If you’re going to splurge on a wedding-related book, it has to be Style Your Dream Wedding by Susie Coelho. It’s the ultimate combination of inspiration and guidebook, full of fabulous ideas, helpful info, and gorgeous photos. This huge book retails for $49.99, but is currently 30% off at Amazon so indulge yourself and consider it an early Christmas gift!
For the last several wedding seasons, brown has been the hot color. But according to wedding planners, black is back in a big way for 2009. Brides are pairing classic black with everything from white and turquoise to gray and baby pink. One of our faves? Black and plums.
We love these customizable table number cards from ForYourParty.com. Ideal for brides on a budget or those who are DIY-challenged.
The design feature allows you to choose from 6 different motifs, dozens of colors and fonts, and then request a custom number sequence (such as 1,3,5,7, etc.). This means you could order two different designs/color combos - one for odds, one for evens. The best part? They’re only $6 each.
One thing I learned from my own wedding is that “bathroom baskets” are unnecessary. While it seems like a hospitable gesture, most of your guests have their own breath mints, bobby pins, etc.
But these fancy soap boxes from Valsey and Me are a great alternative. Not only do they make an elegant statement, but the soap will be useful, presumably, to all of your guests.
The paper mache treasure chests come in ivory, black, and brown and are filled with 40 single-use soaps wrapped in a personalized label. Each box is $65.
One of the hardest parts of wedding planning for me was deciding on a color scheme. Armed with dozens of color swatches from the paint department at Home Depot, I mixed and matched for months, trying to find the perfect combo. I wish I’d known about ColourLovers.com, an amazing website dedicated solely to color palettes. Though the site is meant for designers, it’s a fabulous resource for brides-to-be. You can browse through thousands of color schemes made by other users, or play with the pro palette maker to create your own. Way better than paint swatches.
The CEO Wedding Bag (Chic, Elegant, and Organized) is the ultimate in wedding planners. This binder/bag has compartments for pens, post-its, a stapler, and a calculator, plus a notebook, accordion style folders for magazines and contracts, a 2″ metal binder with dividers…even a laptop compartment and room for your wallet. Seriously, this is the only thing you’ll need to carry with you from now until the honeymoon.
CEO Bags are on the pricey side, $189-$229 depending on the style, but for that level of ease and organization, I think it’s worth it. And when the wedding’s over, you can continue to use the bag for work.
