Other Ways to Name Your Tables

If you and your fiancee have not traveled much and do not have enough "special places" to name your tables after, there are many other options available to you.  Table numbers are out and boring, tap into your creative side.  Here are some other ideas for naming the tables at your reception:

1. Do you have a special musical group you both enjoy, name the tables after their songs.
2. If you love a sports team, name the tables after your favorite players, owners, managers or parts of their stadium.  We love the Red Sox and I have seen people use baseball cards to label their tables.
3. Places of importance to you both, maybe not necessarily in order as we did.  Where you met, what towns you grew up in.  Maybe you traveled to Italy and got engaged there, name the tables after the towns you visited.
4. Do you have a favorite place, we love Disney World, name your tables after Disney attractions,  famous Disney characters, maybe your favorite Disney movies.
5. Special people in your lives that you may want to pay a homage to.
6. If you are sitting people at certain tables you can name the tables and put a story that involves the people sitting at the table.  This will make them feel special and help you let people know how they have touched your lives together as a couple.
   
7. Does your wedding have a theme?  Doing a Vegas wedding?  Name your tables after Vegas hotels, Vegas attractions, games played in Vegas...

There are so many ideas you can come up with, don't settle for boring numbers.  Need some help, email me.  Get creative...

Ways to Make it Personal

There are many ways to make it personal when planning your wedding. One way that my husband and I made it personal was by naming our tables after places of importance between us. Then when we laid out the tables, we put them in the order of when they occurred in our relationship. On the back of each card we put a short story about why it was important to us. For example, we met at Old Sturbridge Village on a cold January day. Our first table was named Old Sturbridge Village and we put a story on the back (just a few sentences) of our first date there. Our last table was Fenway Park where we got engaged. I then created a map for our guests so they could find their table, this was displayed by the place cards. Our guests really enjoyed this touch, some even told us they went around to each table to read them all. For those people who did not know us very well; they felt after the wedding that they did know us and that we shared our lives and love with them

Here is the website I used to order my table tents and they have a free template for making them: http://www.mcgpaper.com/tabletent.html.

They were cheap and easy to do and really made an impression on our guests.

Weddings On a Budget

In the January, 2008 issue of Hartford Magazine there is an article about weddings and planning. I really found this to be an interesting article and found it even more interesting that I cut out some of the things they suggest in my wedding to help control costs. Here is some of the advice they have to offer:

1. Know what your budget is before you talk to anyone.
2. Set your budget and stick to it.
3. Tell your vendors what your budget is and ask that they not show you anything that does not fit within your set budget. The example they use is: If you were looking for a house in the $200,000 bracket, you wouldn't go look at a $350,000 house.
4. You may have to make concessions (i.e. fewer guests or choose flowers that are in season (i.e. you would not have tulips in January in CT.))
5. Guests remember certain things, napkins, centerpieces, chair covers and favors are not among them.
6. What leaves a lasting impression is the bride and groom, food and drink, the music and how much fun they had. Remember this is the first event you are hosting as husband and wife.
7. Do not skimp on location, they also say not to cut out an open bar. Maybe limit your open bar to beer, wine and less expensive liquor.
8. You can also cut corners on the gifts and eliminate the limousines.
9. Choose an off peak period to get married.
10. Splurge on what is most important to you and your spouse to be.

Finally my most favorite quote of advice: "First and foremost, it's about your marriage. So many couples lose sight of that. You are getting married. You are making a commitment and everything after that is second fiddle." WOW, how true. You get so wrapped up in the planning and details, you need to give yourself a pulse check and remind yourself what you are planning and what it means.

I found it helpful that my reception site had a lot to offer and had a wide selection of options to help control my costs. My reception was the most expensive part of my wedding, but EVERYTHING was included. I had my wedding at the Glastonbury Hills Country Club and the cost per person was $71.00, this is considered their Premium Package. It included 5 hours of open bar, champagne and wine guest greeting, the champagne toast, assorted cheese display during the cocktail hour, self serve coffee bar throughout the reception, 4 hot-hand passed hors d'oeuvres, an appetizer, salad, 3 entree choices (beef, chicken and fish) and the wedding cake. The staff was amazing, the site was beautiful, the food was great and we have received many compliments about our wedding.

Here is what I cut out of my wedding to help with costs: I really wanted chair covers and felt it really made the room. When I started pricing them out I realized I was looking at an additional $600+ and felt this just wasn't necessary. I also wanted a limo and when I started pricing those out, I just couldn't get myself to pay that much money for what they call 3 hours of service. The 3 hours consists of picking up the bride and girls at the house, bringing them to the church, after the church bringing them to take pictures and then to the reception. Everything for me was in the same town so I would not have even needed 3 hours. My husband and I priced out Cadillacs through local car rental companies. We ended up finding one for around $70. He and my good friend picked up the car the morning of the wedding and then my good friend, Ronnie, who was also in our wedding was my driver. It was very special and saved us so much money. Then when the wedding was done, we drove the car to our hotel room and returned it the next morning at the airport. This really made it a lot easier for everyone.

I was also able to save money by buying as much as I could online and not settling for the first thing I found. Shopped around and waited for sales. I also used the reception sites centerpieces but dressed them up a bit to make it more personal. We got married in November on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. In meeting with our priest he suggested that we not get flowers for the church as it would still be decorated from Thanksgiving. He also was not keen on us using a runner. We decided that his ideas were great because we left the church exactly as it was and it became more about the ceremony than all of the decorations.

I have many more ideas on how to save money and will share them in my future blogs. Hope this helps someone and look forward to sharing more of my ideas. Happy planning!

Even Bad Advice May be Good Advice...

My husband and I got engaged on April 24, 2007. We made the official announcement and everyone was so excited. My husband is 38 years old and I am 33 years old, so in some ways it was... about time...

Then once the magic of getting engaged ends, the advice starts piling in. My husband and I decided we wanted to get married at Disney, have a quick ceremony and then change and go play in the parks. How do you say - DISASTER!!!!!! It was the first sign to us that maybe this was not going to be about what we wanted and more about what everyone else wants. My in-laws are very traditional and the idea of a "fun" wedding was not going to be acceptable. My husband and I were crushed, this is what we wanted and what we both envisioned and now???

Reality set in and we started to really think about the cost associated with a Disney wedding and how impersonal and "cold" it would be. We decided on a wedding back in my home town of Glastonbury, CT. We had a traditional church wedding in my Catholic church and then followed the ceremony by a very classy reception at the Glastonbury Hills Country Club. I will get more into my wedding in future blogs, but the lesson to be learned here is...

Even though my husband and I were crushed by the idea of not getting married in Disney and not having our "dream" wedding, we realized that the wedding we had was so unbelievable and so special and it would not have been had we gone through with the Disney wedding. What seemed to us to be devastating events in our wedding planning, turned out to be the advice we needed to open our minds...

My First Posting...

While planning my wedding I spent quite a bit of time online looking for information and products to help make my wedding exactly what I wanted it to be. Some of my favorite sites are listed in my favorites, but the key I found was to not settle for the first thing I found. Planning my wedding was so much fun and so exciting. My idea for this blog is to help others in planning their wedding. I will keep my postings to specific topics and offer my suggestions and advice. Thank you for reading and happy planning...