make up 12 Ushers all together.

In the coming week, I will continue to speak with the Florist to wrap up that order and hopefully secure the DJ, as well.

Happy Planning!

Why We're Integrating the Unity Sand Ritual into Our Ceremony

OWD — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:25:17 -0400

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Sam from Sudbury, Ontario writes:

My fiancé and I are not really big church-goers, but we are having our ceremony in a church simply for tradition and for our families. So when we were asked if we were going to perform the unity candle part of the ceremony, we decided not to.

Instead we are opting to try the unity sand ceremony. This way we can have our wedding colors come out in another part of our ceremony and also have our families take part in it. We are going to have our mother’s bring up our family sand colors and my fiancé's dad will be escorting them down the aisle. We really liked this idea to have them all take part and also it will be a nice souvenir from our big day for us to be able to treasure.

The Happy Wives Club and the End of the Desperate Housewife Stereotype

OWD — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:53:11 -0400

Fawn Weaver is on a mission to locate 1 million happy wives, just like herself since 2003, and put an end to the "desperate housewife" archetype.

She tells the Los Angeles Times that the purpose of her site, HappyWivesClub.com, "is to do nothing but say positive things," and that she believes "there are millions of wives all over the world just like me and I'm determined to find them and give a voice to this seemingly rare woman conveniently missing from all forms of media and entertainment."

Real happy wives across the country have signed up on Weaver's site to post quick tips about marriage. Weaver also posts about her philosophy, setting up marriage "rules" for women to find happiness and more.

We're a little unsure about the idea of "rules," because everyone's relationship is different, but we love the idea of spreading positivity and celebrating happy marriages!

Check out the full article at the LA Times here.

The First Dance: Contemporary or Classic?

OWD — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:42:17 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Amanda from Pittsburgh writes:

Ever since I was three, I loved dancing. Took all the dance classes growing up, won a scholarship to musical theatre school at a talent show, attempted to dance through college (until a torn hamstring changed my plans). Now I take some classes just as a hobby.

When planning my wedding went underway last fall, I was so excited that I could have the opportunity to share my passion for dancing with my fiancé by taking a class to learn our "first dance." At first, he was all for it: “Yes but let’s wait until the spring when its closer to the wedding.”

Even though there was two feet of snow on the ground, it was spring to me and time to talk over those dance classes again. I looked up a couple dance studios, talked to some friends who have taken ballroom dance classes before, really starting to figure out what type of dance to learn for our first dance.

With all the class schedules and prices tucked away in my purse just dying to be pulled out, I brought up the subject of ballroom dance classes for our first dance. The reaction was not what I was expecting. He said no! “What?! Why?” He finally told me that he wants to enjoy our first dance together just swaying back and forth to the music. I wanted to cry. But I said OK.

One of my best friends got engaged a couple months after I did. Recently for her birthday her fiancé surprised her with ballroom dance classes for the both of them. Am I jealous? Let’s just say it would have made quite a Valentine’s Day gift for me. But I am willing to accept that my fiancé just isn’t interested.

Since then, she has offered to teach us a simple waltz. And that really is all I am looking for. Anything but that swaying back and forth like we are in high school! As a classically trainer ballerina, I just cannot stand that!

I explained to my fiancé that if he still feels the same way, I am OK with that. We can sway. But at least give my friend teaching us a simple waltz a try. I am not trying to do something as elaborate as “Dancing with the Stars!” Just a dance that is more classic than contemporary.

Demoting My Maid Of Honor... And Other Items On My Checklist

OWD — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:51:18 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Natalie from Irving, TX writes:

The week started with finding out that my Maid-of-Honor betrayed my trust on something significant, so she has now been placed as 3rd out of 7 ladies in the lineup...still keeping her in the bridal party because she's already purchased her dress.

I met with the florist and loved what I saw; we just received their proposal yesterday from our meeting 5 days ago. We have some questions and changes to be made to it, but we're closer to getting the florist lined-up for our big day. We're in communication with the photographer/videographer but we haven't come to a final decision and signed contract yet; still have a couple loose ends to cover with them before we feel comfortable locking things down with them and signing a contract.

The invitations are currently with the calligrapher until tonight; I will go and pick them up after 6pm. I will be able to stuff the envelopes tonight and tomorrow to hopefully get them all into the mail by tomorrow late afternoon...with the wedding May 29th, we're running out of time to get these out to our guests.

The wedding dress came in yesterday that I ordered back on January 20th, so I plan to pick this up on the 15th of March. Today, I am custom-creating the Thank You cards, just as I did with the invitations, using MyGatsby.com. And in this last week, I managed to get the guest book ordered, ring bearer pillow ordered, sand and sand vases ordered and engraved for the unity ceremony, gem confetti ordered, my garter ordered, and monogrammed cake knives, Swavorski crystal cake topper and six-pence all ordered.

:-D Yay!...My list is dwindling.

Happy Planning!

Even the Shape of Your Reception Tables Matter!

OWD — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:40:46 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Sam from Sudbury, Ontario writes:

Unlike most girls, I haven't dreamt about my wedding day since I was five and when I played with dolls. It never crossed my mind to have them play wedding. But after being in some wedding parties and going to family and friends weddings I started to figure out what would probably work out best for me.

I always pictured having a nice sit-down family dinner with round tables and it being a little fancy. When my fiance and I started talking about the little stuff about the reception, one item that actually caught me off guard was the fact of having round tables.

He came up with some good points: With rectangle tables you could fit more people and would probably need fewer centerpieces. Although with all his points I still could only picture our big day with round tables. They just make it easier for the two families and friends to mingle and hopefully get along.

Talking it out, we decided we would first see what the reception hall provided: if we didn't like what they had and we had the extra money, we would rent tables. Turns out the hall came with round tables and linens included in any colour. I'm not going to say that was the main reason why we picked our hall but it definitely hit it out of the park. :)

Meeting with Wedding Florists All Week

OWD — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:29:18 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Natalie from Irving, TX, writes:

Since last week, we decided to fore-go the Day of Coordinator (because it's already included in our venue contract) and we decided to ask for a few more quotes from other florists, upon receiving our last quote.

So, each day this week at 2pm, I will be meeting with florists in order to find the best one for the best price. Yesterday I met with who I think will become our photographer; however, today I received another quote from a photographer but then realized they did not have as much bang for my buck as the one from yesterday in regards to the overall package.

Today I am trying to work with a local spa in order to have pedicures done all at the same time with my bridal party but I'm running into a dilemma of that they can only fit 6 at a time and there is no room for 2 additional sitting chairs to be brought in the room...this way at least the other 2 ladies can be part of the conversation while waiting for a chair to open up. Guess I better start looking at other spa locations in order to make this happen; bummer that my first choice couldn't have been THE choice. The wedding invitations that I custom designed and ordered from MyGatsby.com arrived today; they turned out perfect. Now I need to deliver these to the Calligrapher so that I can receive them back in time to start stuffing the envelopes and place them in the mail....all while going to school full-time! Whew!

Happy Planning!

My Destination Wedding Save-the-Dates

OWD — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:49:55 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Brooke from Corolla, North Carolina writes:

Since our wedding technically qualifies as a "destination wedding", and it's on a Friday evening, save-the-dates are a necessity. We're planning to send them out by next month, which will hopefully give our guests plenty of time to make travel and work arrangements.

I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of time on these and I also wanted to be able to order everything online. That said, I gave myself enough time so that if something had gone wrong, I wouldn't be scrambling at the last minute to put them together. I had three main criteria:

Most importantly, they had to be cost-friendly;
I wanted them to look professionally made; and...
They had to go with our beach theme.

I found PrintsMadeEasy.com through a furious Google search, and decided to try them after reading some good reviews. I knew that I wanted to do postcards rather than a magnet or regular card because I thought it went well with our overall theme and I didn't want to have to worry about envelopes. I was able to upload our image (using a picture I bought on iStockphoto.com) and personalize the back of the card with our information in a matter of minutes. They had a wide variety of fonts to choose from for the text, which was great because I am absolutely in love with the vintage typewriter font but can rarely find it. They provided a pdf proof via email, which I looked over for typos and misspellings and gave to Chris for his approval. The next day, I bit the bullet and ordered 100 of them, which was the lowest quantity they would allow.

The best news? I got 100 personalized postcards, which were delivered in less than a week, for about $30!

Also, I found these great lighthouse stamps on the USPS website, which are perfect since there are a few historic lighthouses in the Outer Banks, and one right next to the church where we are getting married in! Unfortunately we'll have to spring for $.44 stamps since the only $.28 postcard stamps have polar bears on them

All in all, I'm very pleased with the end result, and I would definitely recommend Prints Made Easy to anyone who is doing this type of project for their wedding.

The Tax Return that Became His Wedding Gift

OWD — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:57:53 -0500

Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.

Amanda from Pittsburgh writes:

I was very lucky last week: I received my income tax return!

Ever since I learned how to do my income taxes in high school, I fill out all the paper as soon as I get all the forms I need. Why not? The sooner it gets done, the sooner I receive the money I overpaid.

This year was my first year opting for the direct deposit. I checked my bank account on Monday and nearly had a heart attack, one of those good ones, because I received A LOT more money than I was anticipating. Ok, with planning a wedding, a few extra hundred is “a lot” to me. The first thing that ran through my mind was, “WEDDING GIFT!” The wedding is three months away. I know a lot of little things will come up that I need money for. So I took this opportunity to order my fiancé his wedding gift.

His wedding gift is sitting at home, in the garage, collecting dust. But I know when it’s opened, it will no longer collect dust. I am a master of dropping hints without even realizing it. But you know what? I am also a master of picking up on small things that my fiancé mentions that I know will make perfect gifts. There have been items that he will mention ALL THE TIME around Christmas and his birthday.

He’ll make me well aware of what he wants. But that’s not what he gets. It may be what someone else gets for him (which I tell them to get him) but not me. I remember the one time he mentioned “this” or “that”. The perfect gift. The perfect gift is the one that he wants that he forgot he even wants!

In addition to the perfect gift, I started buying the miscellaneous items I need for the centerpieces and favors. So instead of splurging and buying myself a new handbag or shoes, I used this tax return realistically. And I absolutely cannot wait for the rehearsal dinner to give the love of my life a very special gift.