Wedding Cakes

The World of Wedding Cakes

The world of wedding cakes is a maze. Recently, there are so many options thanks to the development of more flexible icing. In the past, wedding cakes tended to follow a particular formula as royal icing was the only option available to modern brides. In the 1980’s, malleable soft icing was invented and so the creations became unique.

I haven’t blogged about wedding cakes before because I’m on a budget with my wedding, and certain elements of the wedding had to be limited. I chose the cake to save costs.  With so many guests we would have to have a large cake but I wanted it to be as simple as possible to save money.

My little brother has bought a cake topper for my fiancé and I, as our wedding present, and this was what I wanted to add to the cake to make it a little bit wow.

When Choosing Your Cake

• Before you do anything else, set up a budget for your cake. Once you know how much money you can afford to spend on your cake you will have a better idea of the type of cake you will be able to have. The average spend for a three tier cake at the moment is from between £300 - £450. If you have less decoration on the cake then it is a bit cheaper, around £150 - £200.
• Make a decision: do you want full size cakes or cupcakes? Or a mixture of both?
• Have a look in magazines and on the internet to find cakes that you like. The more complicated the cake, the more expensive it will be. Make a collection of different cakes that you like because your cake could be unique to you.
• Go to wedding fayres and taste the cake that’s there. It’s surprising how different the same flavour of cake can taste. It’s important to choose a cake that you feel tastes nice.
• Think about the flavours you want. Chocolate, vanilla, white chocolate, lemon, carrot. You could even have your wedding cake made out of cheese! Vanilla sponge is the cheapest flavour to have, the more flavours you have in your cake the more expensive it will be.

Think About Decoration

There are many ways to decorate your cake: flowers, icing, cake toppers, ribbon. When looking through the pictures either in magazines or through Google, choose your favourite decoration.

Which ever cake you choose, ensure that it’s going to be within your budget and it’s decorated to your taste. Try to choose colours that are in your wedding for your cake so that it all matches.

Good luck!

Chair Covers

Things You Should Know About Chair Covers

An often over looked element of a wedding, chair covers can really transform a venue and add a bit of sophistication to your over all look.

Chair covers are an easy and affordable way to jazz up your wedding venue. They work well for a civil ceremony and for your wedding breakfast.

Chair covers are surprisingly affordable. From cheap deals on the internet to local competition, the average price of chair covers, per chair including sash, is around £2.50, as of May 2011.

Venues often have unattractive chairs as they are used to brides and grooms wanting chair covers. Even if they aren’t a bit worn, the gold and red chairs most venues use are not the best. Chair covers will hide ugly chairs.

The chairs are often on of the first things in your reception room that your guests will look at. They will be trying to find your seat and will be walking through a sea of chairs. The chair covers add to the elegant look of the room and compliment your wedding style.

Once you’ve accessorised your room with chair covers and sashes, the room will look complete. You almost won’t need to add any extras, except centre pieces, to decorate your room.

Different Types of Chair Cover

It’s not as simple as you think! There are different types of chair cover, although only 2 main types. My mother suggested I should get the chair covers that match my dress!

Loose Drop Covers
	These are the most popular and most readily available chair covers out there. They hang loose over the chair, as the name suggests. They are durable, easy to put on and look fantastic. Most brides have these chair covers with a sash around the back rest and that just adds a fantastic accent to the room.
Spandex Chair Covers
	Also available in cotton as well as satin, spandex chair covers are tighter and sleeker than the loose ones. They also look best with a sash to add an accent to the room. They slip under the chair so that the seats don’t scratch the floor, ideal if you’re in a listed building.

Both of these chair covers look lovely, but they both really need a sash to really complete the look.

Top Tips

My top tips for chair covers is that the cover colour should match the colour of your table cloths, and the sashes match the colour of your wedding.

If you’re on a budget and want to put the chair covers on yourself, allow roughly

• 1hour with 3-4 people helping you for 100 covers/sashes
• 1.5 hours with 3-4 people helping you 150 covers/sashes
• 2 hours with 3-4 people helping you for 200 covers/sashes

Also, keep it simple. Lots of colours overload the scene, the more simple it looks the bigger the effect will be. White or ivory looks best as a chair cover with a coloured, or white or black, sash as an accent.

Chinese Wedding Traditions

Your Questions Answered:

Another question asked in Google to find my blog was about Chinese wedding traditions.

I have only been to six Chinese weddings so I am not the expert, however I do know some of the traditions and their basis in culture.

The Proposal

The proposal was deep routed in tradition however these days many Chinese proposals are similar to Western ones. A few of my friends weren’t as much proposed to as they simply decided to get married.

Originally, a proposal was made by means of a go between or ‘match maker’. The process was dealt with between the two sets of parents and sometimes with the bride and groom.

The groom’s parents would identify a girl they decided was appropriate for their son and would, via the match maker; send gifts and fine foods to announce their intentions. If these intentions were reciprocated then an arrangement would be made. Marriage was for continuing the ancestral line, in the olden days, and arrangements were sorted out accordingly.

My mother-in-law and the farther of my sister-in-law’s now husband, had a ceremony that involved the groom’s father offering fruit and buckets and lucky money in exchange for the hand of the bride-to-be. All these items symbolised wealth, fertility and prosperity in the marriage. They are from Hong Kong and I think that each region of China (which is a fairly large country) have their own specific traditions.

The Day Before the Wedding

Brides would retreat into seclusion with their female family members and friends. The girls would sing sad songs about how they hated the match maker, the groom and his family and even the bride’s parents for sending her away.

The groom’s family would prepare the bridal bed. The bridal bed would have special red bed linen. They promote fertility and a happy marriage. I’ve seen them in my friends’ hotel rooms before, and although it is the groom’s family who arrange this, the hotel room was the bride’s so her family set it up.

The bride’s mother, or a special woman, will comb the bride’s hair the night before the wedding. She must brush the hair a certain number of times saying good luck sayings, or auspicious words, with each stroke of the comb. I remember when my fiancé's mum brushed my fiancé's sister’s hair, his mum was so touched to be passing on this tradition to her daughter. They did this in private but it was discussed before hand.

The Groom Goes to Get his Bride

The bride waits at her home, or hotel room, or where ever she chooses in modern times, for her groom to approach. At the weddings I attended, the groom arrived at the bride’s lodgings with his grooms men in tow and had to pay to enter. The money he gave was lucky for the bridesmaids. The number 9 is significant, and the money given can vary from HK$99.99 to HK$9,999.00. The four 9’s is significant.

Once he’s entered into the lodgings, he has to complete certain trails to encourage the bride to come out to meet him. In modern times, the games I’ve witnessed are drinking bitter tea, choosing lucky mahjong tiles from a bucket of ice, limbo-ing under hot chilly limbo lines and eating a hot chilly, dressing in women’s clothing, performing sexual yoga positions on male friends, singing songs with altered lyrics, signing a joke wedding contract and many more.

In more traditional times, drums and loud gongs marked the start of the procession from the groom’s home to the bride’s. A child led the procession as a symbol of future fertility. The procession also included dancing lions, musicians, and attendants carrying lanterns and banners. The bride’s family wouldn’t allow the groom to enter the home until he had satisfied them with lucky money.

The Tea Ceremony

The tea ceremony varies slightly from region to region. Sometimes the groom actually has a small meal with the bride’s parents, but in the weddings I saw, there were tea ceremonies. I even acted as dai cum jeh at one of my friend’s weddings.

The bride’s parents sit on chairs while the bride and the groom kneel in front of them, as the bride and groom are usually lower in rank than the parents. The dai cum jeh hands the bride and groom cups of tea which they in turn offer to the bride’s parents. The dai cum jeh then says some auspicious words while the parents drink the tea, blessings of fertility, wealth, happiness and prosperity for bride, groom and parents. The parents in return offer the bride and groom lucky money or jewellery.

Hong Kong Chinese brides often wear a golden pig necklace with piglets hanging off the sow as a symbol of fertility.

Bride’s Journey to the Groom’s House

The bride then goes to the groom’s house and the tea ceremony happens again but this time with the groom’s family.

One of the dai cum jeh’s duties is to hold a parasol over the bride as she proceeds to the groom’s house. Often, in the olden days, the bride would travel in a sedan chair. These days she will go by chauffeured car.

In the olden days, luck was very important in a Chinese wedding. ‘Great care was taken to ensure that no inauspicious influence would affect the marriage. The female attendants who escorted the bride to her new home were chosen with particular care that the horoscope animals of their birth years were compatible with that of the bridegroom. The sedan chair itself was heavily curtained to prevent the bride from inadvertently glimpsing an unlucky sight, e.g. a widow, a well, or even a cat. Attendants scattered grain or beans, symbols of fertility, before her.’ (chcp.com, May 2011)

Wedding Banquets

In my experience, the wedding banquet takes place in the evening of the wedding day. Many people are invited to ‘give face’ or kudos to the groom’s family, who traditionally pay for the wedding. I have been to weddings with up to nine courses, more modest weddings have just had five.

Shark’s fin soup, pig heads, pig skins and lobsters have featured highly at the weddings I’ve attended although they do provide vegetarian options. (I’m vegetarian.)

In modern times, the banquets sometimes begin with the signing of the wedding licence or sometimes the couple will perform the tea ceremony with any older relatives with whom they haven’t already shared tea.

At some weddings, after a few courses couples play games with their guests. I attended weddings where they had a bingo game, beer drinking game and how well do you know the couple game.

After the banquet, the bride and groom thank their guests for attending as they leave.

My Chinese Wedding

I’m looking forward to having our Chinese wedding! We will be following the traditions my fiancé's sister followed, as much as we can do, and I’ll be wearing a Chinese wedding dress for some of the day.

Your Comments

If you think I’ve said anything wrong here, please let me know so that I can keep my information as accurate as possible. If you have any other questions you’d like answering, let me know.

Sources

1. Chinese Wedding Traditions, CHCP.com, May 2011 http://www.chcp.org/wedding.html
2. Southern Chinese Wedding, Wikipedia, May 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Chinese_wedding

How Long Does It Take for a Florist to Set Up?

Your Questions Answered:

One of the questions that was asked in google to find my blog was, How long does it take for a florist to set up?

This question can only be answered by your florist.

The set up time will depend on the complexity of your flower order. It will depend on where you’re having flowers, how far the ceremony and reception venues are apart and how many flowers you’re having.

If you’re having a flower organza with archways and drapes and stunning table displays, it will obviously take longer to set up than a more simple arrangement.

I strongly encourage brides to ask their vendors as many questions as they need. They vendors are the experts and will be able to answer their questions a lot better than the internet will.

As a rough guide, I would allow at least an hour for a very simple arrangement at your reception venue and at least three hours for a more complex one.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to post as a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them. :o)

Updates

Hair and Makeup Booked!

Days to go: 11 months, 2 days

I have booked the hair and make up lady! That’s another thing I can tick off my list!

I thought it would be nice if all the ladies involved in the wedding could get ready together, and we could have a really girlie morning before the wedding. I’ve had mornings like this at my friends’ weddings and it was really nice.

The Plan Is…

I’m going to be having my hair and makeup done while my bridesmaids will be having their hair done. I didn’t want to tell my bridesmaids how to wear their hair, as some brides do, I wanted to give them the option of wearing their hair how they feel comfortable. As they will be wearing the same clothes it’ll be easy enough to see that they’re the bridesmaids without them having their hair all the same. 

I’m really looking forward to having my makeup and hair done for me, I’m looking forward to being pampered!

The Look I’m Going For

I was thinking of having a very natural look with a touch of sparkle and a hint of pink. That’s what I wear normally but with a professional putting the makeup on, it will look flawless.

What’s Left?

All that’s left to find are the bridesmaid dresses and the gifts for the bridal party and parents. Everything else is booked. I’m going to ring round different bridal shops looking for the dresses I want for the bridesmaids, or something similar.

This wedding is almost sorted!

Wedding Websites

Finding the Right Site for Your Wedding

I haven’t been blogging much because I have been working on a wedding website! I did have two other wedding websites but they just weren’t what I wanted, however I found one that I really like and have been uploading all the information onto that.

I have a bit of know how as far as websites are concerned, as my masters degree is in web design and I was a web designer for a few years. I do think that all opinions are subjective and here are mine.

eWedding.com

The sites available on the eWedding website are really well designed, easy to navigate and easy to use.  The colours and different designs seem unique and easy to access. They offer previews of the sites before you choose the site you want.

The only downside is that it’s an American company and therefore the site is based around American wedding traditions. The upside is that it is possible to change the names of the individual pages

You can also enable and disable certain pages. So if you don’t want to share stories from your relationship with your wedding guests, you can turn off the page.

You can also password protect your website so that only your guests can visit your website. This is a fairly sensible idea but remember to share your password with your guests!

I was worried that they didn’t have a function to allow for maps. I want to make sure all my guests can get to my wedding! However, there is an HTML function that allows you to paste links from google maps! Perfect!

gettingmarried.co.uk

The functionality on getting married is just fantastic. It’s so interactive and easy to use, they are fantastic. The only problem is… the design. They are not attractive websites.

They have fantastic functions such as organising your time line, table seating arrangements so that guests know where they’re sitting and who they’re sitting with before hand and lift sharing.

There’s a place for maps to be displayed to help guests find their way between church and venue.

The functionality is fantastic and almost makes up for the lack of aesthetic elements to the site.

weddingpath.co.uk

This website is slightly better looking than the getting married site but it has less of the functionality.

All of the websites have the function to upload photos and wedding path is no exception. Similarly to eWedding, the photos are displayed on the front page, randomly selecting each photo. It is also possible for your guests to upload photos if they wish.

wedding path have a very flexible website. Some of the pages are already named but you have the flexibility to add pages that you want to include in the website.

Which ever website you choose, remember to share all the essential information with your guests.

• Ceremony venue
• Reception venue
• Maps and directions
• Information about hotels and places to stay over night

I chose to use a wedding website as many of our guests are spread across the world. We are still going to include information such as directions, venue and church addresses and hotels in the area in our wedding invitations however a wedding website simply allows more freedom to share more information.

In a wedding invitation, you only have a certain amount of space to include additional information so a wedding website, the address included in your wedding invitations, can include additional information that may prove useful to your guests.