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set the date?

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

My fiance and I were engaged in early December leaving me to flash my newly acquired bling at holiday parties, family gatherings and under the sparkling lights of holiday decorations. It was bliss for a newly engaged woman. What a fun time to get engaged!

But it posed one slight challenge for me: I was instantly in wedding planning mode and my fiance felt like this, “Its the holiday! Let’s wait til the New Year!”.  Knowing I didn’t want an exceptionally long engagement, this was precious time wasted!

My fiance was really excited about getting married-but getting him to help set the date was nearly impossible. I share with you now some set the date strategies that worked for us! 

  • Ask your fiance if he has a time of year that he does NOT want to get married. If you can immediately rule out certain times of year like football, baseball and basketball season you may now have his full attention!
  • Find out his parents, and if applicable, siblings and friends wedding anniversaries. He’s not likely to want to overlap with them.  Then again, he may want to so its easier to remember the date. 
  • Realistically plan out the next year to two years. Are there any major events coming up? Graduations, other weddings, travel, etc. If you and your fiance are a low key couple, you may need less than a year to plan, but if not, book it at least 1.5 years out to allow plenty of time to get it on your calendars to maximize optimal guest attendance.
  • Find out how involved he wants to be involved with the planning. This is KEY. My guy wanted to help with ring, food, cake, music and tuxes. Beyond that it was my show to run. If your guy wants to be told what day, what time and where to stand, the ball is in your court.

So what are you waiting for? Get started! How did you determine your wedding date?

There’s so much more to do after you set the date. But never fear! Check back here for some more helpful wedding planning tips and let us know any questions!

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New Year…new engagement?

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Engaged! :)

It’s the best time of year for many people-the holidays-when life is all a glisten with lights and gifts, the clinking of glasses filled with bubbly toasts of good cheer and often, the sparkle of a beautifully cut diamond engagement ring! Congratulations, newly engaged couples! A fantastic time awaits you!

While many are conjuring up New Year’s resolutions and recounting the year, you may be conjuring up visions of white dresses, spools of tulle and sparkly bands for your shiny new bling!

Getting engaged around the holidays is quite common and starting those to do lists for wedding planning is the perfect way to kick off the New Year!

So-what’s the first thing you should do as a newly engaged couple? Celebrate!!! Everyone loves a happy new couple pink cheeked and blissfully dreaming of their new lives together.  Let friends and family and co-workers alike congratulate you! Let people in the grocery store compliment your new piece of jewelry and practice referring to your boyfriend as “my fiancé”.

Happy New Year brides to be! Congratulations on your new engagements and enjoy this time together. The tough stuff like choosing venues, linen colors, and place settings are yet to come.

We’ll be here to help share feedback, suggestions, and lessons learned along the way! Let us know how we can help!

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First the chicken then the ring?

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

First comes the chicken, and then comes the ring?

It’s Engagement Season, but you can, for sure, hurry it along. I stumbled upon this article a few years back and I honestly cannot remember how I found out about it or who sent it to me, but I had to share. The recipe is quite simple, a roasted chicken stuffed with lemons; a little salt and pepper –that’s it! It creates a juicy, tender and flavorful meal that anyone is sure to appreciate and enjoy. But that’s not the fun part. The best part of this entire recipe is the urban wedding myth that follows. Supposedly, if you’re in the market for a ring, serving up this delicious meal sets the ball in motion. Engagement chicken. Genius.

I know what you’re thinking and YES. Yes, I made this chicken for my boyfriend. I’m not ashamed. I made it for him after we’d been dating for about four months, so maybe it was a tad premature. But, it was a meal he absolutely devoured, and it may have also been the chocolate cake I made for dessert, but it was a meal that he still says, helped him fall in love with me. 

Chicken then the ring?

So does it work? There are many women out there who say yes, yes it does work! It didn’t work for me right away, but it worked about 2.5 years later (which is probably best considering we still had a lot to learn about one another). You want my opinion? I think when you put effort and love into preparing a home cooked meal for your guy, he sees you not as ‘just a girlfriend’, but a loving woman capable of caring, love, warmth and creating a home; maybe even a home for the two of you! So what comes first, the chicken or the ring? You can’t force nature, but when your guy sees the love and effort you put into creating a yummy meal for him, maybe he’ll start thinking wedding bells…or at least left-overs. Either way, it’s going to work if it’s meant to be. So give it a try. Even if you’re not a foodie, it’s a super simple recipe that will wow him. Best of luck ladies!

Engagement Chicken

1 whole chicken (approx. 3 lb.)

2 medium lemons

Fresh lemon juice (1/2 cup)

Kosher or sea salt

Ground black pepper

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set aside some non wedding planning time!

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Since I’ve started this gig as blogger for NCE I’ve been toting around my blackberry like an extra appendage. Don’t get me wrong, I love being connected, the world wide web at my manicured fingertips and all that jazz. But there was a time the other night, in the middle of my favorite TV show, that my hubby, lovingly though it may have been, put his hand on my pecking thumbs and said, “Ok, put it down. We need some non-blackberry time.”

Wide-eyed and embarrased, like I’d been caught stealing cookies, I said, “What? I didn’t hear you.”. Uh oh.

So, this whole scenario took me right back to wedding planning days when I was, well, you could say I was obsessed with planning our nuptials. These were pre-blackberry days, thankfully, and I was more obsesseed with spreadsheets, to do lists and the like than I was about my new fiance. I quickly learned, however, how important the “engagement” period is to your new lives together. Planning your wedding is an amazing experience that helps you grow closer with friends and family involved. But it can also be incredibly stressful and all consuming if you let it.

That said, my advice to all you blushing brides out there is this: set aside some precious time with your fiance where wedding talk is prohibited. Allow yourself some time to enjoy being engaged without the stress of linens, colors, flowers and invitations. You’ll miss these days when you’re an old married woman like me.

I’m kidding. I’m not old-yet. But I am married.

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My favorite five things to register for!

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Considering it’s the most wonderful time of the year to get engaged, I thought I’d draw upon my own experience and impart a little knowledge about my favorite top five things to register for. How do I know, you ask? Well, it’s been a year and a half and these are the top five things still in use in our house.

Why do we register for gifts? Why do we buy gifts from a registry? The whole purpose of this multi-billion dollar industry of wedding registries is to allow the couple to build their ‘nest’ on their own terms. While money is generous and fine in a pinch, receiving a beautifully wrapped and generous gift that you’ve already picked out is well, it’s fun.

It takes the guess work out of it for your guests and it ensures (to some degree) that you’ll actually get what you want and need.

So here they are:

Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer

A Kitchen Aid Stand mixer –

It doesn’t matter if you’re not a foodie. This genius of an invention makes your life so incredibly easy, you won’t be able to imagine life before it. From brownies to mashed potatoes, this amazing mixer will steal your heart and impress even the toughest of critics.

Everyday dishes –

Registering for fine China is great; you’ll pull it out on Thanksgiving and around the Holidays, but admit it. It’s too nice to reheat Chinese food on, which is why it’s called fine China. Register for a set of dishes that you can use everyday – for impromptu dinner parties, having your in-laws over for a homemade dinner, and that same night when you’ve undercooked the pork loin and made lumpy mashed potatoes and need to order Chinese. Not that I speak from experience or anything.

towels

New towels –

- Admit it, we’ve all held on to those college towels for too long. When you and your fiancé moved in together or move in together, you’ll look at those stringy, dingy towels with disdain. Treat yourself to a dozen or more new towels, hand towels and wash cloths.

Crate and Barrel gift cards –

Yes. You can register for gift cards and you’ll be happy that you did. After the wedding when you’re all settled in and have returned some of the things you registered for because you realized you don’t have the room or you changed your mind, these amazing, never expiring and always fun to spend gift cards will make even the most mundane of errand days fun.

Home Depot gift cards –

- Yep – even Home Depot has a wedding registry. I know, took me a while to believe it too. If you’ve bought your dream home in place of an expensive wedding, like, say, me, you’re more concerned about laying that new granite countertop than you are a new set of China. And these things stretch far beyond the imagination can allow; new closets, ceiling fans, washer / dryer, dishwasher, you name it, you can buy it there.

So there you have it – my favorite things to register for. Whatever you decide to register for, make it fun, and make it about your new life together and most of all make sure you get a gift receipt.

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til’ debt do we part?

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
I do promise...to pay off this wedding...

I do promise...to pay off this wedding...

I was having a little trouble sleeping tonight and started flipping through the channels in an effort to find something boring enough to lull me into a sound slumber. But I came across a really interesting show on CNBC called “Til Debt Do Us Part”  and I was immediately intrigued. I quickly became aware that the show was to help debt-ridden couples eliminate the debt they’ve accumulated together; some as high as $100,000. Hearing that was like taking a bullet. Yikes.

It got me thinking about one of the main reasons that couples divorce; money! Many of the couples on this show accumulated their debt as single people and continued poor money management habits when they said ‘I do’. Considering this is one of the top reasons for divorce, couples considering marriage should strongly consider having a conversation about how they’ll manage their bills. And it can start with the planning of the wedding. The average cost of a wedding can run couples (or Moms and Dads) $25,000 – $30,000. While this isn’t the case for everyone, for the most part, my husband and I paid for our wedding on our own. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, the same year that we got engaged, we spent $30,000 purchasing our dream home and that left very little for a wedding. We immediately put ourselves on a savings plan so that during our 10 month engagement, we’d have enough to pay for our wedding in full. And while our wedding budget fell well below the average cost of a wedding, it was everything we wanted it to be without really sacrificing much. For us, the fact that we had a great house and a great start together was more important than that one special day.

My point is, that marriage is a constant compromise and compromises can start well before the vows are said. That one wedding day is important and memorable, sure – but are the next five years spent paying off the wedding really worth it? It’s something to think about.

I’m reminded of a friend of mine, whose father said to her upon hearing about her engagement, “I’ve got $30,000 saved for your wedding but I’d like to offer an alternative. I’ll give you the $30,000 to put a down payment on a house and I’ll fly you to Vegas to get married. Or, you can have the $30,000 for your dream wedding. You pick.”

It was the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to; stunning. And as the couple enters their fifth year of marriage and usher in a new milestone, their baby girl, they’re setting up her nursery in the dining room of their one bedroom apartment.

Everyone has to make their own decisions – but discussing matters like this with your fiance, will help you both align on your priorities – personally, financially and more importantly as a newly married couple.

 

a very, very, very fine house

a very, very, very fine house

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an MOH misfire…

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

A few days ago I wrote about my sister and her MOH dilemma: should she

a) Speak up as MOH to protect herself and fellow ‘maids from the Bridesmaid dress that looked like a chocolate bar exploded on a pumpkin?

Or

b) Keep her mouth shut and be the loyal MOH she wanted to be.

Well, as you’re aware, she chose ‘a’ and ‘addressed the dress’. Well my friends, it backfired. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel confident approaching your lovely bride-to-be with subtle recommendations and thoughts, but tread lightly. In this case, the bride was a tad grouchy.

It went kind of like this:

Bride: “I don’t feel that you’re being supportive of my choices. I understand that you may not like the color, but it’s my wedding and I love it. Besides, the other Bridesmaids love it.  You don’t know what it will look like on you until you try it on, so I don’t see how you can form an opinion until you do that. It hurt my feelings that you said you thought the color was bad.”

MOH: “I’m sorry, I was simply offering you a perspective you might not have considered.”

Bride: “You’re supposed to be supportive of me as my MOH and I felt like you were against me.”

MOH: “I’m sorr-”

Bride: “I’m under enough stress as it is and I don’t need you to tell me that you don’t like a color that I’ve chosen. It’s my wedding and I can choose anything that I want!”

MOH: “I’m…”

Bride: “You should apologize to me.”

MOH: “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll wear a trash bag if you ask me too.”

Bride: “You think the dress looks like a trash bag?!”

MOH: Audible sigh….”No, what I meant was….”

And it went on.  So – how can you bounce back from an MOH misfire? When you agree to be in a wedding, should you just agree to agree, nod and smile at the Bride and Groom’s every whim?  The Knot.com says that there’s, “no real etiquette on how much a bride should involve her bridesmaids in the choosing of dresses…”. Does this mean that what the Bride says, goes?  I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think that it all comes down to the relationship you have with the Bride.  She has asked you to be her MOH or Bridesmaid which means, you’re, hopefully, very good friends or even family. My advice is this:

  1. Ask the Bride if she’d like help choosing colors and styles that might look good on everyone. She may say yes and then you’ve got the upper hand in the dress selection department. But remember; she makes the final call.
  2. If the Bride selects something that you’re not a super huge fan of, tell her, “This is a great choice and I’m happy to wear anything you’d like me too, but I recall seeing another <style, color, shape> that may look better on me; you know I gotta hide my hips!” Insert laugh and you’ve got friendly feedback.
  3. If all else fails, she is the Bride. You should agree, nod, smile and wear the dress. Its only one day – and you can return the favor in your own wedding. :)

How have you handled this situation in the past?

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sometimes she spells the hyphen

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Do you remember doodling on your notebook as a little kid? Mrs. Jordan Knight, Mrs. Knight. Mrs. Smith-Knight. (You remember Jordan, right? Cute singer from New Kids on the Block? Dont know about you, but everyone in my fifth grade class wanted to marry him.) So it got me thinking – as little girls we doodle our future Mrs. Somebody names, but when it comes down to it, are we ready to make that all important, very legal and tough to reverse name change?

Since Heidi Klum recently changed her name to Heidi Samuel after four years of marriage to Seal, I discovered that she’s one of very few celebrities who has legally changed her name. Most celebrities opt to hyphenate their names – so I looked into it.

Robin Wright-Penn

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

Pamela Anderson-Lee

You get the idea. But what’s the point of hyphenating your name? Do you legally have to change your name to hyphenate it? The answer is yes. So there is just as much legal mumbo-jumbo for adding a hyphen to your name as there is simply taking his name. And yet, many celebrities and your everyday average Janes choose to do it for many reasons, most of them professional. Perhaps you’re well known in your work circles by your maiden name. Why confuse the masses? This creates an interesting option though; can you have his name and keep yours too? Keeping your maiden name in your professional circles and taking his for social circles may cause some questions. Doesn’t this also cause some serious confusion when someone wants to get something monogrammed for you?

So you’ve got yet another choice to make. Do they ever stop? No. They don’t – and that’s the fun part.

This is my favorite quote from the movie “BIG” with Tom Hanks. I thought it was appropriate given the topic. Enjoy.

 Susan: It happened again. David, the girl is absolutely useless. You’ve gotta get me someone who knows what she is doing. Excuse me. I’m not getting any of my mail, nothing has been filed. Ever since she got engaged, my life has been a disaster.
Personnel Director: You know, she came so highly recommended.
Susan: She spent the last three months writing down her married name. “Mrs. Judy Hicks”, “Mrs. Donald Hicks”; “Mrs. Judy Mitchellson Hicks”, sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes without a hyphen. SOMETIMES, SHE SPELLS THE HYPHEN.

 

Whatever you decide to do, we’re here to help and we make it easy on you, hyphen or no hyphen. Anyone out there have any comments on what they chose to do?

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To change your name or not to change your name…is that the question?

Saturday, November 28th, 2009
For many new brides, the decision to take their new husband’s name is a simple one; it’s a tradition. There’s something inately romantic about accepting his name as your own. And for us, it was a given. My hubby is very proud that I have his name; it was very important to him that I take it after we said “I do”. For me, it solidified the fact that we were bonded in both both the spiritual and legal sense, and quite frankly, I wanted to.
While strange for the first few months, the name change is part of the wedding planning process. Soon you’ll be “Mrs. Whomever”. It’s exciting! There are hoodies and t-shirts and bags, oh my! to decorate and carry proudly at the airport the Monday after the wedding. Come on, we all did it – don’t be ashamed. For many new brides, this is just one of the things getting married is all about.
But there are some brides out there who, like i mentioned in a previous post, choose to keep their own name. Whether for personal or professional reasons, they’ve chosen to maintain the name with which they were born. They’ll wear his ring, but his name? No thanks, not right now. And that’s totally fine; remember, everyone is entitled to their choice, right?

Letting everyone know that you’ve changed your name can be a long and daunting process, unless you went with a name change service like name change express which can cut the time it takes by hours! And for him, well, while it bothers him a little that she hasn’t changed her name, i think he knows that she’s secretly open to it.afterall husband, however, he joked that she hadn’t yet ‘earned’ his name. What she has to do besides give birth to earn his name is beyond me. But, I can respect and appreciate both of their viewpoints; humerousI recently chatted with a friend of mine who chose to keep her maiden name after her marriage. Two years later with baby in tow, she still won’t budge on her own last name, but the baby has inherited her hubby’s name. When I asked what prompted her choice she responded that everyone at work knew her by her maiden name and letting everyone know that her name had changed was going to be big pain in her, well you know. For her the reason was strictly business. For her

Whatever the reason, changing your name can be an exciting and sometimes intimidating experience. But through the years women all over the world have been doing it; even celebrities! Just recently, Heidi Klum, who married singer Seal nearly four years and four babies ago has decided to change her name. She will now be known as Heidi Samuel.

So, regardless of what you decide to do, talk it over with your fiance, or husband of four years and your families. Ultimately, its your name and your choice.

What did you decide?

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so i just got married – now what?

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
The good old days... :)

The good old days... :)

When we touched down from St. Lucia on October 28, 2008 after a week of honeymoon bliss in paradise, I suddenly felt a sense of gloom. I had taken the day after we returned off so that I could pick up our marriage license and drove right into a random snow shower. This was just great. Not only did I leave paradise for snow, but what was I going to do now? While there were still some wedding things to wrap up: thank you cards, finding a home for gifts, making deposits and changing my name, there wasn’t much else to get back to except reality.

My husband and I had lived together for about a year before we got married, so when I say back to reality, I mean back to laundry, dishes, bills, dogs and work. I guess you could say that we felt married before we were legally pronounced man and wife, and while that’s for sure not a bad thing, it made the whole ‘newlywed’ thing feel anti-climatic. But we still had some kinks to work out.

First, I’d like to point out that I’ve heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest; and I believe that to be true. Ours was very hard – my husband was laid off in January, four months into our marriage. But despite being concerned about money or finding him a job, we grew stronger because we committed to being a team; leaning on each other and always, always communicating. But there are other not so major things that come into play in the first year. Deciding who is going to manage the bills, (both) who washes the dishes, (him) who does laundry, (me) and who is the messiest (again, me). In between commercial breaks on Sunday nite football, I picked his brain a little bit to find out what he thought helped us get through the first year of marriage – here’s what he came up with:

COMMUNICATION – It sounds cliche, but boy does it work. Talking about even the little things, “Babe. It frustrates me that you leave your folded laundry in the basket for a week. Please put it away.” to “You know, I think we’d save a lot of money if we packed lunch each day instead of buying.” While these seem like simple convos, they need to happen. When you come home from work and you’ve had a bad day, talk about it. Its better than snapping at each other – just say, “I’ve had a tough day so I need a minute to download before we talk about plans this wekend; is that okay?” It works – trust me.

LAUGH – Nothing helps you relax and get through a sticky situation better than just taking a step back and trying to find the humor in it. But make sure you get a feel for your partners humor before you crack a joke during something serious or it will backfire. My husband has an amazing sense of humor. There are times when I need him to make me laugh because I take myself too seriously, but again, there are times when I need to say, “Babe, I know you think this is funny, but I’m not laughing right now. Maybe in a couple of hours it will be funny, but now I need you to be serious.” Hours later he’ll try again. “Too soon?” he’ll ask. “Too soon,” I say. And we laugh.

TOUCH – Be affectionate. I’m not saying it needs to be a PDA! Sometimes even sitting on opposite ends of the couch can make you feel disconnected from your partner, so every once in a while reach out and hold his hand. When you leave the room, walk past and touch his shoulder. That simple touch can go a long way with helping you both feel connected and affectionate with one another. It’s super simple and super powerful. And it makes you feel good.

It’s not always pretty - but it sure is fun. So enjoy these first couple of months being a couple! Discover each others quirks – make mistakes – fix them. Communicate and be honest with each other and always, always laugh together. You’ll be happy that you did.

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