Every time I think of the stress that accompanies finding the perfect wedding invitations and making sure they show up on time and without error, I think of an episode of Gilmore Girls. Granted, I can very well compare most of life’s events to an episode of Gilmore Girls because I am one of those obnoxious fan types, but bear with me here. In this particular episode, Sookie’s wedding invitations arrive at the inn she works at with Lorelai. When Lorelai brings them into the kitchen, Sookie immediately begins to rip open the box, eager to see them while excitedly telling Lorelai how they are pearly white with a beautiful lavender stripe and how she is going to love them. When she sees them, however, her name is misspelled, so it reads that “Susie St. James” is getting married. Sookie’s immediate reaction is to declare “I’m gonna choke somebody by the neck until brains ooze out of their ears.” When she calls the company’s customer service line, she goes completely ballistic, saying “How dare you do this to me! You’re ruining my wedding! It’s the most important day of my life! It’s my life, it’s not Susie St. James, are you listening to me?”

Yeah, that is a whole lot of stress and something no one wants to have to go through, especially when there is practically no time in between the time your wedding invitations arrive and when they need to be sent out to guests.

Avoiding a spelling error is just one of the benefits I see in personalizing your own wedding stationery online. Another great benefit of the right online retailer is the variety. Not everyone is looking for the standard, conventional wedding invitation that can be seen featured by traditional wedding supply retailers, so the fact that online retailers have a mix of classy and contemporary, out-of-the-box styles is only a good thing. Of course, finding the right online retailer can be a challenge.

Hello!Lucky has an awesome selection of unique and memorable cards and stationary for all occasions, especially for weddings, and include save-the-date cards and invitations to your big day. They also carry RSVP cards, place cards for your tables, menu cards, and more.

What I was really happy to see on their website is that Hello!Lucky offers 3 free samples of their invitations. Buying anything online also comes with a certain bargain, one that no bride-to-be is willing to make when it comes to the specifics of her wedding day. You want to know exactly what you are getting, and the fact that you can receive 3 separate samples of stationary to ensure the quality meets your standards is really great.

All of Hello!Lucky’s cards and invitations are customizable, but it’s often difficult to know how to start. For this reason, Hello!Lucky also has a wide range of wedding invitation wording examples regardless of how formal or informal your event is. You can use these examples on your invitations or simply use them as a jumping off point and inspiration for your own words.

If you’re looking for wedding stationary or even greeting cards, birth announcements, birthday cards, thank you cards, or more, check out Hello!Lucky and don’t forget to come back here and tell us what your favorite designs are!

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Can you imagine anything more disheartening than spending the first week of your life as a Mrs. stuck inside of your hotel room because of bad weather? Yes, many brides-to-be get excited about planning their honeymoons and put careful thought into every painstaking detail…except the weather.

This is not to say that you have any control over Mother Nature. But there is a little thing called the Internet that will help you to do some preemptive planning to choose a honeymoon locale that is likely to be beautiful the month that you get married. Don’t forget to do your homework and check out the average weather conditions before traveling on your honeymoon!

A vacation destination’s busy season is normally the time of the year that the area has the best weather. It only makes sense! Some locations like the Caribbean and Hawaii don’t have dramatic weather changes throughout the year, making it easier to visit these locales throughout all of the seasons besides just the summer months.

You can check out the weather details about a specific destination online or even call the country’s tourism board to confirm. Make sure to check the weather forecast before traveling, just in case a tropical storm is set to hit the day you arrive.

You can also use the helpful guide below to find exotic honeymoon locations that normally have great weather in the following months:

• January through March: In winter and early spring, it’s best to visit the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada (for skiing), the Caribbean, New Zealand, the Florida Keys, and Hawaii.
• April through June: In late spring and early summer, check out the Bahamas, Canada, the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Hawaii, Thailand, and even South Africa.
• July through September: As the summer wraps up, this is perhaps the most popular season for taking a honeymoon. Most of the world is your oyster, but check out popular destinations like Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Central Africa, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Thailand, and the US.
• October through December: This is an excellent time of year to check out the US and Canada for skiing, the Caribbean, Mexico, New Zealand, and the Florida Keys.

By doing your homework before jet setting off to your honeymoon, you can ensure that you enjoy every moment of your new marital bliss to the fullest. That doesn’t mean that you can’t visit other locations outside of the guidelines above, but make sure that you are vacationing in a country where the weather conditions match the style of honeymoon that you have booked.

If you want to go skiing, check that there is ample snowfall in advance. If you want to sip margaritas and lay on the beach all day long, then look for a country with warm weather and sunshine for most of the year.

Photo by IDEE_PER_VIAGGIARE

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If you’re attending a wedding, do you want to even attempt the often-futile process of getting the bride and groom something they both will love? Do you want to keep track of exactly what has been bought for the soon-to-be married couple and plan your purchasing around this information? Do you want to have to find your receipt so the newly married couple can return the gift you so carefully chose?

Each of these questions have the very same answer: No, of course not. That’s why gift card registries are gradually stealing the spotlight from traditional registries.

But how do these new-age registries work anyway?

Well, here’s a step-by-step from the engaged couple’s perspective.

• Pick your favorite stores
• Press save
• Inform your guest list

That’s all there is to it. There’s no inventory of desired gifts and, perhaps most importantly, no endlessly answering questions about what you want. If you’re the gift giver, it’s just as simple. All you must do is log onto the recipient’s wish list, pick a store and a denomination for your gift card, and fill out some information in regards to billing and shipping. You might even be fortunate enough to find their desired gift card on sale at a gift card exchange.

A gift card registry doesn’t narrow the scope of the gift you can receive either. By setting one up, you’re not simply resigning yourself to a bunch of Barnes & Noble or iTunes gift cards. Rather, the breadth of available options is essentially as wide as the selection of stores one could visit in person. The options really do run the gamut from a Macy’s Gift Card to a Southwest Airlines Gift Card to your local furniture store’s gift card.

Sure, that seems easy enough, but what are the real benefits of using a gift card registry?

A gift card registry has a few clear perks, including:

• No duplicate gifts
• No unwanted gifts
• No returns

What might not be so obvious is the fact that a gift card registry actually fosters the giving of better gifts. This is because gift cards don’t necessitate shipping costs or wrapping paper, which means gift givers can use the entirety of their budgets on the actual presents and not logistics.

Gift cards can also be used together to buy much needed big-ticket items–like furniture or appliances for a new home–that would be somewhat inappropriate to request as part of a traditional registry. This could even help the newly married with some of their most pressing needs–like accommodations for a honeymoon.

Ultimately, it therefore seems there’s no real reason not to use a gift card registry for any upcoming wedding you might be involved with, either as a participant or a guest. And if you’re not yet on board, you better hop on quickly, considering 30% of all annual wedding occur during the summer, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Photo by julian wylegly

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It is likely at least one partner will enter the marriage with significant debt. The average credit card debt per borrower is $4,679 according to TransUnion. The average debt of student loans and financial aid for graduating seniors ranges from $20,000 to 25,000. These debts can cause significant stress on a couple before they even get to the rehearsal dinner.

The best way to avoid financial stress is to reveal these debts early in the marriage planning. It’s not romantic and may be difficult, but it’s not fair for your spouse to learn about these when the bills come in.

Getting married does not automatically make you responsible for debts incurred by your spouse before the marriage. Your partner’s debt will not show up on your credit history as long as you aren’t added to the accounts. However, the debt will still affect you when it comes to income and there is a lot less money to pay for other bills, to save, or to spend in ways that are much more enjoyable than debt payments.

Financial Tips for Newlyweds

• Before you get married, know how your future spouse will treat money. Don’t assume your spouse shares your beliefs about money–the spending and saving habits may surprise you. A free spender before marriage will probably be a free spender after marriage. Ask about their regular indulgences.
• Before the wedding, reveal everything in your financial closet. Be honest about your income, debts, and money problems. Bring out your bank statements from the past twelve months to show what you did with your money. Explain your strengths and weaknesses with money. Admit if you are a spender or a saver.
• Each of you should get a copy of your credit reports from the three credit bureaus. This will give you a clear picture of credit accounts, debts, and how creditors will judge you. Aim to get your scores over 750 to receive the lowest interest rates for your first mortgage and other loans.
• If your partner has been married before, find out about their financial obligations to the ex-spouse and children.
• Have a wedding and honeymoon that you can afford. Do not start a life together charging thousands of dollars in wedding and honeymoon expenses to your credit card if you can’t pay it off within a year.
• Avoid credit card debt. The best rule of thumb is simply, “if you can’t pay for something with cash, you can’t afford it.”
• If you have a credit card balance, pay as much as you can above the minimum each month. If you receive gift money, a bonus, a second job or a tax refund, use this to pay off your debt. You can even make micropayments multiple times during the month to pay off your balance faster. Eat a meal at home and immediately apply the money you saved to your credit card balance.
• Before the first bills come in, decide who will pay the bills and when this will take place. If you have separate accounts, know which account pays each bill. Also notify creditors of your name change and new address.
• Reduce your debt-to-credit limit ratio. This will help improve your credit score. Your monthly debt, including your mortgage, should not exceed 35% of your gross income.
• Each spouse should have a credit card in his or her own name to build an individual credit score. Keep that card for a long time. Use the card for several purchases each month and pay the bill in full immediately. Building a long term payment history with one or two credit cards is an important factor in your credit score.

Good Credit Cards for Newlyweds

• Citi Platinum Select has 0% for 21 months on purchases an balance transfers. This is a good introductory offer that can help you pay down balances on higher rate credit cards as well as providing an interest-free loan for 21 months. Make sure you can pay off the entire balance by the expiration date.
• Chase Freedom Visa has a relatively low APR–9.99%–and some attractive cash back rewards. Receive a $50 cash back after your first purchase. Then earn 5% cash back each quarter in rotating categories, like gas, restaurants, home improvements, and department stores; and 1% per $1 on all other purchases.
• Capital One Venture Rewards gives miles that can be redeemed for travel, hotels or gift cards. It offers a generous 2 miles per $1 on every purchase. The $59 annual fee is waived the first year.

Photo by badwine

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But perhaps even before your mind is swept up into obsessing over the perfect bridal gown, flower bouquets and table settings, the very beginning of your wedding planning thoughts focus on the engagement, naturally. That pivotal moment in your life when your significant other, and hopefully your future-spouse, pops that age-old question. A lot of women have a whole lot of different expectations of what they hope their engagement is like, much like the thoughts they have about what they hope their actual wedding ceremony and life in marriage bliss will be like and for most of those women, this includes the traditional diamond engagement ring.

The history of engagement rings is a truly fascinating one and originally, in the 1400′s, were exchanged between a man and a woman in the form of plain metal bands–gold for royalty, silver for nobility, bronze for the upper and middle (merchant) class and iron for peasants. Diamond engagement rings, while seen as a hat tip to tradition, were not implemented into our society until just a little over sixty years ago.

If one thing is for certain, it is that not having a diamond engagement ring can feel downright wrong and the tradition of diamond engagement rings, while more recent than most may think, is still going strong.

A lot of very careful and often time-consuming effort is put into searching for diamond rings. There is so much to take into consideration and since your future-fiance and spouse will be wearing this ring on her finger for the rest of her life, or for the rest of your marriage, adds to the extreme pressure one very often feels when going from jeweler to jeweler.

The internet can really come to the rescue in this situation. While finding the perfect engagement ring online is far more simpler than driving all over town looking for that perfect ring to be sitting, undiscovered, in a jewelry store you can only hope you find, keep in mind that you will not have the knowledge and expertise of a jeweler on-hand to answer your burning questions about each ring you’re interested in. So it’s important to know what you will need when choosing that perfect ring.

The most important, and what will be the driving force behind your purchase, is what is known as the “four c’s”, ideal carat, clarity, color and cut. So ensure that you are the most informed you can be on the subject, speak to a jeweler or few before you make a binding purchase just to get any additional questions you have answered by someone you can trust and don’t forget to thoroughly read through any disclaimers and return or exchange policies.

Photo by Jessica’s Style Hub

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According to the BBC, the weddings people have in mind for themselves have become these elaborate, dream weddings some have thought of since they were young children and these weddings involve a lot of planning. From the lengthy list of deposits, booking the perfect venue sometimes years in advance, getting a photographer, a band, a florist, an officiator, making everyone in your family happy whether they want a hand in planning your day, putting them in a place where they will be happy in your wedding, or even trying to make everyone happy with who they’re sitting with at the reception. It’s a lot of footwork and yes, it can definitely get a little overwhelming. I think that last bit of my list there is where the problem for a lot of couples who are soon to be married starts. Rather than a wedding being what the bride and the groom plan for it be together, the our mindset when it comes to weddings has really turned into a game of how to make everyone happy when perhaps who you should be worrying about more are the people who are actually getting married.

While there are a lot of people who have these extravagant weddings in mind, we should also remember that these people do not make up the entire population. There are quite a lot of people who have dreamed of very small, intimate gatherings and it isn’t because of a lack of money or the headaches that could stem from planning a bigger affair, it’s because that is what they truly want. So then we have to ask ourselves, what’s the real reason why so many people are either holding off on getting married or do not wish to get married in the first place? Is it money, our hectic lives and schedules, or are there just more people now than ever before who simply don’t want to get married?

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The two said “iDo” in an Apple store at New York’s Fifth Avenue Apple store. The ceremony referenced Steve Jobs, the ring bearer was a first generation iPod and the priest who officiated the ceremony was dressed as Steve Jobs.

While this may just seem like two geeks who fell in love and because of their epic fandom, chose to have their wedding at an Apple store, but the location actually bears a great deal of meaning to the couple, since it was where they met. Ting was looking to buy an iPod and Josh struck up a conversation with her and the rest was history. Josh also accounts that he used to joke that the Apple store was his church because he is not religious and obviously, loves everything Apple, so it was only natural for the couple to tie the knot at a location that was very much important to them both.

Check out video of the couple’s wedding:

I absolutely love that this couple was able to have their wedding in a setting that they felt passionate for, but check out all of those people taking obsessive amounts of pictures! I know I would personally opt for a more intimate setting where I didn’t feel like I had a flock of paparazzi after me trying to get as many pictures of me as possible. While there are definitely some people out there who do crave that celebrity treatment, when it comes to your wedding, I would personally keep it a bit more private.

Have you or would you ever want to have a fan-based wedding?

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The classic bridesmaid gift is something that she can wear on the day of the wedding and enjoy after the event. Make sure you enclose a personal note to each one telling them how much it means to you to have them involved in your special day.

After the dress is hung in the closet and the shoes packed away, you want them to have a gift they can use for years to come. Anything monogrammed is nice, but will need to be ordered well in advance. Themed gifts are cute for destination weddings, but long term may not be practical. Combination gifts are popular this year. A make-up bag filled with lip gloss and perfume, a pocket mirror inside a chic evening bag or cozy slippers and a bathrobe definitely show you took extra time to plan a memorable gift.

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Wedding websites are the new reference point for the bride and groom and also for their attendees and wedding party. The websites that couples can make range from simple to complex and can be used purely for getting the word out to your friends, family and colleagues along with your online friends and everyone else in the world or for just about everything that goes into planning a wedding complete with interactive sections for your bridal party to participate in.

There are many websites out there that cater specifically to couples who wish to build their own wedding site. If you are not HTML savvy, there are some very chic and elegant templates to choose from on Wed Simple and My Wedding; both sites are set up to be as simple or as complex as you’d like.

Through a wedding site you and your husband or wife-to-be set up, you can not only keep track of your guestbook and contact information, driving directions, menus, little notes that remind you of upcoming appointment, photo galleries of the whole process from the proposal to the honeymoon, an extensive online gift registry and also a personal blog for the two of you to get frustrations out, think out loud and so on.

If you are HTML savvy yourself you do not have to go through a pre-made wedding website company. You can simply buy your own domain through GoDaddy ($10) or NameNova ($7 and also the domain purchasing website I have used for about 2 years now) After you get your domain name all you need is the hosting, which I cannot recommend BlueHost enough; I have used them for years now and have never had a problem with them.

Wedding websites are your complete wedding planning tool so do you think now is a good time for you to throw away that overflowing binder and myriad of Post-It notes in various colors to keep track of your schedule? Yeah, me too.

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Click the thumbnails for larger picture.

Even if you’re celebrating your wedding on the beach, on a tropical island or if your wedding happens to be beach or island themed, there is no excuse for a couple to be making out on top of your wedding cake and especially not for $56.95.

This wedding cake topper screams “Hooray, it’s a wedding! But wait! First, I have to finish my shift at the strip club.” While I think that custom-made cake toppers are an amazing thing that I think more couples will be attracted to, but perhaps reserve the stripper decoration for the bachelor party.

There’s cute and humorous and then there’s poking fun at the female gender, which I could really do without. All I get from this cake topper is the idea of a bunch of men sitting around a card table complaining about their wives and how they are always shopping–And I could use a little less of that.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find the romanticism in a cake topper where the bride and groom are atop a tractor. The song ‘She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy’ pops into my head and I can’t help but start to giggle. Not only that, but I can also picture cows; lots and lots of cows.

There’s nothing like inviting your wedding guests into your wedding bed. After seeing the cake, your guests are going to be thinking about nothing but honeymoons, wedding lingerie and sex. On second thought, perhaps that isn’t a completely bad thing–Your honeymoon should most definitely be exciting, why not give your guests the same luxury?

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Women have a tendency to over think pretty much everything regarding their wedding day; the term “bridezilla” didn’t come out of the sky, you know, and setting up your wedding registry is no different. There are some simple things you can do, however, to make the process of setting up your wedding registry.

First of all, start with the room you get the most excited about when you think about getting shiny, new things for it. If it’s your bedroom, go to the bedroom and take a look around. Take note of what you already have (and like) and think about what you’ve been wanting to add to the room that you haven’t already. If you have some items, like myself, that maybe your parents or your soon-to-be spouse’s parent’s handed down to you, would you like to update them? If so, in what colors or styles? Make a list of items you need as well as what you would like–It’s okay to be a little frivolous; in fact, it’s expected.

After you’ve finished with the room that you get the most excited about, move through the house in the order of what rooms give you that warm and fuzzy feeling and rooms that you would love some new gadgets for. However, it is also expected that you will forget some items that you’ll be kicking yourself later for not adding to your registry, so to help out with setting up your wedding registry, I Do Sugar, part of the Sugar blog network, has made a very convenient wedding registry [PDF] containing items that one can most often easily forget about to make sure that doesn’t happen to you!

You can download the file here; I can’t even imagine the number of sanities this file is going to save when it comes to wedding registry planning!

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