Outdoor Weddings Perfect for Tree Theme

 ”Trees” as a Wedding Theme: Six Quick Tips

By Tamatha Campbell

It is often easier to plan a memorable wedding celebration if you choose a theme for the party. For the eco-conscious couple, “trees” make a great theme.

Outdoor Wedding

An outdoor wedding is beautiful, if the weather cooperates. Parks, public gardens, and orchards are all possible venues. Check with local orchard farmers and the local tourist bureau to see what is available nearby.

Wedding Decorations:

 Bringing the Outdoors Inside.

If the weather in your area is not likely to be good, you might want to bring the outdoors inside. Consider using trees in pots instead of flowers for the decorations. These are often available from florists, garden centers, and even grocery stores for reasonable prices. If you choose a local variety, it can really add to the celebration to plant the tree, perhaps at or after the reception, as a symbol of the lifetime commitment of marriage.

Wedding Favors

Tiny seedlings in burlap pouches and seeds accompanied by peat plugs are increasingly popular as wedding favors. They are inexpensive, eco-friendly, and fun. Mini Seed kits are also fun, but these are simply seeds and peat plugs with small accessories.

Wedding Cake with Tree Theme

An experienced cake-decorator can produce many lovely tree-themed wedding cakes. It is a simple matter to form the trunks out of chocolate icing along the sides of the cake, and then to add green leaves. It is also possible to construct a cake topper out of piped chocolate, so that the tree stands up.

Bridal Party Colors

Dark greens such as pine green, forest green, and hunter green make fine bridal party colors. These are colors that look nice on most people. If you use a range of greens, each of your bridesmaids can choose the shade that looks best with her skin tone. White, gold, yellow, silver, and lavender are all lovely accents colors on dark green. 

Costumed Wedding

If you like the idea of a costumed wedding, a Robin Hood theme goes well with the “tree” idea. Your wedding party and guests can have fun making simple (or elaborate!) costumes that fit the popular image of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, instead of hauling out the usual formal or semi-formal attire.

 A “tree” theme can really pull the party together, without taking away from the real reason for the celebration. Why not celebrate your commitment to each other with a theme that shows your commitment to the Earth?

March 27, 2013 – a great article leading up to Earth Day
Sheila,Robin, Amy

grow memories with botanical garden weddings

 Tips for a Botanical Garden Wedding Theme

With the continuing popularity of all things organic and green, choosing a botanical  theme for your wedding is a great choice if you want your special day to be trendy, yet classically beautiful. Getting married at a Botanical Garden is a eco-chic wedding venue that is becoming really ideal for several reasons. It is beautiful with all the flowers and plants for decoation. The photos turn out tremdous with all the colorful flowers and plants and your guests will enjoy the venue as it is unique and fun. Here are some ideas for unique wedding decorations for your bouquets, corsages, centerpieces and beyond.

The first things you must determine are your wedding colors. If you are unsure, think about the season of your wedding. You can have a botanical wedding during the winter or fall, but the seasons evoke different color combinations than a spring wedding. Let the flowers that bloom in your preferred season be your guide. For example: holly or amaryllis for winter, tulips and peonies for spring, roses for summer, and dahlias for autumn.

If you want something a little different for your theme you can go with fresh greenery, like ferns or ivy. There are quite a few flowers that come in green too, such as button mums and lady slipper orchids. It’s fine to experiment with lots of flowers, but try to keep the number of main colors in your scheme down to 3 or fewer so that it is easier to coordinate. Also, keep the location of your wedding in mind when deciding on flowers and colors. Cute, delicate colorsmight not match with a traditional, stately church with dark woodwork, for instance.

Onceyou have your colors and preferred flowers for centerpieces and bouquets inmind, it might be fun to think of creative ways to incorporate your botanicaltheme into the other parts of your wedding.  Find or make invitations and programs emblazoned with images of your flowers. Give favors related to your theme. Seed packets or flower bulbs are unique and memorable examples. The possibilities for your lovely botanical wedding are only limited by your imagination so have some fun with it.

By
Lisa Partridge

March 18, 2013
Outdoor Weddings are fantastic opportunities for photography and fun. Give lasting wedding favors like flowers and trees to create growing memories of your wedding day.

Capture the Colors of the Season

Shakespeare wrote: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” This may be true of the bride and groom, but it is not true of the guests at a wedding. Your wedding colors are often the first thing your guests notice – after you, of course – and they will continue to see your colors throughout the evening. From the first invitation to the clothing, food, decorations, and guest book, your wedding color combination sets the tone for your wedding and gives it a distinct mood.

Most spring wedding color combinations feature lively colors because nature brings forth new life in spring. A spring wedding fittingly celebrates the new life a couple has chosen together.

Pastel Green, Purple, and Gold

This color scheme works especially well for a daytime wedding held outdoors on a spreading green lawn. The soft pastel green featured in this wedding color scheme will complement the color of the grass, and the pastel purple and soft gold colors add interest and imbue the wedding with a gentle springtime feel. The bride wears white while her bridesmaids wear pastel green dresses. The groom wears a dark tuxedo with a pastel green tie and gold pocket square, as do his groomsmen. Tablecloths are alternating colors of green, gold and purple. Serve wine or punch the color of rich gold, and serve yellow cake with purple and gold frosting. The key to this combination is to use pastel colors rather than bright colors, which may look dated.  Done correctly, this wedding color combination makes for a bright and happy mood.

Navy, Dark Green, and White

A navy and dark green wedding color combination conveys class, depth, and brisk confidence. The bride’s white dress looks especially lovely against the navy worn by her bridesmaids. The groom and his groomsmen wear a dark navy suit, elegant green neckties, and pocket squares. Tables are draped with navy tablecloths and contain vases filled with brilliant white roses. The cake and its icing are a brilliant white and are trimmed with navy and dark green frosting. As with the preceding wedding color combination, this wedding pallet looks fantastic at a wedding held on a green lawn. It also makes for a memorable seaside wedding.

White, Off-White, and Yellow

Your guests won’t soon forget this subtly beautiful color combination. White, off white, and yellow make for a dazzling beautiful wedding that will leave guests rubbing their eyes. Make no mistake: this color combination heavily emphasizes pure white and only relies on other colors sparingly. Tablecloths are pure white and contain vases filled with roses of the very same shade. The cake is white and is covered in white icing accented with off-white and yellow trim. The groom and his groomsmen wear white tuxedos with yellow neckties and may wear white top hats if desired. Surrounded by her white clad attendants, the bride looks angelic and seems to radiate purity. Those with a flair for the dramatic might consider renting a white carriage drawn by white horses.

March 7, 2013

good luck customs for weddings

10  Lucky Wedding Customs

The many customs surrounding matrimony are part of the general  happiness of the event, and they’re all about good luck .

1. June has been a popular month for weddings for the last 2000 years. In
   roman mythology, the goddess Juno was the devoted wife of Jupiter – and June was her month. Weddings held then were in her honour, and she blessed them.

2. Why should a bride carry “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue? The “something old” should be an article which belongs to or belonged to a happily married old woman. Her good fortune would rub off on the “something new” – the bride. The “something borrowed” should be gold, which represents the sun and the source of all life. Finally, the color blue signifies respect and faithfulness – as in “true blue.”

3. Bridesmaids and groomsmen were dressed siimilarly to the bride and groom in order to confuse evil spirits, who could not abide to see two people so happy together. Apparently, the evil spirits of ancient Rome were easily duped.

4. For good luck, a bride should be the first to cut her wedding cake. The groom gets his hand in as a sign that he expects to share in her good fortune. Then all the wedding guests take home a slice to have a little taste of good luck for themselves.

5. Rice is thrown at the bride and groom as a fertility symbol to give them good luck in having children. ( The Romans used to throw nuts and sweets at the bride, and the Saxons would scatter wheat and barley for her to walk upon.)

6. An engagement ring is a diamond because its sparkle has always been believed to be the fire of love. And so long as it would sparkle, love would never cool. The diamond unites passion and constancy.

7. The wedding ring, like the engagement ring has been worn on the fourth finger of the left hand for millennia. It derived from the belief that t here is actually a “love vein” that runs directly from the heart to the finger. A ring prevents the heart’s sentiments from escaping.

8. We say, in slag, that two people “tied the knot.” Once upon a time, a bride and groom really did tie a knot in a cord or ribbon as part of the ceremony. Or she would arrive at the altar with an untied shoe, and he would tie the lace as part of the ceremony. Knots were also tied in the bride’s bouquet as a way to keep the day’s good wishes from escaping.

9 . The term “honeymoon” derives from the Teutonic custom in which the bride and groom drank mead for one month or “moon” ( a lunar cycle is 28 days) after the wedding.

10. A bride is carried over the threshold to her new home in order to keep her from tripping – a terrible omen. Why would she trip? Because of those evil spirits, of course: they might be lurking at the door-way, hoping to trip her up.

If you abide by these customs you will definitely have Good Luck.

March 3, 2013

All the best and Good Luck,

Sheila, Robin, Amy