Vintage Wedding Photo
All brides have something old and something new on their wedding day, but more and more, we’ve seen a trend toward more fully incorporating retro and vintage-inspired elements into our NJ wedding couples’ celebrations. Whether it’s Gatsby glamour or 50s finery, brides are putting a touch of classic elegance back into their unique NJ weddings and receptions.
Whether you want a top to bottom vintage theme or just want to bring a bit of yesterday’s style into a modern wedding, here are a few tips we’ve noticed might be helpful to get you started. Read more…
Wedding Bouquet via Flickr: jenniamigo
Tips For Brides to Bring Nature & Romance Into Your Special Day
In a previous post about natural wedding trends we discussed wedding gowns and bride’s maids dresses, wedding invitations, and table card ideas, as well as wedding hair and makeup that we have seen gaining increased popularity in our NJ weddings. But natural wedding trends extend to so much else, especially flowers and décor. Read more…
Wedding Flowers
If your dream wedding design features thousands of flowers, in full bloom and creating spectacular décor for your ceremony and reception, you can get an even more dramatic floral effect on a budget by following these top tips:
- Always buy flowers that will be in-season at the time of your wedding. In-season flowers are more plentiful and therefore cost less.
- Choose more locally-grown flowers. Your wedding floral designer can show you images of terrific, unique flowers and wildflowers grown native to our area, which will often cost a lot less than flowers that have to be imported from exotic areas.
- Choose non-bridal flowers that may cost less. Some flowers are considered more ‘bridal’ than others – such as white roses, gardenias, calla lilies, stephanotis, and others – and at certain times of the year may cost more. Instead, look at unique flowers such as zinnia, ranunculus, and especially the top trend peony for beautiful effect on a budget.
- Loosely-bunched wedding bouquets are in for a more romantic look, which means fewer flowers may be needed. Read more…
Garden Wedding
An outdoor wedding brings your wedding ceremony, and perhaps your reception as well, out into the open air. A garden wedding is, naturally, an outdoor wedding taking place in a garden setting – surrounding you with beautiful landscaping, ponds and fountains that add a romantic quality to your big day.
With all the natural beauty of a garden wedding setting around you, you won’t have to do (nor spend) very much to complete your dream wedding scene. But there are a few top trends for garden weddings that may inspire you: Read more…
Wedding Signs
Personalized weddings feature décor touches that bring the bride and groom’s personalities and the style of the wedding into your Big Day, so consider a new top wedding idea: decorating with signs. Here are some of the top ways that you can design and display signs all around your wedding location:
- A large sign at the entrance to your wedding ceremony or reception ballroom can feature your custom monogram
- A large sign at your entrance can feature not just your names, but a romantic quote you’ve chosen as an inspiration for your day
- Signs can direct guests to your garden ceremony area, to your reception room, to your cocktail party or other areas
- A sign can direct guests to your smoking section at the far end of your venue
- Use framed signs on your guest book table, again featuring your monogram or a romantic quote
- If you’re using an alternative to the guest book, such as cards on which guests write their wedding wishes, your sign instructs them as to how to use the cards Read more…
Gown and Accessory Trends
Inspired by celebrity wedding trends, today’s brides wear not one wedding dress, but two or more, changing from a ceremony dress into a chic, stylish dress for the reception. At our wedding venue, we’ve seen brides wear cultural wedding dresses for the ceremony, then change into either a traditional wedding dress or shorter, sleeker dress for the reception.
Here are some additional 2nd-Looks for your wedding reception, garden wedding, or cocktail party wedding:
- Go romantic and lacy with your first wedding dress, then change into a sparkly dress suitable for the nighttime reception lighting.
- Wear a sleek, fitted wedding dress for the ceremony, then change into a dress that’s easier to dance in for the reception.
- Wear a traditional white wedding dress for the ceremony, then change into a colorful dress for the reception.
- Wear a traditional wedding headpiece and veil for the ceremony, then remove it and change into a tiara or jeweled hairclips for the reception Read more…
Wedding Bar
Put the perfect finishing touch on your wedding reception with an exquisite collection of after-dinner drinks. Our New Jersey and tri-state area wedding couples make it a high priority to treat their wedding guests to indulgent wedding drink menu offerings, and even budget wedding couples can enhance their wedding reception package with a list of excellent after-dinner drinks.
It’s become a top 2012 wedding trend to offer guests top-shelf liquors and liqueurs, in addition to coffees, and our wedding bar menus offer some of the top choices in after-dinner drinks. Here are just of the top-trending wedding drinks that can end your perfect wedding reception:
- Espresso
- Cappuccino
- Cognac
- Brandy
- Sambuca
- Ouzo
- Sabra
- Kahlua
- Jameson
- Frangelico
- Anisette
- Bailey’s Irish Crème
- White and Milk Chocolate Liqueur Read more…
Wedding Rings
Your wedding ring will stay with you for the rest of your life, so it’s important to give plenty of thought to matching
your ring style to your personality. With so many gorgeous wedding ring designs out there, you’ll need to explore a wide range of rings to find the one that suits your wish for a romantic ring, or a classic ring, a modern ring, or an artsy ring.
Here are the top trends in wedding rings to help you make your decision:
- Choose a ring made of metals that have been ethically-sourced, not the metal equivalent of ‘blood diamonds.’ Many of the top jewelry companies, such as Tiffany and other luxury jewelers have signed onto a ‘No Dirty Gold’ campaign that advocates avoiding any jewelry mined in unsafe, inhumane locations and conditions. Ask your New Jersey jeweler about rings’ classification, to help you avoid ‘dirty gold’ rings.
- Look into lightweight metals, such as tungsten, which is a top wedding trend for couples on a budget. Read more…
Wedding Favors
Among the most popular wedding ideas, a category that many of our New Jersey wedding planners say is an important reception décor element is a beautiful presentation of the wedding favors. With today’s favor trends including edibles such as chocolate truffles, cake pops, and especially New Jersey shore salt water taffy, and with non-edible favors including wine bottle stoppers and other pretty-yet-inexpensive useful take-home gifts, our New Jersey and New York City wedding couples are designing creative, enticing wedding favor displays to complement their reception venue’s décor plan.
Now, there’s a real sense of importance in how the wedding favors will be displayed, so we suggest the following top wedding trends for favor presentation:
Setting Up a Favor Table
- A favor table creates an artistic opportunity for your display, with a top wedding trend of using a gorgeous tablecloth on the wedding favor table. Wedding planners now suggest favor table linens that coordinate with guest table linens for a uniform look, but may be a few shades lighter or darker than the wedding reception hall guest table linens. The tablecloth may be shimmery, embroidered, pearl-dotted or other wedding décor style-matching design, setting a lovely foundation on which the favors will be displayed. Read more…
First Impressions
When guests arrive at your wedding ceremony venue, they’ll be taken by the beauty of the site, and a celebratory tone is set immediately by the smiling, friendly greeters standing at the entrance. It’s a new trend to ask close relatives or friends to serve as your official welcome party, greeting the guests and pointing them toward the inside or garden wedding location. They may hand out your wedding programs and also let guests know where champagne is being served – in the case of a garden wedding taking place on-site – or even where small children may be taken for sitter service during the ceremony.
The immediate recognition of greeters puts guests at ease, eliminating the ‘where do we go?’ concerns that some guests may have when they arrive at a sprawling wedding location. With the guidance of your greeters, guests enter the wedding site ready to enjoy themselves, soon met inside by banquet site staff members bearing drinks for their refreshment.
How to Select Your Greeters
Choose at least three special friends or relatives, ideally from your and your groom’s sides so that someone at the wedding venue entrance can recognize arriving guests. If you have an extremely large guest list, choose four greeters to eliminate a line forming at the door.
Choose guests who are naturally friendly, upbeat and good conversationalists who have no anxieties about talking to strangers.
Instructions for Greeters
Ask greeters to stand just outside of the wedding venue entrance, on the steps or at the base of steps, so that they’re immediately seen by arriving guests. At an outdoor wedding, they might stand at a point where the pathway leading to the ceremony begins.
Make it a firm rule that greeters are not to text, check their iPhones, or be distracted by their dates. Their full focus must be on their greeting tasks.
Ask guests to dress in accordance with the wedding’s formality. Since these are representatives of your wedding, it is perfectly okay to set a dress code, such as cocktail-length dress or suit.
Let greeters know how many wedding programs to give out, such as one program per couple, or one program per guest. If your wedding budget is limited, or if you’re having a green wedding, this top wedding idea eliminates waste.
If you expect guests who do not speak English, it’s smart to choose a greeter who speaks, for instance, Spanish or Italian for a welcome greeting guests appreciate.
Give greeters full information on where essentials are, such as the coat check, restrooms, handicap access to the ceremony site, so that they may instruct guests who request these locations.
Remember to give greeters information on directions to the reception site, if it is different from the ceremony location. Having a stack of printed driving directions is always a smart wedding idea, even if guests decide to just program the reception address into their GPS or smartphone as they exit your ceremony location.
Wedding greeters should remain at the entrance to your wedding venue until the last possible minute before your wedding ceremony or reception begin, so that late-arriving guests are welcomed and directed.
Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau
