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.

The Theobroma Cacao or ‘the food of the Gods’ is what we all know as the cocoa tree. It’s origin can be traced back to South America’s rain forests, particularly to Central America, although historians are still debating over certain facts with regard to this tree.

It is proposed that the Mayans first grew the cacao tree in 300 AD, although others point to inadequate evidence that it was cultivated or at least harvested in around 3,000 BC. The Aztecs also used the cacao, but from about 1100 AD.

The chocolate (drink) that we all know nowadays was called ‘xocoatl’. It was a very special beverage that was made with cacao, chilies, anise seed, vanilla, corn meal and some other spices. It is said that only royalty were allowed to drink it and then only from golden chalices, which were to be used for the purpose only once.

The cacao tree is very sensitive to its environment and it most often grows in the shade of the rain forest canopy. If just for this reason alone, chocolate lovers should join forces with the environmentalists to save the rain forests so that the cacaos will continue to exist.

A song can tell you a lot about life, the person who wrote it, the person who sings it and the person who likes to listen to it.. Songs belong to different genres. Have you ever come across a genre which is enduring? If you did would it be about love or hatred? Of course, everyone would say that ‘love’ is the most discussed, written and sung about by people of all races and nationalities. So, it is no surprise then to find out what makes a date worth remembering?

Music invariably has something to do with it and music could actually style the mood of your date. Dating is such a great way of choosing your future lifetime spouse. When you are out on a date, see to it that the music is well-selected and that it generates a mood of romance.

People have composed all types of songs, but the ones they write the best are love songs. Since the day the first love song was sung, people’s hearts have been melting. Songs of finding a new love, losing love, songs of inspiration, songs of moving on, songs about romance, first loves and the gush of emotions.