Your big day is coming quick and you want the perfect place to share the moment with your family and friends. With the right help, you can find a location that is just as unique as you and your fiancé. Take a step away from the traditional and find the place that is right for you. Here are a few unusual venues that will make your day memorable.

Take It Outside

If you are planning your wedding in the warmer months, there are plenty of options in the great outdoors. You and your future spouse can choose golf course wedding venues if you enjoy quality time together on the links. Couples who are children at heart and are inviting only an intimate number of guests can get married in a treehouse, a recently popular choice in location. The same types of brides and grooms may consider something more playful like a zoo or an amusement park to exchange their vows then celebrate with their guests. You can choose a park or garden surrounded by greenery and flowers to hold your ceremony or enjoy the landscape of a beach. Some couples have even gotten away from the land to tie the knot in a boat The only risk that you run if you decide on having an outdoor wedding is if Mother Nature is going to be a cordial guest with sunshine or a party crasher with rain.

Keep It On the Inside

If you are getting married in colder months or do not want to gamble with foul weather, there are several great locales that are inside. A popular choice is to hold your ceremony in a museum and if you are looking for natural greenery you can choose a botanical garden. In most rural areas farmers will now rent their barns to brides who prefer a rustic touch for their wedding and reception. Other couples are finding beauty in older, abandoned buildings where they can put their personal touches on decorations throughout the place. If the guest list is a long one, the bride and groom can choose a place like a theater or a library. If there are not many witnesses invited, they can choose a smaller venue such as a restaurant or a historic building willing to host them. The locations to hold your wedding are endless and half the fun is finding the one that is perfect for you and your special someone.

At your wedding party, you want to dazzle your guests with your menu choices. Pairing the right main dishes, side dishes, and desserts with the right beverages can be an important part of making your reception a night for everyone to remember. As far as food-related stresses go, you don’t want to pair the wrong wine with your food selections. Wines give you the unique opportunity to enhance the flavors of your dishes — if you choose the right ones. By planning ahead, you can create a delicious feast for your guests.

Pay Attention to Intensity

You probably have heard the rules about pairing white wine with fish and red with beef, but those aren’t the only rules. It’s also important that you focus on the intensity of wines and foods. Intensity refers to:

• Sugar
• Salt
• Spice
• Acid

Match Food and Wine Flavors

Once you understand intensities, you can balance your food and beverage menu. It’s important that your wines and foods align with each other in terms of taste and weight. For example:

• Pair rich, complex wines with robust, flavorful foods. By combining hearty choices, both will enhance and neither will overwhelm the other.
• Combine mild wines with delicate-tasting appetizers and main dishes, as they will complement each other.

Pair Regions

Another way to appropriately combine wines with foods is to pair the regions of the world with each other. Ethnic combinations work well together, such as:

• Combine Italian food with wine made from grapes grown in Italy.
• Pair Spanish cuisine with wine bottled in Spain.

Serve Sweet Wines

Sweet wines work well with several categories of food. The sweet taste enhances the flavors of menu items that are:

• Spicy: The sugar in wines can cool down the heat of spicy foods.
• Salty: Just like candy-covered pretzels are delicious, the sweet and salty combination of food and wine can work well together.
• Sweet: Pair your dessert course with sweet wine to enhance the taste of both items.

Sample Ahead of Time

One of the best ways to make sure your wines will go with your menu items is to sample them together ahead of time. To do this:

• Prepare (or have the cook prepare) foods you plan to serve.
• Assemble several wine options.
• Sample the choices by taking a bite of the food and then taking a sip of each wine.
• Keep sampling until you find the combinations that tantalize your taste buds.

Your wedding reception is one of the most memorable parties you will ever throw, so make sure the food and drink you serve lives up to the occasion. By giving thought to these pairings and planning ahead, you can select the perfect choices.

Every bride wants to offer their wedding guests a unique and unforgettable experience, especially when it comes to the food they will enjoy. Summer’s harvest of fresh ingredients creates an astounding array of choices when it comes to planning your wedding reception meal. Consider these catering trends when choosing a menu that is both distinctive and tantalizing.

Fresh and Light

A reception dinner doesn’t have to be heavy to delight your guests. Summer offers many options for dishes that will satisfy without leaving anyone feeling too stuffed to dance into the night. One current trend is lighter, fresher fare from local vendors who produce their offerings with natural methods and minimize use of pesticides and hormones. This reflects a growing nationwide consciousness of “clean eating” that’s not only healthier, but often far more flavorful than conventionally produced alternatives. The salad bar has found its way into many wedding events, allowing guests to combine simple yet sophisticated farm-to-fork ingredients such as pomegranates or Asian pear to salads made from a variety of heirloom lettuces and herbs.

Street Food

Meals infused with food truck flavor are another trendy option. An assortment of themed stations that recreate the street food experience allow caterers to present an enticing wedding meal with visual impact and entertainment value. This option allows guests to interact with chefs who elevate simple fare such as ramen noodles or tacos to gourmet heights. The street food approach is particularly popular for summer weddings as it reflects the season’s fun, free spirit.

Family Style

Parting with tradition doesn’t have to mean ruling out a sit-down meal. Many caterers are offering the option of serving dishes to pass, giving the meal a more communal feel and encouraging guest interaction. Shared dishes create a less formal ambiance without sacrificing elegance or taste.

Dessert Bars

While wedding cake hasn’t necessarily given up its role as a centerpiece of the marriage celebration, many caterers are adding the option of offering guests an assortment of dessert selections from which to choose. Some couples are choosing to present attendees with additional cake alternatives, such as pudding, artisan cookies, fudge, or other handmade confections. A “cake” comprised of an assortment of individual cupcakes in a range of flavors allows guests to choose their favorite and then enhance it with a medley of toppings. Some are opting to eschew cake altogether in favor of dessert buffets or summer classics like make-your-own ice cream sundaes.

When it comes to planning your summer nuptials, drawing outside the lines is often the best approach. Summer weddings offer a host of possibilities for making a striking impression while infusing the event with the season’s fun, laid-back spirit.

Top photo: stylemepretty/Pinterest

This is a sponsored post created in partnership with eAccountable. Incentive was provided and opinions are my own.

If you’re planning a late-summer or fall wedding and still looking for the perfect stationary to set the mood and capture the moment, you’re not going to want to miss the MagnetStreet 4th of July Sale.

MagnetStreet is your Wedding Headquarters, offering a complete line of stationary products in a variety of designs and unlimited color options. When you place your order from now until July 7, the full-service online stationary store will take 25% off your order (use promo code WAFJULY).

As a full-service stationer and industry leader in design and print capabilities, you and your spouse-to-be can easily create high quality, professional stationary to communicate your theme and message in your own unique way.

Here are just some of the wedding stationary products you can find on MagnetStreet:

Save the Dates

• Save the Date Magnets: Large, small, square, heart — they offer a variety of magnet shapes and sizes for each design.
• Save the Date Cards: From size and shape to paper stock, find cards to fit your unique style and budget.
• Save the Date Postcards: Style and convenience! Available in two sizes, postcards are easy to address, stamp, and mail.

Wedding Programs

• Tea-Length Programs: With your ceremony printed on both sides, tea-length programs offer simplicity and elegance.
• Half-Fold Programs: Half-fold programs open like a greeting card, sweetly narrating your nuptials on each side.
• Program Fans: Available in four unique shapes, program fans help guests stay cool during your ceremony.

Wedding Invitations

• Rectangle Invitations: Widely popular, rectangle invites are an easy way to tie your chic wedding look together.
• Shaped Invitations: Add a trendy touch to your wedding with a shaped invite. Unique, modern, and totally fun.
• Pocket Invitations: Keep your enclosures neat and organized inside a pretty pocket fold. Choose from two layouts.

Shop the MagnetStreet 4th of July Sale to save 25% on all of your wedding stationary needs today.

Last week I mentioned in a short post that I got engaged in mid-April. After telling both of our immediate families the night of and the day after it happened, my fiance and I took the news online on Facebook only since both of our personal accounts are pretty much locked down and you have to be friends with us to see anything going on there. I didn’t blog about it, other than those few sentences last week, and I have been reluctant to announce the news on any of my personal social media accounts. It isn’t because I’m not happy or excited, it’s because I very much am both of those things. I am extremely happy about it obviously, otherwise I would have said no and I wouldn’t be engaged, but I guess I didn’t want anything to ruin it or attempt to spoil my excitement; so for the most part, I kept the announcement to a controllable minimum. The blogging world is an open forum of public opinion and I wasn’t ready for people to start forming opinions about something as positive and personal in my life as getting married.

I never really had much public blogging drama here on Woman Tribune, which has been appreciated I assure you, but I know that when I publish something under my name here, it follows me. Before I started putting all of my time and attention into this website, I wrote daily on my personal blog, which predominantly deals with progressive liberal feminist issues. I am a great, big, card-carrying feminist and a lot of my audience, online friends, and people who still follow me and what I’m up to on Twitter and other sites are other great, big, card-carrying feminists. When the topic of marriage is put on the table, there is a lot of support, but you also get a lot of people with question marks spewing out of their mouths. I didn’t want to have to answer questions as to why I am choosing to get married to my partner of six and a half years, or how I’m going to get married, what my plans are, what kind of dress I’m going to wear and if it’s going to be white, what I’m going to do with my last name, and so on. I was reluctant to open myself and my personal life up to this specific topic until I was absolutely ready, and now I am ready.

So hey guys, I’m engaged, and we are very happy about it!

Believe it or not, this whole post started out purely as me wanting to share the story of my marriage proposal, but I went off on a bit of a tangent first. So, moving on…

Life is not made up of grand gestures, and my fiance and I have never really been ones for needing something spectacular for it to be meaningful to us. We both have a deep appreciation for the little things in life, and everyday days that contain intimate moments that make us smile whenever we think about them and that we’ll remember throughout our lives. The way we got engaged reflects that perfectly.

In the early evening of April 12th, I was in bed half asleep. I am known to have an odd, off the wall sleeping schedule, so it was pretty much my early morning, and it was one of those times where you can hear life going on around you–cats jumping up onto the bed and back off, my now-fiance was walking through the room–and you just continue to lay there, refusing to give into the whims of others who want you to wake up. So, I’m laying in bed in all of my defiant ‘I am not waking up and you can’t make me’ glory, and suddenly I am being talked to and asked question after question. This is a surefire way to wake me up, but when I do get up, I am going to be in a bad mood. I cannot stand being half-asleep and being asked questions, it’s a pet peeve of mine. Questions make you feel compelled to answer; as if life will indeed stop turning because you didn’t answer someone’s question, and maybe they really needed to know where something was and now they’re just wandering around the house, unable to find the item that they were looking for, which means they are probably making a mess of things that you will find yourself cleaning up and it’s all your fault and you brought that mess you’re going to resent cleaning up all on yourself. That is what being asked questions while I am trying to sleep does to me.

After I don’t know how many questions, he asks me if I want to get married, all nonchalantly and in the same tone of voice he asked all of his previous questions, and because I am a wildly sarcastic human being, I say, “Sure, let’s go,” and proceed to close my eyes again. This is it for him. The seriousness factor of his question registered at about a 1 of 100 for me, and I was going back to sleep, but he was having none of it. He then starts talking about what a nice day it is outside and that I should look out the window. Then the Summoning My Eyes to the Window Event begins. “It’s a beautiful day, look! Look out the window! Look at how nice it is! Will you just look!?” So I look, and on the window sill right next to my side of the bed is a cup of coffee and an opened jewelry box with a piece of paper at the back of the box that he wrote “Good morning, marry me” on, and sitting in the box is a gorgeous engagement ring.

I don’t know how long I laid there staring at what he had set up. I do know that I had tunnel vision for a little while. All I could see was this box and the note and the ring and I don’t know how long it took for me to reach up and get the box, but when I did, I started laughing, I guess because I had no idea what else to do and my brain doesn’t handle surprises complete and utter shock well. So I laughed, until he said, “You know, people usually give an answer.” After saying yes, I put the ring on my finger, took a drink of my coffee (because hello, morning breath) and kissed him.

He was right, it was a beautiful day.