2009 Brides...

The Dress:
The hip, new trend for the 2009 brides are the “short, sleek, mini wedding dress” – a dress with a shorter hem line to let you bet a bit more modern and show off your super cute shoes for the spring. This kind of dress might be a excellent fit for your wedding if it’s a bit more on the casual side – like a wedding outdoors at Shelter Island or if you’re going to be digging your toes near the sand on Coronado.

Green & Earth Friendly:
A continuing trend is the move away from the mass produced and artificial next year by focusing on more earth friendly products and accessories. Look for organic and natural materials to be making its way into weddings. Also look for accessories that can be reused after the wedding is over, such as headpieces that can be restrung and made into other pieces, such as necklaces, bracelets or earrings, which can be re-worn and handed down to the next generation.

The Food:
For your cocktail hour, the continuing trend is to serve up mini foods. The little finger foods are delightful for your guests and will make your wedding hip and fun. For the dinner, think organic, all natural foods as well as locally grown produce that is in season for 2009.

Colors:
Forecasts are predicting blues and grays for the upcoming season. If you go with the color report that Pantone is going for, the colors are a bit softer for Spring 2009 – with lavender, slate gray, and palace blue rounding out the pack. These colors may help you pick out the colors for your 2009 wedding if you want to be trendy, but remember that this is your wedding and the colors can be whatever flatters you the most!

Pantone Fashion Color Report

Champagne/Sparking Wine 101...

What is it?:
Champagnes are only produced in the Champagne region of France and are the only producers who are allowed to call their products “Champagnes” – all other fizzy wines are called “Sparking Wine” if they are produced elsewhere in the world. Sparkling wine is just as good as champagne, so remember it’s all about the taste and how it will fit into your ceremony.

How to choose one:
Try and sample some champagne before picking one out. If you don’t like the taste of it, then why have it at your reception? Try going to a local wine tasting and see if they have any sparkling wines or champagnes to try – or go just to seek the advice from those in the know if you’re unsure of how to pick out a bubbly for your wedding.

Budget suggestions:
Switch to Cava, which is the Spanish version of champagne and is a good alternative to French champagne. It’s a better value for the money and is generally more inexpensive. Most guests may not drink it since most will prefer beer or wine, so be sure your servers ask your guests if they would like champagne before automatically handing it out to every guest. This may save you from buying too many bottles if you don’t just shove a glass into everyone’s hand.

New Year... Inspiration Board!

Whether you’re getting married in 2009, 2010, or even 2011 (long engagement!), an inspiration board can benefit you by having a place to store all of your ideas for your wedding. There’s a couple of ways you can organize your inspiration board, and here’s how:

The Tangible Inspiration Board:
When browsing wedding magazines, cut out and clip the ideas, items, colors and styles that you love (a pair of shoes for your bridesmaids, a cute favor idea, flowers in a color you love, a pattern or other accessory that you’re not sure would fit, but you like anyway) and put them together in a file folder. When you get down to envisioning the whole wedding, pulls out your clipped ideas onto a board and pin them together. Having the visuals together in a collage will help you to see the wedding as a whole and inspire you to find similar items.

The Online Inspiration Board:
Use Polyvore to mix and match images from all over the web to create an online collage for your wedding inspirations. You can use their Clipper tool that installs in your web browser that will allow you to add brookmarklets so you can import new items into Polyvore. It’s the ultimate drag and drop collage tool, bound to help you shift through the hundreds of images and trends  you see all of the time to pinpoint exactly what you want for your wedding.