Once you are engaged, it is time to begin preparing for the wild adventure of planning your wedding. There is a lot to prepare and this can become stressful depending on the date of your wedding. If you are working with a tight budget, it is still possible to have an amazing celebration. After some extensive research, it is now time to begin planning this special celebration. Although I am still planning my wedding, I would like to share a few tips that I have learned during my planning process so far.

If you are creative, I recommended designing the invitations yourself. There are benefits to creating your own invitations, which make the time spent worthwhile. I personally did not enjoy shopping for invitations because there were too many styles available. These styles consist of different themes, colors, and designs. When creating the invitations yourself, this process is simplified significantly. This allows you to have full control over what the invitations look like and you can create something that will be remembered well past your wedding day.

After deciding on a design for my invitations, I decided that it was time to begin shopping for shoes. My goal was to find an affordable pair of shoes that could be worn more than once. Most shoes that I found were a color that I was not happy with because they did not match any of the dresses in my wardrobe. This really concerned me because I do not like purchasing something that will not get much use.

I soon discovered dyeable shoes and these were perfect because you can easily change their color. This allows you to wear them many times. I am planning to wear these shoes for many special events after my wedding. There are many different shoes available to choose from, but these dyeable shoes seemed to fit my requirements best. I still have a lot of planning to do for my wedding, but overall, I am satisfied with what my fiancé and I have chosen so far.

Guest Post written by: Cynthia Andrews

Choosing a wedding planner is one way to simplify your wedding planning, but many couples question whether or not they need – or can afford – someone else to coordinate the details of their special day. There are several reasons you may want an experienced planner, however.

1. Your schedule is too busy for you to attend to the endless details of a complicated event like a wedding.
2. You have never participated in a wedding before and have no idea how to go about planning your dream day.
3. You need to coordinate complicated extended families, long distance arrangements, or other complex details.

If you do need a wedding planner, you can find one through personal recommendations, wedding vendors, and venues where you are interested in celebrating your nuptials. In fact, many resorts, hotels, and other
popular wedding locations may already have planners on hand.

If you need to find your own wedding planner, choosing the best one can be a challenge. It is important to interview each potential planner carefully – they will be helping you arrange the most romantic, memorable day of your relationship.

When getting to know potential planners, consider…

*Portfolios: Ask to see pictures, programs, invitations, and other details from weddings they have arranged.

*Scheduling: How many weddings are they planning at once, and will they have the appropriate time to spend on your event?

*Connections: Will this planner be able to help you find suitable wedding vendors for all your wedding details? Are they well connected in the wedding industry?

*References: Ask for contact information from their past clients, and contact those couples to ask if they were happy with the wedding planning services.

*Personality: You will be meeting with the wedding planner a lot, and you need to be comfortable with them. Can you trust that this person’s vision of a dream wedding will match your own?

*Budget: Some wedding planners will not work with weddings on very limited budgets. Ask about their minimum fees and see how willing they are to work within your wedding budget.

By choosing the right wedding planner, someone you are comfortable with and who shares your vision of your dream wedding, you can relax and enjoy planning your wedding knowing you have a trusted professional to help you with any troubling details.

Post written by Melissa Mayntz

If you want your guests to have a treasured memento of your wedding day, avoid the predictable candles, key chains, place cards, and other trinkets. By choosing creative wedding favors, you make your event more memorable and unique while personalizing it in an unusual and exciting way.

1. Seed Papers: Give your guests a favor that does the planet a favor with wildflower note cards, favor tags, or die cuts that can be planted and grown long after your wedding day.
Regional Favors: Embrace your wedding location by choosing local favors that introduce your guests to regional charm and beauty. Locally made jams, soaps, or figurines are great choices.
Origami: Origami wedding favors can be flowers, animals, stars, or any other shape that matches your wedding theme.
Lip Balm: Invite your guests to pucker up with lip balm favors. Similar options include small bottles of lotion or sunscreen, preferably in scents similar to your wedding theme.
Cultural Favors: Wedding favors can embrace the culture of your wedding. For an Asian theme, consider personalized chopsticks, or for an Irish theme choose romantic Claddagh charms.


Charity: Instead of sending guests home with a favor, print tags to let them know the money budgeted for favors has been donated to a meaningful charity, such as a cancer research center in honor of a deceased parent.
Living Favors: Love comes alive when you choose living wedding favors such as lucky bamboo plants, small cacti, pots of clover, or potted tulip bulbs.
Spices: Add spice to your creative wedding favors by opting for small bottles of spices that mirror your wedding cake favor or reception menu. Cinnamon, thyme, and rosemary are popular choices.
Homemade Treats: Make your favors more meaningful by making them yourself. Homemade cookies, fudge, or other treats with recipes are sweet choices for your guests.
Unique Boxes: If you have your heart set on classic wedding favors such as Jordon almonds, chocolate kisses, or rice or birdseed for tossing, present them creatively. Opt for unique wedding favor boxes such as miniature Chinese take out containers, small plastic pails, tiny terra cotta pots, or pyramid boxes.

Five Reasons You Should Make a Wedding Website
Guest Post by: Geoff Evason from Momentville

Making a wedding website can be both fun and very useful for your wedding.  For couples who haven’t yet made their own wedding website we’d like to point out 5 great reasons to consider making one.

First, a wedding website is very useful for sharing wedding information with your guests.  By adding the details of your wedding you can use your wedding website as a central spot for information about your wedding.  Letting your guests easily find all the relevant information in one place makes things easier for everyone.  This is especially true for destination weddings and out of town guests.

Second, a wedding website is a great way for communicating updates with your guests.  Some of the newer wedding websites allow your guests to subscribe to updates you make.  This makes your website a handy ongoing communication tool and allows you to feel confident that your guests are hearing about updates.  If a wedding website provider offers RSS feeds then you can even share your updates on social networking sites like Facebook.

Third, wedding websites can be great for helping you plan your wedding.  Many wedding websites include electronic invites, electronic RSVPs, and guest/meal tracking features.  This makes it a snap to keep track of who has/hasn’t RSVPed, who is coming, and how many of each type of meal has been requested.

Fourth, you can use your wedding website to interact with your guests before and after the wedding.  If you add a wedding blog to your website, everyone can read about how the planning is coming along.  You can use interactive features such as guest books to ask for music requests.  That is a great way to make sure everyone gets to hear some music that they like, and helps everyone feel more involved. After the wedding, you can get your guests to upload their photos of your event so you can get all the best shots.

Fifth, a wedding website can help you preserve your memories.  After the event is finished, you can add photos from your special day.  In the future you can then look back at your website and remember how magical your wedding was and have all the details, planning info, and photos available to see.  Unfortunately, many wedding website providers offer websites that expire after one year.  Your memories don’t expire, why should your website?

There are many other reasons you might consider making your own wedding website.  Above we highlighted the top 5 reasons that were important to us in building MomentVille.  MomentVille.com offers an easy, fun, and free way to build your own wedding website that never expires.  Our goal is to help people plan, share, and remember life’s special moments.

Post written by:

Geoff Evason
www.Momentville.com

This is one contest you would be crazy to not enter!!!
This local Indianapolis Wedding Contest is giving away…

A Full Wedding Planning Package by April Foster Events - Valued at $2495

A Full Day of Wedding Photography by Grise Photography - Valued at $1900

A Custom Set of Letterpress Invitations by Spark Stationary – Value Unknown

Here are the contest rules
* The Couple must have gotten engaged between 12.24.2008 and 02.15.2009
* The Couple must choose a ceremony and reception venue in Indianapolis, Bloomington, or Columbus.
* The Couple’s wedding date must take place in 2010 (in any month but June or July)

Here’s How to Enter the Contest
* Record a 90 to 120 second video of you and your fiancé telling them what makes you as a couple unique and why you should win. (anything goes – think singing, dancing, dress up, etc. Make it fun!) Then, upload the video to youtube and email the link to [april{at}aprilfosterevents{dot}com]

Be sure to include the following in the email:
Your name:
Your fiancé’s name:
Your email address:
Your phone number:
The youtube link:

You can find out all the details over @ April Foster Events Blog

We’d love to see your video submissions… so if you enter please add a link to the YouTube video below!