Last time, I reviewed a great chapel on the Las Vegas Strip: The Chapel at Mandalay Bay. Not all of Vegas’s wedding establishments are as elegant as Mandalay Bay, however, so if you are thinking about traveling out to sin city for your nuptials, a little research is pertinent. Don’t stick with the first place you see – the perfect Vegas chapel, like a good Christmas tree, is hardly ever in the first lot.

The Chapel at the Luxor, for example, would not be my first choice for tying the knot in Las Vegas. Here’s why:

Unlike the quiet location of the Mandalay Bay chapel, the Luxor’s chapel is located right next to the food court. The chapel is over the main hotel lobby and directly behind the seasonal hotel attractions. Though the main rooms of the chapel seemed more or less soundproof, don’t expect your entrance to be subtle or private.

I was invited to look around, but no one seemed particularly eager to help. I was told that there were three chapels, but I’m still not sure where the third was. (If you’re doing your own research in Vegas, pay attention to how you’re treated by the staff. If they don’t seem to care that you’re there while you’re looking around, think about the kind of service you’ll receive on your wedding day.)

The decor was also not really what I expected. The main lobby was a little cramped, mainly because of the floral cooler (Unlike Mandalay Bay, which hid their hardware in some other part of the chapel).

I felt like I was in an old, important house – the kind with overstuffed chairs and couches that look like they should be comfortable, but aren’t. Everything looked more French than Egyptian, and what could have been classic and elegant ended up looking and feeling more old-fashioned.

The detailing in the ceiling was pretty, but it disappeared once I entered one of the first chapels. The chapel was nice, but I wasn’t really blown away. The carpet looked very much like the kind you put in a hotel room because it’s easy to vacuum, and the chairs were about as comfortable as benches. I’m sure the chapel looks nice in final wedding pictures, but it felt stuffy and cold while I was there. The two cut-out cubby holes at the front of the room had big cameras in them, and it wasn’t as subtle as it could have been (though the bunches of dusty silk flowers did try to, unsuccessfully, hide them. I hope they’re tucked away better when there’s a ceremony on).

Their packages were about the same in price as the ones at Mandalay Bay, but I never really understood what they included. If you’re doing research for your own wedding, make sure you know what the price pays for. If all you’re getting is an minster and a DVD, consider taking your business somewhere else. There are plenty of options in Vegas for your big day – don’t settle without doing your research!

Plan Ahead for your Bridal Shower Favors

Bridal Shower Favors

A bridal shower is a pre-wedding event often hosted by a bride’s female friends and family. Etiquette dictates that all those who are invited to the bridal shower must also be invited to the wedding, but the guest list is always shorter (sometimes just the closest friends of the bride) and usually entirely female. There’s no rule that says bridal showers can’t be co-ed, but a bride’s shower can be a great time to kick back in an estrogen-fueled environment and talk about girlie things before the big day.

If you’re hosting a bridal shower, it can be a little nerve-wracking – especially if it’s your first time. Bridal showers can become mini events in themselves, and they have many of the components of the actual wedding, including food, centerpieces, and even bridal shower favors.

How can you be sure that the bridal shower favors you’ve selected will be as unique and interesting as the rest of your event?

Well, bridal shower favors have the advantage of not being intended for both genders. Bridal shower favors are more of a female thing, so traditional and universal gifts such as soaps and mini scented candles will always go over well. If you’re in a rush and don’t have much time to plan, these bridal shower favors are a good go-to.

If you have a little more time, and you want to make sure the bridal shower favors you select will be the hit of your event, consider a mani/pedi set, elegant serving dishes (for olives or cheeses), or just purchase unique and flirty packaging for hand-made gifts like chocolate or jewelry as your bridal shower favors.

A bridal shower may be for showering the bride with gifts, but that doesn’t mean your guests have to go home empty handed!

Wedding Bouquet Accessories Highlight your Creative Choices

Wedding Bouquet Accessories

Whether you’re building your own bouquet or looking to improve on your purchased one, wedding bouquet accessories are a stunning addition to all of your floral arrangements. Usually an accessory such as a bird, crystal, flower, or other trinket is suspended on a long, thin wire to make up a wedding bouquet accessory, so they are easy to place and arrange in a tightly-bound floral arrangement. Florists will often mark up wedding bouquet accessories, but if you have an eye for design and style, there’s no reason why you can’t fit them in to your bouquet yourself.

Wedding bouquet accessories that are simple and not so varied in color (such as teardrop or cluster crystals) are great for winter or solid-color bouquets. They won’t distract from the bold floral statement, but will add sparkle to your day.

Wedding bouquet accessories that feature garden-like trinkets (such as hummingbirds, ladybugs, and colored crystals) look wonderful in whimsical and colorful bouquets, especially in the spring.

And don’t discount the other uses for wedding bouquet accessories. To create unity and flow in your reception space, highlight and accent your cake and centerpieces with the same wedding bouquet accessories that adorned your floral arrangements as you walked down the aisle. You can add your own creative touch to every aspect of your day with wedding bouquet accessories!

Say it with Wedding Table Runners

Wedding Table Runners

Personalized wedding table runners are a unique and exciting accent that will compliment any event’s decor. Wedding table runner are already a staple at party rentals, as they add depth and stylistic complexity to your table arrangements, and they’re perfect for tables that are showcasing simple centerpieces. Wedding table runners highlight the centerpieces without distracting from the overall design (and your guests don’t have to move them to see each other). Wedding table runners are a great way to make sure your centerpieces and table designs pop without being overly showy.

The benefit for personalized wedding table runners over traditional wedding table runners is obvious: they offer another way to showcase your monogram on your wedding day. By adding your signature monogram (or names and wedding date), you add unity to the other pieces of wedding decor likely to display your initials as well.

Personalized wedding table runners also make wonderful keepsakes after the big day. If they display your family name, they’ll be a wonderful addition to the homes of your relatives – if they’ll just be personalized with the names of the happy couple, they’ll make a great addition to your dining room table. Personalized wedding table runners can be stored away for anniversaries and special occasions (not to mention for the eventual distribution to progeny), or they can be left out year-round to remind you of your love and commitment.

Getting married in Vegas isn’t what is used to be. Gone are the days of driving down to the slimy end of the strip for a quick “hey-there-what’s-new-you’re-married” with an overweight and geriatric Elvis. The swanky hotels are stepping it up with entire bridal teams and plush in-house chapels, ready to make everything perfect for your big day. “Caesars Palace” offers a beautiful garden ceremony steps away from their grand pool; “Mandalay Bay” has a wedding package that has you reciting your vows under a pod of sharks (standing room only, I’m afraid); and “Treasure Island” lets you kiss the bride on the same pirate ship that’s home to a horde of scantily-clad singing pirate ladies.

So, in short, your choices are a more varied than you might think. I recently took a short trip over to sin city and collected some shaky, blurry pictorials and reviews for your knowledge and benefit. Here’s my review of one of the most highly-rated chapels on the strip: The Wedding Chapel at Mandalay Bay:

The Mandalay Bay Chapel makes a good first impression right of the bat, as it isn’t located right in the heart of the busy hotel. It’s tucked away from the casino and shopping district.

The lobby was welcoming and much bigger than I expected, and the entire building was also sound-proof. The noise from the nearby convention center was completely damped once the doors shut behind us.

There were three chapels to choose from (in the main building – for other options, check out Mandalay Bay’s wedding website), though two of them were nearly identical. The only difference with the third was its slightly larger seating capacity. The chapel seemed to have a preference for calla lilies, but they fit in wonderfully with the soft décor. Whether they were swirled into glass bowls or springing from small planters, it was hard to miss them.

My only complaint with the décor is the beading on the wall lamps. Beads dripped from every surface, and I was not feeling it. Though the translucent beads looked nice and simple when draped against the wall, I was not so happy when I noticed them falling from the lamps. It was a little tacky, but the room itself made up for it. There was plenty of seating, the décor was simple and pretty, and the baby grand in the back added a little something extra.

What really makes the Mandalay Bay Chapel my favorite on the strip, however, has to be their bridal packages. Not only do they offer the basics (photographer, bridal dressing room, simple bouquet), their deals also offer a variety of options that include free spa visits, romantic dinners, honeymoon suites, champagne, mimosas and breakfasts in bed, and even limo rides to retrieve the marriage license. Their prices range from $750 to a little over $18,000 (for the whole shebang, including reception, bar, cake, and wedding planner).

Oh, and if you really want to meet Elvis, they’ve got you covered with the “Viva Las Vegas” package.

Celebrate with Unique Toasting Glasses

Unique Toasting Glasses

The glasses that you and your fiancé will toast with on your wedding day are one of the only keepsakes that you will be almost guaranteed to display in your home throughout your (hopefully never-ending) married life. The glasses are usually a centerpiece on your wedding day (on your sweetheart table or presented adjacent to your cake), and are one of the items you don’t want to just rent from your caterer. Your toasting glasses should reflect who you and your fiancé are as a couple, as they are the symbolic representation of your union. Think about selecting unique toasting glasses for this role – glasses that you’ll be proud to display in your home for years to come.

Toasting glasses aren’t one-size-fits-all. They’re as different and creative as the rest of the special touches you’re adorning your event with. Unique toasting glasses are a great way to fit your décor in with something you’ll be comfortable displaying in your home. Into tabletop gaming and/or Ren Fairs? Select unique toasting glasses made of pewter, adorned with slinking dragons and whimsical fairies.

Are you and your fiancé into art and culture? Find unique toasting glasses made of blown glass or shaped in an appealing aesthetic fashion. Your unique toasting glasses can also reflect your heritage (in fleur de lis or Celtic designs).

When you’re choosing beverage receptacles to reflect your relationship, no unique toasting glasses are the wrong unique toasting glasses.

Wedding Window Clings: The Perfect Touch

Wedding Window Clings

Finding the right accessories to perfectly accent your wedding or pre-wedding parties can be hard to coordinate. There are always candles and flowers, but what unique touch will bring the whole look together?

Consider wedding window clings. Perfect for any pre-wedding event (such as a bachelorette party, shower, or engagement shindig), personalized and customizable wedding window clings attach to most smooth, dry surfaces with a little bit of water, and can be removed safely and easily after the event. Perfect for any space with limited customization, wedding window clings will fit any theme or style you’re set on.

Wedding window clings are also great for at-home parties such as bridal showers, as any window can become a surface ripe for customization. Wedding window clings don’t leave marks or residue, so they’re just right for any host or hostess who’s a little nervous about unintentionally permanent decorations.

Of course, the most popular use for wedding window clings aren’t going to be in the view of your guests for long – think about subbing car paint (which could be potentially hazardous, especially if you’re driving a classic or rented car) for wedding window clings on the back window of your vehicle as you exit your reception. Wedding window clings also look great next to a trail of rattling tin cans as you drive off into the sunset!

Finding the Right Gift: Wedding Handkerchiefs

Wedding Handkerchiefs

 

Sometimes it can be difficult to think of the right gift for a special person in your life during the hectic hustle and bustle of wedding planning. Consider humble wedding handkerchiefs. What words could possibly express your feelings of appreciation and gratitude for your mother, your future husband, future wife, your bridesmaids, and/or the dozens of others who compose your solid support system? It can be near impossible to find something that meaningful, simple, and useful all wrapped up in one gift that won’t break the bank. Ah! What will you do!?!

 

The answer is, of course, wedding handkerchiefs.

 

Wedding handkerchiefs offer a unique gift opportunity as something you can present to someone before the wedding ceremony. They work as a personalized tool for eye-drying and nose-blowing (luckily, they’re washable) during the heart-wrenching ceremony, and wedding handkerchiefs work perfectly as a gift from anyone to anyone (father to bride, groom to mother, bride to bridesmaids). With the miracle of embroidery and personalization, wedding handkerchiefs make a perfect one-size-fits-all gift.

Wedding handkerchiefs become even more special if they are accompanied by a heartfelt poem that expresses the feelings that you have, but might not be able to find the words for. Wedding handkerchiefs are available with or sans poem, but all are meaningful and beautiful. Wedding handkerchiefs are the perfect way to show someone special that their presence is both meaningful and appreciated.

The saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is doubly correct in the world of wedding woes. On the day of your nuptials, many things will be out of your control, but keeping these four common disasters in check is easy if you just do a little pre-planning.

So, what should a frantic bride do if…

You’re Worried About Long Speeches:

The best thing you can do is limit the amount of time set aside of speeches. Tell whoever is giving a speech how much time they should allot for it. During your pre-wedding meeting with the person who will run the show on your big day (probably the DJ), relay that time allotment to them and provide a list of scheduled speakers. To avoid an hour’s worth of mic-passing, have a time at your rehearsal dinner for extended speeches from the rest of the bridal party.

You’re Fearing Drunken Relatives:

If you’re having a heart attack just thinking about your brother getting near an open bar, think about letting your venue know about your concerns. They should be cutting someone off if they don’t look like they can handle any more alcohol, but give them permission to deny anyone who gets a little too rowdy. If you don’t want to single any one guest out, plan to have an open bar only when food is available, and close everything up a few hours before guests leave. If you don’t think any amount of limiting will solve your family’s wine and beer enthusiasm, there’s no harm in a dry reception!

You’re Worried About the Punctuality of Vendors (and Others):

If your main concern is that the caterer won’t show up in time for cocktail hour, or that your perpetually-late fiancé will waltz down the aisle 30 minutes after the music starts, your best bet is communication and a timeline. As for your vendors, ensure the punctual arrival of your flowers and other goodies by keeping lines of communication open up until the day-of. Make sure your caterer is 100% sure of the wedding timeline, and don’t be afraid to go over it more than once. Account for travel time, travel time with traffic, and as many things that could possibly go wrong as possible. Write everything out, including times you want people in places (not just when they have to be there), and make sure everyone gets a copy of the timeline that needs one.

You’re Fearing Family Fights:
To avoid explosive arguments between factions of your social group that seem to be brewing already, your best friend is the seating chart. If you aren’t planning on having a seating chart, make one anyway. You have control over the mood and air of your reception space; use that control while you have it. If your best friend hates his ex-wife, but they’re both a big part of your life, take fate out of the equation and seat them far, far away from one another.

Floating Wedding Candles Offer Chances for Creativity

Floating Wedding Candles

Candles will always have their place at weddings. They’re simple. Subtle, romantic, and they fit in with any and all possible décor. Candles fill empty spaces with warm, glowing light, and compliment (or replace!) any kind of centerpiece.

The most versatile of candles are floating wedding candles. With the addition of a vessel filled with water (or champagne – your wedding budget is your own business), floating wedding candles add a relaxing and beautiful ambiance to your event. They’re especially wonderful for spaces with fountains or other bodies of water (such as small man-made ponds or otherwise unused bird baths), and are very easy to maintain.

Unlike other types of candles on your wedding day, floating wedding candles allow you to really get creative in your designing. Think about adding floating wedding candles to the top of vases that are filled with water and flowers, or lining rows of tables with mixed-and-matched glass containers (such as fish bowls, glasses, and antique vases), all pulled together by the floating wedding candles on top.

Floating wedding candles are perfect for any creative mind looking for a little something different (but definitely elegant and beautiful) on their wedding day.