Send me your questions at LDSWeddingQuestions@gmail.com

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Reemerging after the Ceremony

A word about the day of the ceremony: You need to be ready (as in hair and make-up—not wearing your dress) when you go to the temple. You aren't asked to come an hour early to give you time to get ready at the temple. Give yourself plenty of time to get ready at home. I mean a lot of time. You don’t want to feel rushed and pushed. If it takes you a half hour normally, (and if it does, good job you!) give yourself at least an hour. You should change into your dress at the temple, but other than that you need to be ready.

Don’t keep your guests waiting for an extended period of time at the temple before or after the ceremony. One bride recently told me, she took so long to appear after the ceremony that the temple workers began to fear something had happened to her and so had many guests in an uproar of fear by the time they tracked her down. Don’t plan to ready yourself again after the ceremony (except to change if need be). People will be waiting for you. Just quickly put away the sacred clothing, change your dress, and come straight out.  I have literally waited over an hour for the bride to re-emerge after the ceremony, and she looked exactly the same as when I had just seen her. You look beautiful! Now, get out there.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Children at the Reception

It's a good idea to make a plan for children at your reception. (Assuming they're invited.) You should consider a few things for children to do. You know the ones -- they're stuck hanging around the reception all night. (Whining, running, eyeing the cake and generally making it hard for their adult counterparts.)

Ideas might include: kid-friendly food (such as hot dogs, mac ‘n cheese, eatable centerpieces) if your chosen food isn’t kid friendly, coloring pages and crayons, some sort of craft, or even a movie in another room. If you are serving a full meal and having dancing at the reception that should be enough to entertain the children. But if it’s a lot of sitting around and talking, the kids may get bored; and after tugging on your arm and screaming for an hour or so, they may get rowdy.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

February Contest: Win a free book!

Hey guys! It's time again for a contest. This time you can win a free pre-release copy of my new book, Your LDS Wedding Planner!

This is my easiest contest yet.  All you have to do is publicly blog, post, or tweet about my launch party and include one of these two url’s in your post:
  • http://ldsweddingplanner.blogspot.com/2012/02/launch-party.html
  • http://is.gd/VUhblz
(The short one is nicer for twitter.)  

Then email me a link to your post or tweet at ldsweddingquestions@gmail.com. Please put “Launch Party Contest” in the subject line.
For example, I posted the link on my wall on Facebook, so I could send an email like this: 
to: ldsweddingquestions@gmail.com
subject: Launch Party Contest
Ann, I posted your link on my wall at
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002977036857
Notice I set the post visibility to Public. Hope I win the book.

For every way that you publicly and verifiably share the url about my upcoming Launch Party, you get entered into a drawing for my book. This contest runs from now until the last day of February. (That’s next Wednesday.)

NOTE: I will only accept entries where you post the links from an account of your own.  I won’t accept entries where you left the links in someone’s comment stream, or defaced a wiki-page.  That’s called spam. Spam kills puppies.


Friday, February 17, 2012

Launch Party

You're Invited!

My launch party for my new book, Your LDS Wedding Planner, will be Thursday, March 15 2012 from 2-5 pm at the BYU Bookstore in Provo, Utah. Come to purchase my book, sample a mint brownie, meet and greet with me and for a chance to win one of two gift certificates. ($100 at Carsey Cakes or $150 at Sweetheart Bridal )

I look forward to seeing you all there!

(Sorry for the lack of posts recently, my baby has been in the hospital)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Facebook and Your Wedding

Facebook is taking over the world. It's fast. It's easy. You can tell hundreds of people something in mere seconds. But as Spiderman knows, "with great power comes great responsibility". With everything so easily shared on social networks you need to be careful. Here's a link to an article about being careful to not let Facebook ruin your wedding. (5 ways Facebook can ruin your wedding)

It's key points are:
  • Don't let your family and close friends find out on Facebook - not cool, definitely not cool.
  • People can post mean things about your wedding plans
  • People assume they're invited to your wedding
  • People think RSVP-ing using Facebook is good enough - Although in this tech savvy world, it is becoming more popular to create a wedding website and let your guests RSVP using this method.
  • Things aren't private anymore - because people post pictures of everything from their big day to a stranger's most embarrassing moments.
All in all, social networks can be a great tool. Just be careful. Nothing on the internet is really private, no matter how many walls you put up.  


Sneak Peek at my Book!

Click on this link for a sneak peek at the introduction and first chapter of my new book, Your LDS Wedding Planner! I'll be having a launch party in March, more details to follow.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Upcoming Contest

Hey guys! I'm about to have another contest. Here's your chance to make a request. Any suggestions for where the next $25 gift card should be to? Let me know in this comment strain.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Wedding Vendor Website

Here is a great website where you can look up different vendors in your area. (Wedding Wire) It has many different wedding helps, but the one I find most useful is the section on vendors. You can put in your zip code and what sort of vendor you are looking for and "Voila!" tons of vendors in you area. 

My favorite part? It has reviews! I love a good review.  I'd much rather use someone that has great reviews other than pick a name out of a line-up. After all then they can tell you if someone is "So awesome they made my day perfect!" or if they were, "hard to communicate with, not a good value for the dollar, poor quality or just in general a giant poop-head." 

Check it out. I think you'll like it.