My wife tells me she doesn't care what I do when I'm away, as long as I'm not enjoying it. Lee Trevino
Wedding Ceremony Planning: Traditional or Do-it-yourself?


Are you torn between whether you will recite the traditional marriage vows or write your own marriage vows? Take heart. This is one area where you can have it both ways. Well, maybe anyway. There's a huge difference in reciting the "repeat after me" vows the minister says first and you repeat and stepping out there and reciting vows all on your own from memory.

As far as the wedding ceremony planning, this is one area where, if at all possible, the bride and groom both need to be happy with the end result. Even though the ceremony itself only lasts for a few moments, most of us sweat bullets just saying, "I do." Moral of the story? If either party is uncomfortable reciting vows from memory, don't try to force the issue.

If however, both of you do feel comfortable reciting your own vows, get busy writing! You can still have the traditional vows if you wish or you can just use your own. A word of caution: Once the other party has written his or her vows and if they offer to share them with you before the ceremony, don't criticize! Even if it's just a simple was instead of were or is instead of are violation. You don't want your partner to be so nervous they can't go through with the recitation.

You can, of course, get together and collaborate on the written vows and the wedding ceremony planning in general. That's up to you. You can make it something like the traditional vows where you each essentially say the same thing to one another or you can work on this individually. One of you may even want to wait until the ceremony itself to reveal the vows you write. That's fine too. This is the perfect opportunity to respect each other's individuality.

Some men don't want any part of the wedding ceremony planning. That doesn't mean he doesn't care, it just means he trusts the bride to pull everything off without him. Women have been doing that for centuries so don't be offended by that.

Above all, don't let the wedding ceremony planning or any part of the wedding planning stress you past the point of being able to enjoy one of the most important days of your life. Stick to what's really important and be willing to compromise. You won't regret it.

Wedding Guest Book

Wedding Announcements For Friends And Family
By Andy West

 Announcing to the world that you are now the happy Mr. and Mrs. is an important part of your new life together. Since it is virtually impossible to invite all your friends, family members, co-workers, ex-school pals and casual acquaintances to your big day, sending out wedding announcements allows you to recognize their importance in your life and allows you to stay on budget with regards to the wedding.

They are also very popular for couples that elope or couples that have very small wedding ceremonies. In some cases couples that marry out of the country or travel for their wedding may not be able to invite a lot of guests along, so sending a wedding announcement when you return home helps everyone feel involved in the celebration.

Wedding announcements are structured to provide the recipient with the basic information about your wedding as well as details that you want to include. In most cases the wedding announcement will be in the theme of the wedding, perhaps even featuring a picture of the happy couple or even a picture of the wedding party. Of course these are not provided to guests that have attended the event, those individuals will either receive thank you cards for gifts or thanks for attending the ceremony cards.

Like wedding invitations, choosing a wedding announcement is an important consideration for the couple. Many couples select ones that are very similar in style to the wedding invitation except they announce that the event has already happened. The colors, font, text and style of the wedding announcement can be formal, casual or celebratory, just depending on the message and style the couple prefers. These cards do need to clearly indicate they are an announcement and not an invitation that somehow got waylaid in the mail.

Typically most announcements will clearly indicate that they are announcing the marriage of the couple, plus will include the date and location of the wedding. They may also provide information on where the new couple is residing or an email address or phone number if any of this information has changed.

Wedding announcements may be sent by the couple themselves, or of course the proud parents of the bride or groom or both sets of parents can send them. When parents are sending the announcements they will need to be coordinated so that some people don't get announcements from both sets of parents. This can be easily handled by one person collecting the lists from both sides of the family and coordinating the distribution of the announcements. Typically the bride and groom will also need to be involved as parents are not likely to know all their friends, coworkers and business associates to include.

Sending wedding announcements is a nice way to inform those that were not invited to the wedding about the event. It is much more personal than just sending an email, plus it continues to recognize their importance in your life. In cases where you had a small wedding, out of town wedding or a wedding that had very limited space, you may want to include a short statement of some type in the card to this effect. While people may already be aware of your wedding, many may not and this will be a pleasant surprise that won't cause them to wonder why they didn't receive an invitation.

People do understand that smaller weddings are more common or that you were getting married on a cruise and couldn't invite a lot of guests. Some people that receive them may decide to send a gift, however it is never expected that those getting an announcement should feel obligated to send a gift.

Andy West is a writer for Kardella Cards and Favors, a company specializing in customized wedding accessories and Wedding Announcements for all your wedding needs. For more information please visit CardsandFavors.com.