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31 Oct |
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9:00 am Posted by Nicola |
What role do you want children to have at your wedding, if any? Want to invite kids to the ceremony only and arrange for a sitter during the reception? Want to feature the kids of your closest relatives in a special role on your wedding program? Want to keep your nuptials an adult-only occasion? Whatever your choice, it’s best to make all child-related decisions and arrangements early in the wedding planning process to help parents make their own plans. Here are some tips for handling children (or not) at your wedding.
Be clear when addressing your wedding invitations. The traditional way to let parents know that their children are invited is to include the childrens’ names on the invitation. Children over the age of 18 should receive their own invitation, even if they still live at home.
Contact all guests with children before the event. If you decide against including children, reach out to invited parents to explain your decision. Be assured that it is perfectly acceptable not to invite children, especially in the event of an evening or very formal wedding. And if you do plan to include children and arrange childcare services for them, it’s a good idea to let parents know ahead of time so they can adequately prepare their children for the event.
Setup a kid’s room and activities for larger groups. If you’re including numerous children and your facilities allow it, consider setting up a separate kid’s room with pre-planned activities and childcare. If you can hire a few experienced babysitters who will occupy the children, their parents will surely be grateful and feel more relaxed themselves.
If budget allows, consider allowing parents to bring along their own babysitter or nanny, especially if it’s a daytime wedding or your guests prefer to leave their kids with someone familiar. Of course, this is a very generous gesture that no couple is obligated to make. If you do invite a family’s own babysitter, be sure to seat her with the children and include her in the headcount for an adult meal.
To recognize special children with a role, consider asking them to act as ushers, hand out wedding programs, or pass out favors at your reception. This is a great way to unite families and to bring a smile to your guests.
Whether you choose to have a child accompany you down the aisle or simply stay home, the decision is entirely yours. The choice for beautiful high-quality wedding stationery may be an easier one, especially if you consider the growing selection of fresh designs available at LookLoveSend.com. Shop us for easily customizable unique wedding invites, wedding programs, and wedding thank you cards.
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30 Oct |
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12:33 pm Posted by Kristy |
Of all the holiday tasks we moms plan for during the season, ordering and sending personalized holiday cards is one of the more time consuming things we do. It’s not usually something that can be done in one step, but there are ways you can be more efficient.
No matter where you get your holiday cards, or whether you make them yourself at home, the experts at www.LookLoveSend.com know what to do to get your personalized holiday cards into the mail with relative ease. Here are 5 simple steps you can take now before the season gets into full swing. While you are shopping for the perfect card design, or still waiting for that perfect holiday photo opp, use this list to be extra efficient this year:
- Organize your list now. If you’re old school and have a paper list, get it out now so you can start updating it. If you’re hi-tech, decide how to pull contacts from your smartphone onto your computer. If you have your list already in a tidy spreadsheet on your computer, print off a copy for back-up, and mark changes or add new recipients.
- Budget for stamps and purchase what you need over the coming weeks. At nearly 50 cents for one stamp, it takes less of a toll on your wallet.
- Plan to order pre-addressed envelopes with your cards to save time later, OR
- Order home address stickers or stamps now.
- Address and stamp just your envelopes first. Involve your kids–if they can play with stickers they can stamp envelopes! You’ll be surprised how this one simple step saves you a lot of time.
Make holiday cards this year that are as easy as they are personal, stylish and hassle-free. LookLoveSend.com can help you simplify by offering beautiful, original holiday card designs that are easy to customize with one or more photos. Once you’ve chosen your card design and have your personal photo(s) ready, make sure you also plan to order extra cards for last minute add-ons to your holiday card list. Also, always order more envelopes than people on your list so you are ready for late-breaking address changes or addressing mistakes.
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29 Oct |
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9:30 am Posted by Nicola |
While most of the country is in a hurricane / Halloween / election state of mind, all that will change in the next two weeks when focus quickly shifts to Holiday 2012. Then the flurry of gift shopping, holiday card sending and party planning begins in earnest. If you’re planning to host a holiday party this season, 95% of the planning will center around the decorations, holiday party invitations, menu, music and guest list. But read on for some simple entertaining tips for that final 5% to make your holiday party a breeze.
'Holiday Cocktail' Party Invtition by Suling Wang
Create ambience with dimmed lights. Turn off any bright overhead lights and use dimmer switches or rely on lamps and candles for a softer atmosphere. Guests will feel more at home in a dimly lit room.
Get guests involved. Ask guests to help toss salads, put together a punch, or arrange appetizers on a tray. Helping with a task will make your guests feel at home – and will help you too!
Prepare your kitchen for easy cleanup. Before starting to cook, put a big bowl on the counter for garbage and fill the sink with warm soapy water to soak dishes as you use them. Line baking sheets with aluminum foil for easier cleanup. And if anyone offers to help – say yes!
Make simple floral bouquets. After your home has been decorated for the holidays, very little else needs to be done for party décor. For your dinner table, buy a single bunch of flowers in a single color and split them into several small vases or containers. These monochrome bouquets make simple yet elegant table decorations.
For easy holiday party invitations, customize one of LookLoveSend’s fresh and festive designs online in a matter of minutes. The ‘Holiday Cocktail’ party invitation by Suling Wang is one of our favorites! All orders ship the nxt business day and quantities over 50 ship for free!
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26 Oct |
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9:52 pm Posted by Kristy |
Selecting flatware for your wedding registry is one of those monumental small decisions. After all, these are the utensils you will be using to feed yourself and your future family for decades to come. As you’re getting started, you’re likely to find that shopping or browsing for flatware online is daunting. While you’ll get a visual understanding of the wide selection of designs, until you physically hold a fork, spoon or knife from a collection, you can’t see what you really need to touch and feel.
We’ve got some information and advice here about deciding on what brand, pieces, style and more to help you register for your beautiful flatware.
Tips for Registering for Everyday Flatware
- The 5-piece Place Setting:
- 2 Forks – small and large, for salad/dessert and main course
- 2 Spoons – small and large, for soup and dessert
- Knife – Either non-serrated or finely-serrated on the underside to prevent scratching a plate
A flatware design pattern should also include other pieces, such as, such as large serving spoons, scalloped sugar spoon, butter knife, ladle and serving fork.
- Understand Quality – Stainless steel is labelled as 18/0, 18/8 and 18/10, referring to the percentage of chromium to nickel contained in the steel. The higher nickel content indicates a higher quality stainless steel, typically appearing brighter and with more weight and durability. Compare the weight, polish and durability of flatware based on nickel content, and go with an 18/10 flatware if you want it to use it for years to come.
- Determine your budget – Think about registering for service for 12, but know ahead of time what you could afford to pay for each place setting on your own should you need to supplement what gets purchased on your registry.
- Choosing Pattern – Think about your everyday style. Price generally increases with more intricate and detailed patterns, and you can find many different patterns at many different price points. Since you are registering, let pattern determine your budget!
- Consider Scale & Size – There are different sizes of flatware, most noticeably in the length of forks and knives. Size ranges from place-size, to dinner-size to Continental, with pieces being progressively larger. Choose what feels comfortable to you to hold and use, and can be arranged in a pleasing way on your table and mats.
Make sure you let your wedding guests know where you are registered. You should never list your wedding registry on your wedding invitations, but it is perfectly appropriate to have it on your personal wedding website, or printed on your wedding shower invitations. To find beautiful wedding invitations or wedding shower invitations, look no further than the gorgeous collection of designs at www.looklovesend.com. You can enter the monthly Wedding Invitation Sweepstakes for the chance to win $500 towards the design of your choice.
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24 Oct |
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9:43 pm Posted by Kristy |
If you are thinking about sending photo Christmas cards to friends this year with a photo without you in it, this moving piece by momblogger Allison Tate might just change your mind. Her revelation about giving her own children a visual memory of herself through pictures revealed the reasons why moms should stop avoiding having pictures of themselves taken, especially pictures of themselves with their kids.
Here some of the poignant reasons from Ms. Tate’s piece that we at LookLoveSend hope convinces moms to put themselves in this year’s Christmas cards with photos:
“Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were.”
Accept yourself as a member of the human race, and rejoice that you are so very much alive to be part of your children’s lives. So put yourself in the picture as a very human, alive person!
“Too much of a mama’s life goes undocumented and unseen.”
Think of the time you spend doing and worrying about so many little things that matter so much to your kids. Put yourself in the picture for them to see you!
“I’m everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them.”
You surely have so many pictures of them to carry with you to enjoy, but shouldn’t you give them the same to have, to enjoy now and carry forward in their lives? Put yourself in the picture so they can carry you everywhere with them going forward.
“I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.”
You might be having a bad hair day, are in need of shower, or can’t lose those ten (or more!) pounds, but your kids don’t care. Put yourself in the picture not as a perfect mother, but the perfect mother for your kids!
Now that you see the wisdom of plopping down in front of the camera with your little ones, start browsing the huge selection of designs for photo Christmas cards online at www.looklovesend.com. Uploading your photo is easy and fast, and you can edit your photo for black and white or color, zoom, and personalize your message all online. Count on quality printing on a premium paper stock and fast turnaround. Enjoy free shipping for orders of 50 or more cards!
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23 Oct |
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10:27 am Posted by Kristy |
Brides can easily focus on fall color for their wedding day through the usual suspects–wedding invitations, flowers, table settings, bridesmaids gowns, etc. But its the smaller, less obvious details that people, and the bride herself, might appreciate the most. Here are our favorite ways we think brides can accessorize with some more fall spice:
shoe clips on Etsy.com
Shoes
Well, where else does a lady go when she really wants to amp up her style? What other wedding day accessory is more fun than a bride’s choice of shoes? Gold, yellow, magenta, bronze–the trend this fall is warm shades like bronze and yellow, or bold like magenta and purple. We like the unique variety of fall shoes featured on greenweddingshoes.com for fall, but it’s just as easy to accessorize shoes you might wear again with fun clips like the ones featured at left by EvaJune on Etsy.com.
Mani-pedi
Check out this season’s latest fall color trends for nails from theBlush.com, the newest member of the authoritative style and fashion trend experts at theKnot.com. These beautiful hues–teal, emerald, bronze and burgundy–are fresh enough for anyone, bride or not, to try. Or, make your own custom fall nail color mixing eyeshadow and clear polish by following these step-by-step instructions from the crafty ladies at OhSoPrettythediaries.com.
zuna earrings from bridiesbaubles.com
Jewelry
Add some amber, yellow or other fave fall hue with colored crystals, pearls or other precious stones that appeal to your wedding day style. Start by browsing www.bridiesbaubles.com for everything from necklaces to hair pieces.
However you accessorize your fall wedding with color from the season, you can get started with a custom wedding invitation from www.looklovesend.com done in a fall color palette. Choose from a huge selection of styles in original designs, from classic to modern, vintage to whimsical, and everything in between. Enter our monthly Wedding Invitation Sweepstakes for the chance to win $500 towards the wedding invitation suite of your choice.
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22 Oct |
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9:51 am Posted by Kristy |
With all the frenzy and chaos that kids’ birthday parties bring to hosting parents, it’s helpful to go into it with an idea about how to handle gifts. Unless you’ve specified ‘no gifts please’ on your child’s birthday party invitations, the gifts will arrive in all shapes and sizes, and you’ll need to be ready to handle two main decisions:
- When to open gifts
- Keeping track of them
When to Open Birthday Gifts
Wait Until After Party
For younger kids, it’s fairly standard practice to hold off on the gift-opening until the party is over and guests have left. It’s entirely up to you, but common wisdom points to a few good reasons why the under age five set aren’t the gift opening crowd:
- Getting small children to sit for any length of time, in order to watch someone else open gifts, particularly if there’s nothing in it for them, is a challenge.
- Most parents of kids in this age group have chosen the birthday child’s gift, so there’s even less interest for the guest children to pay attention.
Let Older Kids Enjoy Gift Opening
For kids in first grade and older, it’s entirely up to you whether to open gifts during the party, or whether to continue the practice of holding off until later. But there are some good reasons to prepare for it. Kids this age tend to take more ownership for the gifts they bring, and some push hard to have their gift opened. Gift opening during the party serves two key purposes that are also important at this age:
- Each party guest gets the chance to connect one-on-one with the birthday child during the moments that his or her gift is being opened. Coach your child ahead of time to thank every guest by name when they open a gift, as well as to know not to mention whether or not they already have a gift.
- Fill up some extra time at the end of the party to keep the group relatively under control while waiting for parents to arrive for pick-up.
Whenever your child gets to open his or her gifts, be ready with pen and paper (or iPhone) to take note of who brings what. You will want to oversee getting thank you notes out within two weeks of the birthday party. For fresh, fun birthday party invitations and thank you cards, check out the party invitations online at www.looklovesend.com.
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20 Oct |
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10:41 am Posted by Kristy |
With all the thought you put into choosing your wedding venue, gown and wedding invitations, one of the most important takeaways from a guest’s perspective might just be the food. And as with everything else planned in today’s weddings, you’ll want to personalize your wedding reception food in a way that stands out and makes your wedding memorable. From exciting foodie bars to exotic ingredients, find a caterer who can serve up more than beef and chicken.
Expect catering costs to depend on where in the country you live and how many guests you are inviting. Caterers charge per guest, and costs typically range anywhere from $30 on up into the hundreds, as high as $300 or more in some places for really high end caterers. Here are some basic guidelines you should explore when talking to caterers to help you set your wedding reception menu within your budget:
Serving style
The traditional choice has been between buffet vs. formal sit-down. But today’s caterers may also create self-serve food stations or amp up the cocktail style service either in addition to your sit down meal, or in place of a sit-down meal. You may still have tables and chairs for guests to sit at, but as a less regimented part of the reception. This would work better for a non-dinnertime event.
Types of Food
Besides the traditional options, which were usually restricted to beef vs. chicken or seafood entrees, couples today want a lot more choices in the way of local organic foods, seasonal items, and international or ethnic dishes. An experienced caterer knows how to incorporate any of these options into a traditional menu or create one completely different.
Courses
A formal wedding dinner typically includes an appetizer, soup or salad, entree and dessert. You’ll need to decide if you can offer more than one option, and whether you want to elaborate on each course or limit options to stay within budget. Some new trends include caterers offering late-night options such as sliders and other comfort food, or tasting plates during the main dinner, allowing guests to sample more instead of choosing just one.
Cocktail Hour
If you can afford to have hors d’oeuvres, and most guests now expect it, you’ll need to decide whether you want them to be served by catering staff (passed hors d’oeuvres) or self-serve, such as in the form of a set table or stations. You can also choose to have a signature appetizer served as part of the sit-down meal. The biggest trend in hors d’oeuvres is mini foods–an entire entree recreated in the form of a bite-size delectable.
Coordinate Menus with Your Wedding Invitations
When you’ve worked your way through this part of planning, decide if you want to print wedding menu cards to include in your wedding invitations. The other choice is to print a wedding menu card to place in a stand on each table, or a few menu cards for guests to share to get them mingling. Coordinate your wedding menu card designs with your wedding invitation design by choosing from the gorgeous selection of original wedding stationery at www.looklovesend.com. All our wedding invitation suites are printed on premium, heavy weight paper, and you can easily personalize your information online. Approved orders ship the next business day.
ENTER the monthly Wedding Invitation Sweepstakes today for the chance to WIN $500 towards a design of your choice!
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18 Oct |
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11:06 am Posted by Kristy |
When your eyes see red and green, do you think Christmas? When your eyes see silver and gold, do you think Holidays? Do other colors make you think of a time, a place, a season?
Color associations can be quite powerful. Of course everyone feels and thinks different associations when they see the same color. But traditional color combinations, particularly seasonal and cultural holiday colors, are more universal within a given culture. So when it comes time to plan your holiday party this year, think about how you can use color in your holiday party invitations to set the mood and style you want.
Stylish Colors for Holiday Party Invitations
Find holiday party invitations that use fresh, updated holiday colors to express your holiday style. Here are three ways to do it, with some gorgeous examples you’ll find in the wide selection of online holiday cards at LookLoveSend.com:
1. Twist on traditional Red & Green
Take traditional holiday red and green. You know, the bold, blatantly blood-color red, paired (oddly enough) with equally bold, holly-hued green. You can romanticize your party a bit with a muted or earthier version, such as crimson and sage, or turn up the volume with magenta and chartreuse.
2. Drop Red & Green
You can still have holiday design using non-traditional colors. Popular trends right now include blues, browns and purple. Take a look at this elegantly designed holiday party invitation, ‘Holiday Cheer’ by designer Amanda Zoss, done in two beautiful, modern color palettes:
 An updated red and green color palette |
 A less traditional yet sophisticated blue and gold palette |
3. Go Bold & Modern
You can find new ways to use traditional red and green on your holiday party invitations through modern designs like these two here:
 'Be Merry' by designer Suzanne Cahill |
 'Celebrate the Season' by designer Linda FCA |
Whatever colors you are drawn to this holiday season, you’ll find fresh, modern and stylish designs for your holiday party plans at www.looklovesend.com. You can easily personalize your details quickly right online, and you’ll first get to approve a digital proof before printing. All personalized holiday cards and invitations are printed on premium quality card stock with coordinating envelopes which you can order lined and pre-addressed as additional options. Shipping is free when you order 50 or more cards.
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16 Oct |
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10:32 pm Posted by Kristy |
Figuring out where to seat all your guests at your wedding reception is probably one of the least enjoyable aspects of wedding planning. It may be that deciding where to put your second-cousin-once-removed-twice-divorced-currently-single isn’t as hard as, say, how to handle your eighteen-person wedding party table. It gets stressful and even downright contentious at times.
Simple Seating Strategies
To avoid ending up with the proverbial ‘table of misfits,’ here are some table seating strategies you can try:
- Keep like with like: don’t mix and match friends and family who don’t know each other
- Know your friends and whether mixing singles with couples might make singles feel less targeted
- Mix outgoing, gregarious people with quieter guests
- Try not to mix age and generation unless it’s within a family
- Seat older guests further from the music
Also, force a little table socialization, such as printing only one or two menu cards or a short ‘Did You Know’ trivia card about how the bride or groom knows each guest. Other ice breaker ideas include creative table numbering or unconventional favors, like lottery scratch tickets.
Wedding Place Cards
There is another, easier and more direct way to ensure that each and every guest feels welcome: having a place setting card printed with each guest (or couple’s) name(s) on it. Wedding place cards literally give guests a place at the table. There are three kinds of complete seating stationery:
- Escort Cards – these cards are meant to direct guests to a specific table. They can double as place setting cards.
- Place Cards – these cards are placed at each setting at a table with a guest’s name. They work with or without escort cards.
- Table Cards – these cards identify a table, either by number, name, symbol or some other marker to distinguish different tables.
You can coordinate all your seating and table cards with your wedding invitation design by finding a beautiful wedding invitation suite at www.looklovesend.com. Our extensive selection of design styles offer many color options, and you can personalize each component you need. Start with a stylish save the date card and complete your wedding invitations with reception cards, place setting cards, menu cards and more, all in a design that suits your unique wedding day style. Enter our monthly Wedding Invitation Sweepstakes today for the chance to win $500 towards the wedding invitation design of your choice.
