Gender-Blind Wedding Parties

Editor's Note: Please excuse the gendered language in the following post. I usually try to be inclusive and gender neutral with my language but this particular issue only really applies to heterosexual couples because same-sex couples are already bending the gender norms to start with. :-)

Have you never really gotten along with those of your same gender... always been more of a "tomboy" or "just one of the girls"... are you a bride who's closer to her brothers then anyone else in the world... are you a groom who's best friend is a girl... or are you one to think that having a gender segregated wedding party just cramps your style? Then having a gender-blind wedding party may be for you.

I have no idea how this trend (for lack of a better, more permanent word) got started, but in my mind the path was forged by a forward thinking bride who dared to ask, "Why do MY brothers have to stand on HIS side?" And from there was born a new frontier; one that has now brought us the terms "Man of Honor", "Best Lady", "Bridesmen", and "Groomsladies".

Now I know that your dear old 90 year old aunt is silently having a coronary even as I type this, but now more than every the only rule in weddings is... don't talk about weddings... oops, no wait, that's don't talk about Fight Club... oh yes, here it is... there are no rules! Couples today are bending tradition to suite them, picking and choosing the traditions that are meaningful to them, and even creating new and wonderfully fresh traditions of their own, and this flexibility in the genders of the wedding party is definitely one of my favorites.

I wish I had been exposed to this idea earlier in my wedding planning journey. I would most certainly of had my brothers up there with me. In defense of my untraditionality (yes it's a word. I just said it therefore it's a word), my mother was my maid of honor.

I know what you are all thinking... " But what about the pictures????" Well, first of all, while balancing the fact that the pictures are the only lasting thing about your wedding, I always remind brides that the pictures should not dictate your wedding. The people in the pictures are far more important then the pictures themselves; however, how awesome does this wedding party look????




This is Ms. Hummingbird from wedding bee, and is one of my all time favorite brides. At some point I'll share with you the hilarious blog that her husband wrote about his groomzilla break down and his insistence that his brother and father come shopvac up the puddled water in the back yard after it rained.

Afraid that your wedding party won't be as awesomely symmetrical as this one. Have no fear! Check out this GQ worthy groom with his groomsmen and groomslady.

source

So, if the only thing holding you back from having your dream wedding is the tradition of gender segregated wedding parties... then worry no more because gender-blind wedding parties are coming to a wedding near you!

Well, I’m a little later getting this written then I hoped, but my morning was a little busier than I expected.

Day of the wedding transportation…it’s probably not on the top of your list of glamorous wedding details to think of, but it is oh so important. I’ll start out with a cautionary tale. My husband was the best man in his good friend’s wedding a couple of years ago. They thought they had all their transportation details worked out. Until, that is, they woke up in their honeymoon suite the morning after the wedding, only to realize that had no way to get to their morning after brunch.

Thankfully, they are a very laid back couple and they simply called my husband who was more than happy to perform one last best man duty and deliver the newly married couple to the brunch. But how easily this could have been avoided.

Transportation is not one of those details that needs to be hashed out as soon as you are engaged, but putting it off until the day before the wedding will most certainly cause undue stress. Regardless of whether you are hiring a limo or asking a friend to play chauffer, you will need to work these details out so be prepared. The keys to coordinating successful transportation will be: good planning and clear communication. Usually about 4 weeks or so before the wedding, you should have a good idea of the plans for the day. Then it’s time to put the puzzle together. Depending on if you are a visual person or a word oriented person, sketch out a basic timeline or a flow chart for the day. Your goal is to make sure that everyone is where they need to be when they need to be there with the least amount of complications…ie stranded and or lost participants.

First, think about who needs to be transported. Are you going to getting married in a remote area with little parking, then maybe hiring busses or trolleys to carry all the guests is your best idea. Maybe just the couple needs to be transported. If you are hiring transportation, keep in mind that chaufferred town cars are often less expensive than full sized limos, pick up and drop off service is much cheaper then having the chauffer wait around during the ceremony and reception, and a friend or family member with a nice car might shuttle you around for even less…free!

Let’s look at an example. We have a bride and a groom with single gender wedding parties. Our couple is getting married at a church and then having the reception in a hotel ballroom. One way to coordinate this day would be to have the wedding party meet at the hotel to get ready. The groom drives himself, and someone gives the bride a ride. A limo is hired to transport the bride and bridesmaids to the reception. This is not to be sexiest (exactly) but dresses wrinkle more easily and will insure a less wrinkly wedding party. The men drive themselves and the best man gives the groom a ride.

After the ceremony, the couple is transported to the reception in the limo (which offers some precious moments of alone time) and the groomsmen give the bridesmaids rides to the reception. Now everyone has their own vehicles and can transport themselves. Since the groom drive himself the couple have their car at the hotel for them to use the next day.

This is by far not the only way to do it, but you see how it works. The key however, is that everyone knows what they need to do. For instance our scenario is going to break down if the groomsmen don’t know to wait for the bridesmaids or visa versa. As in marriage and life in general good planning and clear communication is a must!

For a DIY wedding, it might be a little more complicated. In our situation, we were not allowed into the facility until 1 hour before start time. That meant that all of the decorations had to be transported that day. We decided that the easiest way to do this was to enlist my bridesmaids to help transport. So, everyone met at my house, fully dressed, we loaded up the cars (well, they did because my friends ROCK!) and we caravanned to the facility. This worked out beautifully, and I highly recommend the caravanning because it cuts down on people getting lost. Because if the person with the table clothes gets lost, there’s not much setting up you can do until they get there!

So, bottom line….

1. Think it though…all the way through to the next day.

2. Make sure everyone is clear on how they are getting from one place to the next and if they are giving anyone a ride. This can easily be included in the wedding day timeline that is distributed to people at the rehearsal or earlier. Also note that this may be something that your planner will do, but again clearly communicate so that there are no surprises.

3. If a big poofy dress is involved, make sure that the bride is transported in a vehicle large enough to accommodate.

I’ll leave you with a funny thought. When planning our transportation, I first thought of my brother driving me to the facility since he was walking me down the isle and designated as the bridal escort. But then I remembered that he has five point racing seats and that probably wasn’t going to work with my dress and veil! Thankfully I remembered in time to make other arrangements. It would have been pretty funny to see me arrive in this!



Have a lovely day everyone! And remember… when planning the transportation, as in life and marriage, good planning and clear communication are key!

Envisioning a Budget Wedding

Is it even possible to have a wedding on a budget these days? Sometimes it feels like a daunting task! According to the Bridal Association of America, the estimated average cost of a wedding in 2009 is going to be over $30K! Whether you are the parent of a bride or groom or a couple paying for the shindig yourself, that can be a daunting number, in this economy or any other!

So, do limited finances mean a bride and groom have to pout, morning the loss of their dream wedding? Well it depends on what your idea of a wedding is. If you are insistant on a white stretch hummer limo and a five course plated dinner, then you might be disappointed. But if you understand that a wedding is a celebration of the bride and groom and the love that they will share for the rest of their lives, and a time for their community to come together and celebrate with them, then it really helps you put things in perspective.

Ok, so you've just gotten engaged... congratulations! Now what?????? For most people the task seems nothing short of overwhelming. Even if you've had a subscription to Brides or Martha Stewart Wedding since you were five, pulling together the biggest party you will ever throw while trying to keep in mind that it's supposed to be about more than just a party can make you want to rethink your fiance's suggestion of being married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas!

But don't worry, there are some things that you can do at the beginning and through the process that will really help you along the way!

First though, a tip: DO NOT buy anything until you have a clear idea of what you want the tone, style, and theme of the wedding to be! You will most likely only be wasting your money on random things that you won't be able to use in the end!

1) Make yourself a cup of tea, grab a blanket, sit back in a cumfy chair, close your eyes, and envision what you want your event to look and feel like. What words come to mind when you think of the wedding? casual, modern, elegant, rustic, glamorous? On a scale of 1 to 10, how formal do you want it to be? Does a theme come to mind? And when I say "theme" I don't mean cowboys and indians or luau! But have you always loved the look of an elegant monogram, what about a cool line drawing of a cool sea shell for a beach wedding. Before settling on anything though, seriously consider putting together what is called an inspiration board. This is basically a collage of different things that, when you look at it, gives you the same feeling that you want your wedding to have.






*click to see sources*

And while we're on sources, you might as well just go ahead and bookmark Snippet & Ink and Style Me Pretty's websites because trust me, you will want to check them out every day if not every few days! In addition, when putting together you board, try to keep track of where your images came from (wish I'd known this when I was putting mine together). It's just good web ettiquet that if you are going to borrow an image that you acknowledge were you got it from so that if another bride likes it she can go to the original source.

Don't feel like you can only make one inspiration board. I've known girls who made one for every element of their wedding, who made one at each major development, and anything else. The first one or two you make might not follow a certain color scheme. Just pull pictures that give you the feel without worrying about it all matching color wise. I suspect though that a color scheme will emerge as you look over your board(s).

An Ode to Ye Ol' Double Stick Tape

Oh double stick tape
your are my friend.

Whenever you run out
I weep and weep and weep.

I often buy you in twos and threes
in order to avoid the scene.

Whether securing layered invites
and banner letters or creating
coordinated vase wraps
you never let me down...
unless I stick you to my jeans and you get all gummied with lint... but ahum... anyway

So today as always
I thank you for all you do.
I really have no idea
what I would do without you.





Alright, alright, it's silly but the sentiment is true. One of the crafting tools I truely could not live without is my trusty double stick tape. Growing up the daughter of a graphic designer whose office was in our spare bedroom, we were introduced early in life. I remember spending hours trying to figure out how they got the sticky on both sides. It was truely one of the wonders of the modern world to this inquisitive 5 year old.

When I started to design the wedding invitations for my wedding, I ordered my pocket folds off this fancy website. They recommeded using a certain type of double stick tape that, of course, they sold. It was freaking expensive but if it would calm the nightmares of my beautifully designed layered pocketfold invitations from sliding into the invitee's lap, I was game. Well, I used it for most of the invitations. It was a pain to use since I hadn't gotten the applicator. Why didn't you get the application, silly head? Because if the tape itself was freaking expensive the applicator fell into the ungodly insane catagory. But I insisted that more expensive must be better. When we ran out just 5 invites short of being finished, I could not bring myself to order another roll. Especially since it was time to get those puppies out the door. So... I resorted to my trusty old scotch double stick tape. And guess what... it was a thousand times easier to use, cost a fraction of the price, and could be picked up in an emergency-ran-out-of-it-at-2 o'clock-in-the-morning run to the grocery store if need be.

Granted I'm not familiar with the archival properties of this tape. So if you're an avid scrap booker and expect your creations to last until the end of time... look into it before you take this advise, but for those of us who are most interested in saving time and money and just having our invitations arrive at their destination in one piece, then don't waste your money on the fancy stuff... because ye ol' scotch tape does a great job.

Since we put together our invitations, I've probably been through 15 rolls. I doubt I've completed a single crafting project without it. If I had a dollar for every time I ask my husband, "Hey do you see the double stick tape?", we'd probably be millionares. But alas, I'll stick with my simple joys of finding my friend, Mr. Scotch Double Stick Tape, on sale at Staples.

For the Love of... Tea Length Wedding Dresses

If I wasn't already married to the love of my life, then I'd be tempted to just marry this dress. I mean, how retro scrumptious! And for this shoe loving girl who often plans her outfits around the shoes she wants to wear, this is a dream come true!

The designer of this beauty is the one and only Stephanie James of Stephanie James Couture and she specializes in superfantabulous.

Admittedly, tea length wedding dress are less than traditional, and it may make your grandmother grasp, but they are growing in popularity. Just a couple of years ago when I was searching for a tea length wedding dress, they were few and far between. David's Bridal had like three and Alfred Angelo had a couple. But just a few years later, tea lenght has rocketed onto the scene. And they're not just for the rock-a-billy crowd anymore.

To see a gorgeous short dress bride, check out Ms. Onion from Weddingbee.com.



So if you love birdcage veils and chucks with tuxes, you can give Carrie Bradshow a run for her money when it comes to shoes, or you channel the spirit of the always elegant Audrey Hepburn, then a tea length dress may be for you.

Happy Tuesday everyone, and I'll leave you with just one more piece of wedding porn from Stephanie James' blog.