Foundations of a Nautical Themed Wedding

Since it takes roughly six months to plan a normal wedding, January is the time to start talking about planning a nautical themed wedding. Yes, I know that seems strange when the snow is still on the ground, but that's how it goes. Besides, sometimes thinking warms thoughts can feel incredibly nice in the freezing air of Winter.

Regardless of whether you are planning a lighthouse themed wedding so you can get married on the bluff overlooking the crashing surf, or you are planning a wedding on a ship, or a wedding on the sand followed by an old fashioned cookout (if the local municipalities will allow it), or some variation of the above... Let me take a moment to suggest a couple details that will add to the overall effect greatly:

• Message in a Bottle Wedding Invitations: Send the message right at the start that your beach themed wedding is special by sending your wedding invitations in perhaps the most romantic way possible. It evokes images of messages of love and hope sent from loved ones at sea. These kinds of stories are the kind of romance that everyone loves - male and female... and that makes these special invitations an excellent foundation for your seaside marriage celebration.
• Barefoot Sandals: Whether you are walking across the sand or on the deck of a cruise ship you don't want high heels but you still want beauty. Barefoot sandals are the perfect opportunity to give your ocean side nuptials a elegant and sexy touch of the joy and easy going spirit of life at the beach.
• Sandcastle Centerpieces: Give your reception a beach feel with handcrafted sandcastle centerpieces either on all of the tables or just on the head table. It's a lot cheaper than an ice sculpture and will go a long way toward developing your decor.

Of course there are a myriad of decor options available for nautical themed weddings including any number of beach themed wedding favors which could really help to stretch a brides budget by extending the theme at the same time as taking care of the bride and groom's need to express their love and gratitude to their guests. But the point is, even just these three things will go a long way toward making your wedding by the sea look like what it is instead of just another wedding that has been transported to the ocean.

P.S. As a bonus, if you or someone you know is considering a beach wedding then you would do well to check out the battery operated tea light candles. The advantage here is that even on a blustery day at the seaside your candles will stay lit, creating the ambiance you are looking for.

Question: Don't uniquely themed weddings trivialize the wedding taking what should be sacred and turning it into a joke?

Answer: In short, no. Not necessarily.

However, we have all heard of weddings where that seemed to be the case and I have no doubt that themed weddings have been used that way. As a result, if this question is so deeply ingrained in your thinking it is probably best that you choose to make use of tradition and / or elegant touches such as silver and crystal to maintain the special nature of the event in your own mind. Having a uniquely themed wedding is not worth feeling guilty because you violated your own conscience.

That said a uniquely themed wedding can, in fact, add a level of solemnity to a ceremony. How? Through personalization. By personalizing the wedding with a theme that is unique to them a couple has an opportunity to say, in effect, "This is our commitment ceremony. It is deeply personal and we take it seriously." By resisting the cookie cutter approach and embracing a theme the couple is forced to think through what is important to them making the over all celebration potentially more intimate and therefore more solemn.

Wedding Colors for 2008

One of the first tasks of any wedding plan is to choose your wedding colors as this choice informs so many other decisions - and good planning is essential to enable any bride to make the best use of their wedding budget - obviously, it effects how well a theme is pulled off, it effects your choice of wedding and bridesmaids dress styles, it effects the decor of your reception hall, and on and on.


Really, when we talk about wedding colors we are really talking about pairings of colors for your wedding. Unless a bride wants a wedding in which everything is pink or dusty blue she needs to be thinking in terms of pairings of colors that will provide a tasteful palette upon which she and her wedding professionals can base their work.


Popular Wedding Colors


A quick look at fashion trends in general, which is usually a good indicator of future wedding colors, shows a high likelihood that the predominate colors this next season will be yellows and reds. But don't let yourself think apples and daffodils. Instead of daffodils think marigolds. As for the reds, think roses and shades of pink.


We are not talking primary colors here. Rather the wedding colors of 2008 are likely to see earth tone shades of the whatever color is used.


For example for a spring wedding a color scheme of marigold and pewter can really give a bright, yet elegant look to your wedding.


In 2007 we saw a lot of pink and chocolate brown combinations. No doubt this choice will continue to surface but a more stylish choice might pair pink and gold.

Don't like reds and yellows? That's okay. It is your wedding after all. Choose a color pair that you do like. We all want our weddings to look impressive to anyone who enters but tastes are personal so go with what you do like. Maybe you want to pair a purple in the color of a spring crocus with small accents of pale green. It's a stylish look for your wedding without being red and yellow.

Another option that will keep you in the trendy mode is to pair a muted blue with a soft moss color.

Of course, don't forget the classic white for an elegant wedding. Either pair it with touch accents of your favorite earth tone to give your classic wedding a slightly trendy look, or opt for a black and white combination for a stunning wedding look.

Ultimately, use these suggestions as a guideline. No more. It is your wedding, not the wedding of some fashion designer in Paris or New York. Choose a color pairing for your wedding that appeals to your eye and works with your concept for the theme that you have in mind for your wedding celebration.

Simple Wedding Elegance

During the holidays we got the opportunity to splurge and go to a super elegant restaurant. You know the kind I'm talking about. The kind that has an entire gallery of pictures of the owner with movie stars and presidents that have dined there...

No, the night I was there we didn't see anyone we recognized. As far as I could tell it was a normal night of business dinners and families like ours enjoying a special meal - and it was special.

Anyway, looking at the decor of that restaurant reminded me of something we often forget when we are trying to put together an elegant wedding reception.

In a tastefully dressed room, less is often more.

That's it. You can't leave a plain Jane ballroom untouched, but often it only takes a few decorative elements to create the atmosphere you want.

For example if there is a grand piano in your reception hall hire an accomplished pianist to provide tasteful background music for your guests and bring in several free standing plants with white lights in them. With a tastefully designed wedding cake as the focal point for the design aspect of your wedding reception, elegant dinnerware, and well chosen and unique wedding favors on your tables you might well find that you don't need anything else.

That high end restaurant we went to didn't. They didn't even have centerpieces. Not even a candle. Rather a combination of a white table cloth under diamond shaped place mats that created the image of a white star in the center of the table was all they had - coupled with a few well chosen decor elements around the room for their guest's visual interest, it was more than enough.

Focusing on Planning the Wedding Reception

When we set forth to plan a wedding reception the first question we must ask ourselves is, "What are we trying to achieve?"

It's easy to think that the answer is obvious, but in my discussions with brides over the years (hundreds, if not thousands by now) I have discovered that it really isn't. Brides tend to have one of several concepts in their mind based on their own upbringing and / or dreams. We might term these concepts as 1) Casual, 2) Themed, and 3) Elegant

• Casual: This is the wedding party that really doesn't care about how the celebration looks - as long as they have some time to celebrate with those who mean the most to them. I once met a young woman who told me that her ideal wedding celebration would be in a park with her reception centered around a barbecue that would end with her new husband and her slipping into their backpacks and hiking into the mountains for their honeymoon.
• Themed: A themed wedding takes a much loved idea and builds a decor around it taking care to ask how every element contributes to the development of the theme. This is the approach that chooses it's theme before the venue is chosen so that the venue can be chosen that will further the theme. After all, how much success can one have building a surf theme wedding in a crystal ballroom or an apple orchard?
• Elegant: The focus in an elegant wedding reception is to honor the value of a great marriage in the same way we honor a visiting dignitary by throwing a formal dinner for them in the dining establishment of the highest repute. This is not to say that the other formats devalue marriage (though we all know that can happen as well), just that if any meaning is given to an elegant style wedding reception this is usually the thinking behind it.
  
  

Really, in every type of wedding reception, those planning it need to do some careful planning. For example, would a casual wedding fit better in an immaculately tended English garden or ??? Likewise, what elements do you really need for your wedding? If your celebration is in the English garden mentioned above, how much do you really need to spend on your bridal flowers? If your caterer provides a ice sculpture that could serve as the design focal point for your wedding and an assortment of high end deserts do you really need to wedding cake? Couldn't you spend the money more effectively somewhere else?

For an elegant wedding, perhaps you choose to spend your money on a classical string quartet instead of the cheesy disc jockey playing the hits from the seventies and eighties all over again.

Want the string quartet but can't afford a formal dinner and the live musicians? Treat the reception more like the grand opening of an art gallery with high quality hors d’oeuvres and maybe the money you save on catering will allow you to have !

By continually asking ourselves the question what are we trying to achieve as we plan our wedding reception, we give ourselves a better chance at creating the wedding celebration that we have always been dreaming about.

Understanding Wedding Catering

Knowledge is power. It's true even when talking about booking the catering for your wedding. If you understand what drives the caterer - that is to say, if you understand the things that keeps your caterer up at night wondering if he or she should even stay in business - then you are in a strong position to negotiate.

Likewise, if you do not have a basic understanding your wedding caterer's business you run the risk of making yourself look foolish at best to the caterers you visit and potentially hostile.

Fortunately, a basic understanding of the wedding catering business can buy a lot of goodwill with your caterer which in itself might get you a better price and certainly is something you will need later if your guest list changes dramatically at the last minute.

• Food Costs: This part seems obvious. If you want steak and lobster your cost is going to be higher than if you choose a pasta dish for your wedding reception meal. However, there are aspects that often escape the uninitiated individuals notice. I'm speaking specifically of the availability and diversity of ingredients. Normally, the more common the ingredient is the less expensive it is. It is simple supply and demand. Likewise, if the recipe that you choose uses two different kinds of wines and spices that the caterer wouldn't normally use, then you are going to pay higher prices.
• Flexibility Costs: In the realm of wedding catering flexibility costs are simply the costs that a bride and / or groom pay to offer their guests a choice of dining options. Due to the dietary restrictions of your guests you might find that you need to offer more than one main course as an option so that no one is left out. This is common and really is good policy as the host and hostess of a celebration. However, think about it from the caterer's perspective. You have ordered hazelnut stuffed chicken as one main course, and prime rib as the other main course. Over the course of a hundred weddings the split between each main course might be 61 % to 39%, but the caterer cannot buy the food for your wedding on that assumption. Instead he or she has to purchase and prepare enough of both to make sure that the last person who expresses their preference gets what they order - even if everybody else at the wedding ordered the same thing!
• Labor Cost: Don't forget that everyone on the caterer's staff has to be paid. This means that if the caterer has just five individuals on staff that need to be at your wedding for five hours (a bare minimum when you figure preparation, set up, service, and clean up), at a very conservative rate of twenty dollars an hour you are looking at an initial labor cost of five hundred dollars before anyone has paid for any food!

Most caterers are more than willing to give you whatever your heart desires, but they can't pull it out of thin air. Anything your order will have a corresponding cost.

If you need to watch your catering costs (and who doesn't need to watch virtually every penny), the best way to accomplish your goal is to look for options that help your caterer cut their cost by looking at each of the three primary elements of your wedding caterer's cost.

The Christmas Wedding

I'll be back tomorrow... in the meantime, here is a creative way to have some fun with your wedding!

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