Weddings for a Cause

While spending enormous amounts of money to have the perfect wedding is becoming more of a fact these days, there is always a way to make a lavish and extravagant wedding, one that is both memorable and yet charitable. Not to say that we should start having charity weddings, but there are some ways to put the money spent on a wedding towards a good cause.

Here are some of my ideas - I know that not every bride or groom will agree with them, but here they are:

1) Instead of storing your gown, you can donate your gown to a charitable auction such as one for breast cancer. The same can be said if the groom had bought his tuxedo. You may want to check this website:

Charity Folks has teamed with the Knot for a wedding dress auction

2) Have the flowers from the reception brought to a nursing home.

3) Have your guests give donations to a charity through a registry of your choosing:

I Do Foundation

Just Give

4) For guest favors, make a donation to your favorite charity and let guests know by enclosing a small piece of candy together with your donation card's message.

5) If your wedding has any leftover food, have them given to a homeless shelter.

Japanese Wedding Site

As we all know, there are dozens of wedding planning sites around the US, but today, I decided to look at what’s going on outside our wonderful country by taking a trip (ahem, a virtual one) to Japan. And if you cannot understand words of a foreign language, it’s a good thing that there are still pictures to go by.
For this “trip”, I stumbled upon this site called Zexy – in what appears to be a Japanese wedding site similar to brides.com or knot.com.



I enjoyed getting around the site by just clicking on the site's graphical metaphors . It's a good thing they have those buttons with metaphors. Now I know how it feels to be a foreigner in another country who could only get around by pointing at pictures.

Here are some of the pages I visited:

Destination Weddings



They feature some pretty interesting destination wedding resorts. Each resort provides detailed information with several pictures of the place that you can view in an enlarged format. Be sure to check this place with some spectacular views.


Dress Fashions



Since this visit is one based purely on the visual, I must say that their Flash presentation of various wedding dresses is a treat. When you land on this page, put your mouse on each model and a new picture comes up of the model wherein you can view the gowns from different angles.

Jewelry



The wedding ring section features some very cool flash videos of each vendor. To view each vendor, click on the pictures under the section called Special Report. When you click on a new link, a window pops up offering virtual tours of each store and a showcase of their collections.

Wedding Flowers



I found it most intriguing when I saw this picture of a bouquet that really looks like a flower ball – pretty neat-looking pomander. It's the first picture on the top right of the page.



Some additional sites that I found recently:

Wedding Expert

Wedding Net

Wedding Park

Wedding TV

When you were younger, were you ever told that you watch too much TV? Well, that was then – that was before the age of web video! And with so much new stuff coming up on the web, here are a couple of online video sites to check out:



The Knot TV Live
Features fashion runway shows, beauty, shopping, and honeymoon reports. What I like most are the clips showing the collections of wedding dress designers through the Knot TV on Demand. They have a nice schedule of videos posted on their site, as well.



Wedding Channel TV
Features mainly wedding fashion videos, but also includes other components of wedding planning such as how to choose the right kitchen appliances (yeah, some people need help with that).




YouTube
Great for all you wedding voyeurs! There are loads of real weddings that you can watch. Wonderful to watch on a labor day weekend!



Google Video
Google’s new video search is another great way to check out other weddings from people kind enough to post their video on the web. Also recommended for wedding voyeurs.

Weddings Mags in Digital Format

If you're like me, there's nothing better than having a nice magazine to read on a relaxing Sunday afternoon. Multiply that by 12 months though, and you've got a whole lot of magazines probably stacked up at home. Lately, I came across a free trial subscription from Zinio - a digital magazine subscription service. By downloading their reader, it seems that you can view an entire magazine on a pc, laptop, or notebook tablet.

Whether it's a business or bridal mag, it would certainly be great to have this considering that some magazines can get pretty darn thick and enough trees are getting axed. Why not use technology to simplify things, right? Evidently, their collection titles are growing and now Zinio's offers Destination Weddings & Honeymoons' mag, too.

Wedding Cakes you can Carry

They're are normally meant to be eaten, but what if you had a purse that was the shape of a wedding cake. These lovely cake shaped bags from Gioia Handbags are sure to make you wanna eat cake! Of course, icing and flavor - not included.

The end of the 24 hour hitching post

Perhaps it’s the sign of the times, or just a sign that the Vegas Marriage License Bureau is cutting back on hours (i.e., costs amounting to about $200K). But anyways, spontaneous acts of matrimony shall soon come to a disappointing end for many – at least on a 24-hour basis. Does waiting for another 6-8 hours really matter from the time a proposal is made till the vows are exchanged? Maybe for some it does matter.

Whilst getting married during the wee hours of the night and often morning will no longer be available, waiting a bit longer might actually be a good thing for those who may be rushing into marriage a little bit too quickly. Maybe this delay might actually result in more planned weddings as opposed to saying “I do” right away. And in Vegas, it might be an opportunity to weigh in more of the experience of having a wedding there besides just getting hitched – unless this is your thing and spontaneity is tied to romance - not that I recommend one in Vegas, but yet some dig it. And if you do, here is a neat guide to "Las Vegas Weddings."

**Incidentally, there is a place in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho called The Hitching Post Wedding Chapel.

Color - it's not all the same

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what about color? Say, no more for the guys at the Pantone Institute have created this ingenious product that calibrates your computer monitor to the correct color. Since virtually every monitor renders color differently, this device takes care of the problem. So, when you bought something online and the color blue, which you thought was a light crystal blue turned out to be darker than usual - then you need the
PANTONE® Eye-One Display LT. At a cost of about $169.00, it's worth it if you surf and shop frequently online.

Miniatures - All Dress Up

Call it haute couture, but mini haute couture to be more exact. After WWII, miniature dolls dressed in the most extravangant outfits seem to be all the craze as Parisian couteriers seemed to have a fancy for putting their creations into minis. Their work is so striking in detail that it is worth looking at. The Museum of History and Industry in Seattle is hosting an exhibit called Théâtre de la Mode. This same exhibition featured the same dolls (kept and cared for permanently at the Maryhill Museum of Art) that were used back in 1945 - when they first debut at the Louvre. Because these were miniatures, fashion designers from Nina Ricci to Balenciaga embellished these gowns as if they were as real as their life size version such as their bridal gowns that actually had a floor length train. By miniaturizing the dolls, artists were able to capture the detail in greater level simply and much out of necessity because the lack of materials after the war made it challenge to create run-way ready dresses, so they made them the size of dolls. Of course, if you can't head out to Seattle, then you can at least order the book entitled "Théâtre de la Mode: Fashion Dolls: The Survival of Haute Couture" about the exhibition from Amazon, order it from your local bookstore, or borrow it(if you're lucky) from your library.

Lavish Weddings on The Rise?

While this article was written more than 3 years ago, the viewpoints on weddings are intriguing. It cites that extravagant weddings are on the rise, but I think that they have always been this way. It's just that they are getting more attention nowadays because of influences of high profile figures (i.e., celebrity weddings). Incidentally, this article was a prelude to a book called "Cinderella Dreams."

Ivory wedding dress - the forgotten color

Ivory - the other color, the unpopular yet mysterious sister of white, and the color for the bride who wants to be different, but of course, just as elegant. White wedding gowns seem to be the de rigeur for wedding gowns in every fashion mag - both online and offline. Perfect bodied models can be sautering down the runway in every white gown imaginable. However, when you do see a one wearing an ivory gown, something different just happens. Your eyes just seem to gaze a bit longer and soon you'll notice that ivory is indeed a color for the bride who wants to be unique. ** Since finding an ivory bridal gown can be somewhat of a challenge, it will be my goal to build a list of ivory dresses found on the web.

I'm starting out with these:

Priscilla of Boston - Platinum Gown Collection has a strapless lace embroidered gown.



A Silk Taffeta gown with strapless and ballgown design from Jim Helm. There is another one with an A-line design and an embroidered bodice that is just as nice.

Red Rocks Here We Go

Most couples head out to the coast or water (i.e., lake, or beach) for a wedding. But, for those who chose to go inland, Arizona ain't so bad especially if you're looking at Sedona. This wonderful place is tucked deep within Arizona (near Flagstaff and about 100+ miles from Phoenix). The words tranquil, peaceful, and calm just seem to emanate from the place. One visit there and you will understand why it's a very unique place to tie the knot. Be sure to check out one of the most picturesque places called Cathedral Rocks. Some of the most popular resorts in Red Rock country include the Enchantment Resort, L'Auberge de Sedona, and the Hilton.