Wedding Planning Checklist: Choosing the Right Vendors

Are you unsure of which caterers, florists and other vendors to go with for your wedding day? It is very important to select the proper vendors to make sure your day goes off without a hitch. Here are some of my tips for selecting the right vendors. To connect more, visit me on Facebook! facebook.com

Wedding Planning Checklist: Choosing the Right Venue

Expert wedding planner Wayne Gurnick of Moments by Wayne gives you his personal tips for choosing the right venue for your wedding. Get that wedding planning checklist out and check one more item off with these tips! For more inspiration and tips for your wedding day visit Wayne’s blog at blog.momentsbywayne.com
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Choosing a Wedding Cake

Planning a wedding is an exciting and stressful job for bride and maid of honor. Plans need to be made for the location, music, food, invitations, and even the honeymoon. Another important part of wedding plans is the style, color, flavor, and layout for the wedding cake. Wedding cakes come in all different shapes and sizes, and for the creative bride they can even have designs of specific items. It’s important for any wedding cake decision to follow a few simple rules to make sure it is perfect for the occasion.

Always an important issue for any wedding plan is the time of the wedding. If you choose to go with an exotic or elaborate design for your wedding cake, you need to appropriately give the chef enough time to produce his masterpiece. Make sure that if your desire is to have a multi-tier cake that your chef is aware of the needs in plenty of time.

Wedding cake size is an issue for large or small weddings. Some brides prefer elaborate designs and multiple tiers for their wedding cake. The cake can often be large and tall, and if that is the desire of the bride then so be it! Wedding cakes don’t always need to be that typical layers of tall increments. Some brides prefer their cake to be shaped into favorite hobbies or interest. Unique designs are not unusual in characteristic weddings. If your groom is a musician, choose a unique design of a guitar as your wedding cake. If you and your future husband enjoy boating or yachting, create a cake of epic proportions by designing a boat structure. The cake designs are endless for a talented chef.

What about your wedding cake flavors? Typical flavors for cakes are vanilla or chocolate. You can mix these flavors and have one tier as vanilla and another as chocolate. Fruit flavors can be inserted in between the cake layers bringing a special flavor for the special day. In between layers of delicious cake batter, a bride can add cherries, strawberries, or even more chocolate. Your guests will rave about your cake even after the wedding festivities.

Icing is another major factor in an elegant wedding cake design. Creamy icing is the topping for all good wedding cakes. Certain icing materials are conducive to what kind of design your wedding cake has as a base. Butter cream icing is perfect for wedding cakes with limited decorations. It has a fluffy, creamy design that adds character to your wedding cake.

For more complex ideas, fondant is a delicious icing for brides with the need for elaborate decorations for their wedding cakes. Fondant allows for grand decorations since it hardens when it cools so it can form around specific decorations.

Whether the bride wants a simple plan or a grandiose design for a wedding, the wedding cake can be the center of attention. Elaborate designs are a beautiful addition to any wedding. The wedding cake will be enjoyable to any guest.

For more information, visit http://www.onweddings.tv.

Choosing Wedding Accessories

When you are planning your wedding, you will most likely be concerned with the bigger details of the ceremony and reception rather than the fine details, such as wedding accessories.  This is fine for the beginning.  But as you get deeper into the wedding planning process, you need to consider other aspects as far as necessities.  After you have planned the venue, the flowers, the photographer and music, you need to also consider the following wedding accessories:  

Gifts for attendants   

It is traditional for the couple to give gifts for those who attended them during the wedding.  Many couples are giving dinner gift certificates as well as spa nights for bridal attendants.  These gifts are usually more well liked than engraved gifts of the past.  Men often still will give a fountain pen to their best man as well as ushers.  Do not forget the children in the wedding party such as the paiges and the flower girls.  Gifts for them should be thoughtful and age appropriate.  

Transportation for bridal party 

If you are having a wedding in the country or far away from home, and the bridal party is staying at a nearby inn or hotel, you need to provide transportation for them to get from the wedding reception to  the inn.  You can hire a car that will pick them up and take them to their accommodations after the wedding.  Speak to the vendor who is providing your wedding transportation about this as this may be included in the deal.  

Thank you notes  

Do not forget to write out thoughtful, thank you notes after the wedding.  You can order your thank you notes at the same place that you order your wedding invitations.  Some engravers or printers will include thank you notes as part of a package deal if you ask them.  Many people address their thank you notes as they receive responses to make this chore easier.  

Wedding cake 

The wedding cake is often forgotten today as it has been reduced to a photo prop in some weddings and often cut before the guests have seen it.  Still, you should make sure that you order the wedding cake as well as the topper for the cake in plenty of time for the wedding.  Many wedding reception venues will provide a wedding cake if you ask.  If not, you can contact bakeries for this special cake.  

Party favors, guest book place cards 

Do not forget that you will want to keep track of the guests who attended your wedding.  Your wedding accessories should include place cards for guests, a guest book for guests to sign and party favors.  Party favors, such as sugared almonds wrapped in tulle are traditional for a wedding. 

Tips For Choosing Good Wedding Planning Software

When you first dig into the details of planning your wedding, you quickly find things can quickly become disorganized and quite overwhelming. There’s a lot to keep track of when planning a wedding, but one great way to help make sure nothing is forgotten is to choose some good wedding planning software, then using that wedding planning software to make sure the best day of your life goes off without a hitch!

Now wedding planning software is not just for brides. In fact, it might be a better idea to have someone else in charge of keeping track of all the details. The bride is nervous, excited and stressed out enough about this big day in her life, so wedding planning software can be purchased for use by a professional wedding planner, a great friend, family member, or someone else who’s placed in charge of keeping track of the wedding planning details.

Before buying wedding planning software, you’ll want to look around at various offers. Be sure to compare not just prices, but see what kinds of features are offered in the wedding planning software packages you’re thinking about buying too. You can get started by searching for wedding planning software with any search engine online, and maybe look for wedding planning software reviews too. This way you’ll be able to see how others like the specific wedding planning software packages you’re thinking about buying.

Now, what features and capabilities should your wedding planning software have?

1. Expense tracking. Good wedding planning software should offer some kind of way to track expenses and help keep you within budget. Some weddings can run as high as $20,000 or more before everything is said and done, but by tracking all of the related expenses in your wedding planning software, you’ll be able to make sure you can meet or beat the budget you’ve allowed for various wedding expenses.

2. Guest Tracking. Your wedding planning software should be able to track however many guests you intend to have at your wedding. Good wedding planning software won’t limit you to just 100 guest entries either, it should be able to handle the really big weddings too.

Other key points about guest tracking that your wedding planning software should be able to handle include all the little things like: Are they coming from out of town? Do they need help finding accomodations? What gifts did they give you and have you sent a thank you card yet? Did they attend various events such as the bridal shower or rehersal?

3. Reception Seating. Great wedding planning software will even allow you to help figure out the seating arrangements for your wedding reception! Seating can be extremely important and complicated at any wedding, and the larger it is the harder things seem to be. Having wedding planning software which helps you manage this though, will help prevent any major disasters on that special day. You wouldn’t want to sit Aunt Edna and Uncle Joe together – or even at the same table – if they recently went through a nasty divorce right? So look for wedding planning software which has features that can help you make sure no mistakes of this sort will happen.

4. Reception Details. Great wedding planning software should also allow you to manage all the misc details about the reception too: What foods will be served, what catering company will be used, where will the reception be located, what entertainment will there be, etc. These are all important wedding details that must be arranged and kept track of, so any good wedding planning software should offer a way to do so.

There are many other features you’ll find in great wedding planning software. These could include: Music management, vow and ceremonial details management, and having misc checklists and todo lists readily available. So when you’re looking around for great wedding planning software, keep in mind all the minute details that will need to be tracked, and be sure the wedding planning software you choose offers those for you.