Choosing a Wedding Location

Selecting the perfect wedding location is dependent on a variety of things such as your own personal style, your budget and how many people you will be inviting. From a natural and informal out door wedding to a classy hotel venue the possibilities are endless but here a few things you should keep in mind.
Hotels, Reception Centres and Restaurants

    Consider the number of guests you have attending. Will there be enough space for a sit down dinner, a dance floor, an appropriate area for band/DJ and the cake?
    In most instances hotels, reception venues and restaurants will provide their own caterers. Many are able to cater for any special requests you may have and also the dietary needs of your guests. If you are planning to use an outside wedding caterer be sure to check if the venue will allow this.
    Ask if there will be adequate parking spaces to accommodate your guests. If parking fees apply it may be necessary for you to arrange to pay for your guests parking in advance.
    Hotels may have restrictions on the way you want to decorate your room so remember to ask if you are allowed to move tables and chairs around to a way that best suits your needs for the day. In addition to this, some hotels may also have restrictions on the type of music you are allowed to play and the level at which it is allowed to be played, so be sure to check this with staff as well as if there are sufficient power outlets.

Government owned parks and gardens, outdoor venues

    Research and ensure that the necessary paper work is done. Are there fire restrictions? Do you need a permit for cooking appliances, serving alcohol or erecting a marquee? What time must you vacate the premises?
    Is there a supply of water, electricity and gas? Will you need to hire or buy a generator, gas tanks and water supplies? Are there any toilets?
    How far is the location of the reception from the parking lot? Consider having your  wedding reception in a place that is easy to find and not too far from the car park as older guests may have difficulty venturing far distances on foot.
    It may also be convenient to set up a tent where the bridal couple can change clothes or touch up their makeup.
    Will the caterers, decorators, florists be willing to travel to your remote location? Will you be able to dump your rubbish in council provided bins or must you take it all back with you?
    Remember to remind guests to dress adequately depending on what season you are having your wedding. It is also important to plan ahead and to try to accommodate Mother Nature in your plans- keep in mind that uninvited insects may prove highly annoying, and check to see if your evening beach party has the potential to be swamped by the rising tide!

With all wedding locations remember written contracts are important in making sure that your day runs exactly how you planned it. It makes sense when sending out invitations to include a detailed map on how to get to your dream wedding location!

Choosing a Wedding Location

Selecting the perfect wedding location is dependent on a variety of things such as your own personal style, your budget and how many people you will be inviting. From a natural and informal out door wedding to a classy hotel venue the possibilities are endless but here a few things you should keep in mind.

Hotels, Reception Centres and Restaurants

    Consider the number of guests you have attending. Will there be enough space for a sit down dinner, a dance floor, an appropriate area for band/DJ and the cake?
    In most instances hotels, reception venues and restaurants will provide their own caterers. Many are able to cater for any special requests you may have and also the dietary needs of your guests. If you are planning to use an outside wedding caterer be sure to check if the venue will allow this.
    Ask if there will be adequate parking spaces to accommodate your guests. If parking fees apply it may be necessary for you to arrange to pay for your guests parking in advance.
    Hotels may have restrictions on the way you want to decorate your room so remember to ask if you are allowed to move tables and chairs around to a way that best suits your needs for the day. In addition to this, some hotels may also have restrictions on the type of music you are allowed to play and the level at which it is allowed to be played, so be sure to check this with staff as well as if there are sufficient power outlets.

Government owned parks and gardens, outdoor venues

    Research and ensure that the necessary paper work is done. Are there fire restrictions? Do you need a permit for cooking appliances, serving alcohol or erecting a marquee? What time must you vacate the premises?
    Is there a supply of water, electricity and gas? Will you need to hire or buy a generator, gas tanks and water supplies? Are there any toilets?
    How far is the location of the reception from the parking lot? Consider having your  wedding reception in a place that is easy to find and not too far from the car park as older guests may have difficulty venturing far distances on foot.
    It may also be convenient to set up a tent where the bridal couple can change clothes or touch up their makeup.
    Will the caterers, decorators, florists be willing to travel to your remote location? Will you be able to dump your rubbish in council provided bins or must you take it all back with you?
    Remember to remind guests to dress adequately depending on what season you are having your wedding. It is also important to plan ahead and to try to accommodate Mother Nature in your plans- keep in mind that uninvited insects may prove highly annoying, and check to see if your evening beach party has the potential to be swamped by the rising tide!

With all wedding locations remember written contracts are important in making sure that your day runs exactly how you planned it. It makes sense when sending out invitations to include a detailed map on how to get to your dream wedding location! 

DIY vs Professionally Made Invitations

Often brides ask me about whether they should buy a DIY pack or get their invitations professionally made. Sometimes they are unsure because they don’t know if they have the time or if they’ll save enough money to make it worthwhile. I usually answer by asking them three questions.

• Why do you want to DIY?
• Do you have the equipment?
• Do you have the time to DIY?

If the answer to question one is to save money, then I usually ask if they have worked out the overall difference in cost. This is something that most people on a budget tend not to do, they tend to just assume that if they do-it-themselves, it will work out cheaper. However, the savings often turn out to be less than expected and the same amount of money can often be saved more easily, in another area. Try asking your caterer for a dollar per head discount, that’s usually all you’ll save.
Now if the answer to question one is that they want to have creative input, to have pride in saying, “I did them myself”, then we need to look at the answers to the other questions more closely.

Do you have the equipment?

This seems simple enough, there are really only three pieces of equipment that most people may not have. Do you have access to a good printer? Check. Do you have access to a guillotine or rotary trimmer? Check. Do you have access to software to lay out the invitation? Check. Do you want the same professional result as that sample you ordered? Check. When most people check these off the list, they are talking about a good inkjet printer or a small desktop laser, both of which are great for general printing. They do have limitations though.
Inkjets use liquid ink, which prints well on some papers but on others it bleeds or runs causing the text and images to look blurry or messy. Desktop lasers are great for printing on thin paper but usually won’t accept the thicker card stock that many invitations are made with. They are usually also talking about Microsoft® Word for the software, which again has its limitations. Any professional stationery supplier will use graphics software such as Adobe® Illustrator® or CorelDRAW®. Using Word not only limits what can be done graphically, it’s also hard to print exactly where you want on the page. That means there will likely be several test prints and several hours wasted, just trying to get it set-up correctly. It may also mean that cutting the invitations to size will be a lot harder than it should.

Do you have the time?

This question is fully loaded. Most brides today are out working, trying to organise their wedding on their lunch breaks and after hours. Many think they have the time to do their invitations, until they actually start the process. You need time to design and set-up the text to print. You need time to test print and re-design. You need time to go to the store and buy the paper, card, glue or tape and other bits, which may involve going to more than one shop. Think about the petrol you’re spending and add that into the cost. Are you still saving money? If ordering online, add the shipping into the cost, particularly if buying from more than one website. You also need time to cut and assemble the invitations. No problem you say,” I’ll just sit in front of the TV with a glass of wine and do it.” I’ve even heard people say that they’ll make a night of it with a couple of girlfriends! These are generally the same people who contact us in a tizz, to ask how much we charge to put together the invitations they have messed up or have run out of time to get done. Then of course there’s the possibility that your boss asks you to work late on the week that you had planned to do the invitations. What happens then?
Now I’m NOT saying that people shouldn’t DIY. All I’m saying is that you need to consider carefully whether or not you are one of those people. To DIY you need to plan, allowing extra time for Murphy’s Law. You need to be confident that you can do ALL the tasks needed to get the job done. Most of all, you need to understand your motivation for DIY. If it’s simply to save money, then I’d suggest you be extra careful. For most people, who have the equipment already and who have the time to spare, the overall saving will end up being less than $2.00 per invitation, although that will vary with the design chosen. Think about those extra costs that tend to get ignored, like printer ink or toner, the average two dozen sheets of paper wasted on printing and cutting errors and the extra petrol or shipping, when you realise that you’ve run out of something half way through the job.
So, is there anything good about DIY? Yes, okay, here’s the good news for those who do want to save money or who do want to do their bit, but don’t really have the equipment or time. Many wedding stationers these days offer semi-DIY packs as an option. Put simply, this option takes all the difficult work that requires costly equipment away from you, leaving the simple (but often time consuming) tasks to complete. The professional stationer does the design, printing and cutting of all the bits and all you have to do is assemble the invitation. All that is really required is some glue or tape and a good eye. Any printing or cutting errors become the responsibility of the supplier* and you get your professional looking stationery with REAL savings. Again, this option may not be for everyone.
You do still have to do some work and if you’re busy, it may be better to just get the professionals to do it all, so that your invitations arrive, ready to pop in the envelope and send. And in the end, sending your invitations out and getting the feedback about how lovely they are, is probably the most satisfying part of the whole process!

Insider's Guide to wedding invitations

Welcome to this edition of the Wedding Indsider's Series, Wedding Invitations. Wedding Invitations set the theme of the entire wedding with the style and design indicating to your guests what to expect on the day.
Invitation Types

So if you decide to leave the invitation creation to the professionals, there are many different options to consider with just as many different price points.

Digital Printing - The simplest and cheapest form of custom invitations. This process is about choosing a design either online or in the store, customizing the text, fonts and layout as well as the card style and paper types and having them printed. The biggest advantage with this is that the designs are only limited by your imagination as basically anything can be printed.

Thermography - A bit of a rarity in Australia, this is a fairly specialized process where heat is used to raise the ink above the paper, giving it a sort of reverse-engraved effect.

Letter Press - A beautiful and traditional process which has actually been around for hundreds of years. This is done on a Gutenberg style press where your design is laid out in a mould then pressed against your choice of paper (usually quite thick) for an engraved look. This is a beautiful option but does require a lot of hands-on work and together with the initial set-up fee can become costly.

Hand Made/Multi-Layered - This style of invitation is beautifully unique and also the most labour-intensive depending on the design. Again, the design can be as simple or as complicated as you like it to be but typically will also be the most expensive if it is a very complex design requiring a lot of hand-work.

We tend to find that the more labour-intensive the invitation design, the more they can cost per unit. Digitally printed designs give you the most flexibility and have the fastest turn around time because the majority of hands-on time is the design phase rather than the creation phase.

Hand-made/multi layered designs, letterpress and thermography can easily cost over $10 per unit and we have even seen some for as much as $30 per invitation and that is before the cost of envelopes and other cards that form the set such as RSVP cards, Thank you cards, Place cards and Gift Registry cards are incorporated. This is another factor to consider if you want to create your own invitations as you will have to create all of these cards too!

So best thing to do from here is chat to some We dding Invitation Suppliers. Some will have shops where you can go in for a design consultation and others will be online based. A bit of online research will go a long way and as usual we would love to hear what you have found and what you think will work best for your wedding. Post your findings on our Facebook Page or email us to keep us in the loop!

What kind of marriage do you want?

Marriage is an age old institution, but that does not mean that everyone has the same kind of marriage. Some people do things one way, and others another. What works for some, may not work for others. For example, a regular date night might work wonders for one marriage, but what about the marriage where the husband or wife is overseas on deployment? Is their marriage doomed to fail because they can't go out to a movie once a week? The following are a few keys to a healthy marriage, and things to do depending on the kind of marriage you want:

Friendship: All healthy relationships, marriage and otherwise, are based on a quality friendship. If you want to have a good marriage, you have to care about your spouse as you would a friend. You have to have those bonds that connect you, and help you enjoy one another.
Love: While a marriage can stay in tact without love, love is a critical ingredient to a happy, healthy, marriage. Love is a part of marriage that adds that little something extra, that helps you put up with the uglier sides of marriage, or the realities of life.
Respect: Respect is key to a good marriage because without it, resentment, hatred, frustration, and other negative feelings form much too quickly. Respecting their ideas, opinions, rights, individuality, and other characteristics is important. So, if you want a healthy relationship, ask about their dreams, goals, desires, and respect their answers. Respect them as people, as your spouse, etc.
Courtesy: Common courtesy sometimes goes out the window when you are married, but healthy marriages still respect courtesy, and practice it. Things like holding the door for your spouse, sparing them from your body functions (gas, bowel movements, etc.), not interrupting them when they are speaking, etc. all play a role in a healthy relationship.
Fun! Good relationships require some elements of fun. It is easy in marriages to get caught up in the everyday of life, finances, work, etc. and forget to show one another the good time you had when you were dating, or more carefree. So, do things you both enjoy. Rock climb, ice skate, go to shows, go to dinner, play fun games, or get involved in something that you enjoy and that you find that is so fun.
Happy: A healthy marriage requires some happiness. So, this means that both partners take the time to do things that they enjoy and that make them happy, whether it is alone or together. For example, if she loves to read, and he loves to play golf, then they may take an afternoon apart to do the thing that they enjoy and that makes them happy.
Individuality: Sometimes in a marriage, someone in the partnership gives up who they are to help them other person, or because they think that is how it is supposed to go. However, this usually spells out trouble down the line. Each part of the relationship needs to be whole on its own if they are going to be whole together. If you give up your dreams, you are eventually going to resent them for it. So, focus on keeping yourself and what makes you who you are, while you grow within your relationship.

Gifts and Registries

Deciding what to put on your wedding registry can be an exciting task, but it is also one that must be done properly to avoid disappointment. Here are a few tips to help you on making the most of your bridal registry.

As you begin to compose your wedding list it is important to think ahead to your new future together with your partner. What type of place will you be living in? Will it be an apartment, townhouse, unit, house etc.? What kind of colours and themes do you intend to decorate the house with? Will you be entertaining?

You also need to decide whether to place the list at one or more department stores, use an online registry (which may be convenient for interstate or international guests) or arrange to do it yourself.

There are essentials items that you may need like toasters and kettles but you can also put a variety of different items on the list such as dvd’s or cd’s or tools for the home and garden. It is a good idea to give guests a list, which contains inexpensive items, and more expensive items that guests can band together and purchase together. It is also a good idea to put quite a few more items on the list even if you don’t anticipate getting all of them. This gives your guests a good choice when it comes time to buy a gift for you.

When including items on the registry be sure to be specific if you have your heart set on a particular product or item. Include:

    The brand name
    The model number or name
    The colour
    The size
    The quantity required
    And if necessary
    Where it can be found

However if you aren’t too fussed on the brand or model you can help the guests by being a little more descriptive. Instead of putting ‘toaster’ why not put ‘toaster – 4 slice’ and minimize your chance of receiving something you don’t want or need.

Be sure to keep a record of what gifts you receive and from whom so that you can write thank you letters afterwards.

Having the right registry can ensure that the start of your new life together can be a smooth and enjoyable transition into wedded bliss!

Who Pays for What?

Modern weddings no longer have set rules on who pays for what. Traditionally, the majority of the wedding expenses were paid by the bride's family. However in these modern times, it is far more common that the expenses are shared. Each wedding will depend on individual situations.

You should discuss this matter with both families to come to an agreement that will best suit all the parties involved. It is not uncommon for couples to pay for all or part of the wedding themselves. The following is a breakdown of traditional costs for the traditional wedding.
The Bride:

     Groom's wedding ring
     Gifts for the groom and bridal attendants.

The Groom:

    The bride's engagement and wedding ring.
    A wedding gift for the bride.
    Gifts for the best man and groomsmen.
    Suit hire for himself
    Bride's & bridesmaid's bouquets, the corsages & boutonnieres.
    Celebrant & ceremony fees
    The honeymoon

The Bride's Family:

    Engagement party
    Newspaper announcement
    The Reception
    Bridal Gown & accessories
    A wedding gift for the bride and groom.
    Wedding invitations
    Ceremony & Reception flowers
    Wedding Photographer
    Wedding cake

The Groom's Family:

     Wedding gift for the bride and groom.
     Any general expenses they may wish to contribute.

The Attendants:

     Wedding gift for bride and groom.
     Hens night given by maid of honour or bridesmaids.
     Bucks night given by best man or groomsmen.

The Bride and Groom:

     Gifts of appreciation for parents or others who helped with your wedding.