A Few Tips For Brides

Posted in Brides, Brides and Grooms, Dreams, family, Getting Organized, Keepsakes, Life, Love, Marriage, Planning A Wedding, relationships, Spiritual, Weddings, Women by Carol Medlock

By the time the first note of the bridal march is played, thousands of decisions have been made, for better or for worse. Knowing what to do and what not to do can help you to avoid missteps so you can make the most of your perfect day. There are many details involved in making your wedding a success, and careful attention should be paid to all of them, big and small. Begin by getting an overview of all tasks ahead of you.

Here are a few reminders of what to do and what not to do while on your jounery to the altar.

What Not to Do?

Do not try to please others by doing your wedding as they suggest. It’s your wedding. Do it your way.
Do not make major decisions with consulting your fiance’ (e).
Do not discuss the details of your budget with other people. Unless they are helping to finance the event, the details are not their concern.
Do not expect service providers to work for unreasonably low prices. Get the best deals you can, but be willing to pay appropriately for people’s time and efforts.
Do not forget that everything will go perfectly. There are bound to be glitches, but you can deal with them.
Do not make spur-of-the moment decisions about anything. Take time to consider everything carefully.
Do not be rigid with your plans. Try to be flexible when possible.
Do not spend so much on the wedding that you enter your new marriage heavily in debt.
Do not make unreasonable demands of all the people helping you make your plans.
Do not use your wedding as a time to highlight and perpetuate family differences.
Do not allow differences of opinion about wedding details to come between you and your fiance’.
Do not neglect your relationship with your fiance’ as you get caught up in planning the wedding.

What to Do?

Leave enough time to handle all the unexpected details.
Start at the beginning by getting a game plan.
Don’t forget one of the most important things to do, “seek out pre marriage counseling” with a professional that you and your fiance’ trust and rremember that the marriage is the most important thing, not the wedding.
The wedding party is an important feature of the wedding begin to think about who should be part of this select group.
Take advantage of a professional wedding planner if possible. It will take some of the burden off your shoulders, and will leave you time to deal with other details that only you can handle.
Ask professionals who will be helping you how much time they will need to get everything done properly.
Select a date for your wedding that is not already notable for something else.
Choose attendants and other member of the wedding party with care. They will part of your memories of your special day, and will be a part of the photos that you will cherish.
Try to choose outfits that your attendants really can wear latter.
Get details in writing.There is nothing worse than thinking you are getting a particular product or service in one way, and finding out that you are incorrect. Keep receipts for everything you pay in connection to the wedding.
Select some method of keeping all your details organized there are many free wedding web sites that are designed to help you and your wedding party stay organized. Weddingwire.com is an excellent. Many brides still use index cards, and some find a loose leaf notebook system helpful.
List all wedding tasks to be done and assign a due date for each. This will be helpful when meeting with suppliers of goods and services.
Find out deadlines by which you will have to have particular decisions made and abide by them. Remember they are intended to help you.
Get a master calendar where all activities, plans, and deadlines will be recorded.
Begin to think about what type of service you would like, wha traditions you would like to honor, and what religious elements you would like to include.
Have a back up plan if your wedding is planned for outdoors.
As you begin to think of whom you will invite, keep a list of extras that out-of-town guest will need, such as a ride to the rehearsal dinner.
Enlist help ahead of time to help accommodate special needs of guests.
Be ready to bear the cost of extras that you ask your attendants to have, such as professionally applied make-up or perfect manicure.
Check well ahead of the wedding for marriage license requirements.
What to wear? You can ease the process of dressing everyone appropriately for the ceremony by knowing what your wedding vision is before you even start.
Plan to show your appreciation to members of the wedding party with a gift to help commemorate the occasion.
Remember you are blending your families,so make sure you remain respectful of your fiance’s suggestions he knows them better than you do.
Send thank-you notes promptly so you do not feel overwhelmed by the task.
Take time to enjoy the journey to the altar. Relax and savor the process.
Begin to develop a budget for your wedding expenses.
Include in the budget honorarium for the minster, musicians, and others who help the ceremony but who are not attendants.
Decide up front who will pay for what.There are traditional guidelines about this, though in recent years they have become more casual they are still an important facet of planning a wedding.
Consider setting up a wedding gift registry, it helps to take the guess-work out for those who are buying you and your fiance’ gifts.
Remember to tie up the loose ends and finishing with finesse because you are creating a day you will cherish for a lifetime.

24Jul2012

Matchmaker- Matchmaker

Posted in Brides, Dreams, family, Letters, Life, Love, relationships, Romace, Women by Carol Medlock

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch. Matchmaker, Matchmaker, look through your book, and make me a perfect match. Matchmaker, Matchmaker, I’ll bring the veil, you bring the groom, slender and pale.

Bring me a ring for I’m longing to be the envy of all I see. For Papa make him a scholar. For mama, make him rich as a king. For me, well, I wouldn’t holler if he were as handsome as anything.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch. Night after night in the dark, I’m alone so find me a match of my own. I promise you’ll be happy, and even if you’re not, there’s more to life than that…Don’t ask me what?

This matchmaker story is true and is about a man named Paul and a woman named Karen he lived in New York and she lived in San Francisco, Ca.They met while Paul was attending a family reunion in San Francisco and he asked his cousin Hedy and her fiance’ Jack if they would call some friends who might be willing to go out on a date with him. They went to work, calling various women fortunately, Karen called them back. Hedy’s nick has been Matchmaker, Matchmaker ever since her collage years because she matched up more than fifteen couples which she never lets anyone forget about. Hello Dolly has nothing on her that is for sure.

Karen was sitting at the restaurant with Paul’s cousins, and she thought, he’s pretty good-looking. They started talking and Karen noticed Paul was one of the happiest people she had ever come across. And when he would talk about things that he had done and things that you wanted to do, it sounded incredibly appealing, like it would just be a fun life with him.

By the end of the evening Karen handed him her business card, and He said, he would keep in touch. He called her from his family reunion and asked her if she would allow him to take her to dinner, and then would she take him to the airport? They continued their conversation on the pay phone rather enthusiastically for two hours and Paul’s cousins wondered why Paul wasn’t paying any attention to them or anyone else in the rest of the family.

They had a great dinner, and then Karen took him to the airport. She saw him off, no peck on the cheek, nothing like that. While Paul was getting on the airplane he was thinking, this could be interesting. He spent the whole time on the plane writing a letter to her and when the plane landed instead of going to pick up his luggage he found a mail box and sent the letter. And come to find out that she had been up all night writing a letter to him and mailed it first thing in the morning. Matchmaker, Matchmaker make me a perfect match!

Karen was really resisting having any feelings of liking him, because she lived in San Francisco and he lived in New York, which was extremely far away. She had never been there. And she had a nice career going, She owned her own home in San Francisco. She had a whole life in California, so why even get into any kind of entanglement with a man who lived so far away? It just seemed crazy. But then, obviously, She really like him.

They wrote each other a lot. They built up a lot of intimacy with all that communicating. It’s was like an essay every single day about a new topic. They wrote about everything. Paul said, a lot happened in those letters and he couldn’t help but be somewhat flirtation, just because it was kind of fun and innocent enough. Karen said, he was plenty flirtatious, but never made a pass at her.

Soon they were spending hundreds of dollars a month on phone bills, flying back and forth, so they decided to cut to the chase about things. The catalyst for them was when Karen’s mom died in a car accident suddenly and it forced Paul to figure out whether he should be apart of this kind of …sadness. He hadn’t met her family and they were still in a new relationship. Paul thought it over and decided he wanted to be with Karen.

Karen asked her dad if he was up to meeting Paul and he said, yes. He made a welcoming sign for Paul and made Paul feel welcomed and comfortable. Karens dad was warm and kind to Paul even though he had just lost his wife and was very, very, very sad. Paul always admired Karens dad for his strength and making that sign for him. It was a tough time, but it built strength between them.

A few months later Karen was at work, and her colleague, said, “Oh, we forgot to tell you: we have to go across campus to see the new dean at the chapel.” So they were kind of jogging across campus, because they were late, and as they walked into the sanctuary she noticed some violin music. It wasn’t until she was pretty far into the church that she realized that it was Paul, and that he was playing the Winter Movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. There was an older couple sitting in the front pews, just in rapt attention, listening to him.

Karen didn’t know what was going on: Why was Paul doing this performance in the church? And then Karen kind of got an inkling when Paul finished he went over to her and asked her if she would marry him. She said, yes. It was incredibly romantic and incredibly surprising.

One of things that Karen said to Paul during their vows at the wedding was that she looked forward to seeing his happy face every morning and she still does. Paul still thinks Karen is all he imaged she would be except more of it. She is smart. She is generous and most of all she is just lots of fun to be around. They are very grateful to Hedy and Jack for matching them up.

17Aug2011

A Superstitious Bride…

Posted in Brides, Life, Love, Romace, Spiritual, traditions, Women by Carol Medlock

Being superstitions: Is the belief that an object or an action will have influence on one’s life. Many brides believe that she can ensure good luck in her marriage by wearing something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

As we were preparing for my wedding my girlfriends and I read many books and bride magazines.

The one recurring theme was that wearing something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue would ensure good luck in a marriage. After reading that we decided that the only way to break the “Gary” curse and to ensure good luck in my marriage was to wear a lot of the color blue. The reasoning behind this was because a number of women in my family and life had either fallen in love or married men named Gary and they didn’t have good luck.

The something borrowed was my grandmothers engagement ring. (My dad’s mother). Which I returned to her a few months later. We picked her ring because I loved her my grandparents and they were married longer than anyone we knew. They ended up being happily married for over sixty years The something new was a blue and white lace garter given to me by my friend Gale. It was new and blue so we figured that would count for double luck.

To ensure good luck for sure “ The something blue” was going to have to be my wedding dress. Our guests where surprised that I didn’t wear a traditional white wedding dress. We didn’t care about what people thought because after all a bride needs all the good luck she can get doesn’t she? That was forty years ago and I still get comments about a young bride who dared to wear a blue wedding dress.