A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.  ~Mignon McLaughlin,The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce.  The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.  ~Robert Anderson, Solitaire & Double Solitaire

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.  ~Judith Viorst

Photo by: Kimberly Brooke Photography

 

 

After looking at her wedding pictures and not liking what she saw she deiced to get healthy and have another go around at her ceremony. So she joined a weight-loss program called Slimming World, similar to Jenny Craig.

 

Amie has dropped from a size 26 to a much more svelte size 12 and she’s all set to rewed her husband, Philip, 33, would said, “I love her whatever her size. But she looked amazing.” The couple even booked the same hotel they originally held their first wedding at in 2004. The ceremony was attended by a handful of family and friends.

She now has the wedding pictures she’s always wanted, stating, “This time I felt like a princess. The first time I knew people would just see a fat bride but I’m so proud now. I was so excited. We recreated all the pictures. It was the album I’d always wanted.”

“I will still keep a picture of our original wedding on the wall but I want a huge picture of my skinny wedding. I was the bride I’d always wanted to be,” she went on to say.

So brides-to-be if you feel like you have a long path to fit into your perfect dress take inspiration from Amie and know that you can look fabulous on your wedding day…whatever fabulous means to you. A few things to help get you there:

• Keep the big picture in mind
• Know what you are capable of
• Set smaller more attainable immediate goals
• Write down the pros and cons and reference it often
• Use a friend to help motivate
• Give yourself a realistic time-frame
• Stay positive even if the going gets tough
• Keep at it, you’ll get there!
• and remember, looks aren’t everything

{Photo via Sandstone Wedding Invitations}

Reduce the number of inserts –After all, stop for a minute and think it through. Do you really need to include multiple cards, each with its own piece of information, cluttering up your wedding invitation? Try consolidating vital details into one insert. You’ll save paper, and your guests will appreciate having all the essential information in one place.

Use online invites –No, not for the wedding! But, for all the ancillary events, such as the bachelorette party and the rehearsal dinner. Some couples are opting for an e-newsletter to keep guests up-to-date. Others are creating websites dedicated solely to their Big Day. (See examples at WeddingPages.com.)

Order only what you need –You’ll cut down on waste –and costs –if you eliminate extras from invitations, programs, printed menus, etc. Remember: Couples don’t mind sharing menus and programs –it just adds to the romance!

What eco-friendly touches are you adding to your wedding? Please share them in the comment section below.

From this concept they designed “Project Cold Feet“. It is a bridal bouquet equipped with Galvanic Skin Response (measuring emtional state) with the aid of an optical heart-rate monitor. All of this is attached to a datalogger which will track the ups and downs throughout the day. The information is gathered via the bride’s ring and a wristband on the groom where two electrodes are housed. The information is then sent to the bouquet.

We’re able to see at a glance, if the bride gets cold feet, or is just very excited by her bouquet. The bouquet is implanted with fibre optics, lit by two bright LEDs, one blue, one white. The LEDs show changes in Galvanic Skin Response. As emotion swings from relaxed (blue) to alert (white) the fibre optics will gently glow and the bouquet will display the colors accordingly. The bouquet will be composed of all white flowers, lilies and orchids to make sure that the lights are visible.

In addition, they will both be wearing infrared proximity sensors to track how much time they spent together or apart throughout the day. This is such a great (and geeky) way to to have fun with your wedding. I love hearing ideas like these.  It’s rare to see tech involved with weddings. What weird things have you seen used at a wedding?

 

[image via Blurb.com]

When you look back on your wedding day, it is hard to remember everyone that came to share your day. That is why couples usually place a guest book at the ceremony and reception for guests to sign as a reminder of who was in attendance. When a guest is left to a traditional guest book, they are given one (or a few) lines and usually only sign their names.

To make your day especially special, you can add a twist to your guest book that gives them something more than a space for their name. One of the hottest trends are custom books made from pictures of the bride and groom, maybe pictures from when you were dating or engagement photos, with blank pages for the guests to sign.

When they have more space, they are more willing to write a little note of congratulations and well wishes for the couple. Blurb.com has some great books that are easy to create. Another option that people are using is loose paper in the wedding colors that the couple puts into a book themselves. This too gives the guests more room to sign a note. Lets face it, you know people’s names and addresses; you just sent them an invitation.

. I found Women’s Health’s The Wedding Workout DVD and love it. It has customizable workout routines depending on if you want a total body workout or if you would rather work on certain areas. I find this aspect of the DVD especially helpful because I don’t always have the same amount of time to work out each day and sometimes it is only a few minutes. So, if you are like me and are looking for something that is easy and you can do when you have time, this workout DVD is the one for you.

After some research I have come up with what I think to be the best ideas to aid you in writing loving, and specialized vows.

Image Credit - Flickr

 

1.   The first step when writing your vows is to sit down and think of questions that pertain to you and your future spouse. Writing down the answers will aid you in coming up with proper words to say when you are speaking your vows. A few examples of questions are as follows.

•    What qualities does your future spouse have that makes them so special to you?

•    When did you first know you were in love?

•    When did you first know they were the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?

•    Why do you want to spend the rest of your life with them?

•    What does Marriage mean to you?

•    What is your favorite memory about the two of you?

•    What made you laugh together?

•    What moments made you cry together?

•    Do you have any inside jokes?

•    Are there any moments that brought you closer together?

•    What future dreams do you have that include your spouse to be?

2.    Keeping your vows personal between the two of you will enhance your special day. With the answers to your questions written down you can now think of ways to combine them into your specialized vows!

3.    If you feel that there is something lacking or you want to add more than just the answers together try to think up special quotes to your favorite movies, particular song lyrics, or lines from much loved poetry. These can be ways to easily start or end your vows and continue a flowing manner.

4.    Something to keep in mind when writing your vows is, are they written in a positive tone. You do not want to start your marriage off on the wrong foot!  An example of keeping positive is saying “I will love you forever.” Vs. “I will never hate you.” Think to yourself which sentence you would rather hear your future spouse say to you?

5.    Now that you are all set to write your vows, I want you to think about the lines you are about to say. Do your vows apply to your life and the way you feel today? But more so, will they apply to your life and the way you will feel 90 years from now. Try to keep your vows timeless, you might want to refer back to them on your anniversaries or when you have a tiff in your marriage. They may also be something you decide to frame on the wall and look at every day. With that in mind you might want to make sure whatever your vows say will always be applied to your lives together.

6.    Read your vows several times before the wedding. It would also be a good idea to read them aloud to a friend or relative to insure they flow easily and others can understand your words. Reading them aloud several times in front of others or in the mirror will also help in aiding any nerves that you might have before you read them to your companion.

7.    The most important thing to remember when reading your vows is to make sure you have fun. This is your moment to say everything you feel in your heart. Make sure that your loved one knows just what they mean to you. I know that if you follow these easy steps you will succeed in writing breathtaking vows that will inspire and impress your marriage partner!

Marina Chernyak is the co-owner of 1001Shops LLC, a one stop shop of unique imported products like Limoges boxes, Music boxes and many more.

But one thing every bride-to-be must never lose sight of, is how to truly make your wedding your OWN. Trends aside, here are three things to ask yourself, to help point you in the right direction.

1. What inspires you? As you begin to make your own decisions in your planning process, dig into yourself, your relationship with your fiancee, your lives together and see what you find. None of that happened over night, or resulted from the latest, hottest fad of the hour. What is “it”? What drives you? What makes you who you are? Something makes you tick, and both of you tick together.

2. What is your story? Just like opinions and advice, everyone has one of these and they are all absolutely unique and amazing in their own way. You and your fiancee are coming from two different places, and are now about to make your own story as one. What was your life like before you met? What was it that brought you together? And how have things changed since? All all stories worth telling, all utterly you.

3. Where are you going? The future always holds so much for everyone, regardless of how young or old we are. We all have our own goals, dreams and aspirations, which play a huge part in defining who we are as individuals. The same can be said for any committed relationship. Together, where do you want to be? What do you want for each other? How do you plan on getting there? You have your entire lives.. your future, ahead of you. Together. And this is the very start of all that amazingness to come.

A little soul searching does everyone a world of good every once in a while. And as a part of your wedding planning, it can provide a deeper, more meaningful direction than any trendy idea, or borrowed opinion ever could. Why not share all of it, and all of you, with your nearest and dearest for your big day?