Monthly Archives: January 2009
Changing your name after the wedding
Although some brides in today’s modern world choose not to change their surname after the wedding day, the practice of adding a hyphen followed by your husbands last name is becoming more and more popular.
Whether you decide to take on your new husband’s surname or not, to avoid problems at a later date, arrange the task of formally changing your name as quickly as possible.
This checklist should help you get started after the wedding, but more often then not a copy of your marriage certificate may be required.
* Social Security
* Bank Accounts
* Credit Cards
* Dr/Dental Record
* Car Registration
* Passport
* Driving Licence
* Insurance Policies
* Employment Records
* Memberships & Subscriptions
Tips for a Green Wedding
Each year more and more brides think about the impact their wedding is having on the world, and opt for a green wedding.
With the wedding market growing each year, and people offering you exotic honeymoons on long haul flights, expensive large cars to take you to the wedding and people travelling all over the continent for hen and stag parties; it’s not surprising that weddings do have a significant impact on the world.
So we’ve got a few tips for you if you’re wanting to do your bit for the environment and have a green wedding.
Think small.
Not only will fewer guests mean the less fossil fuels that will be used, you’ll also be consuming less, and create less waste. Having a smaller guest list will also give you a bigger choice of wedding venues and presumably less expense.
Buy Edible or Consumable Favours.
Consumable favours are fun, and environmentally friendly. Some ideas are home-made jam, chocolate, cookies or even beeswax candles. Favours need only be a token thank you for your guests, there is no need to by something that no one will ever use.
Or don’t buy any favours.
Alright, maybe that sounds mean, but would anyone really notice ? Another option for wedding favours is to donate money to a charity in the names of each guest. The wedding guest receives a card informing them that instead of a favour, money was donated to a specific charity of your choice.
Be a ‘Locavore’.
Instead of lashing out on wedding caterers, why no buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick your own food, fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better anyway. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation – how much fun would the buffet be is your wedding guests could see that you’ve grown and made your own foods.
Have your Ceremony and Reception in the Same Location.
A lot of wedding venues in Essex of this option now, and it will mean less travel for you and your guests. Some wedding venues also offer accomodation, meaning that out of town guests won’t spend half the day driving their cars from point to point.
Potted plants instead of fresh cut flowers for your centrepieces.
We love fresh flowers, but we also love the idea of being able to enjoy the table centrepiece long after the wedding. Potted flowers are lovely, and you can allow wedding guests to take them home too.
Buy a Second Hand Wedding Dress and Bridesmaid Dresses from Special Moments in Collier Row in Essex – they are run by St Francis Hospice which is a simply fantastic charity.
Don’t bother with disposable cameras.
Why do people still do this at weddings? The images are awful, they cost a fortune to get developed and the plastics are totally non environmentally friendly. The wedding guests will all bring digital cameras – ask them to email you the copies so you can print a few favourites.
Scrap the Confetti.
Do you really need confetti? Why is it thrown at a wedding anyway ? Are you just tossing bits of paper all over the ground ? If you feel it’s a must, then use flower petals.
I love getting married, I do, I do, I do, I do,
We love weddings; we are after all a wedding website. We write about weddings and it’s a fun and exciting time of your life – but maybe, just possibly, this couple decided that getting married as a one off, simply wasn’t enough.
When Simonne Harris was whisked off to Las Vegas to mark her 31st birthday by her new boyfriend Ryan Feeny she was touched by the romantic gesture, especially as they had only been dating for just three months.
But a birthday celebration was only part of Ryan Feeney’s plan for the week-long trip.
Ryan, 35, started by proposing by slipping an engagement ring into her glass of champagne during the flight and then when his bride to be accepted to applause from fellow airline travelers, he then revealed he’d booked their wedding at the famous Little White Wedding Chapel in Vegas, just two days later.
Simonne and Ryan Feeney said how they enjoyed their whirlwind Vegas wedding so much they decided to do it again – four more times.
The happy couple have so far tied the knot in Las Vegas and Bodrum in Turkey and are planning to have ceremonies in Milton Keynes, Australia and lastly Florida.
The new Mrs Feeney said the plan was to combine the series of wedding blessing ceremonies with visits to their relatives in all corners of the globe and make sure all of their close family were able to witness their special events.
Ryan’s mother lives in Turkey, hence the destination for wedding number 2. The happy couple are still searching for wedding venues in Milton Keynes and then plan their beach ceremony in Florida to be witnessed by Mrs Feeney’s father who lives there.
The final wedding ceremony will take place in Lilydale, Victoria, Australia, home to the bride’s mother.
Mrs Feeney, from Milton Keynes, said: ‘We both loved our proper wedding ceremony in Vegas but the one drawback was that our family missed out on being there.
‘As we are both only children we didn’t want to deny our parents the chance to celebrate our wedding day. It would have been too expensive to get all members of our family in one place, so we decided to take the ceremony to them instead.
Apparentley Mr Feeney,spent six weeks planning the Vegas wedding – odd for someone who only knew his bride for 6 weeks at the starting of the wedding planning perhaps?
But before meeting his wedding obsessed bride, Ryan had not even thought about marriage, but he said: ‘I had never been interested in getting married until I met her, but when you know, you just know.’
The couple met at work in Milton Keynes, where Mr Feeney works in the IT department and his new wife is in sales.
Mr Feeney said: ‘It was a quick courtship was reasonably confident that Simonne would say ‘Yes’ – it would have been an embarrassing plane journey for me if she hadn’t!
Might of saved a bit of cash though Mr Feeney – although you may win Mr Romantic of the year.
Tell us your comments please…….
Weddings at Hedingham Castle – getting married in Essex
As we’ve mentioned on numerous occasions before, getting married in Essex can be the best decision you’ve ever made, as wedding venues in Essex are amongst the best in the entire country, and today we look at weddings at Hedingham Castle.
Hedingham Castle in Essex, half a mile from the A1017 between Cambridge and Colchester, is a Norman motte and bailey castle.
The castle may occupy a site of an earlier castle believed to have been built in the later eleventh or early twelfth century by Aubrey de Vere I, a Norman baron. Hedingham was one of the largest manors among those acquired by Aubrey I by circa 1080 and it became the head of the Vere barony by the later twelfth century. The castle is still owned by one of his descendants, The Honourable Thomas Lindsay and his wife Virginia.
For more details on the historic castle visit Wikipedia
Getting married at the wonderful old castle is simply a dream come true for every bride, the ceremony takes place by candle-light in the magnificent Banqueting Hall which holds up to 100 seated guests and around 30 more can watch from the Minstrels’ Gallery above. Brides and Grooms have the choice of a traditional ceremony or may opt for a medieval theme wedding with authentic costumes.
The castle is closed to the public during wedding days and the grounds of the castle make a sensational backdrop for your photographs. After the ceremony the guests can enjoy the wedding reception within their marquee on the Tulip lawn.
Hedingham Castle has on open day for weddings on 1st February 2009 from 11am to 4pm – visit our main website for other wedding fayres in Essex.
Contact Hedingham Castle :
Hedingham Castle, Bayley Street, Castle Hedingham, Essex. CO9 3DJ
Tel 01787 460261
Apply for Living TV’s Four Weddings TV show
Apply for Four Weddings – on Living TV
We’ve been contacted by our friends at Living TV who are searching for brides to be for their new TV show Four Weddings.
The new television series plans to give away an amazing honeymoon each week to one of the four couples participating. They are looking for brides-to-be that are getting married between January and June of this year that might be interested in taking part in what sounds like great fun.
Don’t worry if you’ve already booked your honeymoon, the show’s producers say that the trip doesn’t need to be taken immediately.
If you are keen to take part in Four Weddings, all you need to do is email your details to: weddings@granadamedia.com or call: 020 7157 3809 or contact Kerry Plant directly on: kerry.plant@itv.com and she can give you further information about the show.
Remember, if you take part in Four Weddings, be sure to tell them that you heard of it through EssexWeddingServices.com – and send us a postcard from your honeymoon 
Boring wedding dance ?
Just as the wedding guests were about to fall asleep to the most boring wedding dance of all time, the bride and groom show that they do know how to have fun after all….
Novel wedding photos idea
If you’re looking for a great idea for something a little different at your wedding, how about hiring a photo booth for your guests.
Most people nowadays place disposable cameras on each of the guests tables for them to snap away at candid shots of themselves usually poking their tongues out (or something equally not funny). Failing that the disposable cameras ended up with dozens of rubbish photos including long shots of the bride and groom taken from across the room as the guest was too lazy to get up and take a proper photo.
In short, we think disposable cameras on the tables are an utter waste of money. The cost a fortune to have developed and you end up with poor photos. We wrote an article not so long ago about hiring digital cameras for your guests – it’s a great idea, and you get to keep all of the images digiatally. Click this link of you want to read about hiring digital cameras for your wedding.
Anyway, we’re not talking about digital cameras, we’re talking about hiring a photo booth, just like the ones you see in train stations or post offices.
Place a photo booth in the corner of your wedding venue and you’re sure to get plenty of hilarious photos, nice and sharp clear images of your wedding guests having good fun. Perhaps give everyone a token or two at their place setting and place a cork board beside the machine for them to attach their images.
Once you’ve collected all the photos at the end of the wedding you can keep all the best ones, and perhaps send one of the photos attached to the thank you card of the relevant wedding guest.
Novel fun idea for your wedding day!
Perfect wedding cake
Firstly, Happy New Year to all our blog readers.
2009 is shaping up for a “doom and gloom” 12 months if you listen to our media – so Essex Wedding Services will be doing our very best to brighten up your wedding planning and making it as fun and exciting as it should be.
If you’re getting married in 2009 then there is plenty to be excited about, don’t listen to anyone who tells you that planning a wedding is one of the most stressful times of your life – forget that, it’s THE most exciting time of your life so enjoy every moment of it.
Here in the blog we have dozens of wedding planning articles, tips and ideas for you, and on the main website we have over 60 categories of wedding suppliers in Essex all ready to discuss your wedding day requirements – so make sure you add our website to your list of favourites and keep coming back whenever you are looking for wedding day inspiration.
You may be beginning to wonder why we entitled this particular post “Perfect wedding cake” – especially as we haven’t even mentioned a wedding cake so far….. well patience is a virtue, we’re leading up to that…..!
The wedding cake is one of the most photographed times of your entire wedding day, all your guests will get up to snap the happy couple cutting the cake. So, make sure you discuss your options with one of our professional Essex wedding cake makers before you end up with an utter disaster on your hands like this one……
I’m no whizz at baking cakes, neither am I any good at decorating one with icing, but I am fairly good at spelling……unlike the person who created this wonderful wedding cake.
I think it reads “Conguadulations (sic) Under Neat That On your weeding (sic) (in Green)” with serveral referances to an Eightes movie all around it……… bizarre.
Don’t let this happen to you. If a friend is making your wedding cake, ask for a simple bride and groom model to be placed on top, either that or clearly spell out every word !
Happy Wedding Planning and Happy New Year from all at Essex Wedding Services !
