Creativity vs. Calculation: Creativity Wins!

We all want our wedding to be memorable, and beautiful.  No bride wants her guests to feel like little effort was put into it, or like she made bad choices, stylistically.  Our wedding puts our love on a pedestal, and also our style.  The choices we make in decor, in styling the people in our wedding, in our venue and the details, put our taste on display.

There is no equation for a beautiful wedding (unless you count passing your wedding on to a professional you trust).  There is no certain theme that is guaranteed to find a great balance between elegant, memorable, and YOU.  The trick is to put you and your groom’s taste in the details.  Like many grooms, yours may not be too active in the planning process, so that’s where you find ways to incorporate little pieces of his personality.  This has become much more common in recent years.

This doesn’t have to mean a Star Wars wedding, or a tacky Elvis wedding like Vegas, it certainly doesn’t mean you need to go the route of this bizarre wedding photo.  It means finding small ways to express yourselves.  Some grooms wear sneakers with their tux to incorporate their style.  I recently saw a wonderful wedding that had “dirt cups” in place of a groom’s cake, because that was what the groom loved.  Most men would not put together an affair to be proud of, if they planned all the details; so this is where you make some compromises to incorporate his taste!

People love a beautiful wedding, but just as much, they love a wedding that feels personal.  A wedding that they leave feeling like they know you better.  So just remember to incorporate pieces of your personalities, your individuality and who you are as a couple, in your wedding.  It’s memorable and it won’t change with the wedding trends!

Your Wedding: Your Wallet

It used to be traditional for the Father of the Bride/Family of the Bride to pay for the wedding.  Now, it’s no longer custom for parents on either side to pay for the wedding.

Blame it on the progressive times we’re in.  When it was the Father of the Bride’s responsibility, the bride was moving directly from her family’s home into her new married life with her husband; now, ladies are becoming independent sooner, moving out and going to college, working on her own and building a career.

In the 1950’s, 60’s, and even 70’s, the average age a female would wed was at 20 years old, by the early 90’s it was 24, and more recently it’s 25-26.  There’s a big difference between the level of independence of a 20-year-old and a 25 or 26-year-old.  All this said to say, times are changing!

Does that mean your parents won’t help?  No.  Many of them still help out in some ways, some still pay for the wedding entirely.  It means that you shouldn’t expect for anyone but you and your groom to fund your wedding.  Anyone else’s contribution is an added bonus.  So, cut back on shopping trips and forego the caramel macchiato a few times a week to build to build your piggy bank.  You’ll be glad you did.