Weddings are not just about vows of ever after. It’s also about the symbols that represent every single milestone that got you to that very moment. If the quintessential symbol that literally turns heads at the ceremony is your wedding dress, then your reception is adequately represented by the ever present and ever marvelous wedding cake. That’s the reason why you can’t just pick any old cake, thinking that it’s going to be eaten and inevitably digested. That’s the reason why you have to take the time to get a wedding cake that’s not just right, but absolutely perfect.

The first thing to consider when picking a wedding cake is your wedding theme or motif. You want your cake to be the ultimate showpiece for the event, not stick out like a sore thumb. With this is mind, go for a wedding cake appropriate for your wedding theme and one that seamlessly blends with your motif. All you need are some fabulous wedding cake ideas to get you started.

The second – and just as important – thing to consider is the cake’s taste. After all, not only do you want to have your cake, you want to eat it, too. Case in point, this is probably the most fun part of wedding planning – cake tasting. Once you’ve decided on your cake’s design, you can then pay attention to its very core. Take the time to sample different icings, flavors, and fillings. Mix and match various combinations to determine which appeals to you most. If you can’t make up your mind, you can even go as far as request different combinations in each cake tier. Just make sure you don’t go overboard with the cake tasting, though. You still want to fit in your wedding dress, after all!

Indeed, when it comes to your wedding cake, you just can’t leave it to the last minute or as a mere afterthought. It requires a lot of planning in itself, and we would be quite happy to help you along. There’s sure to be a perfect confection in our wedding cake selection that will tickle your fancy.

This time from Papier Valise. OMG. We have been literally staring at our screens, wiping drool from our chins all morning long.

First from her shop:

Then from her flickr stream:

So much inspiration it hurts. Like really painful.

via Uppercase.

The pretty pleated fans are reason alone to save this wedding in your research folder. The colors: mossy green and saffrony orange and pretty sky blue, are perfect and unexpected… our favorite sort of palette. And somehow Jayme managed to carry stripes and pleats right through to the candy favors and tassles on their horse-drawn getaway carriage. More people should have getaway carriages, shouldn’t they? Shira from The Bride’s Guide, (Martha’s lovely wedding blog), sent these beautiful images over a few days ago, knowing we have a soft spot for Jenna’s handiwork. She’s right of course. Look:

Such a good idea to put photobooth tickets in each escort card envelope! Totally avoids the problem of your guests not realizing you have an awesome photobooth set up in the corner of your reception space. And the dogwoods… those are dogwoods aren’t they? We don’t have them here on the west coast, but they are so beautiful.

Thanks for giving us the heads up Shira!

Photography by Thayer Allyson Gowdy

We have been waiting for this for a looooooong time. Erica’s super cute, mix and match invite line, Thoughtful Day, is here. OMG we could not be more excited. Her way with illustration and pattern is so lovely.

So the way it works is that you get to pick and choose each piece of your invite suite from the many options in the Melodie Collection.

Ribbon Parcel

Floral Canopy

Botanical Surprise

RSVP card options

Thank you note options

And the matching guest tote, which has kind of become a Thoughtful Day signature item.

The Melodie Collection allows couples to mix and match their letterpressed wedding invites, which is awesome because it lets them not only create a unique suite, but also let’s them choose pieces that fit their budget. There are 4 Melodie themes, each of which is a complete invite set on it’s own but also works perfectly with pieces from the other themes. Erica has selected 3 standard color ways (not that they are standard), but custom colors are also available. You can see a different set on Brooklyn Bride too.

And of course Erica does beautiful custom design as well. If you haven’t seen her own wedding invites, you are in for a treat. You can see her whole invite suite on Oh So Beautiful Paper.

Someone needs to order these babies, quick.

With all the things you’ll have to worry about paying for when it comes to your wedding, you won’t want to have to spend a lot of cash for slightly smaller things, like accents, decorations, and flower arrangements. Since most brides do want to have flowers at their weddings, and would prefer to purchase them at a reasonable price, here are some ways to save on wedding flowers that you may want to try:

Buy synthetic flowers.

Synthetic flowers may cost a little more when you buy them in bulk because of the material, but they could save you money because they last as long as you need them to. Many people have fresh flower bouquets for the bride, bridesmaids, and flower girls, and these tend to whither rather quickly, especially if the ceremony is indoors. So, you may end up buying more flowers than you actually need in order to keep the flowers looking good for pictures after the ceremony. You can also find colors or types of flowers that may not be in bloom at the time you are having the wedding if you buy synthetic flowers. This way, you’ll have more freedom to create the look you want for your ceremony. If you want to decorate the reception with flowers as well, synthetic flowers may be a good idea, so that you can maintain the look of the room for as long as you need to. And, since most brides want to keep their bouquets, buying synthetic flowers is definitely a good idea.

Plan your bouquet size.

Many brides end up spending more than they wanted to on a bouquet because they didn’t count the amount of flowers that would be in the arrangement, or select flowers that will look good with not-so-expensive accents. Make sure you know just how big you want your bouquet to be, as well as what type of flowers you want to include. And, carrying a single flower down the aisle is wonderful look for a bride as well. You can use a lily, daisy, or even a rose with lace or pearl accents as your bouquet, and add a unique touch to the ceremony. Small bunches of flowers can also be beautiful, proving that, as with most other things, less can definitely be more. If you want to get fresh flowers for your bouquet, selecting flowers that are in season will also help you to save money, since a florist may have to specially order out-of-season flowers, which can increase the bouquet price significantly.

Plan ahead.

Even though flowers for the wedding may seem like a small thing, don’t wait until the last minute to make sure that you have the flowers you want for your wedding. You may have to spend more money to find flowers you want the closer you get to the ceremony, so make sure that you have decided whether or not you’ll purchase flowers from a local florist or order synthetic flowers.

Order Wholesale From The Internet

To find more ideas for how to save on wedding flowers, as well as wedding floral shops that may have what you’re looking for, visit sites like freshroses.com and fiftyflowers.com.

About The Author

Michelle ferrell is the author of “How To Plan Your Dream wedding On A Limited Budget” – Discover other creative ways you can save thousands on your wedding at http://www.bestfordress.com

Copyright Michael Ferrell – http://www.bestforedress.com
Thank you for visiting the BEST FOR BRIDE web site! Please take the time to browse our web site thoroughly and do not hesitate to Contact Us with any questions you may have. We look forward to seeing you or hearing from you soon!

Sincerely,

Our friend espresso is back.

Left to right, top to bottom: Charlotte Jenks Lewis, Saipua, Dustin Todd, Nanako Koyama, flickr, Lucky Luxe, La Tartine Gourmande.

Thanks Vané for demystifying the cupcake photo’s origins. You can see the entire wedding on Brooklyn Bride.

So you have finally found the wedding dress of your dreams. This is such a great relief for you and recalling all those times that you have exhaustedly tried on one dress after another has finally paid off. But hold up. Just before you can start your victory dance, you still have one more thing to do – pick out? bridal accessories.

Finding the perfect bridal accessories are equally important as finding the perfect dress itself. You may be wearing the most fabulous wedding dress, but without bridal accessories to compliment it, it will still be just a plain dress. It’s also the same if you are wearing the same dress and you also have bridal accessories, but it’s just not the right one to pair it with. You won’t be able to pull off the perfect look if? your wedding dress and accessories won’t go together.

There are a number of bridal accessories that you must have in order to create the perfect image of yourself walking down the aisle. You may find these in the bridal shop where you ordered your dress,? or you can also find it in shops that specializes in wedding accessories.

For a one-stop bridal shop for all your bridal accessory needs, you should check out Best for Bride. Not only can you find your dream wedding dress, but also the perfect accessories to go along with it. They have a huge collection of wedding veils, bridal tiaras, wedding jewelry, and bridal headpieces to suit your every need.

The Best for Bride staff are all eager to help you try on and match bridal accessories with your wedding dress. It isn’t uncommon to take a lengthy time to pick out the right ones to coordinate together, but you don’t have to worry of being rudely entertained, or feel that you are made to choose right away. You can take as long as you like, just make sure that it’s within store hours, of course!

Your wedding dress and accessories should be like a flowing river – it must be harmonious in every way. Choosing them can be as stressful as searching your dream wedding dress, but with the help of Best for Bride, it won’t be long before find ones that goes perfectly with each other.

In general, we’re a little tired of brown as a wedding color… but we saw these beautiful shots on Anna Williams’s site and decided we’d perhaps been too hasty. We’re sorry brown, we’d forgotten how pretty you can be when you’re in your darkest shade…

Finding dresses for your bridesmaids are a couple of the things that you have to do along with planning your wedding. This should be done as soon as you find your own wedding dress, or when you have finally made up your mind on the theme and motif of the ceremony. The dresses should go along with the latter and satisfy the preferences of your bridesmaids, as well.

There have been many stories of bridesmaids and brides arguing about the bridesmaids dresses. Some dispute on the color of the dress and some on it’s style. There are even times when the brides were given no choice but to boot out a bridesmaid from the list. Hopefully, this won’t happen to you. That is why you should bring along your bridesmaids when you go shopping for their dresses to avoid this kind of conflict.

It’s good to know that you don’t have to run from one bridal shop in search for a wedding dress and then to another for bridesmaid dresses. There are those, like Best for Bride, that have them all under one roof. You can shop for your wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses at the same time! This can help you save plenty of time to do other things later like visit the caterers or the flower shop.

You might be skeptical on finding the right bridesmaid dresses in Best for Bride. How can one shop have the all dresses that you need? Well, you should know that Best for Bride has a wide array of bridesmaid dresses among other things.

These dresses come in different styles so you don’t have to worry about not finding the right one to suit your bridesmaids’ personalities. You might also already have a color in mind that would match your wedding theme and Best for Bride bridesmaid dresses collection all come in a variety of colors. You don’t even have to worry about the fit since alterations can be done swiftly without damaging the fabric.

Dressing up your bridesmaids is no hassle at all in Best for Bride. Expect quality services and professionalism once you have stepped inside it’s portals.

Six months to the big day, and … one… two … three – panic!

No, it doesn’t have to be like that!

It may be tempting to fling yourself into a crash diet, join a gym, buy brand new gym wear and flog yourself half to death on the treadmill, or even opt for the surgeon’s knife in an attempt to get into shape for that big day, but unless you have allowed yourself to develop seriously bad habits, it’s hardly essential.

Instead, with a generous six months to play with, there’s plenty of time to tone up. Start by taking a long hard look at your current diet and level of fitness. It may be that simply cutting out cigarettes and alcohol, or at least, cutting down, can make an enormous difference to the overall level of fitness. Worried about having bingo wings or a less than flat tummy? There’s still plenty of time to do a spot of toning and exercising to pep up those areas of the body that you may be less than proud of.

This doesn’t even need special equipment – doing arm curls with a bottle of water in each hand, or a series of sit ups and stomach flattening exercises can make big changes to your body shape with little real effort. In between booking the reception and choosing the bridesmaids, a few brisk walks in the fresh air really help to boost circulation and get that peaches and cream complexion. Try a deep muscle massage or a body wrap to improve the look of the skin – with no effort at all required on your part!

Do bear in mind, though, that making any kind of drastic changes to your body shape once you’ve chosen your dress will probably mean a few extra trips for additional dress fittings. Better, then, to tone up sooner rather than later, and you’ll walk down the aisle looking and feeling a million dollars.