In addition to bridal gowns, you can find separates, shrugs, veils, headpieces, jewelry, sashes, and shoes.  Of course the best part of all is that they’re up to 90% discounted! So, all you lovely brides out there, check out the stunning gowns and accessories at  Your Dream Dress and see if you can find the gown of your dreams at a price you may have only dreamed of until today!

What is a Prenuptial Agreement?

A prenuptial agreement is a contract between two people about to marry that spells out how assets will be distributed in the event of divorce or death. Nancy Dunnan, a New York City financial adviser and author, advises couples to think of it as a business arrangement or as an insurance policy. “Marriage is not just an emotional and physical union — it’s also a financial union. A prenup and the discussions that go with it can help ensure the financial well-being of the marriage.” (Bankrate.com)

Does everyone need a Prenup?

Although some people think that prenuptial accords are only for the rich, even those who have worked hard to save a  nice nest egg may want to protect their assets. Bankrate.com thinks that you should consider having a prenup if you fall into any of the following categories:

How do I bring it up?

Since this is a touchy subject, some sensitivity will be necessary! Of course, it might be that your fiance has thought about it too, but is too scared to bring it up himself! In this case you’re off to a good start.

It is probably best to bring it up as early as possible, maybe even before you are engaged. If you and your other half have been open and honest with each other about other things, then it should hopefully not come as a huge shock that you want to discuss a prenup as well.

Carley, Editor-in-Chief at The Knot points out that there are actually some perks to broaching this uncomfortable but sometimes necessary topic. Her advice is to first remind him that prenuptial agreements actually allow you as a couple to decide what will happen to your cash in the event of a death or divorce, rather than leaving those decisions up to a judge. You can also point out that drawing up a pre-nup forces couples to face their finances and start planning for the future — something most newlyweds don’t start to think about for years. In the process of this discussion you may both learn important things about each other that you didn’t know before!

How do we write it up?

You will both have to fully disclose your assets and sources of income (from your job or business, or monetary gifts like an inheritance). Talk about why you want the prenup and what each party’s concerns are. Once everything is on paper, you and your lawyers will decide together how it will be divided up.  Bankrate.com advises that you each have your own lawyers who will co-write the agreement with their clients’ best interests in mind.

Some things to keep in mind when writing a prenuptial agreement:

• Honesty. Both parties must FULLY disclose their assets. If a judge detects that either person has hidden something, he can toss it out the window.
• It should be signed at least a month before the wedding, and preferably before you send out invitations. This is in order to avoid the appearance of coercion, another key reason why some agreements are rendered null and void.
• Fairness. A valid prenup should not have one spouse taking advantage of the other. If it goes to court, a judge will look for equity in your agreement.
• Avoid making frivolous demands.  Requiring that your spouse not gain weight, or that he take out the garbage three times a week may not be taken seriously. Weighty subjects, such as stipulating what religion your children will observe if you and your betrothed are of different faiths, can be included.
• Create a contract that is as formal as possible.  Use a matrimonial lawyer who is familiar with prenups and the laws of the state in which you will be living.

*

*

*

All photos and ideas from Martha Stewart Weddings.

*

*

*

Escort-Card Posies: All you need are fabric flowers, map pins, and glue to bring your seating assignments into bloom. Would look great with little multicolored fall leaves, too!  Click here for the  How-To!

Blossoming Backdrop: A string of white lights, vellum and card stock, hole punches, and glue!  Click here for the How-To!

Paper Links:Vellum and double sided tape make paper chains chic! Mix-n-match colors to get the perfect look. Click here for the How-To (as if you really need it!)

Wooden Seating Cards: Paper-thin wood veneer, craft punches, and calligraphy pens make these distintive place cards! Get the How-To Here!

Flower Girl Cardigan: Sequins and fabric glue make it fun!  Works wonders for all sorts of other things too, including shoes, sashes, bouquets, headbands, and favors.

Poster Guest Book: Instead of having your loved ones write messages in a book, put out a poster on which they can sign their names. You can download the editable (and free!) clip art here, send the file to a printer, and it’s done! Or put together your own poster using stencils, paint, ribbon, and anything else you fancy! Get the How-To here!

Seasonal Fruit Favor: You’ll need fruit, tissue paper, and rubber stamps for this one! For personalized stamps, have an office-supply store make a rubber stamp with your names, wedding date, and  illustration. Get the How-To here!

Harvest Wedding Centerpieces: The beauty of these is that they can be made weeks in advance!  Wheat, grains, and other dried grasses (available at crafts stores), tied with a luxurious satin bow. Get the how-to here!

Mini Candied Apples: For these dainty nibbles, embellish candied apples with a paper leaf. You’ll need a leaf-shaped craft punch, glue, and short skewers. You can hand-write, stamp, or print “Enjoy” on each leaf. Get the Candy Apple recipe here!

Flower Girl Basket: For this charming look, get yourself a pretty basket, some cotton fabric, silk ribbon, and leaves. You can order pressed leaves if you don’t have any real ones in your area! Get the how-to here!

Fall Wedding Boutonnieres: Incorporate the shades and symbols of autumn into festive boutonnieres. Get the How-to here!

How is working with a travel agent beneficial when booking a destination wedding?

When you book a block of hotel rooms directly or with an online travel site, you always pay the full fee upfront. When you work with an agent, s/he can negotiate a group hotel rate, and then renegotiate as your date gets closer, when hotels know more about their occupancy levels. Low occupancy equals deals! With an agent, final payment sometimes isn’t due until a month prior, which gives you extra time to firm up your guest list.

Are there discounts for group air travel?

Yes! For example, American Airlines will create a savings code — usually 5 percent off –if you have at least 10 people traveling their airline . They do not need to fly from the same airport.

How can newlyweds get upgrades?

When making a reservation, let your hotel know it’s your honeymoon! They’ll often give you a little something extra like a welcome bottle of Champagne, breakfast in bed, or even a nicer room at no extra charge. (Note: adults- and couples-only resorts don’t normally offer extras, as they cater almost exclusively to honeymooners.)

Any tips for arranging flights?

September us generally a cheap travel month as kids in the U.S. are back in school, Europeans are home from summer trips, and it’s hurricane season in the Caribbean and Mexico. Midweek flights can be cheaper than weekends. If you’re making numerous stops, consider a “circle trip,” which many airlines offer. It starts and ends at point A, but includes stops in between. This should cost less than buying a bunch of one-way tickets.

What  important issues do travelers often overlook?

Some airlines charge luggage fees. Some, like Delta, give you one free bag on international flights.  You also need to check visa requirements; many cruise lines leave it up to you to arrange visas for their ports of call.  And don’t forget to make sure your passport is valid. For countries like Costa Rica, your passport must be valid for 30 days after arrival, but others, like Fiji, count three months past departure date.

What are some necessities for long flights?

A blanket that comes in a bag is handy– you can use the bag to cover the airplane pillow!  Healthy snacks, like trail mix, are a must, since airplane food is either prepackaged or pricey. And DK Eyewitness Travel Guides are great for studying up on your destination.

Any advice for those who don’t use an agent?

If you can, book well in advance. Sign up for airline and hotel e-blasts, and monitor their Facebook and Twitter pages for deals, too.

feature image credit

“But like everything else, if you want to pull it off and not drive yourself nuts, there are rules,” says The Broke Ass Bride.  Here she lays down the laws of iPod-ing your wedding music:

1. Check with your venue about their sound system, what kind of equipment they have to attach speakers to, and whether you can get the speakers from them, or if you have to rent them.

2. Test the speaker system, leaving plenty of time to make changes if you have to (not at the rehearsal dinner).

3. Figure out the logistics, including moving the system from the ceremony to the cocktail hour to the reception. Bring extension cords if necessary.

4. Pick someone to monitor the music, because YOU will be a little too busy during the the wedding to deal with it. Give them a list of all the songs in your playlist(s), and review it to make sure they’re all on there.

5. Make a separate playlist for each segment of your wedding – ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, first dance, cake cutting, bouquet throw, open dance floor, etc. Put them all in order.

6. The ceremony: Decide who is going to walk down and whether they will walk in to the same music. Use cross-fading so you’re not being jolted from one song to another.

7. Cocktail hour:  You  need about 18-20 songs, depending on the length, to fill an hour. It’s a good idea to throw a few extra songs, just in case you’re not feeling whatever’s playing at the time.

8. Dinner: Create a good mix of fast, medium, and slow songs. You don’t want music that will put your guests to sleep, but you want them to enjoy their dinner in peace, too. Decide if you want to play straight through or shuffle your playlist. (Broke Ass Bride notes that her ipod and itunes playlists tend to shuffle in the same order. Anyone else notice that?)

9. Reception events: In case the timing is off, it’s good to keep each in a different playlist, instead of throwing them all together.

10. Open dance floor: Its party time! You want to get everyone on the dance floor, so think about your crowd and what will get them out of their seats. Hip hop? Country? Sinatra and the Rat Pack? Show tunes? Throw in a little somethin’ for everyone!

And here’s link to $3 in MP3s on Amazon.com that we’ll pass along from The Broke Ass Bride. They download directly into itunes for you. Now check out the rest of her blog for more bold and original approaches to wedding planning and healthy budgeting.

Here’s another good idea, while you’re at it: The guys at GroomGroove.com suggest setting up a wedding registry on an otherwise uneventful weeknight. Turn off the TV, and make creating a charitable wedding registry a cool date. Says Golden: “It’s an opportunity to learn about the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. One recent groom chose Teach for America as his charitable organization, whereas his bride chose a charity that benefits artists.” You may be surprised to find out what charitable causes interest your fiancée.

I Do Foundation

Use this simple, free system to enable your guests to make secure online donations in support of the organization of your choice.  as their wedding gift to you.  You select the nonprofit organizations of your choice from their list of Recommended Partners, which includes Children, Youth, and Family, Community Development, Education, Environment, Health, and Social Justice.

Changing the Present

At Changing the Present, you can choose from over 1,500 donation gift opportunities, each at different princes, from adopting a tiger ($40) to sponsoring a year of schooling for one girl ($250) to clearing landmines ($50).

In addition to a charitable registry, you can order charitable wedding favors, which are small cards placed on your guests’ tables, saying that a donation was made in their honor. These favors include things like sandwiches at a drop-in center, materials for a struggling artist, assistance for deaf families, and more.

Wedding Channel

With a Wedding Channel registry, you can have your cake and eat it too. They will make a donation to your charity of choice every time someone uses WeddingChannel.com to purchase you a gift from one of your registries (in partnership with the I Do Foundation).

Charity Choice

Use their online wizard to create your own personalized webpage, customize with your favorite charities, buy bridal shower and party favors as a special honor for your guests, or give an elegant customized certificate as a charitable presentation to your wedding party.

Heifer Gift Registry

Help end hunger and poverty with gifts of livestock and training. With a Heifer Gift Registry, your gift will help families around the world become self-reliant and be able to provide for themselves, their families and their community.  You can choose from goats, water buffalo, chickens, llamas, camels, and much more. In exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need, so that this becomes the gift that keeps on giving.

Talk about money: Sit down with your fiance and go through your bank statements, pay stubs, bills, and other financial records. Discuss how much each of you can afford to put toward the wedding.

Write it down: You might think this goes without saying, but some brides just never get around to doing it. Put everything down on paper.  If you find that one area (wedding dress, let’s say) turns out to be more than you planned on, you have two choices: find something cheaper, or readjust your spending in other areas (such as toning down the flower arrangements or limiting the alcohol.)

Save wherever you can: Here are a few suggestions: Skip the popcorn at the theater, and spend time watching a movie at home and cuddling with your fiance. Cook dinner together instead of going out to your favorite restaurant. Make a commitment to put 10 percent of every paycheck into your wedding fund. A few small changes here and there can add up!

Talk to your parents: Although most couples are now paying for more of the wedding costs that they did in the past, often parents are more than happy to contribute. Find out how much they can afford to invest in your big day.

Prioritize: Once you know how much money is at your disposal, rank the importance of each wedding expense. The more imporant things get a larger chunk of the pie.

Get a wedding planner: Although a consultant might charge as much as 10 percent of your wedding budget, he or she could keep you from going over budget and into debt.  Let your wedding planner know how much you can spend, what your priorities are, and give her a realistic picture of the wedding you hope to have.

Don’t sweat the small stuff: Weddings are expensive, and you may not have the fairy tale affair you once dreamed of.  That’s OK. Trends and styles come and go, but you’ll always have the photos, dried flowers, and memories– and those are priceless.

feature image from wedding planning basics

Pipe your own Roses

Frozen Delights

All you’ll need to create these delightful sorbet bombes is a mixer to soften the sorbet and a metal container (such as cake molds or a vase). Once the sorbet is smooth in consistency, spoon it into the containers (for visual flair, layer different flavors), and freeze overnight. At your wedding, just slice and serve! Lemon, peach, coconut, and pink-grapefruit sorbets are showcased here. You can easily substitute ice cream!

Lemon Icebox Wedding Cake

Isn’t this pretty? It’s made out of scalloped lemon cookies and honey mascarpone cream. Just build it from the bottom up and top with candied lemon slices for a tangy-sweet cookie-cake treat! (These cookies were made from scratch, but store-bought ones work just as well; try Moravian Meyer lemon cookies, Salem Baking Co.)

Choice, the leading consumer advocacy group in Australia, investigated whether higher quotes do indeed go hand in hand with the W-word. (But such things go on everywhere, including the US and UK…)

The Experiment:

Businesses were selected in Melbourne and Sydney to provide a good cross-section of suburbs and demographics. To see if the W-word would make a distinct difference in prices our two shadow shoppers contacted 60 businesses  – 30 in each city – and each was contacted twice, once by our bride and once by the birthday girl.

• Florists were asked to provide quotes on flowers to decorate the venue only – no bridal bouquets were requested.
• The photographer was told they were only needed for the reception and not the ceremony, as this was being done by a friend.
• For the cake, flowers and car enquiries, the birthday shopper used the same details confirmed for the wedding scenario.

Wedding enquiries were conducted first. Our prospective bride made a phone call to ask about pricing and request a quote. Once this enquiry was completed, the second shopper called the same business with exactly the same request, but claimed the event was a 40th birthday. The second call was made approximately one week after the first call.

The Results:

As suspected – more than half the wedding suppliers approached by the shadow shoppers quoted a higher price for the bride than the birthday girl.

To be fair, we’ll tell you why this is so from the vendors’ perspective first. John O’Meara, Chairman of the Australia Bridal Industry Association, justifies charging a price premium in some cases. Because a wedding is a “once in a lifetime” occasion, brides and grooms can often be very demanding and high-maintenance customers. In many cases, they have much higher expectations than another customer. These vendors fell that they have to work extra hard to make the client happy, and are inclined to charge extra.

On the other hand, shoppers are often directed to pricey “wedding packages” that include a lot of unnecessary extras, and don’t allow for individual requirements. The bottom line is that if you don’t want to pay more than a service is worth, it’s important to shop around.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions, to find out why they are quoting the price that they do, and sometimes it’s even OK to haggle!  If you think it’s fair, you can ask about hour rates or quotes for certain services, and only after receiving a figure, mention that you’re planning a wedding.

For example, 7 out of 10 car hire companies quoted more for the wedding than for the birthday.  Some photographers quoted up to 150% more for the wedding than the birthday, only offering expensive all-day rates. On the other hand, of the 10 florists, half quoted more for the wedding while the other half quoted more for the birthday! Again, it does pay to shop around, especially for services that you should be paying for by the hour.

A true story:

George Paul called the venue he was interested in to get quotes for his wedding, describing the event as a birthday party. He says organizers were fine with the requests and sent him a quote. Later, when confessing he and his partner planned to marry on the day, he says the staff went into in a flap, claiming a wedding required a different menu because there were “different packages for weddings”. When asked why, the response was “that’s just the way we do it.”

When George checked the wedding package, the quote was about 60% more than the original for the same venue, drinks and a slightly different menu. “I told them I only wanted to pay for the birthday package they originally provided. Once they recognized they’d been caught out, they agreed to let me have the wedding there at the price I was originally quoted, no extra cost.”

After Choice published these findings, they realized that this is a hot topic among consumers, industry experts and media.  They invited some of Australia’s most influential wedding suppliers and lifestyle, food and consumer bloggers to weigh in on the debate in a roundtable discussion.  Here are some interesting insights into the many complex views on this issue and its potential impact on both the consumer and supplier.

Expert Advice for Consumers
• Come prepared with a budget outline
• Ask as many questions as you can of your supplier so that you receive the level of service you’re expecting
• Ask exactly what you get for your money and what are the extra charges, if any
• Be transparent and say it’s for a wedding. This will help the supplier to understand what extra work is going to be required
• Research supplier reputation: Websites, forums, social media and through word of mouth
• Always have a one-on-one consultation with your supplier to make sure you get along with them
• Don’t be pressured into packages and when offered, make sure you ask about flexibility
• You might be working with these people for 18 months or longer, so make sure the relationship remains healthy and open

Want to read more? Check out Choice’s article: Weddings – At What Price via Polka Dot Bride

This “Wedding Flowers” video will make you chuckle and cringe at the same time:

feature photo credit