Decorating...making it all look great!

      In the past few parties I have hosted or planned and organized, I also get excited about the decorations.  But I've never really thought about the importance of them.  I know that sounds backwards, but stay with me here.  I love going to Party City and looking at all the different items that can be used to decorate a room for a party, and trust me I buy lots of them too.  In those times, I have never stopped and thought how important it was.  In one of the latest Sheffield lessons they really talk about flowers, candles and lighting at weddings.  
       With the September wedding getting closer and closer we have been talking lots and lots about flowers.  Where they will go at the ceremony, where they will go in the reception room, how the bouquets will look, what the centerpieces will look like, etc.  We have also talked some about candles, but not as much as maybe we should have.  Lighting...I had never really thought about lighting before.  One of the instructors talks about how taking $1,000 from the flower budget and putting that towards lighting.  It can more drastically change the room, give it more personality, make the ambiance more what the couple is looking for, than spending that $1,000 on more flowers. Who would have thought!?
     Another tip that instructors give, which I knew, I guess, but hadn't thought so much about is to not fight the decor of the room where you are going to be.  Almost all places will not let change the wall color or the carpet...no matter what.  There is however some very cool designs that will temporarily change the dance floor for a night. 
     No matter what you choose do for lighting, flower, candles, drapes, etc. Just make sure that all the elements are working together.  This is why many decorators, or wedding venues will put together a sample table so you can see how it will all look.  If they don't offer to do one, ask them if they can or if you can bring in some of the elements you are thinking about doing and use the room to see how it will all come together.

Money, Outfits and Parties

   After a short hiatus...I'm back!  Unit 2 in Sheffield's course for Wedding and Event planning, was an eye opener.  It all starts with the money, and by money I mean budget.  We all know that planning a wedding is costly, and it always seems that the groom and his family make off pretty easy by not paying for much.  In this day and age though, it's becoming more and more common for the groom and his family to share the expenses of this costly affair. 

   In a more contemporary way of distributing the costs:
Bride and/or Groom- brides attire, wedding flowers, bridesmaids luncheon, invitations, announcements, and personal stationary/thank you notes and entertainment and courtesies for out of town guests.
Bride's Family- the fee for the site of the ceremony, music at the ceremony, reception food (including the cake), photography/videography, and site fess (including rental of equipment and tips for serving staff)
Groom's Family-All beverages served at reception, limo service, and music at the wedding reception


   The one biggest thing I took away from this lesson was ALWAYS to put the deposit on the credit card.  That way if something happens with the vendor, and they are refusing to repay you (if something should happen on their side) the credit card company can step in and help you.  


   Outfits...we all know the bride searches long and hard for her perfect dress.  Many of us even watch the shows (me included) to get a glimpse of the billion dresses out there.    One has to decide color, material, style, length, gloves or no gloves, veil, hat, flowers in hair.  As you can see a bride's outfit it never complete :) 
   The options for bridesmaids are endless too.  As I am planning the wedding that is occurring in September I remember helping with the bridesmaids dresses.  We started with a simple linen dress, however the bride had not found her dress yet.  She found her dress on the first try and it's just gorgeous!  But once seeing the dress, we knew it wouldn't flow with the bridesmaids dresses.  Her maid of honor and MOB headed off to David's Bridal.  They found a wonderful dress in the color of choice, persimmon!

And tuxes....oh there are so many options of tuxes, my headed started spinning. Each bride and groom has there own wishes for how they want the groom to look.  I have one set of friends who are going for the tan suit approach and another set of friends who are doing the traditional black tuxes.  The options are just a little bit less than endless.  If you are trying to decide what you like here are somethings to think about: season of wedding, location of wedding and style of wedding (formal, semi formal, causal)


Party, Party, Party!  There are many parties that go along with the wedding.  The engagement party (see my first post), the bachelor and bachelorette parties, the bridal shower and then the bridesmaids luncheon.  Bachelorette parties are turning more and more into getaways and long weekends.  They can become costly but they are great fun.  Helping the MOH plan one is fun, but can get stressful when trying to keep everything moving and on the go.  Timelines are a must if you will be traveling from place to place.  The bridal shower is typically thrown by family members and/or friends.  It can have many different themes and can be at various times throughout the day.  The bridesmaids luncheon is a time where the bride can treat her bridesmaids for all their hard work.  The actual time of the day can be at any time. 

Baby Girl Shower

The long awaited blog is here! Last Saturday I co-hosted and planned a baby girl shower for a close friend and her husband.  When they had been pregnant with their son, they had two baby showers that I attended, one was couples and one was just for girls.  So when planning this baby shower for their soon to arrive daughter, her mother and I decided we would open it up to the couples, and families.  
I did lots of pre-planning and pre-shopping before her mom who lives in Texas arrived!  We had decided to go with an animal and also a "girl" theme. When thinking up ideas for games, and food, I had typed up a whole page  of notes and sent them to my co-host.  She loved all the ideas listed...and we went with it! So this year had a theme and direction to start in action. 

I had lots of fun planning the decorations!

I think the pink and the animals worked nicely together, what about you? 

As with most baby showers, there had to be games!  So I planned a "chug-from-the-bottle" game for half of the attendees.  The other half had to play "Guess the baby food" game.

 
After all the chugging and food tasting, we played a baby shower bingo game.  In order to play you had to find someone that had what was listed in the box, then they could sign it.  It was interesting, because even with such a diverse crowd from all walks of life, we couldn't find someone for certain boxes.  However it did invoke some interesting conversations among people. 

  

 I would say the shower was a success all in all.  Most importantly, the mother of my friend, the soon-to-be-mommy again, the soon-to-be-daddy again and all their guests really enjoyed themselves!  To me, that just makes this another amazing party that I planned :)