What a great way to light the path to a Halloween ceremony! Thank you Ashley and Kris, for this great picture and your creative ideas. (And thanks also to Marco, for his wonderful photos. You can reach him at http://www.diciaulaphotography.com/)
We’ll be posting more photos of Kris and Ashley because their little touches were just so amazing and personal, and they’ve been generous in sharing them.
Okay, so maybe you DON’T want to go into the city; go to Wild Ginger instead. The setting is jewelbox beautiful, surrounding you with art. The room is intimate, comfortable and the food is simply amazing. The website is www.wild-ginger.biz, and will give you a tantalizing idea for your next great night out. Don’t miss the tartare, in any variation, and say hi to Charles, charming owner and host.
This could be our favorite restaurant ever, and what a fantastic backdrop for your rehearsal dinner, shower, “first time the folks meet the folks”. The food at Suba is incredible (go for the tasting menu; it’s just an endless parade of beautiful and delicious bites), the atmosphere sleek and stylish (the grotto room, perched over a pool, will awe your most jaded friends) and the service gracious. The neighborhood is edgy enough to impress, but accessible and friendly. It is just an all win situation. Let us know how much you loved it there! (Just don’t put your purse on the floor…..you may see it floating by you as you enjoy the great desserts…..)
Your bridesmaids; you’ve picked them carefully because they mean so much to you. They will support you and help you and with any luck, they will not throw you a shower where you play games and eat jello. How can you thank them? Besides not picking dresses that make them look like the prom queens from hell…..
Gift certificates for manicures, pedicures, massages. Sushi, flowers when they don’t expect them, a subscription to their favorite magazine (not your favorite magazine). A six pack of little champagnes, so they can enjoy a glass by themselves, in the tub. Really beautiful soap that they wouldn’t buy themselves. A beading party so you can make cool stuff to wear at the wedding. A reading by a psychic; their astrological chart done by a pro.
Your deep gratitude….priceless.
Kids!!! We love them at weddings, but the average gathering time/ceremony/reception represents a stretch of time that is huge for them; a little wedding goes a long way when you’re 6 years old. By the time they get to the dinner, they are going to be antsy. Heck, some of your adults are going to be antsy.
Keeping them occupied and happy can make everyone’s day peaceful and joyous. Try these tips from some of my wonderful clients!
-cover their dinner table with white paper and give them all crayons
-if there is a separate room that they can hang in, run a movie and supply popcorn in take out containers or sandpails
-arrange for a little field trip to a local zoo, museum, ice cream parlor, bowling alley
-arrange of an hour or so of a balloon sculptor, storyteller, or other child oriented entertainment person
-if you’re outside, set up a badmitton net, croquet, volleyball
We never like to see a “tip cup” on the bar at a hosted event like a wedding, but this might be an exception that warms everyone’s hearts and does some good in the world.
Advise your bartenders that soliciting tips is not what you had in mind,and take care of them ahead of time. Then station a big brandy snifter (or dog bowl!) at the bar, and a photo or two from either this wonderful charity that does beagle rescue (http://www.beaglepaws.com/news.html), Unicef(www.unicef.org), or any other cause that is dear to you. At the end of the celebration, you’ll have a great donation,and you can thank your guests for their generosity in your thank you notes.
Never underestimate the power of your caterer. I think that Diane and I were trying to use our mind melting talents to morph the giant ice seahorse into a model of the Chrysler building. As I remember it, this was a fantastic summer wedding that was only marred by a guest driving his vintage Lincoln Continental down the patio stairs into the fountain. Imagine our surprise. Imagine his surprise. Imagine the photographer’s surprise….
New brake pads….priceless….
No, you don’t have to have them. But if you do, why not make them something that will remind your guests of the unique aspects of your day. Married in the spring, in a garden? How about flower seeds or bulbs? Summer wedding at the beach? Flip Flops or take out boxes of salt water taffy. Christmas wedding? Ornaments (or personalized windshield scrapers; what can I say, I have the most creative clients on the planet….)
Another wonderful option is making a donation to your favorite charity instead of buying favors. You could underwrite any one of a number of animals from the Heifer fund (http://www.heifer.org/) and include stuffed versions of the gift in your centerpieces; you can buy bees, rabbits, goats and all sorts of creatures that are so welcome to the families that receive them. ( I bought my mom a llama for Christmas; she liked him MUCH better than the parade of slippers and gift cards…) You could donate to Habitat for Humanity (www.habitat.org) and use birdhouses or gingerbread houses for your centerpieces.
Your wedding day is not only a celebration of your joyous life with the person of your dreams, it is also an expression of your parnership in the world, your interaction with the season. Let those connections be part of this day of all days!
Don’t count on your poor overtaxed brains to remember anything for your ceremony; vows, speeches, words for the rings, or readings. You will spend the entire ceremony in fear of the minutes that you have to speak, and the addition of 200 or so of your closest friends will send even the most normally composed public speaker into waves of shock and nerves.
Your officiant can banish this worry for you. Ask them to either type the words you’ll speak onto a manageable size card, or recite them to you, a few words at a time, asking you to repeat them. This way, you’ll be as relaxed as possible.
The only things you should have to remember on your wedding day are the license, the rings, and your joy!
Play on! It’s Shakespeare, and how true it is! Your ceremony is the perfect time to inject a highly personal bit of music. Terri and Sergio had this wonderful Mariachi band play them down the aisle. I’ve done weddings with Klezmer bands, bagpipers,
gospel choirs, harpists and dueling banjos. The important thing is that your music
sings to you!
That being said, we’ve never heard
“Inna Gadda Da Vida……”
