Photo Documentation: Difference Between Men & Women at a Wedding

We recently received the photographs from my sister's amazingly beautiful wedding (can't wait to share the details on that in the future!), and we found the sequence documented during the bouquet/garter toss portion of the evening to be quite amusing.

My sister and her now husband originally were not going to include this tradition in their wedding as they wanted to keep everything feeling like a fun dinner party and not too "productiony". However, when my sister informed some of her friends of this they pleaded with her as they simply had to have the bouquet toss! The happy couple decided they didn't care too much one way or the other and figured it would be a fun addition if nothing else - and boy are we glad they decided to include it! The following documention showcases the difference between the men and ladies present:

The Ladies

The Guys

As you can see, the ladies were way more interested in the implications behind catching the bouquet and garter (that you will be the next to wed)! In fact, the lucky gentlemen only ended up with the garter when it coincidentally landed on his foot and he had no choice but to pick it up! Now this scenario of course does not apply to everyone, but it definitely was funny watching it unfold at this particular wedding.

It ended up working out beautifully because the two lucky "winners" actually are a happy couple and here they are with the bride and groom!

An important message to take away from this post, though, is that your wedding is your own special day and you should definitely include what's important to you and don't be afraid to not include something that isn't your style or doesn't fit the mood you are looking for at your most memorable day.

Photography by Steve Steinhardt.

Mix-n-Match Bridesmaids Dresses

Traditionally, brides select a dress for their bridesmaids and all of the ladies are matching as they process down the aisle. More recently, some brides have forgone this tradition, allowing their bridesmaids more options, sometimes letting them select each of their dresses completely on their own! This concept may leave some brides very scared, but if you think your ladies all have style or you just want each of their personalities to truly shine through or you just don't like the idea of all your besties looking exactly the same up at your altar, then this may be the perfect option for you.

One route would be to let each bridesmaid pick her dress in any color. This works best for weddings with lots of color that isn't sticking solely to a two or three color theme.

{photo by Matthew Morgan Photography}

Another option is to have a similar dress but in different color combinations or have each girl play it up with her own accessories - this bride even brought stockings into the mix!

{Photo by Natalia Russo Photography}

If you want to stick to your color scheme but still let your girls pick their ensembles, consider just giving a color family to choose from. It might seem risky, but chances are the ladies will all look lovely, and they will be happy to have a dress they love...and can wear beyond your wedding!

This works well with solids...

{yes, that's me on the far right!}

...but can also be pulled off with patterns and color block!

{Photo by Maggie Conley Photography}

So whether you like the idea of matching maids or you want mix things up a bit with mismatched attendants, you should always stick to your guns and go with what makes you the most comfortable and happy on your big day!

Mailing Your Invitations

By the time you are ready to mail out your invitations, you have most likely already spents many months (closer to a year for some) planning this special day. And if you have chosen to have your envelopes hand-calligraphed, you are definitely making a statement about the the value you have placed on your invitations and your guests receiving them. It's a great first impression for your upcoming wedding!

So now that it is time for you to send these beautiful invitations, here are a few tips to make sure they make it to their recipients quickly and in nearly the same condition as when they left your fingertips:

1. Be sure that you weigh one fully assembled invitation to determine the proper postage. With the rules at the post office constantly changing, you don't want to get stuck with all of your beautiful envelopes returned to you with "postage due" stamped in red across the front!

2. It is also a good idea to send one or two "tester" invitations. These can go to people such as your parents, sibling, maid of honor, or even to yourself (although many couples like to keep their own invitation unmailed as a keepsake). This will ensure that you have used correct postage, and will also give you an idea of how your invites will look when your guests arrive.

3. Having the post office "hand stamp" your envelopes is an option to consider as well. You will notice that when you receive mail there is the red marking across the stamps indicating that the item was processed through the mail. When you request that your items be hand stamped at the post office, a postal worker will count your postage on each envelope and physically stamp, or process, it by hand instead of sending it through the machine. Keep in mind, though, that sometimes this will leave excess ink that can be smeared if your invitations are stacked on top of each other.

After you have followed these simple steps, your invitations are ready to go out in the mail, and your guests will surely appreciate the time and effort spent creating the perfect "first look" into your big day.

Welcome Bags for New York Hotel Guests

It's no secret that we think welcome bags for your out of town guests are a great idea (and of course think a personalized map tote is the perfect way to package the welcome!), but if you simply don't want to think about items to include then you most likely don't want to think about stuffing the many bags yourself either!
Well Sara's Gracious Goodies in New York can take all the hassle out of this special detail (for you NY brides)!

Not only is their website completely adorable, but it's also easy to navigate and place your order! This mother-daughter founded company specializes in hotel packages, party favors, gift baskets and custom creations. The best part is, Sara's Gracious Goodies will deliver your assembled bags directly to your hotel(s)! It doesn't get any easier. This is great not only for weddings, but they also cater to corporate events as well.

Plus, they use the finest local New York vendors including Tate's Bake Shop, North Fork Chips, Hampton Popcorn Company, Selmas, Route 29, Delancey Dessert Company, Serendipity and many more!

Visit the Sara's Gracious Goodies website or blog for more details. And if you aren't in the New York area, this is a great to simply get ideas for what to staff in your own wedding day welcome bags!

Spotlight on Kelly Oshiro | Design

Congratulations to Kelly Oshiro of Kelly Oshiro | Design who recently revamped her brand with a new name and new look!

Kelly Oshiro | Design is a boutique wedding and event planning company that specializes in private, estate and ranch locations. Kelly herself is both a planner and designer and all of her creations are done by hand to reflect the couple she is working with.

Based in Santa Barbara, Kelly Oshiro | Design travels all over Southern California ~ and wouldn't this just be perfect for any sunny California wedding?

Visit Kelly Oshiro | Design's new website or blog for more details, helpful tips and tons of eye candy!

Photos by Kirsten Ellis of Beaux Arts Photographie.

Attention New York Dwellers!

Be sure you check out this free event from BRIDES Magazine! Join in Saturdays & Sundays from April 24 - May 22 to view a Newlywed's dream home. Visit www.bridesfirstlook.com/newlywednest to view a schedule of events and to RSVP.

Vendor Spotlight: Bottle Your Brand

Last April we featured a post on Bottle Your Brand, a custom product label company.

Earlier this month they launched a new website with upgraded features that include:

• Lower costs on custom bottled water
• Brand new products: Custom wedding stickers (perfect for wedding favor seals, bridal shower favor seals, invitations seals, wedding programs, etc.)
• A new Design Online tool enables people to upload their own images to labels easily and quickly. It's now super easy to add custom monograms and custom calligraphy to custom labels!
• People can also save their designs and come back and work on them later

Bottle Your Brand is not only for water, either. Check out these adorable custom beer and wine labels!

Custom labels are perfect not only for weddings, but also for showers, bachelorette parties and birthday parties too! Visit their blog for daily ideas.

And now through the end of March, Lucky Orchid Wedding readers can get 10% off their order by using this special promo code: LUCKYORCHID.

Envelope Addressing Etiquette

Many couples have questions on appropriate traditional envelope etiquette. The following guidelines give examples from the most common situations. Keep in mind that these are formal guidelines. Many couples are less formal in their approach to addressing. For example, they use first names on the inner envelopes (Ex: John and Mary). 

Our suggestion is that you enter your guests' names the way you feel most comfortable. My policy is that we write the addresses exactly as our clients submit their lists, so feel free to apply these notes as desired.

Outer Envelopes

• Use full names, including the first names. Example: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jackson
• Do not write "and Family" if children are to be included on the invitation. Write their first names on the inner envelope beneath their parents' names. (See "Inner Envelopes" below)
• Write out the words "Street," "Boulevard," "Avenue," "Road," etc.
• Do not use symbols. Spell out the word "and".
• Use figures only when writing house numbers and zip codes. Example: 225 Third Street
• Spell out state names.

Inner Envelopes

• Exclude the first names of the guests. Example: Mr. and Mrs. Jackson
• Write the first names of children to be invited below the parents’ names in age order. Example:
  Mr. and Mrs. Jackson
  Susie, Jane and Thomas
• Children over the age of 16 should receive their own invitation.
• 
  
  Omit names of children if you are planning an adult-only celebration.
• 
  
  If an invitation to a single guest extends to an unknown escort, address the inner envelope with your friend's name followed by "and Guest." Example Miss Jones and Guest
  
  

If you do not have inner envelopes, it's perfectly acceptable to include "and guest," guest's names, and children's names on the outer envelope.

For more information and situations, please visit our website and do not hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions regarding etiquette.

Vendor Spotlight: QuatreCoeur

We are pleased to introduce our readers to a new blog by QuatreCoeur, floral design studio in Brooklyn!

QuatreCoeur is the work of two friends (Ruth Muzio and Amanda Peters) who share a love for flowers and plants that are just a little bit unusual, things that are made by hand, and containers that are out of the ordinary. The flowers are hand selected and always fresh and seasonal.

They specialize in creative arrangements and botanical designs that are simple and elegant ~ they even do fabric bouquets!

Available for all of your floral needs, QuatreCoeur specializes in simple arrangements, weddings, dinner parties or any special event. Visit their new blog today for ideas, inspiration and simply beautiful florals!

Wedding Survey

Get Married recently conducted a survey of over 1, 500 brides to get insights and trends on their engagement and wedding planning habits. The results revealed that brides today are working within their budgets while still realizing the weddings they've always dreamed of!

According to Wendy Cornblum of Get Married, "In today’s soft economy brides are definitely more budget conscious, however, 70% of brides are either pleasantly surprised with their budget or feel like everything they want will fit into their budget. So, while times may be tough, brides are still planning to have the wedding of their dreams. In fact, 92% of brides are personally paying for some portion of their wedding in order to ensure they get everything they want.

Interestingly enough nearly 2/3 of brides are personally paying for their wedding invitations or wedding stationery. Today’s modern bride continues to embrace elements of tradition that reflect her bridal style and, in an era where so many invitations have become virtual and offered for free online, brides still consider the paper invitation to be an important element of the wedding."

We of course love custom creating invitation suites, and we are so pleased to know that invitations are still so important to a majority of brides today!

Interestingly enough nearly 2/3 of brides are personally paying for their wedding invitations or wedding stationery. Today’s modern bride continues to embrace elements of tradition that reflect her bridal style and, in an era where so many invitations have become virtual and offered for free online, brides still consider the paper invitation to be an important element of the wedding.

Get The Skinny

Many of you brides-to-be and bridesmaids (and all the single ladies, too!) are concerned about your skin and seeking effective solutions. Well, now you can get great skincare on the cheap at The Skinny!

The sample sale craze has swept consumers (Gilt Groupe, RueLaLa, etc.). The Skinny is very similar, except they are focused exclusively on products and services for your skin. Members are able to get the high-end skin care products and spa treatments they love, at up to 75% off. And if you are skin care newbies, acne sufferers, or have questions about your skin, there are educational videos and personalized recommendations to help you find the perfect products!

"With a new skin care product launching every 85 minutes, it's not surprising that shoppers are overwhelmed," said Lauren Fornes, co-founder of The Skinny. "Consumers want solutions to their skin concerns and are open to trying new brands, but the top reasons consumers don't try a new brand are confusion and cost. We started The Skinny to lower those barriers and help skin care brands gain new customers."

Brands featured include Perricone MD, Lisa Hoffman Beauty, 100% Pure, International Orange, and Organic Apoteke, as well as cosmetic services like Botox from renowned dermatologists...all at affordable
prices. What could be better?

Click here to join today!

Blog "Love"

Gorgeous photography by Corbin Gurkin

Many times I have had clients or other wedding professionals (or even my dad) come up to me and tell me they follow my blog loyally (religiously even!) and tell me how much they love reading the posts and looking at my maps and the various eye-candy photos I like to put up for you all to see. While this is so flattering (who doesn't love to hear this??) my reply is usually something along the lines of, "Really!? I didn't know you follow my blog!"

After discussing this with several other bloggers, I've found I'm not the only one to feel that way. As a reader you may not know it, but we bloggers love to hear when you are happy with what we are writing. When you like our work and you comment on it, it encourages us to keep writing. It can be somewhat discouraging when we bloggers hit up the major sites (Style Me Pretty, anyone?) and there are 50 comments! So please, if you have feedback, leave a remark and I will be ever so grateful  =)

While we're on topic, let's address a few courtesies about commenting (on all blogs, not just ours):

The comments are a great place to ask questions about the post! Like most blogs, the comments my readers leave come directly into my inbox, so if you ask a question, I will respond to you, either via email or back on the comments feature. Sometimes the blogger will even take your question if it's a popular one and write an entire post about it, so please, ask away.

The comments feature is not a place to use as free advertising for another site. On our blog, we require that all submissions be sent via email, so that we can choose who we would like to promote on our blog. If you have a suggestion, we thank you for thinking highly of exposure on our blog, but please send it via email!

Please know that many blogs do moderate their comments. We are one of those blogs. We tell you in our sidebar that we reserve the right to delete any inappropriate comment, or any purely self-promotional comment.

On that note, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who does follow. Please, leave a comment (it doesn't have to be on this post!) and have a safe and happy holiday!

(The calligraphy in the above photo is Elegance Script.
Photo is courtesy of Corbin Gurkin Photography.)

Introducing a New Series on the Blog

                           

Many of my followers know that my sister, Alyssa, got engaged last month. Being her only sister I was pretty sure I'd get to be the Maid of Honor even though I hadn't been asked yet. However a couple weeks went by and I started to wonder... But then one morning last week I received a

FedEx package from Flour Pot Cookies!

I was so excited to open it and find this little note! Anyway, the planning is already in full swing and I thought that it might be fun to detail my perspective of the wedding plans on the blog. So, be sure to check back for my adventures as a maid of honor....because of course, my answer to the question on the note was "Yes!"

(And be sure to check out Flour Pot Cookies for more clever gift giving ideas -- so cute!)

Laura Hooper Calligraphy in Southern Weddings Fall/Winter Edition

We were so thrilled to be asked by Beth Helmstetter to contribute one of our maps for this spread!



You will find information and tips on all things destination wedding - how to plan, what to pack, what to expect, etc...

The full print edition will hit stands on November 10th!

Laura Hooper Calligraphy on "From 'I Will' to 'I Do'"

Thank you to Anne Chertoff of "From 'I Will' to 'I Do'", a blog all about wedding planning! We are honored that she chose to feature tips from Laura Hooper Calligraphy on working with a calligrapher for your weddings. Anne has worked at Modern Bride, Martha Stewart Weddings, iVillage Weddings and is currently the Senior Editor at Brides.com.

Check out her blog to read yesterday's post featuring our advice and other wedding planning tips!

Not an April Fool's Joke

It's official - as of today, April 1, 2009, the LA County sales tax rate has increased to 9.25%, so please be aware that as an LA County business, we are required by law to put the new sales tax rate into effect here at Laura Hooper Calligraphy. I promise to continue to provide you with the highest standards of service and look forward to continuing to serve you throughout this temporary sales tax increase!

On a happier note...we have been very busy here at Laura Hooper Calligraphy and I thought I would share some photos of my recent work!

{Fabulous seating charts}



{Creative Maps}

{Fun itineraries}


{Sandollar placecards for a Seaside Wedding in Cabo}



{Exquisite Calligraphy -- photo courtesy of Trish Caal}