In honor of my mother’s favorite TV show, Keeping Up Appearances, I have compiled a collection of pretty hyacinth arrangements for brides with not only a sense of humor, but a sense of adventure.

Top row: Arena Flowers, Bella Fiore, unknown source
Bottom row: Polly Yau, Florist Blogs, Jupiter Images

Are you using hyacinths in your floral and decor?  If not, what flowers are you incorporating?

Ask any one of my friends and family what my favorite food is, and they will all answer the same:  CAKE.  I have such a sweet tooth, and my absolute greatest weakness is frosting.  My mouth is watering just typing that word…frosting.  But I digress.  I’m sure it came as a great shock when I decided not to serve a wedding cake at my own wedding.  I love cake, but I’m not sure I love it $1500 worth.  Instead, I’m getting all the frosted gooey goodness with Magnolia cupcakes, without the hassle.

 But, as you may imagine, this was not an entirely easy decision for me.  I still look at pictures of other people’s weddings and pine, lustfully, after their decadent cake creations.  So, I finally broke down.  I’m still going with the cupcake idea, and I’m happy with my decision, but I’m getting the cake lust out of my system with this post.  Below, the most mouth-wateringly beautiful cakes I could find.

Top row: Margaret Braun, Montecito Confections
Bottom row: Sugarcakes, the Knot

When my fiance and I decided to get married, after choosing the venue and engagement ring, we couldn’t wait to start thinking about possible honeymoon locales.  As a law student I have neither the time (nor the cash) to do much traveling, and as the honeymoon would also double as a post-bar trip for me, I wanted to find a great, laid-back place to while away a week or so in August. However, Europe pretty much shuts down for the month of August, and that’s the beginning of hurricane season in the Caribbean and Mexico (not to mention Florida).  So, what’s an August bride to do?  

 Below, the top 10 August non-hurricane, non-Europe honeymoons for August brides.

1.  Bora Bora:  If you can afford it, which we can’t, it could be the closest you ever get to heaven on Earth. 

Image courtesy of Weddings Abroad

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One of my good American-born, but European-loving, friends married a lovely Italian lady last year, and my fiance and I were fortunate to attend their truly beautiful, unpretentious and laid-back affair.  If I take inspiration in my planning from any one event, this one is it. 

Images courtesy of davidarimedia

Do you have a friend or family’s wedding that you find inspirational?

My fiancé and I are getting married in early August, and we have definite priorities when it comes to spending our wedding budget.  Certain things are important - the ceremony and reception locations, getting the right officiant, serving great food; certain things are not – having a DJ or a wedding band, having an elaborate cake, flying in exotic flowers from halfway around the world.  The bottom line:  we want a classy, elegant, fun, easygoing, unpretentious evening that our guests will remember more as a truly outstanding party than as a traditional “wedding.”

That said, we have been searching for inexpensive, but useful, favor ideas.  My mom and I may have just stumbled upon the ideal combination:  simple and elegant flower-topped favor boxes (based on a Martha Stewart tip) that require only simple prep work and, when grouped together on each table, can double as an additional centerpiece.  Anything that gets the job done, and even gives us more bang for our decorating buck, is a welcome find!

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Our three cats really are our best friends, so when we think about which friends and family we want to honor at our wedding, it seems strange to purposely exclude our little guys.  But, unlike the growing trend of canine ring bearers, there’s no meaningful opportunity for felines to contribute.  So let me put it to the readers:  how can we honor our beloved pets at our wedding, without them physically being there?

When I started looking into alternative engagement rings, the most common advice I heard was to substitute my birthstone for diamonds.  As my birthstone is the diamond (as an April baby), I thought this was poor advice.  So I had to take matters into my own hands.  It’s not that I dislike diamonds - in fact, the Jessica Fields sapphire ring I’m wearing now on my left hand has diamonds encircling the ring.  It’s just that I think other gemstones are so much more interesting.  So, using my gorgeous bauble as my inspiration, I have compiled some of the most gorgeous non-diamond-solitaire rings out there.

Clockwise from top left: Diamond dot com, Jewels For Me, Ice dot com, The Clay Pot, Topazery, Macy’s, Jewelry Central

So what’s your position?  Are diamonds a girl’s best friend or do you wear an alternative e-ring?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about tradition.  At every turn in the wedding planning process, I find a friend or relative completely aghast at my choice not to wear a veil, not to throw a bouquet, not to have a first dance, not to have a cake-cutting.  To me, certain traditions are very important:  the ceremony itself, the ceremony music, having a wedding in the first place.  Beyond that, however, I want people to have fun, and I’ve designed my wedding to be unstructured, unstuffy, and anything but a rote continuation of tradition for tradition’s sake.  And as far as I’m aware, my wedding will still be legal and valid no matter what I am, or am not, wearing on my head.  However, many people seem to have very strong feelings to the contrary.

I’m hoping this blog post will turn into more of an informal poll:   What makes a wedding fun?  Are you disappointed to find out that a certain bride and groom have elected to omit certain “traditional” elements?  What are the must-have, can’t-live-without wedding elements?  Please discuss in the comments below.

Although the title of this post makes me feel a little like I’m writing a middle school essay, I was intrigued by the recent thread on the many ways a wedding can be “green.” Though green is not a prominent color in my wedding palate, my wedding seems to be “green” on at least five levels:

1. We are getting married in roughly our own beloved neighborhood.

2. We are getting married in Central Park, surrounded by the only real pocket of nature on the island of Manhattan.

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