Something old, something new
Something borrowed, something blue
And a silver sixpence in her shoe.

Don’t  wait until the last minute to figre out what your something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue items are going to be!  Each item in the poem above represents a good luck token for the Bride.  Tradition says that if a bride carries all four items (and the 5th if you’re a Brit and can get your hands on a sixpence) on her wedding day, her marriage will be a happy one.  And who doesn’t want or need good luck when embarking on such a monumentous adventure like marriage?

• “Something old” symbolizes continuity with the bride’s family and the past.
• “Something new” means optimism and hope for the bride’s new life ahead.
• “Something borrowed” is usually an item from a happily married friend or family member, whose good fortune in marriage is supposed to carry over to the new bride. The borrowed item also reminds the bride that she can depend on her friends and family.
• “Something blue” symbolizes love, modesty, and fidelity.
• “A silver sixpence in her shoe”  represents wealth and financial security. Today many people substitute a dime or a penny.

Finding the right blue item can be challenging; I’m loving these FAB blue rhinestone “I DO” decals that are the brainchild of celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss.  And they’re only $4.95!

What are your old, new, borrowed and blue items going to be on your wedding day?

[image courtesy of Mindy Weiss]

Your oldest childhood friend got engaged and she asked you to be a member of her bridal party.  Woo hoo!  Well, kind of  . . . It’s always so much fun to go to a wedding as a guest, not so much fun to go as a bridesmaid.  As a bridesmaid, you’re responsible for planning the Bridal Shower, the Bachelorette Party, buying your dress and shoes (unless the bride is generous enough to purchase them for you, etiquette dictates she should but wallets often dictate something entirely different!) and being her handmaidens on her BIG DAY.  Whew! Just makes me tired thinking about all of the responsibility.  But, for a good friend you do what you gotta do.

Traditionally, bridal showers were given to “shower” the bridal couple with gifts to help them establish a home together.  It’s often a great opportunity for the Bride to get together with family and friends a few weeks or months ahead of the BIG DAY.

So, how do you plan an awesome bridal shower with other women (and sometimes men) who are crazy busy and don’t live nearby?  Here are some tips to make the planning process a little less daunting:

• In this day and age of technological advancement, use email and conference calls to streamline your lines of communication.

1. Set up a Google Group so that you can dialogue as a group without having to type in each person’s name every time you want to send an email to group.
2. Use Skype to set up your conference calls.  Skype is a free tool that allows you to make phone calls over the internet to anyone anywhere for as long as you like.

• Generally, the Maid or Matron or Man of Honor is the BIC (bridesmaid-in-charge) but the Bride wont care who does what just as long as the party is well-planned.
• Create a budget that everyone is comfortable with and ask that each participant contribute equitably.
• Ask the Bride for her guestlist – not just names but addresses, phone numbers and email addresses (this list will make life easy for the Bride as well as the bridesmaids – you’ll be able to quickly contact those who forget to RSVP to tracking down the guest who left her umbrella at the shower).
• Choose a date.
• Choose a theme with some guidance from the Bride.
• Divvy up responsibilities – Location; Decor; Invitations; Favors; Games
• Set up a timeline for what should be done and when.
• Set up weekly conference calls to check-in with one another and insure that things are moving along the right track.

Your Bride doesn’t need to know the particulars of what you’re planning, in fact the less she’s involved the better.  This means no micromanaging for you and one less detail for her to worry about.  Stay tuned for some great tips that will help you save money while planning an absolutely fabulous shower!

[image courtesy of Minted]

A reader, let’s call her P, read my Trash the Dress post and questioned why someone would want to ruin a perfectly good wedding dress when they could donate it to a worthy cause and kill two birds with one stone: (1) Bride-to-Be is happy about the price of the wedding dress; and (2) Worthy organization uses the proceeds of the sale to further its mission.

P brings up a very good point.  If you’re not planning to keep your dress for posterity, consider donating your wedding dress.  Or, maybe you had your wedding dress preserved immediately after your wedding and it’s been in that lovely linen-wrapped box ever since it came back from the dry cleaner’s taking up space. Donating it to an organization for resale is a great idea; there’s really no downside here – your dress lives on, you may even get a tax deduction, the organization makes money and someone else gets to fall in love with your dress all over again. To quote P, everyone deserves to feel like a princess on her big day!

So, if you’re feeling a little Fairy Godmother-like, think about donating your wedding dress to one of these organizations:

Brides Against Breast Cancer - Trashing the dress is counterintuitive to BABC and with good reason.  BABC is looking for contemporary gowns and headpieces from 2005 forward to include in it’s National Tour of Gowns sale. The National Tour of Gowns gives Brides-to-Be the opportunity to find the dress of their dreams at a fraction of the price while making wishes and dreams come true for women and men battling terminal breast cancer.  To donate your wedding dress, click here.

The Bridal Garden – If education is near and dear to your heart, and particularly educating New York city school children, you might want to make The Bridal Garden your charity of choice.  Your gown will go into their exclusive, appointment-only, showroom and you’ll receive a tax deduction.  The proceeds from the sale of your dress will go to The Brooklyn Charter School located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.  To donate your wedding dress or learn more about The Bridal Garden, call 212.252.0661.

If neither of these causes is tickling your fancy, root around on the internet to see what other worthy organizations you can find.  Here are a few to get you started: Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Housing Works and The American Council for the Blind.

And if all of this sounds great in theory, but for some reason or another you aren’t ready to part with your dress or have your heart set on trashing your dress, monetary donations to the causes these organizations support are always welcome!

Are you hoping to create a wonderful wedding at jaw-dropping prices?  If so, Gilt Groupe is hoping to be a part of your wedding planning process.  The folks at Gilt have teamed up with Martha Stewart Weddings and her Wedding editor, Darcy Miller, to bring you everything you need to walk down the aisle and then some. Has the perfect wedding dress failed to materialize?  Is your groom still trying to find the right tux?  Have you had a hard time finding bridesmaid dresses that work for the shapes of all of your bridesmaids?  Trying to figure out what you’re going to wear in your hair?  For answers to all of these questions and more, check out Gilt this weekend?  Not a member of Gilt Groupe?  Shoot me an email and I’ll make sure you get you an invitation to this members only club.  The sale starts at 12pm EST – be there or be square.

Happy Shopping!

[image from Gilt Groupe]

• Hotel/resort site visits set-up? Check.
• Food tastings set-up? Check.
• Wine tastings set-up?  Check.
• Wedding Notebook? Check.
• List of questions for each hotel/resort? Check.
• Camera? Check.
• Cellphone? Check (make sure you’ve got international calling capabilities if traveling abroad).

As you prepare for a site visit to your destination of choice, use the list above as a handy guide to help with travel preparations.  If your fiance is unable to go on the site visit with you, bring your wedding planner if you are using one or ask a trusted friend or relative to join you.

Site visits are a great way to explore your potential wedding destination, but they’re by no means a vacation.  Keep your eyes and ears open from the moment you land at the airport in your city or country of choice.  Whatever you experience at the airport, in the rental car line or with the shuttle service is likely what your guests are going to experience.  Go into your meetings with hotel/resort personnel alert and filled with questions.  Site visits can be grueling – you’re going to be on your feet, walking the property, meeting with staff and taking in lots of information.  Hopefully, you’ll have a moment or two to unwind on the beach or at the spa, but it you don’t you won’t be the first who traveled to paradise and never set foot on the beach!

Your site visit is probably your one shot to get a good sense of where you are going to say I DO.  Take note of how you feel walking into the hotel/resort for the first time, imagine your friends and family upon their arrival. Will they love it, be disappointed or annoyed because the people at the reception desk are unfriendly? As much as your BIG DAY is about you and your fiance, it’s also about the people who are traveling to celebrate with you.

Take loads and loads of pictures.  You can’t have too many – hotels/resorts will start to look the same and memories will begin to fade the moment you board your flight to head home.  Having pictures of everything from the reception area to the guest rooms will help you make a cogent decision about which hotel/resort is right for you and your wedding.

If possible, try to narrow down your choices while you’re there.  If you’re doing site visits at 4 resorts in 3 days, the goal should be to narrow it down to 2 before you head home. It will be much easier to choose between 2 resorts than 4.  The law of averages dictates that out of the 4 there are probably 2 that will rise to the top for you.  It may be that the minimum amount required at the resort you thought you were going to love is higher than you’d budgeted for.  Or, although you really click with the Wedding Coordinator at one of the resorts, you don’t like anything else about the resort.

And lastly, before you leave, make sure to ask the Wedding Coordinators at each hotel/resort for the names and phone numbers of a few of the brides they’ve worked with to get a better sense of what your experience might be like at a particular venue.  Brides love to talk about their weddings, so don’t be shy about calling and asking the hard questions.

Good luck with your planning!  And enjoy your site visit – let me know how it goes.