Some friends of mine are getting married this Fall and their wedding website is to die for!  They had it professionally done and it’s really really nice.  The Bride is an aesthete and she’s left no stone unturned up to this point.  She’s also a foodie and the pictures of the food (yes, food) on her wedding website are mouthwatering. The Bride and Groom have  invited their guests to join them in Honolulu, the Bride’s hometown, for a Tropical Affair that will be replete with all sorts of local delicacies.  I’m so happy for them and very excited to go to Hawaii to celebrate their nuptials.  What makes each wedding unique really is the fact that it’s a reflection of the two individuals tying the knot.  Some couples are more laid-back, while others are much more traditional.  Flowers may be important to one while food and wine to another.  Seeing how each couple expresses their uniqueness is part of what makes weddings so much fun.  It’s an honor to be a wedding guest and get a glimpse into the Bridal couple’s intimate world of family and friends, and oh yeah the special touches they employ to make their day theirs and theirs alone.

I came across these escort cards the other day and marveled at how cool they are.  I am a sucker for a monogram and these roses monogrammed with the Bridal couple’s initials are really pretty unique.  Just a little something to contemplate as you plan for your BIG DAY!

Oh, and in case you’re mired in wedding details and are having trouble seeing the forest for the trees (I know I was as things got down to the wire!), Escort Cards are the cards used to inform your guests of their assigned table whereas Place Cards are used to let your guest know of their assigned seat at a table.  Do many couples have one card that acts as both?  Yes.  Do whatever works best for you.

If you’re incorporating a special touch into your BIG DAY that you’d like to share or if you went to a wedding and saw a really cool special touch that we must know about, please e-mail kalyn@kalynjohnson.com with Wedding Day Special Touch in the subject line.

A few weeks ago, I was invited by Craig Sumsky of Cutting Edge DJ’s to be a Guest Blogger – Thanks Craig!  He told me I could write about anything that I wanted to.  It took me a minute to come up with something, but then Eureka!  He’s a DJ, he plays a vital role in one of the most important components of the wedding after the ceremony – the PARTY! (a.k.a. The Reception) – and I’m a stylist who helps clients infuse their personal style into their weddings.  What better way to get the party rockin’ than to enter it with a bit of flare?  That bit of flare being The FIRST Dance.  So, if you’re looking to spice things up a bit and do something a little bit different from the norm with a non-traditional FIRST Dance, contemplate no more.  Check out my article and let me know what you think.  Better yet, let me know which song you and your beloved intend to cut the rug to!

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!

I got married in the Mexican Riviera a few months ago and I’m happy to report that I’m still on my honeymoon high!  The planning process was definitely an adventure, but we had a great team behind us and everything went off without a hitch.  I planned my wedding for 8 months and now I write about weddings weekly, along with styling destination brides, so you tell me – I’m either a little bit crazy or a little bit nuts.   Nevertheless, I’m glad to be a part of your journey!

Back to the topic at hand.  I live in New York and weddings here cost a pretty penny. I, like most brides, thought that a destination wedding would be cheaper, right? Well, not right and not wrong.  It depends on what kind of destination wedding you want to have.  One of the best destination weddings I’ve ever been to was my sister’s wedding in Montego Bay, Jamaica.  As close as we are, my sister and I are more opposite than alike.  I’m Type A and she’s totally laaaaaaaid-back.  She chose The Ritz Carlton in Montego Bay because I’d been there and I liked it (I’m more picky than she is) and hey, it was The Ritz Carlton.  She’d never been to Jamaica and didn’t physically see the resort until she arrived in Montego Bay a few days before her BIG DAY.  I visited two countries – Mexico and Turks & Caicos (we were planning our wedding at the height of the swine flu epidemic) – and 7 resorts before choosing our wedding locale.  Do you see where this is going?  Suffice it to say, your wedding will be whatever it is that you want it to be whether near or far.  However, if you choose the far option (regardless of size, dollars or time spent planning from afar) there are hidden costs.  This list is not exhaustive, I’m sure I’ll think of a few things after I post this and have to do an addendum at a later point, but it’s meant to give you an idea of some costs to factor into your wedding budget.

1. Mental – The mental costs area going to be different for each couple, but rest assured they’ll be there.  My brother-in-law was totally stressed out about the Jamaican DJ they hired and met with; his fears subsided at the reception when people started dancing before the food was served.  Much of the decor for our wedding weekend was held up in customs prior to our arrival in Mexico, 7 totally stressful days and too many dollars later our boxes were released the day before we landed in Mexico.
2. Wedding Stationery/Collateral – In addition to your Save-the-Dates, the actual invitations, programs and menus, you may opt to have welcome notes and/or weekend itinerary designed and printed.
3. Wedding Gift Bags – I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding where a favor wasn’t given, but I’ve certainly never been to a destination wedding where some sort of gift bag or basket wasn’t in my room waiting for me upon my arrival.  Of  course, I never thought about the hoops the bridal couple had to jump through to have that lovely token waiting for ‘lil ole me.  In addition to the cost of the gift bag/basket and the goodies inside, some hotels/resorts charge up to $7 per gift bag to deliver them to your guests’ rooms.  You can attempt to skirt this issue by delivering them yourself or asking the reception desk to hand them out as guests check in, just be aware that this is sometimes easier said than done.
4. Credit Card Payments – If getting married in a foreign country, before charging your deposit find out if the hotel/resort is going to charge your credit card in US dollars or their currency.  If the charges are going to be in a foreign currency, call your credit card company to find out what they’re going to charge you to do the conversion.  If you’re charging a large enough amount, you may be able to negotiate the percentage down a few tenths or so.  Every little bit helps!
5. Service Fees – Many large hotels/resorts will add a straight percentage for the service fee, anywhere from 10-15%, on top of the total dollar amount spent on your wedding.  In theory, this money goes to the staff at the resort. In practice, who knows.  (One bride told me she had the resort confirm in her contract that the staff who worked her wedding would receive the service fee . . . definitely worth a try).
6. Tips – So, you’ve paid the Service Fee and now you have to tip too? Yup.  If you’re lucky enough to get married at a hotel where the staff, from top to bottom, take care of you and your guests you should tip them accordingly. I’ll save tipping your vendors for another posting – I’ll let you digest this for the time-being.
7. Wine – If you, or your spouse-to-be, are a wine enthusiast, it might be important to you to serve wine that’s more than quaffable.  Some hotels will have a fantastic wine list for you to choose from and others will not.  Some will have a fantastic wine list, but none of the wines will be available.  You may decide to BYOB.  No worries, most hotels/resorts will indulge you for a small corkage fee that can range anywhere from $15 – $35 per bottle.  If you’re getting married abroad, BYOB is complicated by the TSA 3oz rule.  It is fairly easy to send crates of wine if the international shipping laws allow it (but it may get stuck in customs, see #1 above), but it’s also fairly easy to bubble wrap wine and stow it in suitcases.  Again, check your country’s customs website to determine how much wine each person can bring into the country and then beg, plead and bribe your guests to make room in their suitcases for your hooch.
8. Wedding Planner – Nowadays, just about any hotel or resort you’d seriously consider for a destination wedding will have, at a minimum, an Events Coordinator if not a full blown Wedding Planning department. Depending on your level of comfort with the resort’s personnel, as well as your desire to be an intimate part of the planning process, you may consider hiring an outside Wedding Planner.  Wedding Planners and their complement of services come in all shapes and sizes and price ranges. If you do decide to hire an outside Wedding Planner, talk to brides he or she has worked with previously to get a good sense of how helpful they are going to be throughout your planning process.
9. Additional Events – Weddings typically consist of a rehearsal dinner for the bridal party, families of the bridal couple and out-of-town guests; the wedding ceremony and reception.  Destination weddings, however, usually take things up a notch by, at a minimum, increasing the size of the rehearsal dinner to include all invited guests.  Some couples also choose to have a welcome cocktail party or a brunch the day after the wedding; and in some instances a cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception to keep the afternoon or evening flowing.  Oh, and the after parties.  If you’ve got a particularly gregarious crowd, they may want to party on beyond an event’s end-time.  This may be on your dime or theirs, it may be in the hotel lobby, your suite or a bar down the street – just keep the possibility of an after party in mind as you create your budget.
10. Additional Decor & Flowers - Some hotels and resorts have flower packages for your to choose from, others have local florists to recommend; all will increase whatever the basic options are for a fee.  Decor may not be as easy depending on your chosen locale, but many resorts and hotels are in beautiful settings and may not need much more additional embellishment.  Again, if you want it, you can have it for an additional fee (see #1 above).
11. Travel Costs –  Destination weddings are great, but they’re expensive for all involved.  If you can afford it, you may decide to help out attendants and guests who have limited funds by subsidizing a portion of their travel costs.
12. Legal Ceremony – Research the cost of a legal ceremony in your chosen locale.  In Mexico, for example, it costs approximately $3K for a legal ceremony.  We decided to have a religious ceremony in Mexico and got legally hitched in New York a few weeks later.
13. Vendors – Finding vendors in your destination spot may be extremely easy or it may be challenging and frustrating depending on your locale and your tastes.  Many destination bridal couples fly in vendors to help make their special days seamless and memorable – chefs, DJs, photographers, henna artists, musicians, hair stylists, and make-up artists to name a few.
14. Open Bar – Alcohol is expensive.  You’ll have to decide if you want pay “on-consumption”, i.e. the amount you pay is based on how many drinks each guest consumes during a particular event (who keeps count? good question – ask this one at your site visit), or if you’d prefer to pay a flat-rate per person per hour.  Figuring out which calculation works best for you requires a good sense of your guests’ drinking habits and some mental gymnastics. Whatever you decide, it’ll all work itself out, just know that this is an area that can definitely add a few dollars to your final bill.
15. Charges for Use of Ceremony and/or Reception Venues.  Yes, you’re bringing money to the hotel/resort and yes, they may tell you there’s a fee to use one of their ballrooms or restaurants.  This may be a fee you can get them to waive, but don’t be surprised if it shows up in your initial contract.

Hopefully, this list will help you to create a sound weddding budget and prevent surprises from cropping up as you make your way to I DO.  Congrats to you and yours on the life adventure you’re about to embark on!

Questions?  Fire away.  If I don’t have an answer for you, I’ll help you find one.

And if you had a destintation wedding or are in the middle of planning one, please weigh in with any hidden costs you may have stumbled upon.

Does your family have a wedding tradition that’s been passed on from generation to generation?  Not necessarily a cultural tradition, but a family tradition that your mom’s mom and  your mom did on their wedding days and now you are going to do on your wedding day?  Does your family have a garter that’s been passed down from generation to generation?  Maybe it’s wearing your mother’s wedding dress a la The Proposal or carrying one of your grandmother’s handkerchiefs in your bouquet somehow.  Is there a family Bible used for all family wedding ceremonies? Adding a piece of familial history to your wedding day can help to make your BIG DAY even more special.  If you don’t have a family wedding tradition, think about creating one that can be passed down to your children and grandchildren.

Here’s a family wedding tradition that I thought was really nice –  I have a friend who is the youngest in a family of 3 girls; each sister wore the same veil when she got married.  Right after the last wedding, the first child was born to one of the sisters.  The sisters agreed to have their veil made into a Christening gown that each of their collective 5 children were Christened in.  The veil/Christening gown is now on it’s third generation of children in the family.

What’s your family wedding tradition?

Pretty in Pink!

Inspiration is defined as the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions. Inspiration boards do just that; they allow you to convey your vision, or inspiration if you will, to all involved with your wedding planning process.  Your team of wedding professionals – planner, photographer, florist, graphic designer, stationer, musician, videographer, event designer, event planner, etc – is well-versed in the ins and outs of helping couples get to I DO.  Clear visual direction, information and ideas from the Bride and Groom help to make their lives easier and your wedding the one you’ve created in your head.  Taking the time to flip through a few bridal magazines (or even home decor magazines) as well as browsing through some bridal websites like theknot, Martha Stewart Weddings and Brides is a great way to get ideas for your BIG DAY. As you peruse, think about what your colors will be, which flowers you’d like to have, what sort of bouquet you’ll carry, what kind of music you plan to walk down the aisle to and so on.  Create an inspiration board online easily like the one above using Mosaic Maker.  Or, if you’re like me and a little technologically challenged, take pages from magazines or printed off the internet to create an Inspiration Binder.  If time is of the essence or you just don’t have the inclination to read about the latest in wedding themes and colors, check out snippet&ink for beautiful inspiration boards to spark your imagination.  Whatever you choose to do, remember that your wedding vendors are not mind readers.  The more visual information you give them the more you can be certain everything will look exactly as you envisioned it when you walk down the aisle!

[images from left to right:   Louella Press, Brian Atwood, JCrew, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, Wedding Cakes by Kim Payne and Brides]

Every bride should feel extra special on her wedding day.  Finding the right dress is key, but the accessories you choose to wear with it can take you from Blushing Bride to Breathtaking Bride.  I learned about Tejani’s bridal jewelry when a good friend was planning her wedding.  I thought the jewelry was stunning and I made a mental note to myself that when I got ready to say I DO, Tejani would be part of my wedding day ensemble.  All of Tejani’s jewelry is handcrafted by artisans in Mumbai, India.  As a result, it’s unique and customizable – from sizing to insure the bracelets and bangles fit you perfectly to allowing you to choose the stones as well as metal finishes on much of their bridal collection.  Prices range from $75 -$400.

Starting January 23rd, the folks at Tejani are hitting the road.  You can see the bridal collection in person at their trunk shows in the following cities:

• Miami – January 23rd
• Dallas – February 6th
• Washington, D.C. – February 27th
• Boston – March 6th
• Chicago – March 20th

To set up an online appointment, click here.  If you happen to live in New York or are planning a trip to New York, schedule an appointment to stop by their New York show room.

Your Tejani experience will leave you with visions of bangles, bracelets, necklaces and earrings dancing in your head!

[image from Tejani]

Are you keeping your maiden name or are you taking his last name?  How many times have well-meaning friends, colleagues and family members asked you this question?  Were you sure and now are you having cold feet?  Are you like me, with no brothers to carry the family name on?  Or maybe, you’re like my friend Kristin who hated her maiden name, Belcher, from the time she was a little girl.  She was teased on the playground when kids called her burper or belch -
nothing terribly offensive, but she decided that her married name seems more user friendly.

Believe it or not, the maiden name movement began in the 1850s when suffragette Lucy Stone, age 37, decided to keep her maiden name when she married abolitionist Henry Blackwell.  But, it wasn’t until the 1970s and the rise of feminism that women really began to tackle this issue – you know fighting against the demeaning use of the word “maiden” and its categorization of a woman by her sexual status. Today, however, the name-change tango seems to have lost some of its original frisson.  No one is any more surprised when an independent professional woman marries and decides to change her last name (think Heidi Samuel, better know as Heidi Klum, or Eva Longoria Parker) than when that same woman decides to keep her name.

Changing your name is more than a notion, it requires a lot more than learning to write his name in cursive on the Post-It pad next to your laptop.  The decision to change your name means giving up part of your identity; in this day and age women have the luxury to contemplate this decision.  Changing your name signifies to those around you that you are your beloved’s wife, for better or for worse. At another point, maybe sooner rather than later, it may signify that you are the mother of your beloved’s child.  The rules are no longer hard and fast.  You may decide to keep your maiden name for professional purposes but use your married name in social settings.  Or, you may decide to keep your maiden name and come to the realization once the bambinos are born that it’s just easier for everyone to have the same last name (a la the former Ms. Klum now Mrs. Samuel).  And we haven’t even explored the notion of hyphenation …

So, how do you go about changing your name?  Well, there are lots of online sites that will walk you through the process – I think the folks at eHow have compiled a great list if you’re looking for a step-by-step process.  Or, if you’re like me and are looking for something a little more one-step, check out MissNowMrs the online name change service for brides.  It’s a little more work than I thought it would be, but for $30 they provide you with all of the forms that need to be filled out (you can fill them out online) and then mail them or go to the proper office to have them filed.

To answer your question, I’m keeping my maiden name for professional purposes and have taken my husband’s name for all other parts of my life.  I think dear old Bill Shakespeare said it best when he said, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

What are you thinking about doing or what have you decided to do?

[image from Slate.com]