Funny and original cakes

Dear brides,

Here are a few more pictures of wedding cakes, but this time, I'm going for a different theme. These cakes are funny, original, and the idea here is just to push the boundaries of what you've imagined up til now. Why get a normal, traditional cake when you can have a funky one or include something that shows part of your personnalities?

Enjoy :)

 Nature theme? This beautiful piece mixes cake and cupcakes for a variety of sweets.

 This cake is very Tim Burton. If you're a fan, why not include part of his universe in your big day?

This one is for Scrabble fans. I thought it was quite cute! The big letter on top can be the first letter of the groom's last name.

Just a little heads up, if you are a man and would like to suggest a cake like this to your fiancée, try to avoid any formulation that may sound like you view your future wife as a cow.

This one is more about the cake topper than the cake itself, but I laughed really hard when I saw it. I've seen lots of "funny" cake toppers, where the groom runs away, which I don't find so funny, but this one I thought was very clever. Once again, be careful not to say it like she's so fat that she'll fall into the cake.

This one is for book lovers!

This one is for steampunk fans. I was impressed with the details and how real it looks, especially the wood. I wonder what that tasted like!! Can anyone guess the flavour?

This one is quite excellent. Everyone knows that some things are bound to go wrong or not as planned on a wedding day. Avoid surprises by making your cake a Disaster cake!

This one is just too cute! Very kiddish, but just adorable.

Rice-crispies squares lovers, here's the cake for you!!

And finally, for ski enthusiasts...

Pictures of beautiful wedding cakes

Dear brides, 

Here are some pictures of beautiful wedding cakes for inspiration!

Enjoy xx

Wedding invitations

Hello brides!

When the time comes to do your wedding invitations (or have them done), there are many decisions to make. First, think of the appropriate amount of time you need to make or receive them, in accordance with the time you want your guests to receive them. Usually, wedding invitations should be sent about 2 to 3 months in advance. It gives your guests time to clear their schedules, answer you and shop for your gift.

Think about including your wedding colours, to create a continuity for your guests. For example, if your bouquet is hot pink and your bridesmaids or flowergirls have pink and blue, you can use those two colours also for wedding décor, invitations, favors, cake, wedding website, etc. Have fun with it!

If you work with a designer, the possibilities are endless. You can choose from their selection of templates, or choose to have special, custom-made invitations in which you decide what papers, colours, ribbons and fonts you want.
Here are two wonderful websites of wedding invitations designers:
http://www.idoweddingcards.com/
http://preciousinvitations.com/

If you do the invitations yourselves, my recommendations are similar to making your wedding favors on your own. Do not underestimate the time necessary!! I spent many, many hours making my invitations. I don't regret it, and I enjoyed making them on my own, but it was a big time investment.

My husband is a part-time photographer and had lots of opinions on the design of the invitations we created. Personnally, I would've just taken a sheet of paper and drawn a simple example of my ideas before I started making them. However, with my man, there had to be a photoshop document with carefully calculated details and designs. We took hours just deciding on the font.
So basically, he was more on the concept and design team, whereas I was on the execution team. He's very creative, but not too manual, and I wanted invitations that looked nice even though they were home-made.

Here are pictures of the invitation and enveloppes I made myself! (note: there were blue ribbons for the invitations sent out to boys only)

Alright, that's all for now, see you next time when we discuss wedding CAKES! Mmmmm...
xoxo

Place cards and wedding favors

Hey there, 

I hope you all had a nice Christmas and a good celebration of the New Year! As for myself, I've been very busy with family gatherings and catching up with friends. But let that not pull our focus from wedding planning!

At this point, I'd like to talk about place settings. By place settings, I mean the little card that indicates each guest's name and the table they will be seated at for the meal. You may choose to work with a designer, possibly with the person who made your invitations, to print out the seating cards. 

Here is the website of a great designer who will work with you to create the perfect look, from wedding invitations to place cards: http://www.idoweddingcards.com/

I personally had a small wedding and chose to make my own invitations, place cards and wedding favors. If this idea sounds fun to you, you may consider DIY. Of course, be aware that this will take up a lot of time. So if you're only doing it to save money, cursing all the while, you may as well spend a little bit more and get it done professionally, in my opinion.  

The fun things about doing it yourself is that you can really personalize everything, and work with your husband on the look you're going for. For instance, I talked about designs with my fiancé, and then went to an art supplies store. I bought thick (cardboard like) paper, materials such as ribbons and also an assortment of thin papers with designs and colours. We used the same designer paper for our invitations, place cards and wedding favors, to establish unity. 

For the place cards, I cut out little rectangles (3 inches by 7 or 8 inches) and wrote each guest's name in nice lettering. After folding each card in half so that it would stand, I proceeded to decorate it with corners of the designer paper. 

Here are a few links, for some inspiration:  

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/228642/place-and-seating-card-templates/@center/272429/diy-weddings

http://www.stylemepretty.com/2009/06/10/diy-project-custom-place-cards/

http://www.intimateweddings.com/blog/16-diy-wedding-place-cards/

Now, when it comes to wedding favors, I spent MONTHS trying to figure out what to give my guests. I shopped and shopped online, and then decided to make my own wedding favors. There are lots of great online stores for buying wedding favors, such as the following: 

http://weddingshop.theknot.com/wedding-favors.aspx

http://www.weddingfavors.org/

http://www.topweddingfavors.com/

I hesitated for a long time, because I wanted to give people something useful, which rules out food and a lot of decorative items traditionally used as favors. In addition to that, I wanted something that all guests would appreciate equally, from my childhood friends to my husband's crazy college friends, including my 7 year old nephew and 95 year old grandma. In the end, I think I found a way to make it work. I made bookmarks!

I had lots of fun designing them. Every single bookmark was unique, and people could choose their favourite. I cut out thick, cardboard-like white paper in a rectangular shape. Then, I cut out the designer paper in sections of varying sizes, but always the width of the bookmark. For instance, I had a large square of green paper at the bottom of the bookmark, then a thin rectangle of pink with flowers, then a thicker rectangle of blue with dots, and so on, creating unique bookmarks for each guest. I also added our first names and the date of the wedding, as a souvenir. Here is a picture of the result!

Alright, have a good week, enjoy winter, and see you next week when we duscuss wedding invites!

xoxo

Finding your bouquet

Good monday to all,

So this week, we discuss the bouquet. I only had a bridal bouquet, but depending on your taste and on how big your wedding is, you may choose to have bridesmaids bouquets as well. If you do that, remember to make yours special and different from the bridesmaids.

If you choose to work with a florist, you can work out a bundle including bridal bouquet, bridesmaids bouquets, flowers for the decorating the ceremony hall and centrepieces for the reception. Do not underestimate your budget for flowers, because they are not cheap!
But there are plenty of ways to save:
- get submissions from different florists. This insures that you don't overpay just because you didn't shop around. Not all places will have the same prices, especially if you bundle.
- ask for suggestions from the florist, for ways to lower the costs. They want the sale, so they will be willing to help you and find a way to make you happy.
- choose flowers that are in season, because they will be cheaper.
- choose big flowers, as you will need less of them to fill out your bouquet or centrepieces.
- have centrepieces that are not flowers. There are plenty of alternatives. Martha Stewart has lots of suggestions: http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/272498/centerpieces?tab=index
- have bridesmaids carry only one flower instead of a whole bouquet.
- have fake flowers.

I know, some of you just cringed when you read "have fake flowers". But think about it. They are MUCH cheaper, can be delivered much more in advance (read: reduce last-minute stress) and do not have to be stored in a cool place (which is hard in the summer months).

What I did for my wedding was: I did not decorate the ceremony or reception halls. This was made possible because the venue I chose already had lots of personnality. It was all in wood and stone and had its own decorations. Simple, modest, but did not need much more in my opinion.
As I mentionned before, my bridesmaids did not have bouquets. I only had to buy one for myself, and I chose to buy a fake bouquet. I like to be prepared in advance, and decided I would rather have my bouquet months in advance than have to worry about it at the last minute.

This is when I discovered the wonderful world of Etsy (www.etsy.com). Etsy is an online community where you can buy crafted, often home-made items. They even have a whole section for weddings: http://www.etsy.com/category/weddings?ref=fp_ln_weddings

I shopped for my bouquet there and found a beautiful one. Here are two photos from my wedding:

 Photo by JP Lessard: http://www.jpl-photography.com

Photo by JP Lessard: http://www.jpl-photography.com

There you go, enjoy your bouquet shopping, and see you next week when we discuss place settings and wedding favors! Merry christmas, happy holidays, and lots of love from Mrs. B.
xxxxxx

Wedding shoe shopping!

Dear brides,

As we are female, we all love shoes. And no matter what people say - "Who cares, no one will see them, your dress is too long!" - shoes are ALWAYS important. But you know that.

There are many decisions to take when considering wedding shoes:
1. Do you want shoes, sandals, open toe?
2. What colour? The majority choose white or beige, but you can go wild and have colourful shoes. You can even have your shoes be your "something blue"! Have a look at some photos:

3. What is your budget?
4. How many inches of heels are your comfortable in?
This is important to consider. The first shoes I wanted were over 4 inch high, and I never wear heels in everyday life. I tried on shoes at a store and three inches was the highest I could remotely get around with. But they were soooo pretty! Here they are, Paris Hilton destiny shoes:

In the end, I shopped for a long time, as I am very opinionated and have very specific taste. I ended up shopping with my mom in stores way over my spending limit, and fell in love with expensive shoes, so she bought them for me. Lesson here: don't shop for shoes in über-expensive stores unless you are with someone who will spoil you!
Here are my beautiful shoes:

They have a shape I absolutely love, they are very delicate, italian designer shoes. And they were very comfortable, considering I never wear heels and am not generally comfortable in high heels.

Anyways, my general advice is: don't settle until you really love the shoes you find!
Happy shopping, and next week we discuss bouquets!

xoxo

Bridal accessories

Dear readers,

As you probably know, accessories pull a whole look together. Even a stunning gown doesn't make a look complete without some embellishments. Which is why we shall discuss the essential accessories for a bride!

1. Jewellery

Beautiful earrings are a must, especially if your hair is up. It really completes your polished look, and makes you shine. If your ears aren't pierced, they can now make fake earrings that don't look cheap like the ones you played with when you were 8.

If your dress is strapless or has a low neckline, I also recommend a necklace that works with your earrings. Experiment while shopping for different looks, textures, even colours! I suggest you keep to light colours, so you don't pull focus from the dress.

Some girls like to wear tiaras, to feel even more like princesses on their big day. If it suits you, why not?

Here are some great ideas for bridal jewellery:

This one is from Isabelle Lehoux's wedding collection, I apoligize for the poor quality of the photo, but it's really beautiful stuff, and not costly. Visit her website: http://www.isabellelehouxmontreal.com/fr/produits/occasions-speciales/index.html

This website also has very nice jewellery: http://www.glamourjewellery.com/main/Bridal_Jewellery.php

And here is one other with great sets (including earrings and necklaces) for very reasonable pricing: http://www.looneymaiden.com/store/agora.cgi?product=wedding-jewelry-Specials&user4=Bridal%20Jewelry%20Sets

2. Undergarments

You will have to shop for special undergarments. You don't want to wear your wednesday panties for such a special day! Shop for comfortable and beautiful underwear. However, if you already own a great strapless bra, in white or beige, I don't think you need to buy another one. I had originally thought about buying a sort of corset and was surprised when the saleslady told me it could show through the dress. Like if the corset stops at your belly-button, then you will see a line through the material of the dress. So I opted for a strapless bra.
For more tips, visit this website: http://www.bridalundergarments.net/

3. The garter

This was the first item I bought for my wedding. I was shopping at La Vie en Rose and came across the cutest garters, very simple with white lace and a blue ribbon, for only 8$. It also counted as my "something blue"!
Here are some addresses to shop online: http://www.weddingfavours.ca/c/GRT/Garters.html

This one is quite cute in my opinion, and comes from this website: http://www.theshoppingchannel.com/Cathys-Concepts/Accessory-Collections/Bridal-I-Do-Wedding-Garter/pages/productdetails?nav=R:620743

Enjoy your shopping, and next time we will discuss SHOES!!!
xoxo