One great way to preserve your wedding flowers… turn them into a work of art that you can display on your wall.  Just look at the samples below:

It can be pricey, but they’re gorgeous.  If interested, head on to FlowersIntoPaintings.com.

In the beginning, I thought a wedding emergency kit is not necessary.  I mean what could possibly happen on my wedding day?  It would be perfect.  But of course nothing is perfect.  We did end up needing the emergency kit on the wedding day after all.

Since I was putting together bathroom baskets for the reception, I thought I might as well put together an emergency kit.  I mean they practically include the same things.  Then I thought, what do I need an emergency kit for if the bathroom baskets include the same stuff?  Answer… because there might not be anything left in the bathroom basket by the time you need something.  Yup, there were only probably 2 to 3 items left in each bathroom basket even before our reception ended.

How-to make a bathroom basket and wedding emergency kit:

1. Measure the counter space in the restroom where you’re putting the bathroom basket.  Learn from me, I bought bathroom baskets before looking at the restroom at our venue, and I had to return them coz they were too big for the counter.
2. Get containers.  If you have bathroom baskets at home that you can spare, use those.  There’s no use in buying new ones if you have perfectly good ones at home.  You can take the bathroom baskets home after the wedding.  I used fabric bins for the bathrooms and an art tool box for the emergency kit.
    
3. Get items to put in your bathroom basket and emergency kit.  Remember to take into account the prices, the costs do add up.
   • Get samples, they’re free and they are perfectly sized for bathroom baskets.
   • Look around your house for items that you haven’t used and will not use.  I did find a few at my home that I totally forgot and never used.
   • Shop around.  If you don’t have time, my Bathroom Basket and Wedding Emergency Kit checklist has sample prices to give you an idea where you can buy the items for less.
     
4. Make a sign for your bathroom baskets.  I like it short -  “Compliments of the Newlyweds.”  But you can also use poems.  I am not keen on long poems or instructions.  If I were a guest, I wouldn’t stay that long to read the whole thing.Here are sample wordings for bathroom baskets:
   • Compliments of the newlyweds,
     To help you feel your best!
     Just use a little…freshen up,
     And leave for other guests!
   • If your skin feels dry, your hair out of place,
     Your throat is parched, or whatever the case.
     We’ve put this together to help you along,
     Now get yourself out there before the next song!
   • Here is a basket for all of our guests,
     To make sure everyone feels their best!
     We hope that you’ll find what you’re looking for.
     Take a mint and now go hit the dance floor!
   • So happy you’re here to share in our special day!!!
     But should something happen to go astray,
     Please help yourself to the contents within,
     Hair spray (or Wet wipe), hand lotion, gum and even aspirin,
     Use only what you need and leave the rest,
     It may be useful to another guest.
     So repair the damage that may have been done,
     Then hurry on back and join the fun!!!
     Compliments of the Newlyweds

Do you like the Flash sites you see online and want one of your own, but don’t know how to use Flash?  Well, now you can for free at Wix.com.  I’m not a big fan of Flash websites as a lot of them are not universally accessible.  But you can do a lot of cool things (e.g. animations).

Now that our wedding is done, I decided to update our wedding website to contain mostly photos.  So I tried out Wix.  Here are screenshots of the site I created.

The Wix site editor was pretty easy to use if you’re starting from a template and you need to do basic editing.  Some actions that you need to do may not be easy to figure out sometimes.  The page manager is the part that I hate the most.  It’s hard to get to and hard to understand.  The editor also doesn’t have a media manager.  There’s no way to organize photos (for example) and if you need to use them again, you’ll have to scroll through a lot of pages if you have a lot of photos.

Canditto is a new and convenient way of getting copies of your guests’ photos of your wedding. A lot of guests carry digital cameras to weddings nowadays. And Canditto lets them easily share their photos with you right before they leave on your wedding day. No more waiting for them to send or upload them!

Aylee Bits readers get $50 off with promo code 752834429.

My first concern is that guests might be a little hesitant copying their photos into the machine even though it only copies photos taken for the past 8 hours. My second concern is the price. At $450 ($400 with the coupon) for a week rental, brides might just opt for the free online photo-sharing sites where guests can upload their photos.

There’s more to Shutterfly than photo sharing, photo books and cards.  Shutterfly has its own website creation tool.  And I suggest brides take advantage of this free helpful tool!  It’s very easy to use.

Here are just a few of the features:

• Photo sharing – your guests can easily upload digital photos they took at your wedding
• Privacy and security – you can control permissions (view, comment, contribute, edit, etc) of the whole site and of each page
• Tools (widgets) – there are so many tools available including calendar, map, to-do list, journal (blog), guestbook, bookmarks, videos, files, message board, polls, and a lot more.

Bored?  Need something fun to do?  Martha Stewart Weddings has  fun quizzes for brides (and grooms).  Some of them are very informative as well.

Photo from Real Life Wedding Planning

What Is Your Wedding Etiquette IQ?
Test your knowledge of wedding traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Test Your Invitation Know-How
There are many rules when it comes to writing and mailing your invitations.

Wedding Day Roles and Rules
When it comes to who does what, choosing roles for your wedding day can be a slippery slope. Whether you’re dealing with the bride’s parents or the groom’s parents, make sure you know who should do what.

Do You Know Your Diamonds?
From the setting to the size, there’s a lot you need to know when picking the perfect ring.

Know Your Seating Charts
Figuring out where to seat your guests — and the wedding party, too — can be tricky.

So how did you fare?

We’re in a technology boom and more and more engaged couples now have their own wedding websites.  Wedding websites can be very useful to guests.  These websites usually include detailed info about the wedding and other events, travel info for out-of-town guests, gift registry, and even an RSVP form.

While there are a lot of sites that offer wedding website services and hosting for a fee, there are equally as many sites that offer it for free.  Below are some that I know of:
www.weddingwire.com - my top choice
www.mywedding.com
www.weddingannouncer.com
www.projectwedding.com
www.brides.com
www.theknot.com
www.momentville.com
www.ewedding.com

Unfortunately, I couldn’t customize the free websites as much as I want to.  So I decided to use one that I’m familiar with - the blog platform WordPress.

Read on…

I know I have been slacking about posting the new updates on the Wedding Resources page.  For the next five days, I will post the most recent updates including descriptions.  Here’s my first installment…

Social Couture is a fabulous home and entertaining store.  It is set up differently than your usual online stores.  The site shows you different entertaining/party ideas complete with photos of the table set-up, decor, etc.  You can then purchase the items to create the same look on the photos.

WeddingWire.com is one of my favorite wedding planning sites.  It includes a list of vendors complete with reviews from brides and grooms.  It is comprehensive and intuitive.  Their tools are one of the most intuitive.  It is a great organizer for brides from budget and timeline to guest lists and seating charts.

Click here for the complete list of Wedding Resources.