Besides knowing the difference between Asian wedding favors and garden wedding favors, a good wedding planner should be a wealth of knowledge and should know how to plan every detail of your wedding. Unfortunately, there are only a few ways to tell if your wedding planner really knows his or her stuff until he actually starts planning your wedding. Here are four quick things to look for when interviewing your wedding planners that will tell you more about them without asking the related questions.

If your wedding planner shows up for the interview half an hour late, odds are, they are not as organized as they claim to be. While this particular clue is not a dead giveaway to their capabilities, it is certainly a good step in the wrong direction. If they have a legitimate sounding excuse, it is only fair to continue the interview in earnest but keep that red flag in the back of your mind as you go. Take a moment and think about the excuse that they give you for being late. If they say that they were stuck in traffic at ten in the morning, it is more likely they slept in as the morning rush is usually over by nine, since that is the start time for the majority of the working world. That is unless, of course, everyone in your city was late for work on that day, like your candidate.

Men and weddings don’t mix. It is akin to going to the doctor for a complete physical. We do it, but we are not comfortable doing it. We want to, but we don’t like to. If it were up to us, the wedding would take place during the halftime activities during the playoffs. (The Super bowl is off limits. Do not push your luck.) We would stand to say “I Do.” Being careful not to spill the chips and the bridesmaids main function would be to fetch us another beer. Here are five tips that will get your future husband off the couch and onto the wedding playing field.

August through January is off-limits. Football season is no time to plan a wedding. If you want your man to be completely focused on you and the wedding planning process, keep that wedding in the months that do not have football. By the way, the draft counts. (April) You will have our undivided attention during May, June, and July, which is when most weddings occur anyway.

Wedding favors are a great way to show your guests how much you care about them and how much you appreciate their attendance. Your guests have gone through great effort and expense to be at your wedding and you can show that you are grateful with good food, entertainment, and unique wedding favors. Here are a few inexpensive ideas that are sure to make your message of love and thanksgiving clear.

Some wedding favors are more expensive than others are but cost does not always speak the loudest when trying to convey a message. You want your guests to know how much you appreciate them and nothing says I Love You more than a personalized wedding favor. The extra expense and effort will be clear to all who receive them, especially if the come in personalized favor boxes, each with a note of thanks. If you have an unusually large guest list, it may not be feasible to personalize the notes but many wedding favor retailers can personalize the gifts for you relatively inexpensively. It just shows that you care!

A wedding can be an expensive and time-consuming project. There are so many costly details that go into planning a wedding that it can be difficult to reach your budgeting goals. There are many creative ways that you can cut corners when planning your wedding that will help to save you money and still obtains the goals that you have for this wonderful event. Little tricks like putting together or purchasing bath wedding favors or soap wedding favors that will save you time and money and also be useful to your guests.

One of the most expensive parts of a wedding can be the theme if you decide to have one. There are numerous specialty items and dcor that go into a themed wedding and reception. Even your entertainment could cost more if it goes along with the theme you are trying to create. One way that you can save money and your budget and still have a theme is to create a small photography area that is themed and leave the rest of the ceremony and reception traditional.

Don’t Forget to Breathe The big day is coming faster than you can prepare for it and you are so stressed out you could light a match…just by looking at it. Pre-wedding stress can be a royal pain in the wallet as well as the heart and there is no worry worse than one that involves money. You have planned a wonderful wedding and reception but more things have seemingly gone wrong than right. You have heard that wedding planning is supposed to be fun but by now, that is just a vague rumor and you know the truth. If this sounds familiar and you are still planning your wedding…, STOP! Do not forget to breathe.

Choosing Your State of Mind Wedding stress is natural and is sometimes hard to deal with. It is also fun and a wonderful experience. Which one of these you get the most out of is completely up to you. If you are in a frenzied, ready to pull your hair out and then start on someone else, very stressed out mode and you are just weeks from the big day it is time for a breather because this kind of state is the last frame of mind that you want to be in going into your wedding day. It is okay to let someone else take the reins for a little bit while you gain your composure. Pass smaller but important tasks, like choosing wedding favors, especially unique wedding favors, on to someone you trust. You do not have to do everything yourself.

One way to ensure that you have plenty of wedding pictures is to give fully loaded wedding cameras as part of the photo album favors you give to your guests. Drop a little note in the personalized wedding favor bags or personalized favor boxes letting your guests know that you would love to have a copy of any photos taken at the wedding and reception and would also like photos of the guests and their families. Include an address where they can send their photos and a couple of extra rolls of film. I guarantee that within a month of the wedding, you will start receiving tons of pictures in the mail and they will trickle in for another year. Among all these photos, you will find priceless treasures worthy of taking to a lab for reproduction or enlargement.

Your wedding photographer should offer you the choice of purchasing your pictures either with or without the negatives. In order to make this decision, you will need to ask what steps they take to preserve your negatives and what they charge for storage. If you decide to keep them yourself, you will need to take steps to protect them as there will only be one set of negatives available to you. If the unfortunate ever happened and your treasured wedding photos were destroyed or damaged in a flood, fire, or other natural disaster, you will need those negatives to reproduce the images you lose.

Wedding favors can be extremely difficult to pick. Will the guest like the wedding favor? Is it tacky? This is why you have to give it a lot of thought. If you are going to buy someone something, you should really focus on it. Otherwise, why give a gift at all? One place to help you get ideas is The Wedding Printer, which serves a large online market for all of your wedding needs. Their ‘Favors’ section is particularly strong and can help match your favors to all your other wedding decorations.

One thing to think about is buying something practical for people. Know your guests and what might be useful for that type of crowd. In the past, wedding favors tended to be fanciful items or candy wrapped nicely. Though these are still nice gifts, people have been buying their favors to fill more practical purposes. Even something like a picture frame with a photo of the couple can do this as well.

Smaller gifts are good for a more economical budget. These things can include bookmarks, coasters, and key chains with the date engraved on them. They are still useful to the guest but can also boast your day without being egotistical.

Wedding is such a momentous event in the lives of a couple. It is a much-anticipated occasion in their lives. They allot ample time for the preparation of everything needed before such event. One of the highlights of a wedding ceremony is the giving of wedding favors. The newlyweds distribute gifts to their guests as a form of appreciation for sharing with them this very special occasion.

The giving of gifts to guests started as early as the 16th century. It is said that the rich Europeans used to give bonbonniere, a small box made of porcelain, crystal or precious stones that has sugar cubes inside or some delicate confection. The crystal cubes or confection symbolizes royalty and wealth. In other practices, each guest was given with something that contains five candies that represent five common wedding wishes such as happiness, health, wealth, fertility, and longevity.

The traditional gift giving of sugar and candies have changed over the years. These were replaced with sugarcoated almonds given in set of three or five. Sugarcoated almonds in 3’s means the husband, wife and future child while a set with five almonds represent wishes for happiness, health, fertility, longevity and wealth.

Your wedding is special and you want to celebrate your love with all of your family and friends and show how much you appreciate them sharing this special day with you. One of the best ways to show that appreciation is by choosing just the right wedding bomboniere to give to your guests.

What is a wedding bomboniere?

A wedding bomboniere is just the Italian word for wedding favour, which is a small gift you give your guests to thank them for coming to the wedding. In olden days only the wealthiest families gave wedding favours to their guest usually in the form of sugar cubes. As the price of sugar dropped even less wealthy families could give wedding favours to their guests. Over time the giving of sugar cubes died out and in it’s place the bridal couple gave other food items such as sugared almonds, and other sweet treats as their wedding bomboniere.

While sweet treats given in bags, small boxes, or tins still remains popular, bridal couples are now choosing from a whole range of small gifts to give their guests as wedding favours or bombonieres.

In 1604, the word Bridegroom came into being for the need to call a man about to be married something other than, “the poor soul,” or, “the doomed one.” The word is derived from two words, The “Bride” which simply means the woman about to be married and in some dominantly male run countries, the bride means, a screaming, and slave-driving banshee from the pits of Hades itself, and the word “Guma” which is roughly translated from old English as “boy.” The bridegroom, on the day of his wedding, usually wore clothing specific to the type of religion, the time of the day, or the uniform of whatever branch of service or position he held with a government status. We have since shortened the word to the simple “groom,” which is what many bachelors believe any man would have to be to get married.

In those days, it was not uncommon for the groom to have the final say in matters of the ceremony, especially as to where and when it would be held and who would be the Celebrant. The Celebrant is someone other than clergy or government official who is licensed to perform ceremonies if the couple or party wishes not to involve church or state. This person is now more commonly referred to as the officiant and can perform many types of ceremonies, including weddings. The groom and the bride’s father would usually hammer out the details of the wedding and then inform the rest of the family.