Unique Murano Glass Wedding Reception Favors

Wedding favors are considered among the most important aspects of your wedding reception celebration. Make a statement with your wedding favors that provides a unique way to display a brief 'Thank You' message to your family and friends.

If you choose a specific theme for your wedding, select favors that your guests will take home in remembrance of your theme. You may also want to plan your wedding around a color scheme where you can select favors with complimentary colors to decorate your reception tables or choose one color for a more dramatic effect.

Nothing compares to the natural beauty of Murano glass favors. The way the hand blown glass colors intertwine within the glass turns a common favor, such as key chains, wine bottle stoppers, or bottle openers into an original work of art that will have your guests admirng your choice in favors for years to come.

Remember, you can personalize almost any wedding favor with tags, ribbon, or gift bags. Whether your favors are DIY, casual, or elegant, they become an exeptional way to thank your guests for sharing in your wedding celebration.

Renee'

Add a Touch of Fall To Your Wedding Cake

Fall has become one of the most popular times of the year for weddings and brides are always looking for new and fun ways to add the feeling of fall to every part of the wedding. Here are few ways to add a unique seasonal touch to your fall wedding cake:

When you think fall you automatically think pumpkin! Pumpkin or spice flavored wedding cake would be a great way to incorporate the season into your wedding cake. Some other flavors that can be used for fall would be coffee, butterscotch, caramel, cinnamon or apple. Wedding cupcakes have become increasingly popular. This is a great way to incorporate several flavors of cake and also offer your guest a variety.

The color palette for fall of course is orange, red, yellow and brown. Not all fall weddings have to be this color. If you want to match your cake to your wedding colors, simply think fall shapes. You can add fall leaf shapes, or acorns to the cake without the color. Ask you baker to make ivory, white or gold marzipan acorns, leaves or pumpkins to embellish the cake. A simple but beautiful ivory cake with sugar maple leaves is another way to go.

Another great ideas is to use the same flowers that you are using in you bouquet on the wedding cake. If you are using burnt orange calla lilies, sunflowers, yellow roses or even acorns you can incorporate those flowers into the cake design to add a special touch of fall.

If you have decided to not go with a seasonal cake design at all you can always think of other ideas to add fall into the dessert. Serve a scoop of pumpkin flavored ice cream on the side of the cake or you can incorporate a fall themed candy buffet with lots of caramel, butterscotches and candy corns and other yummy treats of the season. Just make it special for you and it will be a fall wedding you will always remember.

Carrie



How To Preserve Your Wedding Day Bouquet

Make the memory of your wedding day last a lifetime with our wedding bouquet preservation tips and tricks.

Many brides often wonder what on earth they will do with their beautiful bouquet after their wedding day has passed.  This is definitely a topic that should not be overlooked. Because flowers usually stay fresh for only about 4 days, preserving your wedding blooms is something that should be carefully planned and thought-out.  Not a last minute afterthought.  To ensure the memory of your wedding day lasts a lifetime, finalize your bouquet plans a few weeks before your big day.  Either book a professional or purchase all the DIY tools needed to tackle your preservation right after your wedding is over.

The Methods - The 4 most popular methods for preserving your bouquet are 1) hang-drying, 2) freeze-drying via a professional service, 3) pressing, and 4) drying with silica gels.

1) The Vintage Approach - Hang drying your bouquet is probably the easiest method available and the result will be a gorgeous vintage looking memento.  After taking your bouquet apart, simply hang your stems loosely upside-down in a dark closet for about a week or more.  After your flowers are completely dry, spray your blooms with flower spray (or hairspray) to preserve.  This method will give your bouquet a vintage look because the dried flower colors will vary so dramatically from the original stems.

Tip: Turn your dried petals into homemade potpourri.  Take your bouquet apart and hang individual petals to dry.  Afterwards, crush each petal up and add your favorite smelling oils to create your very own wedding day potpourri.  To learn more on creating your own potpourri, check out these articles here and here.

2) Forever Young - Our 2nd choice is freeze-drying through a professional service.  This method is the best way to keep your flowers looking as fresh as the day you got them.  What is freeze-drying?  The freeze-drying method is done by a professional service and usually takes about 8 weeks.  Your flower professional will spray each bloom and freeze them so your bouquet will literally be preserved for years and years to come.  While this method can be expensive (usually a couple hundred dollars), consider having only a portion of your bouquet freeze-dried to save cost.  When opting for this method, it is best to keep your wedding bouquet in the cooler during your reception and use a toss bouquet instead to ensure your wedding day petals do not get crushed or damaged.  Also, to ensure freshness, be sure to make professional arrangements well in advance so your bouquet will get sent out right after your wedding.

3) Picture-Perfect - Pressing your blooms is a vintage and unique way to preserve the memory of your big day.  This method usually takes about 6 weeks to complete.  Select only a few flowers from your bouquet, press them between sheets of wax paper and cardboard, and lay a heavy book on top.  After about 4-6 weeks, you flowers will be ready to be assembled into your pressed mini bouquet.  Frame your bouquet for a lasting keepsake.  For a unique twist, add your favorite wedding day photo of the bride with her bouquet and frame the two together.

4) DIY Bride - Silica gels are a way to bring the benefits of freeze drying and hang-drying together.  Not actually a gel as the name implies, silica gel is actually a sand-like substance that flowers get submerged into removing all moisture.  Great for sturdier flowers like roses and dahlias, silica gels are not recommended for more fragile blooms.  To learn more about this DIY approach, read these articles here and here.

Happy Planning!

Allie

Credits: Purple flower bouquet courtesy of david wedding photography, Potpourri in DIY cardboard container via esprit cabane, pressed flower frame courtesy of martha stewart weddings

Carve Out a Place for Pumpkin Centerpieces!



September has quickly come to a close. For a lot of October and November brides the mad dash to create beautiful fall centerpieces has just begun. Luckily, our latest blog posts have offered many ideas on easy fall decor. I wanted to add to that list by focusing strictly on my favorite - the pumpkin.

I'm not talking about jack-o-lanterns with spooky faces. Of course if you are planning a spookily elegant Halloween wedding, I am all for it! But the pumpkin has much more  to offer than just being the missing head to the headless horseman. It can be carved to create beautiful centerpieces that add a warm glow to a romantically lit reception.  Table numbers and monograms can be scrolled into the pumpkin. Simple designs can also be added for either centerpiece pumpkins or lanterns to light outdoor walkways and aisles. Mini pumpkins can be quickly converted into votive candle holders as well!

Photo Credit:  Pumpkin Monogram from Marry Monograms. Pumpkin Topiary from Southern Living. Poka dots and Flower Pumpkin Trio from Crafty Nest.  Mini Pumpkin Votives from Totally Table Tops Blog. Polka Dot Pumpkin from Lacour Photography via Picasa Web. Lovers Silhouette Pumpkin from Masterpiece Pumpkins. Pumpkin Walkway from Southern Living.

I'm sure at this point, some of you are in love with the idea of carving pumpkins for your wedding or fall dinner party but are not confident about your skill. Don't worry! All lettering, designs, and monogramming can be printed off your computer and easily transferred to the pumpkin using carbon paper or a pattern tracer. This small tool has a spiked wheel that is used to trace around the pattern and will leave a perforated line to guide the carving. These can be purchased either in the sewing aisle (for tracing sewing patterns typically) or in the inexpensive pumpkin carving kits that are almost anywhere this time of year. Once the design is in place, there are a variety of tools that can be used to carve out the image. Get your groom involved by allowing him to take his jigsaw and drill to carefully cut out the image. X-acto knives or utility knives are also great tools for pumpkin carving. A steak knife... not so much. The simplest, yet one of the most beautiful, pumpkins I have seen simply used a drill to create perfectly round polka dots all over the pumpkin. Use a variety of drill bit sizes to create larger and smaller holes.
The gooey mess that is scooped out before carving the pumpkin can actually serve a purpose! Place it all in a strainer and use cold water to rinse away the pulp surrounding the seeds. Bake the seeds following the recipe of your choice and voila! A tasty fall snack that could also serve as a fun favor! Even if only placed in a candy dish on the table, the roasted seeds are sure to be a hit!

Off to the pumpkin patch!
~ Jenna

Personalized Wedding Gifts

As the heat of summer gives way to cooler temperatures, a new season of beautiful autumn colors and fall weddings begins. This fall, finding the perfect gift has been made easier with an abundance of items available that can be personalized as the perfect gift for the wedding couple.

Custom prints are becoming more popular with a wide variety of themes available such as romantic beaches, family names, sports teams, Irish pubs, and tree of love to name a few that are guaranteed to match a couple's personality or home decor.

While wedding gift registries allow insight to the individual tastes of the bride and groom, creating your own personalized gift or ordering from an on-line store is priceless. Have the names of the wedding couple and wedding date engraved, printed or embroidered on a unique gift for a treasured keepsake that they can share with their children and grandchildren for years to come.

Renee'