Top 20 Tips For Planning a Beach Wedding

There’s a reason why many celebrities hold their weddings on exotic beaches. No-they don’t just want to be far far away from paparazzi or prying eyes. If that was the case there are a lot more discreet places to get married. Nope. The main reason why celebrities and non-celebrities prefer beaches for weddings is because no natural view captures the sense of possibility and adventure of a new marriage more than the beach.

With open vistas of lakes, seas, or oceans, beaches can stretch out for miles into the horizon. You can’t help but be swept away by the vast expanses and great new possibilities it represents. Throw in a great sunset or nice balmy breezes and you have the makings of a truly great experience that captures all the excitement and anticipation the wedding couple has for the new life together. Plus, most people like the informal setting far from the stuffy and overly formal restrictions of traditional wedding locations.

image source: 3beaches.com.au

If you are thinking about holding your wedding on the beach, keep the following tips in mind. Make sure you have all the information you need so you can make the right decision. If you don’t make your decision in a systematic and methodical way, the chances of you making a mistake go through the roof and you might end up with a less than optimal wedding day experience.

Always Make The Big Decisions Together

When it comes to the big decisions (venue, event planner, theme, and others) make sure both you and your soon-to-be spouse are on the same page. You have to make sure both of you are in the loop at all times when it comes to the ‘big stuff.’ This way, your marriage doesn’t get off to a rocky start when you end up blaming each other for stuff that goes wrong with your wedding plans and event. Also, making sure you confer with each other on the big decisions also ensures you solve problems together. This might make getting through rough spots easier and faster. After all, two heads are better than one.

Agree on Decision Delegation

If one or both of you has a hectic or busy daily schedule, it doesn’t make sense for both of you to split up all decisions and handle everything on a 50/50 basis. In many cases, it may make more sense for one of you to delegate most of the small decisions to the other partner. This way, the partner who needs to take care of his or her career or business can do so while still being in the loop for the big decisions.

Of course, with delegation comes the agreement that you will give whoever you delegated certain decisions to a lot of slack. The worst thing you can do is blame your future spouse for decisions you agreed to delegate.

Always have a Checklist of the Big Stuff

As the old saying goes, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. You have to be structured and methodical in managing your upcoming wedding. Otherwise, the chances of things falling apart, things not happening, or scheduling mistakes go through the roof. You don’t want to get caught flat-footed by unexpected events at the last minute during your wedding.

Thankfully, simply having a checklist of the big stuff you need to decide on can go a long way in making sure you get the important stuff handled right for your big day. At the very least, having a checklist ensures that you don’t overlook any of the big decision items for your wedding.

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Compare Several Wedding Planners

There are no two ways about-your choice of wedding planner is probably the most important decision you’ll have to make. Choose very carefully. Simply going with a friend or relative’s recommendation is not a good idea because their standards might not be yours. Also, you might not be aware of many details regarding the wedding planning that led to a ‘good experience’ for your friend or family member.

Instead, you should ask for many different recommendations as well as dig up your own prospective wedding planners. Once you have a nice list going, check out all their features and compare them on a feature by feature basis. This way, you can have a good idea of what to expect from the wedding planner you end up using. Also, you will be getting some assurance that you will do business with the very best service provider.

Don’t Fixate on Price

If there is any one classic piece of advice you should pay attention to when it comes to picking out wedding planners, it is this: don’t get hung up on their fee. Seriously. To paraphrase the old saying: if you are only willing to pay peanuts, you will only attract monkeys. If you are so focused on driving down your costs and the main way you do this is to use only a cut rate or bargain basement wedding planner, you might end up ruining your wedding experience.

Make no mistake about it-your wedding planner will be the linchpin of your wedding. You have to make sure you pick the right person or company to coordinate everything. Indeed, you might save more money picking the very best event planner and pinch pennies with all other details.

Focus on the Experience you Want

Too many couples screw up their wedding planning by focusing on ‘packages’ instead of experiences. Usually, these couples focus on the price tag a package goes with and overlook the fact that different packages come with different experiences. They end up with an experience that isn’t bad but isn’t completely fulfilling either. If you want to avoid this common problem, do yourself a favor and focus on the experience you want.

All Planning Must Focus on the Experience you Desire

Expounding on the earlier point raised above, you have to make sure that all the event planners’ efforts go toward capturing precisely the experience you want people to have in your wedding. This, of course, means, at the very least, arriving at an overall theme. However, the overall experience you are aiming for shouldn’t be sacrificed because you just want the most convenient and expedient theme. If you do this, you’d be missing the forest from the trees-the whole point of picking out a theme is that it leads to a specific experience. The whole point of theme selection shouldn’t begin and end with theme selection-it should always be approached from the perspective of how well a theme delivers the experience you’re looking for.

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Insist on a Theme

As mentioned above, a theme is a great way to produce a certain experience. This is why you should insist that your planner use a theme.

Insist on Theme Consistency

Now that you have gone through the time and effort of picking out a theme with your wedding planner, make sure you don’t waste all that effort with inconsistent wedding planning. All aspects of your wedding must be consistent with the theme of your wedding. Everything from decorations, wedding paraphernalia, wedding invitations, and everything else must be consistent with the theme you selected for your wedding.

Avoid the Temptation to Micromanage your Event Planner

This is one of the most important tips on this list. You have to avoid the temptation to constantly look over your wedding planner’s shoulders. They are the expert. Let them take care of you wedding planning and work their magic. Remember: too many cooks spoil the stew. Learn to maintain a healthy objective distance from your wedding’s planning. I know this is easier said than done (especially with the deadline looming closer and closer), but you need to do it. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself and your wedding planner (and subcontractors) bonkers.

Give yourself Several Months of Lead Time

One of the most important strategic things you can do to maximize the chances your wedding will go off without a hitch is to give yourself a lot of lead time. If you and your fiance agreed on a certain date, try to give yourself at least six months from that date. The more time, the more planning you can do and the higher the likelihood everything will proceed smoothly.

You Must Completely Agree on Site Selection

It’s not enough for you and your future spouse to agree that you both want to be married on the beach. You have to agree on which beach and which part of the beach. This is very important because you don’t want your marriage to get off on the wrong foot when you find yourself blaming each other for some small things that went wrong because you both didn’t agree on your wedding’s location. Partial agreement is not enough-both of you must be perfectly happy with the decision you made together.

image source: tidetheknotbeachweddings.com

Keep in Mind Important Site Selection Factors

When picking out beach locations, make sure you are both conscious about common factors like climate patterns, chances of rain or snow, temperature, wind factors, special permits or local government restrictions, time restrictions, crowd control, and other features. If you ignore any of these factors, you might end up setting yourself for a big disappointment. Instead of a great beach side wedding adventure, your actual wedding might not be as awesome as you originally imagined it to be.

Always have a Backup Site in Mind

Since even all the best planning in the world can’t prevent the unexpected from happening, you need to make sure you have a backup beach site in mind. Stuff happens. Live with it. By having a backup, you don’t end up painting yourself in a corner. This might not be the ideal situation, but at the very least, your wedding isn’t completely derailed.

Cuisine Selection Must Fit the Theme

There is a wide range of food that can go well with a beach setting. While the range is quite liberal, there is still some restriction. Make sure the food selections you offer for your wedding fits the beach and the specific theme you agreed on.

Cake Selection Must Fit your Theme

In many ways, the wedding cake is the headliner of any wedding reception. The cake gets a lot of attention. Make sure it fits the theme of your celebration so it can cap off the wedding instead of sticking out like a sore thumb.

Schedule Around Mother Nature’s Time Line

The most common problem wedding planners experience with beach weddings involve Mother Nature. Anything from the weather to water currents to water temperature to even bird migration patterns can really screw up your beach wedding. Make sure your wedding planner is aware of these factors or you might have a nightmare on your hands.

Always Factor in Heat and Light Factors

Even if Mother Nature accommodates your wedding generally, you have to make sure you locate your wedding at the right part of the beach as far as heat and lighting are concerned. Since people will be taking lots of pictures at your wedding, make sure you factor in optimal lighting for better picture quality. Also, you don’t want your wedding guests to sweat through your wedding or reception. Pick a part of the beach that gets lots of nice refreshing breezes from offshore.

Don’t Let Transportation Issues Ruin your Event

Anytime beaches or ‘off the beaten track’ locations are the focus of events, transportation is always a concern. Make sure there are arrangements to transport visitors quickly and conveniently to and from your beach wedding location.

Book a Nearby Wedding Reception Venue for Maximum Convenience

Depending on the particular beach and geography of your wedding location, it might make a whole lot of sense to book your reception nearby. This way, people don’t have to trek to get to your reception.

Make no mistake about it, planning a beach wedding can be quite exciting. Keep the tips above in mind so you don’t leave any crucial factors out.

Know the Ten Hallmarks of Excellent Wedding Catering Services

Now that you have decided to tie the knot, it is very easy to be overwhelmed by all the details you have to work with. There are just so many things to keep on top of-from the wedding list, the wedding invitations, overall planning, to yes, the food at the reception. It can all be a bit too much. The excitement of your upcoming wedding might soon give way to the mind numbing stress of having to juggle so many wedding day planning-related balls in the air.

Given all the things you need to plan (and the things that can possibly go wrong), it is not surprising that most couples just end up hiring a wedding planner. The planner assumes all the headaches. Well, if you don’t have the big bucks for a wedding planner or you just want to make sure your wedding’s food service is handled properly, you have to know how to find the right wedding catering service. This is actually one of the most important elements of your wedding.

If you ask people who have been to many weddings in the past, they’ll tell you that their main experience has something to do with the reception and the food. Make no mistake about it, the quality, the presentation, and the service associated with your wedding’s food are the subjects that your wedding guests will continue to buzz about weeks, months, or, in the case of epic fails or glorious results, years to come. Food is a big deal and you need to make sure you pick the right wedding catering services so your wedding reception will be an unqualified success.

image source: anoush.com

The good news is that you only need to keep the ten hallmarks of excellent wedding catering services in mind to steer you in the right direction as far as potential service providers and caterers are concerned. These considerations are gleaned from previous nuptials and the regrets of newlyweds. Instead of you saying ‘should have, could have, would have,’ learn from the mistakes other other couples who took their eyes off the ball as far as the catering for their wedding day was concerned.

Reliable One-point Contact System

Planning a wedding is like air traffic control-there are tons of things to keep track of and it seems that everything is whizzing around you at all times. It is too easy to miss important details and truly drop the ball in an epic way. This is especially true for catering services.

If you deal with a catering company that has many different ‘official’ contacts, you might end up confused and frustrated. You might have covered something with one person only to be asked the same question again by another person. You might think you are getting a particular cake or decided on a particular menu only to be confronted by a completely different cake or menu. All this can stem from the fact that you’re talking to different people about different stuff. What happens if they get sick or fail to show up to work?

Truly professional catering services have a one-point contact system to avoid unnecessary confusion. When you reach out to the contact, you can confirm or decide on a key feature of your wedding’s catering and you can be assured that this decision will be faithfully carried through. Compare this with having to check with many different people only to find out that your decision wasn’t carried out.

Uses a Transparent and Documented System

One crucial hallmark of any truly professional service provider is when they give you a paper trail. This doesn’t have to be fancy. As long as you can clearly see what service you bought, how it’s being handled, when it was delivered, and some other details, you’re good to go. When a company goes through the bother of documenting its operations, you can rest assured that they aren’t likely to screw up details or get wires crossed regarding important features of your wedding’s catering.

At the very least, a service provider that uses a highly documented system can at least backtrack easily and figure out what went wrong and take remedial action. Compare this to a company that is run strictly by the seat of the pants of the staff. There is no comparison!

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Solid Track Record

If you want the very best food and the very best experience, you need to deal with a provider who has been around the block at least a couple of times when it comes to providing great food for a large number of people. Insist on a track record. The more years a company has under its belt, the better.

Put simply, you don’t want to be the guinea pig or training wheel of a new chef cutting his teeth in the wedding catering game. So many things can go wrong. This, after all, is the meal that celebrates the happiest day of your life. You want everything to go off without a hitch. No need for you to be the test dummy of a new company.

Flexible

Life isn’t perfect and neither will your wedding. There is no such thing as a wedding that has gone off with no hitches or snafus at all. At the very least, a small detail will be wrong. There is no such thing as a perfect event. Keep this in mind. This is why it is crucial you deal with a company that can roll with the blows.

You can easily tell a solid professional outfit from a fly-by-night operation by the way they handle small emergencies. Companies that are badly run can easily be thrown off track by small mistakes or small ‘disasters.’ Truly professional and experienced caterers would simply brush off such distractions, find a work around, and the party goes on. Insist on flexibility-your wedding reception memories might depend on it.

Works in an Integral Way with your Wedding’s Theme

Every wedding has a theme. Themes are crucial for centralizing the impressions and experiences guests have of your wedding. This is why it is important for you to pick the right theme and have everything that takes place in your wedding be consistent with that theme. We’re not just talking about making all the bridesmaids and grooms wear consistent outfits. Everything must fit together. Truly professional caters get this. This is why they work in an integral way with your theme-from waitstaff outfits to table dressings to all points in between. They can deck out and present your wedding meals in such a way that the central theme of your wedding stands front and center.

image source: anoush.com

Uses a Service Checklist

High quality services don’t just happen. They are never products of accident. Sure, people can get lucky from time to time but consistent quality service isn’t something you aim for by simply crossing your fingers. Truly high quality caterers are able to produce a high quality experience time after time because they use certain organizational practices that ensure quality. In other words, quality control is built into how they do business.
This is the principle behind operations checklists. You might think a checklist is just an empty ritual or it might be something that people don’t really read. You might even think that it is just a formality. Well, you would be absolutely wrong because truly high quality service providers use checklists to ensure standardized quality time and time again. Regardless of the wedding setting, high quality caterers do everything according to a protocol that is designed to ensure maximum wedding guest enjoyment. Their checklist ensures customer satisfaction. Best of all, they actually make sure the checklist items are implemented fully and with the highest level of attention to detail. This is what separates a real class catering operation from some random collection of people dishing out food.

Well-trained Staff

High quality service providers know that the essence of any service business turns on the quality of person to person interactions involving their staff. They know that they not only have to hire people with the right people skills, they have to give these individuals the training they need to truly shine and provide the very best experience to event attendees.

Professional catering firms step their staff members through the process of proper service etiquette, manners, and operations and protocol. We’re not just talking about covering these topics in passing or in general-like some sort of theory. No, real high class, high value caterers make it a point to hold a quick ‘heads up’ or ‘informational briefing’ regarding specific events so all staff members are completely clued in regarding the customer service needs of the people in attendance. This is the best way to make sure everybody is on board and all attendees get a minimum threshold of service quality. This is the kind of attention to detail that produces truly memorable wedding catering experiences.

Customer Service-focused Staff

Believe it or not, great customer service doesn’t just involve smiling at people and leading them to the right table. Customer service is all about making sure the guests’ needs are taken care of smoothly and unobtrusively. Great customer service is more than that-it is all about maintaining a kind of ambiance.

image source: anoush.com

Every wedding has a central theme and professional catering staff weave in theme elements into how they go about their duties and help guests with their food. This may seem like a small thing but it is how the seemingly small details weave into a greater picture that separate truly memorable wedding receptions from completely forgettable one. And your choice of caterer goes a long way in determining how memorable your wedding is to your guests.

Vertically Integrated

While there is a lot of value to be found in subcontracting parts of a catering service, the risks of failure outweigh the benefits. Truly professional catering outfits that focus on weddings make it a point to vertically integrate their operations. This is important because vertically integrated operations not only save money which can be passed on to customers, vertical integration ensures that the overall quality of all the elements that go into a service are controlled and monitored. This increases the likelihood that the company can pass savings on to the client.

Beyond just the great savings a vertically integrated provider may offer clients, the whole ‘one stop’ solution is very important because it deliver a key fundamental benefit anyone looking to manage a wedding event or reception needs to pay attention to-peace of mind. That’s right-instead of feeling that everything is spinning out of your control, you only need to contact one person for you to get the information and reassurance you need. This frees you up to do other organizational tasks. Considering how crazy the to-do lists for most modern American weddings can get, this feature is definitely a lifesaver. It can definitely save many event organizers as well as the wedding couple themselves from lots of unnecessary headaches and drama.

Uses Only the Freshest and Choicest Ingredients

Usually, this criterion is the first on the list when it comes to any kind of food service provider. However, I’ve put this last because if the wedding caterer took care of all the other features above and the concerns behind those features and elements, the food will essentially take care of itself. Great food, after all, grows from great customer service and feedback. Regardless of how bad the food a caterer starts out with, the quality of the food quickly improves if the caterer actively listens to client feedback and has a systematic and methodical process of providing top notch wedding catering services.

Keep the elements above in mind if you are looking for the very best wedding caterer. While it is too easy to think of ‘best’ as purely subjective, you’d be surprised as to how applying objective operational parameters can help you zero in on ‘best’ time and time again. In many cases, it would be safe to say that great catering is the product of organization and customer service as much as talent and infrastructure. Keep the factors above in mind so you can increase your chances of finding the very best wedding caterer for the most important day in your life together as a couple.

Make your Wedding Extra Special and Memorable with the Right Wedding Favors

Just like the love you’re celebrating with your wedding, the value of your wedding favors don’t turn on how much money they cost or how fancy their brand labels may be. Wedding favors don’t have to cost an arm and a leg because their real value isn’t measured by the number of digits on a price tag or measured by the status star power of the department store you bought them from. Instead, their value comes from how well they sum up the specialness of the bond you’re celebrating.

Weddings celebrate the love of a couple. Everything in the wedding celebration must reflect this otherwise your wedding celebration would basically be just too commercial, too overproduced, and lack that extra special something that makes for great memories. Seriously. This is why you need to be extra careful when planning all the details of your wedding-and this includes your choice of wedding favors.

image source: robincharlotte.com

(The good news: there is no right or wrong answers regarding wedding favor choice)

The good news about planning, selecting, and shopping for wedding favors is that there are no absolutely right or wrong answers. There is no cookie cutter or one-size-fits-all answer to your wedding favor needs. Why? Every couple is different. Every couple’s collection of family members and friends is different. Every couple differs from all other couples looking to get married.

The ‘right choice’ is necessarily a reflection of the ideas, values, and wishes of the couple being married. Keep this in mind. Steer clear of any ‘wedding favor guide’ that dictates a specific direction you should take. The general rule you should follow is if the suggestion doesn’t reflect the wedding couple’s wishes, dreams, or values, it is not the right fit.

Start with Wedding Favor Categories

With all that said, the best way to find the best wedding favors for your very special day is to go through the many different themes and categories of wedding favors and go from there. You can start on the category level and look for customized wedding favors that reflect your tastes, your ideas, or your wishes. Regardless of what you do, your wedding favors must always reflect both of your personalities. This is the most important consideration and is too often overlooked by wedding planners or event planners. There are no two ways about it-your whole wedding (and everything that goes into it)-must reflect both your personalities.

Common Wedding Favors

Edible Favors

These wedding favors are items your guests can eat, drink, or ingest. The most common edible favors are candies. Candies make for great favors because they are very compact, can be repackaged, and can be quite yummy. They don’t take up much space. Also, they don’t weigh all that much. Many candies are also very colorful and visually appealing.

Another very popular choice for edible favors is a package of chocolate. Chocolate candy pieces share many of the advantages of candy favors: small, compact, can be shaped, and yes, they are oh-so-tasty. What makes chocolate extra popular is that there is a long traditional link between chocolate and romance. It is the classic romantic comfort food.

If you are looking for a more ‘do it yourself’ approach to your wedding favors or a ‘down home’ feel to your favors, try cookies. Usually, when people give each other unpackaged, home-baked cookies, the recipient can’t help but feel that you went the extra mile. After all, baking is no joke. Baking cookies that turn out yummy and great-looking takes a lot of attention to detail and precision. Most people appreciate this and this is why they feel quite flattered that you have gone all out and baked something extra special for them. There is an unmistakable extra ‘personal’ touch with wedding favor cookies.

If cookies are too light for you, you might want to add a little extra touch to the hand-wrapped cookie packages you’re handing out by adding frosting to the cookies or stepping up and offering cupcakes instead. While full-blown cakes are a bit too much (not to mention too expensive), cupcakes are small enough to be light and easily transportable-exactly the kind of qualities you would want in any prospective edible wedding favor.

If candies, chocolate, cookies, and cupcakes or other solid food items strike you as, well, impractical or bulky, try handing out packages of gourmet coffee beans. If you want a wedding favor that reeks of elegance, sophistication, and ‘cool,’ giving out gourmet coffee bean sachets or small bags will definitely do it. Keep in mind that giving out drinkable wedding favors is all about presentation. Make sure you use the right packaging. You might want to use a small burlap bag for the beans or a cut piece of bamboo for special tea. In the case of wedding favors you drink, the packaging of the favor is just as important, if not more important, than the actual flavor of the drinkable items you are handing out.

Wearable Wedding Favors

Another very popular wedding favor category are wearables. These are light, small, pieces of clothing accessories you wear. Here are just some of the most popular wearables you might want to consider giving out for your very special day.

Scarves

Scarves are far and away the easiest wearables to give away because they are light, they fold very well, and they can come in many custom colors. Scarves are very versatile and can be quite sophisticated without costing you an arm and a leg. In fact, thanks to imported scarves, you can give out silk scarves that come in a wide range of colors and textures without having to burn through your wedding budget. There are bulk discounts available on scarves.

The best thing about scarves is that they come in so many designs and colors. This truly helps out a lot when it comes to making sure your giveaways mirror the theme, the colors, and the ambiance of your wedding. It is no surprise that scarves are very popular favors-they not only look great, they add extra ‘spice’ to your wedding’s ambiance, and they can look quite exotic.

Pashminas

Pashminas are small handkerchief-type pieces of cloth. They are very popular because they are small, inexpensive, and can come in a wide range of styles and colors. This diversity really helps out a lot because there are many pashmina designs that look really elegant but don’t cost all that much. In fact, there are many pashminas that are made with exotic cloths that don’t burn a hole through your wallet. They look very elegant, rare, and alluring-without the premium pricing you’d expect from such a ‘luxury’ item.

Sunglasses

You can give away specially-designed sunglasses. While these aren’t as popular as chocolates or scarves, they can look quite fun and ‘cool.’ At the very least, giving out sunglasses at your wedding makes your wedding more memorable and noteworthy because wedding couples don’t regularly hand out protective eye wear during their wedding.

image source: etsy.com/shop/GreenBridalBoutique

Make no mistake about it, if you want your guests to talk about your wedding a long time after the event, you might want to throw people for a loop and offer a wedding favor that looks unusual yet is very practical. Keep in mind that if you are thinking of offering sunglasses, make sure they are customized. Try to offer sunglasses that are engraved or have some sort of marking commemorating your wedding. At the very least, pick glasses that have the same colors as your wedding motif.

Plant or Living Wedding Favors

Another fairly popular category of wedding favors are plant or wedding favors. The big draw of this type of favor is that it is packed with symbols. Above all else, handing out a living plant at your wedding gives your visitors a way to track the growth, in terms of years, of your marriage. They only need to plant the plant you gave away and they can track how long you’ve been married.

image source: elegantbridalhairaccessories.com

Giving away plants is also practical because many of your guests wouldn’t mind having an extra houseplant to take care of. The houseplant can add extra color or an extra element to their interior spaces.

If you’re thinking of giving away plant wedding favors, you might want to try giving away herbs. The great thing about this type of living wedding giveaway is that they can be trimmed down to a small compact size. The more compact a living wedding favor is, the more flexible it can be, the more wedding event themes it can accommodate.

Herbs make for great favors because they are also very practical. For example, if the person you gave an herb plant to is an avid cook, they would remember your wedding when they pinch off a leaf to add to the dish they are preparing in their kitchen.

In addition to the taste of herbs, they can also look really good. As long as you get nice decorative pots and you can get the plants pruned the right way, your herb wedding favors can be great-looking as well as practical giveaways.

Another great wedding favor idea is to give away seed packets. The obvious meaning, of course, is that you are celebrating the ‘seed planting’ of a marriage. Seeds stand for new beginnings. There is a certain hopefulness and a sense of possibility with seeds. They make for great symbolic wedding favors but they are also very practical.

The best choices of wedding favor seed giveaways are common flowers like daisies or practical edible plants like tomatoes. The secret to giving away seed packages as part of your wedding favors or as the main favors is, of course, packaging. You don’t want to just get a package of seeds and give them out in their commercial packaging. Talk about tacky and inappropriate. You need to come up with new packaging for them. You also need to include instructions. The more rustic or ‘farm authentic’ the packaging, the more special your seed giveaway looks. Regardless, there should be a note that comes with the seeds that explain the symbolism of this giveaway choice.

Discount Coupons and Similar Favors

The final category of wedding favors I’d like to discuss is the very common ticket or discount coupon category. If you are a very practical couple, one of the most practical wedding giveaways you can hand out during your nuptials is a small envelope with discount coupons. Of course, you might want to deck out the envelope with special pictures or a ribbon or two and a commemorative note. Once the guest opens the package, they will find something very practical inside-they will find a discount coupon.

When picking out which kind of discount coupon to hand out, you have to make sure it reflects a discount on a product you both find interesting. For example, if you both love Mexican food, you can give away a $20 or $50 gift certificate at a Mexican restaurant you both enjoy. What’s important is that you don’t just give out a discount coupon for its sake. There has to be some sort of connection to both of your interests. Your guests are sure to appreciate this type of coupon giveaway because it is practical.

One increasingly popular variation of discount coupon or coupon giveaways works in reverse-a charity receipt. Basically, you both pick out a charity or cause that is near and dear to both your hearts. You make a decent-sized donation, say $500. The charity can give out receipts that are split up into smaller parts like $5 chunks. You then give your wedding recipients the receipts. The donations would be made in their name. This is a great idea for couples who are very concerned about environmental and other causes.

Make no mistake about it when it comes to wedding favors, the only limit is both of your imaginations. However, it is always a good idea to start your search for the ideal wedding giveaway by considering categories and customizing from there.

The best part about all the wedding favor ideas above is that they don’t have to burn a hole through your pocket. We have many more budget-friendly wedding favor options.

The Smart Way to Set up a Wedding Registry

Just like with anything else in life, you can always choose to do things the easy way and the hard way. This is definitely the case when it comes to setting up a wedding registry. Make no mistake about it-you can set up wedding gift registries that end up doing you and your soon-to-be spouse no good. The whole point of wedding gift registries is to guide your wedding guests to give you stuff that you can actually use. Unfortunately, too many couples end up finding out the hard way that they can’t take setting up a wedding registry casually. Keep the following tips in mind so your wedding registry will be a success. By success, of course, I mean you get exactly the kind of stuff you’d like.

Step #1: Set Up the Wedding Registry Together

The most common mistake couples make when writing up their wedding registry ‘wish list’ is that one partner delegates the task of setting up a registry to the other partner. Sure, you might be busy. Sure, you might not be big into such detailed work but remember that if you delegate this to your wold be spouse, you give up your right to raise a fuss if he or she ‘did it wrong.’ You simply can’t criticize your partner if you didn’t choose to play any role in setting up the list. Not only is this unfair but it actually gets your marriage off on a bad foot.

To avoid unnecessary drama, you need to set up the wedding registry together. Set up a few hours to do this. Hours? Yes-hours. You might think that agreeing on wedding registry items would be straightforward and simple. Wrong. You are to two totally different people and you have different priorities. Give yourself the time time to hash through the items. Otherwise, if you don’t budget enough time, you might end up agreeing to a list neither of you are completely happy about.

image source: reflectivebride.com

Step #2: Agree on a List of Gifts

Coming to an agreement might seem like a simple matter. Unfortunately, this is never the case. You actually have to look at your wedding registry setup experience as a great opportunity to learn more about each other’s priorities and values. You might think you have your future spouse all figured out. Boy, are you mistaken. It is precisely times like setting up a wedding registry where you get a clear idea of how your partner’s mind works and what is truly important to him or her. You also get a glimpse of what is important to him or her and, indirectly, how he or she views your upcoming marriage. This is why it is a good idea to look at the whole process of setting up wedding gift registries as a ‘marriage building exercise.’ Don’t view it as some empty formality or unnecessary detail you can blow off or rush through.

Whenever you are working with your partner to agree on something, you are actually engaging each other on a deep personal level. You get an opportunity to know each other more. You get an opportunity to focus on what’s important to each of you and to also strengthen your marriage. Why? Agreeing on your wedding gift registries’ lists is actually a test of your ability to negotiate with each other and your ability to get along. If anything, it is a great preview for how you’ll handle possible disagreements or joint decisonmaking in the future. Use this opportunity to find agreement without compromising or being a pushover. The key is to lovingly come to an agreement over a list both of you are happy with.

A great strategy in coming to an agreement is to meet about the list on neutral ground. Talk about your list outside your home. Talk about it in a coffee shop or somewhere outside. Also, you might want to chop up the time you devote to discussing your list. Always keep open the possibility that you might not agree on the list the first time you try. Give yourselves enough time to keep meeting again, in an informal and casual setting, to try to filter and clean up your list. The more you meet, the closer you’ll get to agreement and the less pressure there is. The key is to produce a list that both of you can be truly happy with. Don’t feel that your arm was twisted or you compromised too much. Remember, this exercise really is the first taste you’ll have of your life with your partner. Make it pleasant. Make it count.

Step #3: Be Realistic on your Choice of Gifts

Now that you both have come up with a list, the next step is to filter the list. Remember, just because you name it, doesn’t mean you can realistically claim it. Life doesn’t work that way-you can’t always get what you want. The ideal isn’t always possible. If you want to increase the possibility that you will actually get the items you put on your wedding registry list, you need to make sure your choice of items are completely realistic. How do you determine what is ‘realistic’? Keep reading below.

Cost is always a factor. Keep in mind that cost is always a factor. The more expensive an item is, the higher the likelihood people won’t step up to buy that item for you. It really is that simple. Economics always plays a role. Make sure you pick items that won’t burn too big a hole in people’s pockets. Moreover, remember that is usually your closest friends and relatives that buy the most expensive gifts. Usually, you don’t need to put such gifts in a register to ‘remind’ them. They already know what you need as far as expensive gifts are concerned.

Pay attention to who you invite. If you invited lots of Dot Com millionaires, hedge fund managers, and other people who typically have lots and lots of cash, you can get away with putting more pricey items on your list. Of course, this is all based on the assumption that they will actually show up to your wedding or they will buy a gift. Still, the overall financial capability of the people you’ve invited should play a role in how you select your items. For example, if you invited mostly people just out of college, don’t expect someone to step up and give you a very expensive gift. Chances are, most of your invitees are simply trying to get by from one paycheck to the next.

The downside to putting pricey gifts on your registry listing is that this creates a ‘push’ for guests to focus on the ‘cheap end’ of your list. Don’t think that if you stack your wedding registry with mid-priced to expensive items that people will automatically buy mid-priced items if they were ‘pushed’ by the expensive items. There might be a push alright-right off your list. People might just go on their own and buy a cheap gift and call it a day. Don’t let that happen. Give people enough cost diversity with your wedding registry. This increases the likelihood that you’ll get the gifts you actually want.

Portability is also important. Another key factor you should consider when drawing up your wedding registry items is how bulky or portable the items are. Obviously, the items must be light and portable enough for your wedding guest to lug to the wedding reception. This factor actually narrows down your gift choices quite a bit. Sure, it would be nice to get a new living room couch as a wedding gift but you probably shouldn’t hold your breath for one.

image source: makesomeplans.com

Step #4: Focus on Probability when Picking out your Desired Gifts

After considering all the factors listed above, keep in mind the likelihood that your guest will actually pick out your desired gifts. This is very important. It’s one thing to lay out all your ideal gift, getting them is another matter altogether.

The best approach would be to get all your dream items together and filter them based on the factors above. Once you have a list, filter more materials. The whole point is to play a numbers game. Assume that only a portion of the gifts you actually asked for will be bought by your gifts. By packing your list full of ideal items that are portable, affordable, and you actually would like as a couple, you increase the likelihood that enough of your items will be bought.

The key to step 4 is to not bet the farm that all your items will be bought. Expect only a fraction to be bought. If you set up your list the right way, even if the percentage of items your guests actually bought is quite low, you should still have enough gifts to make the gift registry worth it. At the very least, you can save quite a bit of money on the products you need to buy to start life as a married couple.

Centralizing your registry is crucial to making probability work for you. If you don’t centralize your registry so that bought items at one store are deducted from all other wedding gift registries, your probability calculations will be shot. Completely. People might buy duplicate stuff and instead of your probability strategy working for you, it would be completely worthless. A little centralized tracking can do wonders in making sure the vast majority of gifts your guests give you actually meet your needs and wants.

Step #5: Set Up Registries at More than One Department Store

One of the most common mistakes made by most couples setting up wedding registries is setting up the registry at only one department store. Bad move. First, your guests probably come from all over the place. People who live very far from the department store you set up the registry at will be hard pressed to shop at that department store. In many cases, they are ‘pushed’ to basically get you gifts that you didn’t ask for. They completely bypass your gift registry. This is, of course, bad news because the gift they decide to give you might actually be the same as the gifts brought by many other guests. All these problems could have been avoided if you set up registries at many department stores.

The more stores you set up registries with, the better. Why? People live all over the place. Also, not all department stores have a lot of branches. When you place registries at many different department stores, you broaden your geographic reach and your guests have a higher likelihood of actually using your registry listing.

image source: thespruce.com

Step #6: Use an Online Registry to Manage your Gift Registry Listings

After you’ve set up the registries, make sure you manage them with an online registry manager. This is a very important step. Why? You need to centralize the listings because you don’t want duplicates. In other words, when you have registries with many stores, you would want the gifts bought by guests at one store to be ‘deducted’ from the list of other stores. This prevents duplication. This increases the likelihood that your visitors would only give you gifts that you will actually use because you get only one of a kind.

Make no mistake about it-gift duplication is a very common problem if you don’t centralize your gift registries. Make sure you set an online registry that coordinates all store registries. This can save you lots of time and helps you avoid the hassle of returning duplicate gifts.

Conclusion

The multi-step process above might seem like overkill. It isn’t. If you are not systematic and methodical regarding your gift registries, you might end up having to return lots of stuff. You might end up with lots of stuff you don’t really need or lots of duplicate gifts. Moreover, you might end up fighting over your planning of your gift registry. Follow all the steps above so you can avoid unnecessary drama.

Why you should get Wedding Insurance Coverage and how to find the Right Policy?

Your wedding is one of the most important, if not the most important, events in your life. Everything has to go right. Every detail has to be just right. Everything has to go according to plan. Unfortunately, life is what happens when you are making other plans. Things often find a way of not taking place according to plan.

In many cases, regardless of how well and how intensively we’ve thought things through, things still don’t manage to pan out as we imagined them to. This is just a fact of life. Most people can live with this. That’s just how things are. However, you don’t have to be completely passive in the face of the fact that things sometimes don’t take place according to plan. When it comes to your wedding, you can protect yourself with losses associated with it. You can get coverage that covers a wide range of wedding-related losses from outright cancellation, rescheduling, or theft/loss of certain wedding-related items.

To find the right wedding insurance coverage, you need to focus on the kind of loss you would like to be protected against. The insurance market is mature and has many different products that cover a wide range of situations and types of property. Just like with looking for any other kind of insurance, you have to be methodical and systematic with how you look for wedding insurance.

image source: affordablecomfort.org

Avoid Overinsuring your Wedding

You don’t want to pay too much money for coverage you don’t need. This happens quite a bit. People over insure all the time when they overestimate the likelihood of them suffering a loss or their estimation of a potential loss is actually bigger than it actually is.

Why is this a problem? You end up paying good money to be ‘protected’ for a highly unlikely loss or when the loss actually occurs, it actually doesn’t end up costing you too much and you can actually pay for it out of pocket. In most cases, you should take out insurance to protect you from losses that involve significant sums of cash.

Avoid Underinsuring your Wedding

While overinsuring can be a problem, underinsuring actually inflicts more damage to your pocketbook and poses the larger danger. When you underinsure, you take out a policy that covers only a fraction of your losses. Sure, you can collect on your policy but the money shelled out by the insurance company is only a very small part of the actual money you lose. Keep in mind that money is measured both in terms of the actual amount of cash you’re shelling out but also the monetary value of the hassle, inconvenience, opportunity cost, and other non-monetary losses you suffer.

It is very important to take out enough insurance so that it covers your full losses-both in terms of actual cash losses, inconvenience, and other types of losses. The whole point of being insured is that you be ‘made whole again’ by the policy you’re paying for. Simply giving you cash for some of the losses you suffered is obviously not going to cut it.

The Harsh Reality: Insurance can Only Cover Parts of your Loss

Regardless of how comprehensive the wedding insurance policies you take out, the sad reality is that they can only cover only a part of your loss. Why? Non-monetary losses are hard to quantify. The inconvenience, disappointment, and bad feelings you suffer when you have to move your wedding date or cancel your wedding outright are very hard to put a dollar figure on and are not insurable. Insurance can only cover the price of services and products. Remember that.

It is Still Worth Getting Wedding Insurance Despite its Limitations

Now that you have a clear idea about the dangers of overinsurance and underinsurance, I have to point out that it is still worth getting wedding insurance for that extremely special event in your life. Here are just some of the reasons why you should still get insurance. While I have listed the most common factors, the reality is that the only limit to this list is your imagination.

Some Sense of Control

Let’s face it, we are not in full control of our lives. Most things are just out of our control. This is a fact of life. We can’t control the weather. We can’t control other people. Things happen for no good reason from time to time. The unexpected crops up time and time again.

The good news is that while we might not be able to always control what happens to us, we can control how we respond to unforeseen events. This is precisely the benefit that getting wedding insurance brings to the table because you at least gain some sense of control over how you can respond to the unexpected. You have the means with which to respond to a wedding cancellation or some wedding items getting lost, damaged, or stolen. Always keep in mind that how you respond to situations is as important as the situations themselves.

image source: huffingtonpost.com

Stuff happens and the best you can do is to respond in such a way that you are always in control. By insuring your wedding, you put yourself in a position to respond more favorably and more calmly. Let’s face it, it is very easy to lose it when you don’t have the cash or the means to deal with a unexpected event. In many cases, the sense of control you have over a situation is the difference between you making a situation better or making it worse than it already is.

Partial Comfort in the Event the Unexpected Happens

While it is true that you can’t possibly recover the cost of the hassle, inconvenience, disappointment, and emotional letdown you and your family and friends might suffer due to adverse conditions negatively impacting your wedding, you can still at least gain some measure of peace of mind from wedding insurance. Why? You won’t be out of pocket at least as far as the measurable damages you might experience that come with a price tag. This offers some measure of comfort.

At the very least, you won’t be in a situation where you have your emotional losses compounded by the extra headache of having lost money on your wedding’s planning, items, and other components. Sure,the insurance money doesn’t make the heartache or headache go away but it goes a long way in giving you some peace of mind that your losses won’t be as bad compared to you completely going uninsured.
You gain some sort of mental ‘safety net.’ Regardless of how bad things can turn out, at the very least, you have some sort of protection against some of the loss you might suffer.

You can Recover Faster

It is much harder to recover from any kind of loss when you are completely wiped out. I hope this much is clear to you. Which situation would you rather be in: getting completely wiped out and having no money to get back on your feet or getting wiped out and having some cash to get back up? The choice should be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, too many people who choose to forget about getting wedding insurance are actually choosing the former situation when they fall for the mistaken belief that their wedding is immune from disasters or unforeseen circumstances.

Put it this way, it is easier to get back on your feet and reschedule a wedding or move on after a canceled wedding when you can at least cover some of the losses you suffered from a canceled or postponed wedding. While you might not be able to prevent losses from happening, you can control how quickly you bounce back up when the unexpected happens. One of the key lessons people learn in life, when it comes to personal setbacks like wedding cancellations or similar situations, is that it doesn’t matter if life deals you a setback. What matter is how quickly you bounce back up. And this is precisely the benefit you get when you buy wedding insurance policies that cover everything from the venue, your wedding’s planning to wedding-related objects like wedding favors and other items.

Now that I have covered the reasons why you should insure your wedding, I’d like to walk you through the different kinds of wedding insurance policies you can get. Keep in mind that, just like with most other insurance products, there are a wide range of insurance policies you can get that cover your wedding. Since your wedding has many different parts, there are policies you can you can take out to cover all these different elements.

Wedding Cancellation Insurance Policies

The most important wedding insurance policy you can take out is one that covers you against the possibility that your wedding will get canceled. I know the very idea is very stressful and depressing but it is better to be properly protected against situations we wish would not happen than being completely unprepared and unequipped when the unexpected happens. Weddings do get canceled all that time. Get over it. It is a very real possibility. After all, you can’t control all the factors that affect your wedding. At the very least, you can’t control the weather. You can’t control news events. You can’t control technical glitches that might impact airport operations. There are just so many things that can go wrong. With that said, there are two key types of wedding cancellation insurance policies. Sure, they often get bundled but you need to be aware of the differences otherwise you might end up underinsured.

Voluntary versus Involuntary Cancellation

Your wedding insurance policy coverage limits can be affected by whether the cancellation is voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary cancellation involves you canceling your wedding. This is a conscious chase. Maybe you and your future spouse had a massive fight or maybe someone who plays a big role in your wedding backed out or some similar situation like that. The hallmark of a voluntary cancellation is that it is a conscious decision on your part. You are the one pulling the plug on your wedding.

An involuntary cancellation, on the other hand, involves forces that are outside of your control. This usually involves forces of nature. For example, if there is a massive blizzard and the airport that covers your city closed down indefinitely. Another common involuntary reason involves hotel or venue operations and there is simply not enough time left to move your wedding to another venue or reschedule in such short notice.

Will you be Rescheduling?

Another key factor that might come into play regarding the coverage you might get with a wedding cancellation policy is whether you will be rescheduling soon after the event. You might be able to get a higher recovery if you were to reschedule soon after the canceled event.

image source: vogue.com

Expected Associated Costs

Keep in mind that whatever recovery you might get from your wedding insurance policy is limited by whether the costs are expected and foreseen. As long as the costs can be reasonably inferred as arising from the insurance policy and are expected, you can recover. However, to be sure, you need to read the fine print of your policy. Protect yourself from any nasty surprises.

Wedding Item Insurance

From wedding favors, to wedding decorations to wedding photos, there are lots of materials involved in the typical wedding. Just like with almost any other physical property, you can get insurance coverage for these items. Just like with other insurance policies that cover property, there are limits. Make sure you know the limits on covered item’s value in effect in your policy.

Pay Attention to Deductibles and Policy Limits

Now that you have a clear idea about what you can have covered by a wedding insurance policy, it is a good idea to make sure you know your coverage limits. Make sure you know the total amount you can claim. You also need to know the minimum amount of loss you need to suffer before you can file a claim. Most policies have a deductible threshold-any losses below a certain dollar value are absorbed by you.

Make no mistake about it, getting a wedding insurance policy is one of the smartest moves you can make as you prepare for your extra special day. However, you need to read all the tips above so you can figure out which policy to get and what to expect. Otherwise, you might be just setting yourself up for a nasty shock in case the unexpected happens.

The Top 10 Things You Need to Know for Proper Wedding Dress Preservation

Now that you are about to tie the knot or have tied the knot, you should give some thought, time, and attention to your wedding dress. I am not talking about picking out and buying the dress. You should have already done this. Instead, your focus should be on what you would be doing with your wedding dress. Do you plan to keep it for posterity? Or do you plan to give it to charity or otherwise dispose of it?

These are not small questions because a wedding dress can be one of the most important heirlooms a mother can give her daughter. Even if you are not thinking of passing on your dress to the next generation, hanging on to your dress might be a crucial memento of one of the most important days in your life. If you are thinking of storing your wedding dress, you have to understand that it won’t remain in great shape as is. It won’t simply preserve itself. You have to be proactive in storing your wedding dress or you might end up with a tattered, faded, or raggedy cloth construction that will make you wonder why you hung on to it.

Keep the following considerations in mind if you’re thinking of hanging on to your dress for decades. You might be surprised at the amount of deliberation you’ll need to make the right decision. By being so systematic and methodical about your decision, you’ll definitely go a longer way in ensuring that you have truly made an informed decision.

Be Clear as to why you’d like to Preserve your Wedding Dress

At this stage, the idea of hanging on to your dress for ‘posterity’ is very romantic and striking. That’s all well and good but you have to go deeper in your analysis of your reasons for wanting to hang on to your wedding dress than just simply responding with a ‘just because’ or ‘for posterity.’ Be clear as to why you want to hang on to it. The clearer your reason, the better. Why? You’ll be spending quite a bit of time, effort, and money on this undertaking and you want to lay your reasons out clearly. This way, you can see if they are worthy of all the resources you’ll be pouring into your little preservation project.
You’d be surprised as to how many people change their minds about wedding dress preservation once they have a clear understanding of their reasons. Many quickly conclude that their reasons aren’t worth the time, bother, expense, and hassle of wedding dress preservation.

Be Clear as to how Long you want to Preserve your Dress

You might think that you want to preserve your dress ‘forever’ at this point. However, if you actually drill down to the specific events where you’d hand over your dress to your daughter or to someone else, you might discover that the timing is not actually ‘forever.’ Remember, ‘forever’ means infinity-as in your grand daughter’s great grand daughter’s great grand daughter.

Make sure you have a clear idea of the precise time frame you have in mind for your preservation efforts because this can significantly impact the money, time, and attention you’ll pay to the preservation of your very special dress.

image source: aaronvargaphotography.com

Decide whether you just want to Preserve the Dress or Ensure that it is still Wearable

Another key question you need to consider is whether you actually want to preserve the wearability of the dress or just preserve it enough to ensure it doesn’t fall apart when someone handles it. These are two totally different situations with two totally different sets of costs, effort, and attention requirements. If you want your daughter or grand daughter or anyone else in the distant future to wear your wedding dress, you will need to spend a different sum of money to ensure this happens.

Make Sure your Wedding Dress is Made up of Easier to Preserve Materials

Ideally, the best time to think about wedding dress preservation is the time before you’ve made a decision on your dress. In other words, the best situation would be for you to focus on wedding dress preservation as you select your wedding dress. This is ideal because you can pick out your dress based on how well its material will stand up to the test of time.

If you have already picked out your dress and are just now thinking of preserving it, this will pose more of a challenge-especially if you picked out a dress made of a highly degradable material which was cut in a way that it is exposed to the elements. Still, all is not lost because you can compensate for your materials’ sensitivity to the elements with the right storage system, precaution, methods, and processes.

Use the Right Packaging to Store your Wedding Dress

You might think that a simple plastic sleeve is enough to protect your wedding dress. Wrong. You don’t want to find out the hard way that your moth- or bug-damaged dress needed additional precautions beside simple plastic sheeting or zipped up plastic enclosures. You should ask the wedding shop you got your dress from regarding special packaging you can buy to ensure that your wedding dress is adequately protected from excess moisture, bug threats, chemical exposure, certain chemical reactions, light exposure, and other hazards.

Make Sure of the Space Requirements of Proper Wedding Dress Preservation

If you are going to preserving your dress, make sure you have the space to do it. Depending on the design of your wedding dress, you might need quite a bit of space. Some designs can be very bulky and need a lot of space. Make sure there’s a snug fit so you can economize your space while at the same time keeping free air space at a minimum.

Alternatively, if you have a very big dress and you are storing it hanging up, make sure you have enough space to walk around the dress. This impacts space availability. Also, this might make the storage process more expensive because you have to use up certain space for storage instead of other purposes. In some cases, this might involve shelling out some serious dollars for a special storage area to be built for your wedding dress.

Decide on Any Special Equipment you Need to Store your Wedding Dress

Whenever you are storing a dress or any piece of clothing, you are up against many different factors. These factors can work together or alone to ensure that you end up with a piece of patched material that falls apart, looks tattered or unwearable. You have to have storage equipment that can guard against the ravages the following threats bring to your dress:

• Bugs – While moths are the most common type of bugs that damage cloth materials, there is actually a wide range of insects that can cause holes or discolorations to your stored clothing.
• Light – Any exposure to the light is bound to have an impact on your dress’ materials. Sure, you might not see the effect right away but even if your clothing doesn’t discolor very quickly, it might change colors later or it might get brittle. Prolonged exposure to light triggers or speeds up certain chemical processes which can end up discoloring or outright damaging your clothing.
• Moisture – Depending on the materials that make up your dress, prolonged moisture exposure can be very bad news indeed. Indeed, even ‘synthetic’ materials might become fertile surfaces for mold or fungus that are constantly exposed to a source of moisture. Not only might fungal damage leave nasty-looking splotches, blotches, and stains on your clothes but decaying fungus might give your clothing a ‘funky’ smell. If you’re truly unlucky, your dress might even host the smelliest fungi which gives off a very bad smell.
• Chemical reaction – There are many brides who store their dresses in a paper lining with an outer sleeve made of plastic. The paper is supposed to help with keeping the moisture levels in the space right next to your wedding dress under control. Well, if you pick the wrong kind of paper, it might have acids or other chemical compounds that might react badly with your wedding dress. End result? Heavily discolored or brittle clothing material.
• Air exposure – Depending on the quality of the air in your area, air exposure might lead to bad chemical reactions or worse moisture transport. Both situations can lead to a brittle, damaged, or discolored wedding dress.

Pick the Right Location to Store your Dress

Since there are so many factors that might age your dress prematurely, you need to make sure your dress is stored in the right location. Not all locations make for ideal dress storage locations. At the very least, look for a part of your home that isn’t exposed to lots of direct sunlight. It’s also a good idea to find a dark, dry, and cool place. Of course, such a spot must not be near any known hives or routes of insects-both the walking and flying varieties.

image source: pxhere.com

Your location choice is not a simple matter because if you choose to store your dress in such a location, you have to move your interior spaces around. This takes some level of organization. You might even have to spend a few bucks getting specialized shelving or shelf organization tools or accessories.

Understand the Conditions that Might Require you to Move your Dress

It is too easy to think that once you’ve decided to hang on to your wedding dress, that you’ll be stay in the same spot forever. Well, you’re welcome to think this way but this is hardly the situation with most Americans. The typical American household actually moves at least a couple of times over several decades. In fact, your young family might be moving several times as either you or your spouse gets promoted or need to move from one part of the country to the other in search of better job opportunities.

If you have decided to hang on to your dress, this series of moves might negatively impact your storage options. Why? Your dress might get damaged while being transported. Also, you might take a lot of care during the first couple of moves but as your family grows, you might have your hands full with kids or your kids’ needs that you might completely overlook the special conditions required by your wedding dress.

Finally, the special storage requirement or special storage conditions required by your dress-including adequate storage space-might vary with each new home you move in to. This might cause problems down the road because any moisture or bug exposure at one point might be hard to detect during the hustle and bustle of moving from Point A to Point B. It would not be surprising for you to discover damage to your dress after a few moves.

Be Clear as to Alternative Storage Locations

Since there are so many factors to keep in mind when storing your wedding dress, it might be a better idea to find alternative storage areas or options for your dress. Of course, these cost money. Also, they might not even be available to you as your growing family moves from area to area. You might want to list out the realistic number of options you have as far as alternative storage locations are concerned. By writing down your list, you might realize just how many options are available and which ones are really practical. The answer might startle you.

By using a systematic and methodical way of deciding whether to keep your wedding dress or not, you will go a long way in protecting yourself from any unnecessary costs, headaches, and hassles down the road. In many cases, an idea that seems so attractive and emotionally engaging right now might actually not make much practical sense when you factor in the logistics and practical considerations of actually acting on your idea. As long as you are honest about your options and you allow yourself to be open minded to the facts and contingencies, you’ll go a long way in making the right decision.