Secrets of the Wedding Reception Table
Secrets of the Wedding Reception Table
Most couples planning their wedding feel an inner urge to offer their guests a wonderful dining experience at the reception. It feels like the payoff for the support of family and friends through the long engagement/wedding process. Be aware, however, that the dining experience can be the place where the expense begins small but quickly escalates into the stratosphere! It’s also the part of wedding planning that can be most contentious for the bride and groom. The bride often has a vision of the reception tables created in her mind before any costs were determined, and the groom doesn’t see the importance of it all.
Wedding planning, especially with a tight budget, is so difficult for couples because they have no or little experience. That makes some want to outsource it all, and that can be a fast way to make a wedding very expensive. The secret of wedding table decoration is to start as simply as you can, being aware that every item you add for décor, also adds to the price. There's a myriad of ways you can have tables you love while holding down expenses, so explore different approaches before purchasing anything.
For example, renting napkins might be five times as expensive as making your own from discounted fabric. Using wildflowers may be far cheaper than florist flowers. Making the cake table glorious and the dining tables very simple can still be beautiful but less costly. The main secret is to take your time and practice restraint in creating your perfect reception. Whatever you come up with will be fine. In reality, the payoff for the guests of being part of a wedding is simply JOY and the realization that a new family is beginning and Life goes on. Photographing that pure joy is the bonus for the photographer and what makes wedding photography so much fun.
 
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Engagement Parties - What to Expect
Engagement Parties - What to Expect
In these modern times, when a couple decides to marry, there are a multitude of events they have to decide upon long before the wedding. Engagement parties, wedding showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, and dinners for the families to meet, etc.! Friends and family often start thinking about how much it’s going to cost them to support the happy couple. Are these events new or have they always been around?
Apparently, they’ve been around since ancient Greece when an engagement party was a commercial transaction between the father who gave his daughter in marriage and the groom. The bride was not present! Times have changed, thank God! In the US, engagement parties have been a tradition in the northeast for a long time. The practice has spread across the rest of the country in recent decades.
An engagement party is intended to announce and celebrate a couple’s recent engagement. Its purpose is also to help families and close friends who will be involved in the wedding get to know each other. The parties are traditionally held in the bride’s home, but some couples may want to throw their own. If the engaged couple holds the party in a bar or restaurant, they should be thoughtful of the costs for guests. A simple home engagement party with family and very close friends is safer these days and can be shared on social media so that everyone receives the news.
Remember during your engagement and wedding planning, that much of what couples feel they need for a “successful” engagement and wedding has been developed by the wedding industry. Keep it simple, be thoughtful of family and friends, but do plan to present and preserve your memories with professional photos!
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Location Spotlight – Garfield Park Reservation
Love Warms a Winter Day in Garfield Park Reservation
As we inch closer to a much longed-for spring, there’s still time for the wonder of winter. Look what happens when a bright new love is added to a winter scene right here in northeast Ohio. This couple, undeterred by ice, snow, and chill, chose to have their engagement session outdoors. What a fun day it was! Garfield Park Reservation turned out to be the perfect background for their joyful love which comes through so clearly in the photography. The arched stone bridge and other physical structures of this background, including the natural formations of snow, ice, and a waterfall, are ideal because they add a dimension of timelessness and history to the scene. That makes the current happiness of the lovers even more apparent. These engagement photos which capture a once-in-a-lifetime day in their lives will provide memories to warm their hearts and souls in winters to come.
We hope you enjoy these photos. Remember that although smartphones take nice photos, professional photography captures and creates memories at much greater depth and breadth. The expertise a photographer develops over the years of seeing what the camera sees makes a profound difference in quality. Call us to book your engagement photo or wedding. Spring offers a lovely background too!
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Celebrate St Patrick's Day with Zeal!
In Pandemic Times, Celebrate Every Holiday with Zeal!
Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, is the next one up so plan to celebrate in some way, even with family and friends at home. Throughout human history, we’ve found solace in celebrating holidays, because it’s celebrating LIFE! And that’s what we’re all trying to do now. Stay alive and healthy, and be there for each other. Whether or not you’re Irish, Saint Patrick’s Day is a fun one to celebrate. Legend says that Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, drove its slithering reptiles into the sea! No wonder so many people raise glasses of cheer to him on March 17.
Imagine celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day and every other holiday celebrated in the US over the past 103 years? That would be well over a thousand holidays. A thousand days of good cheer, celebration, love, and sharing. No wonder Miss E has thrived for so long. If you want to live a long, happy life, celebrate Life and Living every chance you get!
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How to Have a Wedding that’s Authentically You
How to Have a Wedding that’s Authentically You
You could almost call it a tradition in America…a woman becomes engaged and starts to create a wedding experience. First, she gathers magazines, the thick costly ones with hundreds of pages, to get ideas. A better way is to sit quietly with yourself and find ideas within yourself. Only you knows you! Only you and your beloved know what your relationship means and how you want to share it with your world. Most women underestimate their own creativity and ingenuity. Those thick magazines and Instagram posts about wedding stuff are all meant to sell you things. Find out what’s meaningful to you before you start buying.
For example, if you and your fiancé love Cleveland and spend your happy hours together doing the things that make Cleveland special, focus your wedding theme on that. If you love nature, use that, or if you love partying, create an event that captures the fun you love to make happen. When people get engaged, they’re all excited and immediately begin thinking about how they’re going to schedule everything, notify everyone and book vendors. Put the brakes on! It’s best to get clear about what you want. Brides typically take the lead, but the long term marriage will be better if they include the groom from the very beginning. Grooms have dreams too! Movies and commercials have told us for decades that weddings are all about the bride having her special day, but in truth, it should be about the couple, defining their commitment and celebrating their own unique love.
So if you’re getting engaged, or have just gotten engaged, spend a weekend pondering what you both want, how you want to feel after the wedding is over and you’re looking at your photos. Having done that, book your date, and of course…your photographer:)
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