Choosing your Birdal Party

The Wedding season is upon us. How do I choose my bridesmaids/maid of honors? Do I go with my sister who I don't get along with or my best friend who knows me inside and out? There is no right or wrong answer here. Here are some tips in choosing your party for your special day:



1. Choose people who are there for you and no fillers.
I made the mistake of trying to match the number of groomsmen my husband had. He had 14 in mind! I was not that popular. So I asked people who were "fillers." I quickly realized that it was becoming expensive for us. In terms of renting limos, flowers for the bridal party, and planning rehearsals was a nightmare. We quickly cut down the list to 11 and then 8. Eight still being a high number, now that I think of it, as a kid my horoscope said 3-5-8 are your lucky numbers. I got married on the 8th month on the 8th day with 8 bridesmaids-kinda cool. I know someone who is getting married and she asked me to be in her wedding. We never hung out, we hardly speak on the phone, and we are not friends. I am that person's filler. People you ask to be in your wedding need to be real friends/family members who love you, will do anything for you, and you will know 20 yrs from now!



2. Choose your Maid of Honor according to who you want.
My sister is our friend's maid of honor. This girl has sisters. Why didn't she ask them? She doesn't have to. She felt my sister would be a better fit. Ask the person you feel is crucial that they be in your wedding party. I had a hard time with this on. I have four people in my life I was contemplating. I ended up choosing both my sister and my best cousin to be the forefront of the wedding party. The priest however, needed only one to sign the book. I let them discuss that one on their own. There are no rules to this. I have even heard of a man being a "bridesmaid."



3. Choose people who will want to participate in all that involves wedding.
I chose people who I genuinely thought wanted the best for me. Most of these women did contribute all their time and money to activities being planned. The one person who never let me down was my sister, the head maid of honor, she was on it like it was her wedding. You will bear disappointments throughout this process. For example, I had a requested meet and greet for the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and only three people showed out of 16.

Does anyone have stories of how they chose their wedding party?

Planning Bachelorette Parties by Maria Perez

This past year I been planning or helping to plan many bachelorette parties. In my opinion they are fun and sometimes outrageous. But it's something that is part of the whole wedding package and stays with the bride forever. So make it count!The steps that I have taken when planning a bachelorette party are as follow:
Step #1- Bride first. Always make sure that you have some idea of what the bride wants (even if it's a surprise). For example, if your bride really dislikes strippers try to stay away from strippers. Also ask her who she wants to invite.
Step #2- Set up a budget. Find out how much the bridesmaids can contribute.
Step #3- Set a date and time that is good for most of the guests.
Step #4- Brainstorm ideas for the party. Make sure you take the bridesmaids' ideas into consideration. Think of places to go, a theme, color scheme, games,and any other ideas to make the night fun.
Step #5- When everyone agrees with the event that will take place make reservations.
Step #6- Plan a method of transportation. For my sister's bachelorette party we rented a pink SUV limo. But if it's not in your budget you should make arrangement to have a designated driver.
Step #7-Always collect the money before the day. Some of the ladies might forget their portion of the money the day of party and you wouldn't want to be stuck.
Step #8- If you picked a theme, dress and act the part. So far I been a mobster, a girl of the Moulin Rouge, and a pin-up girl from the 1940's.
Step #9- Make the night memorable for everyone, especially the bride.

Celebrity David Tutera: Wedding Scammer

Melissa Chin and Steve Choi sued David Tutera, a celebrity wedding planner and star of his own show My Fair Wedding, for getting "cold feet" the day of their wedding. Chin and Choi say they gave Tutera a $100,000 deposit and four round-trip tickets from New York to Singapore and agreed to put him up for six nights at the Shangri-La. Chin's dad claimed that Tutera wanted more money in an already expanded bugdget. The wedding budgeting at 300,000 dollar was Chin's dads limit! Chin's dad said there was no more money and to not board the plane. Tutera did just that. He later got hit with a big fat law suit. He responded by saying that Melissa Chin is a 15 minute fame starved Bridezilla. Their law suit of 200,000 dollars and Tutera's counter-suit was later dropped.
I am sure that was not the first or the last wedding he has done this to. How much longer can he get away with this?

I am in school for Wedding planning and cannot ever imagine doing this to anyone whether it is a 300,000 dollar wedding or 30,000 one! There must always be integrity for your brand. The BRAND BEING YOURSELF AND YOUR BUSINESS, and most importantly your reputation.

Do you have a story about your wedding planner?

Maid of Honor Blues:by Maria

So let me share my wedding blues... I'm the maid of honor of my best friend's wedding. And it's a mix of feelings I'm having now. I'm so happy and honored that she picked me, but at the same time I notice that I really didn't know her family. And it's so strange when you and your sister are basically the only Hispanic people in the place (they are white). It's so different from the other joyful weddings I have participated in recently. In this wedding everything is either black or white. No shades of gray. Either they exclude me from planning or they let me plan it all with no input...The things you do for a friend. Has anyone else ever felt how I do? I got the BLUES!

Scrap Book Memories

I feel that a wedding day is one of the most important days of one's life. I for one am a wedding fanatic. I often joke with my husband how I want to get married all over again, but the truth is this day should only come once in a person's life (for some it may be two, three times). I did several things to keep these sacred memories alive. From my engagement all the way to my wedding day, I took A LOT of pictures! Luckily, when Travis proposed, my sister was there snapping every moment. During my bachelorette, my cousin, Arelis, took pictures throughout the whole night. Check out her photography page, http://solares-ojos-photography.tumblr.com/. For my Bridal Shower, Jeff, Travis' friend, who owns his own modeling agency (http://www.modelmayhem.com/511506) took pictures of everything. I was incredibly lucky to have talented photographer friends.

Today I organized two scrap books with all types of mementos from the wedding preparation, shower, bacherlorette, wedding day, and honeymoon. One is a photo book I organized through WWW.shutterfly.com. In the other one I have everything that is not really pictures like cards, invitations, the save the date, the menu from the wedding day, receipts, etc... Twenty years from now, I want to look back at all these memories and relive the whole thing all over again.

How do you plan on saving your wedding memories?

Wedding Etiquette for Bridesmaids

According to http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/31/pf/saving/willis_tips/index.htm One in 62 Americans will get married this year, and 295 million will be their wedding guests! That is a whole lot of celebration! With all this celebrating comes a lot of work. Bridesmaids be ready for an intense journey!

Rule 1: Bridesmaid should be available

If you agree to be a part of the wedding, that means more than just buying the dress and showing up for the affair. There are bridesmaid duties to be taken care of. With a wedding a bride has to plan the rehearsal dinner and wedding. Now, the bridesmaids need to plan (and most of the time pay for) the bridal shower and bachelorette party.

Rule 2 Maid of Honor has the final say over Bridesmaid

If the bride chose this particular person to be the Maid of Honor then this person is the Head of the bridal committee. Also she must do more work and often put in more money than the rest of the bridal party.

Rule 3 The Bride has the right to send you as many emails or calls/texts as she pleases.

If a bride has been emailing the bridal party, please respond in a timely fashion. If the bride chooses dates for you to make yourself available, please mark it in your planners. This is how we avoid a Bridezilla situation.

Rule 4 CASH MONEY ladies

In my opinion, if you are part of a bridal party you must pay for the following
unless the Bride has directed otherwise: Dress, shoes, accessories, nails, hair, makeup, bridal shower along with a gift from the registry, bachelorette party along with a gift for the bride, and a check the day of the wedding.

Rule 5 Don't be that complainer

There is always the Bridemaid-zilla who thinks it is her wedding or who is jealous of the fact that she isn't getting married. Do not be, I repeat DO NOT BE this girl who complains about every detail from the dress that was chosen to the color of eye shadow the makeup artists will use.

Are you having Bridesmaid drama? I wanna hear about it!