I'm Hungry!

You wedding day has finally arrived! The months if not a year spent researching and hiring the right vendors, weeks of perfecting the details, days of running errands, and hour agonizing over your seating chart are behind you. It is now time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of your labor!

The people you love are all around snapping photos, pouring champagne, steaming dresses, listening to music, and celebrating what lies ahead in just a few hours! With all of the things going on and excitement in the air it is all to common for this mishap to take place.

Monday Mishap: No one planned anything to eat outside of the wedding meal

The wedding day is a long day especially for the bride, groom, and their bridal party. With hair and makeup starting 5 to 6 hours prior to the ceremony. It is common that a wedding day last 10 to 12 hours if not more. So count back, if your ceremony starts at 5:00pm then that means 11:00 am or so you start hair. Then getting dressed, photos, ceremony, etc. And what time is dinner scheduled? 7:00 or 8:00 pm? That is a really long time to go without food. You are packed full of emotions and adrenaline, but that will only last so long. Eating during that time is a very important part of a successful and fun day.

If you have overlooked this ever so important detail, don't stress you are not alone. It is often overlooked by almost everyone. My advice is to sit down with your groom and talk about what each of you is going to do for breakfast and lunch on wedding day. You are obviously going to do different things, but having a plan for each of you is very important.

Since I don't know what you getting ready plans are, and won't be there to bring lunch, here is a wide variety of simple suggestions:

For the Groom:

• Meet up with grooms men for breakfast/lunch - (*make reservations if you have a large party)
• Eat at the golf course after your 9 holes (*You don't have time for 18! You just don't!)
• Arrive to the hotel early and eat in the lounge prior to getting dressed
• Order room service
• Eat breakfast and lunch at home prior to arriving at picture location (*this does mean you need to have food for both meals in your home ahead of time. Yes, a trip to the grocery store!)

For the bride:

• Order room service in your bridal suite
• Have your family or brides maids bring in muffins, fruit, yogurt, lunch meat,crackers, etc. for you all to snack on.
• Have your bridal brunch/luncheon in the morning before hair and make up
• Stock up your house with your favorite foods (nothing that can not be prepared before wedding day. No cooking or hassle on wedding day!)
• Pack a snack bag ahead of time and bring it with you to the ceremony location
• Pre-order appetizers from reception location to have ready for you as soon as you arrive
• If ceremony and reception at same location - have the appetizer prepared for all bridal party to enjoy in down time prior to ceremony

*Special Note* Once your dress is on it is important to have stain free snacks to munch on. OUT:: chocolate, mustard, red wine, cranberry sauce, anything with a colored sauce IN: pretzels, fruit, veggies (watch dips), cheese platters, nuts, etc.

If you have a suggestion for Brides I'd love to hear it! Leave me a comment. Happy planning!

Photographs: Clare Marie Photography

Mishaps Monday - Oops! Wedding Dress Week 4

This is the 4th and final week of mishaps devoted to the Wedding Dress! So, let's recap what we have learned:

1. Don't buy a dress a size too small.
2. Make sure there is continuity between your wedding dress and the rest of the wedding, especially with formality and style.
3. Wear all appropriate undergarments to your fittings.

Week 4's mishap is all about wedding day.

On your wedding day you are generally in your dress for 6 to 10 hours worth of time. There are pictures, the ceremony, and all of the reception for you to enjoy the most exquisite gown(s) you've ever owned. You are the center of every one's attention through out dinner, dancing, toasting, and more. All this time and celebration in a traditional white or off white gown also allows for plenty of opportunity for spills and accidents.

On my wedding day, the first thing I did after arriving at the ceremony site for pictures is run my dress into a greasy path marker. There was a huge black smudge on the lower right portion of my skirt. Before freaking out, my maid of honor, mother, and bride's maids went to the restroom with my emergency kit to work a little magic. Shout wipes, oxyclean spray, and a little elbow grease were my best friend that day! The stain didn't fully come out until going to the dry cleaner after the wedding, but the products in my emergency kit made a huge difference for my dress and mental state!

To avoid the mishap of a devastating stain, make sure you pack your emergency kit with these 3 things!

1. Wine away - this miracle products neutralizes red wine and lifts it out of fabrics almost immediately. If you for some reason can't find wine away,which I buy in the wine section at the grocery store. A trick of the trade is pouring white wine on red will also neutralize the red.
2. Oxyclean spray - I don't know how it works, but it does! This is some powerful stuff. From food stains to pen ink, it helps with everything. I carry around a small sample size bottle in my kit.
3. Shout wipes - These are great for everything as well! I use them often to get dirt off the bottom of my bride's dresses, especially the long trains. They can get pretty dirty during pictures.

A dirty dress can lead to a break down. With these 3 products in your emergency kit, you are sure to avoid this mishap all together!

Mishap Monday - The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress is huge style setter in a wedding. It's the bride's signature piece. The part that says the most about her on her most important of days. It is exclusively hers and will be looked at and talked about by every guest present, and everyone there after. Whether it be a short flirty strapless dress, or an elaborate ballgown, it sets the style and tone for the day. All the remaining elements of the wedding stem from this one piece... the formality, venue, time of day, attendants attire, colors, etc.

With all of this surrounding one piece of clothing, it is no wonder that there are many mishaps and mistakes. For the next 4 weeks I'll explain where brides can, will, and have gone wrong in the past.

1. Buy the dress that fits

All too often brides buy a dress one size too small as motivation to burn those last few pounds they have been trying to lose for years. This is a huge mistake! I know there can be sticker shock associated with wedding dress sizes. I remember hearing the size of dress I ordered for my wedding, and thinking that's not right. My normal clothes are 4 sizes smaller! What I realized, the number doesn't matter the fit does! A comfortable fitting wedding dress is so important. If it is digging in to you or you're spilling out of it, it will show. This is probably not the perfect bride picture you had of yourself on wedding day.

Buy a gown that fits you now, and have it taken in if you lose the weight. It is so much harder and costly to expand a dress than make it smaller. Not to mention, the additional stress you are putting on yourself to make sure it fits. You have enough on your plate when planning your wedding, don't add this on top of it.

A bride at any size or shape is beautiful on wedding day in a gown that fits!

Mishap Monday - Running Late

Running late on wedding day is pretty common. There are so many people to account for and little time to do so. Even with the most detailed well planned time line like I put together, it's likely that one or more of the parties involved will be behind schedule.

This is exaggerated in summertime when most major cities are at the height of road construction. It can lead to many headaches for you and your guest with out the proper knowledge and planning. To prevent road rage and late arrivals make sure you check out your states department of transportation for updates on road closures, delays, and more that will be going on on your wedding weekend. Here is the link to Washington's.

Here is a real life example of what I'm talking about. Enjoy!

This last summer the major Interstate I-5 was shut down for repair for many sporadic weekends. Fun. My wedding was up north at the wineries, the party was from 50 miles south. Everyone involved and attending had to pass through the traffic. Lovely. Bad traffic or closures happen often, so planning ahead really pays off. I let my couple, all of the vendors, bridal party and family know of the extra time needed due to the closures, but you can only do so much.

Photos were set to start at 3pm - so I get there at 1pm to set up and not be rushed. On my way to the venue I notice light traffic, but nothing to cause alarm. It took longer than usual, but I had planned for that for myself and the bridal party. 3pm rolls around, nothing, no one. 4pm rolls around - still no bride, groom, family or guest. Okay – they’re stuck in traffic. But the ceremony is at 6pm and still no one. I encourage my bride’s not to carry a cell phone on their wedding day since I take care of all of the details. I’m sadly regretting that. I call the maid of honor and her mother and neither answer. Finally 4:30, the car holding the bride & her six bridesmaids shows up. Yeah! Out comes the bride, her dress and her six ladies, but only one bridesmaid dress. The other 5 have been forgotten. EEK! So, who do we call? The groom of course, who is also incredibly late and en route. He turns around from the half way point he’s at to pick up the remaining dresses.

I have called the reception venue to let them know of our current delay in the timeline. I anticipate that we will be later than expected, but don’t know how much.

6pm rolls around, ceremony time, but no groom and no guests. 75 guests are expected, but about only 15 are there. So sad. This goes on and on. When I think things can’t get much worse the caterer calls freaking out because we are so late, and half of the guests have shown up at the reception with out going to the ceremony. The guest were unaware of everyone’s tardiness delaying the whole day. I have them start cocktail hour for the guests there and delay dinner until further notice.

7pm, the groom and grooms men show up dressed and ready with the forgotten dresses. Their hero! They want to take some photos while waiting for more guests to arrive. At 7:30 and we begin the ceremony with half the guests present. We can’t wait any longer. It’s a short but sweet ceremony with lots of laughter about the events leading up to finally walking down the aisle. The pastor jokes that all good things come to those who wait. And wait we did. As I talk to family and friends at the reception, they all said they expected this from the couple. They’re always late to everything. The father of the bride’s toast sweetly remembers how she was a week late when being delivered. It becomes the theme to the rest of the evening. Crazily enough with all the stress of the day - the photos turned out great and they were very happy overall! Huge sigh of relief!



If you have a crazy wedding day story I would love to hear from you. Email me @ wendi@etherealevents.com

RSVP Who?

It's a common mistake for your guests to forget to put their names on the reply card. This leaves you in a bit of trouble when trying to do the seating chart or know who is having what for dinner. You know 2 people will be attending, but not sure who they are.

A quick and easy way to combat this is to pencil in a small number on the back of every reply card. Then on a separate sheet of paper or in a spread sheet write the names of the guests and the number that corresponds with the reply card. This way when you receive # 46 with no guest names, you will know that you sent it to Mr. & Mrs. Smith or whom ever. It keeps you ahead of the game with little room for errors!

Not just a Party!

Common Mishap:
Marriage License
This is the MOST IMPORTANT part of you becoming a legal married couple. It's the difference between getting married and throwing one heck of a party. It's also a common mishap for couples. Please read carefully!

'Washington State law requires a three-day waiting period before the marriage license becomes valid. This means that you must wait at least three full days after the application is filed before the marriage ceremony can be performed. The license is valid for only 60 days. The marriage ceremony must be performed before the 60-day expiration of the license.' - State of Washington's website

Your state may be different. Click here for more Washington information. Also you can check out a previous blog post I wrote about this with tons more information.

Have a great week!