Fun Ideas For Unity Candles

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If you are planning a wedding and plan to have a unity candle as part of the ceremony, you might want to think outside the box.

Traditionally, the unity candle involves three candles. The bride has one, the groom the other, and their two lighted candles light the third candle. This is done to represent the coming together of the two people to make one unit. In some alternate methods, family members are invited to participate in the unity candle lighting, often the mothers of the bride and groom, or other close members of the family. Each family then lights a candle, and together they light the unity candle to symbolize of the coming together of the families.

Now, there are a few twists you can add to this fairly conventional aspect of a wedding ceremony. You can provide each guest with an unlit candle when they arrive at the ceremony. After the couple lights the unity candle, they can ask the guests to move to the front of the church (or wherever the ceremony is being held) and light their candles with the lighted unity candle. This can take a bit of time and might be best with a smaller guest list. But it is a meaningful way to not only get your guests involved in the ceremony itself, but also symbolize the union of family and friends with the marriage.

If there is a large guest list and it would be a prohibitive waste of time to do a candle lighting involving everyone at the ceremony, some brides and grooms like to bring the unity candle to the reception. Light the candle again and provide each guest with a small votive candle (the candle holder will be on the tables at individual table settings). As guests come into the reception area or hall, they can light their votive and take it to their table to place into the votive holder. This small votive candle can double as a wedding favor, particularly if you decorate or enhance a plain votive candleholder in some way to coordinate with your wedding.

Of course, you can forget having a unity candle at the ceremony altogether. Many brides these days are trying to reduce the length of the ceremony and spend more time planning the reception. In that light, some choose to do away with a unity candle altogether. You can certainly do this, or you can cut it out of the ceremony and make it part of the reception.

To do this, you can use the votive candle option suggested above, or you can simply incorporate the unity candle lighting into the reception activities themselves. For example, you might choose a quiet moment in the reception to have a lighting of the unity candle. It might be during a short prayer prior to the serving of the meal, or right before the cake is cut. In this case, the unity candle can then be used as decoration on the cake table. As the bride and groom cut the cake and pieces are served to guests, the candle can also serve as a reminder of the couple's new bond and that the bond is shared with all the guests as well.

Although having a unity candle at the wedding or reception isn't necessary, it is certainly an option that many brides and grooms opt to include. But it's important to remember that as with so much surrounding wedding planning there are ways to make it unique and interesting and special to the couple getting married.

Wedding Weekend Activities

Weekend weddings are becoming more popular, particularly as families are spread further apart. They usually begin on Friday night, continue with the wedding Saturday and conclude with a post-wedding breakfast on Sunday before everyone returns home.

Planning activities for these weekend-long celebrations doesn't have to be difficult; in fact, it can be quite a bit of fun if you keep everyone's needs in mind. First, consider the wedding. Will this be a formal wedding with a sit-down dinner at its center? If so, you might want to ban a formal rehearsal dinner and replace it instead with an informal barbecue dinner or picnic.

But how will you keep people occupied during the long weekend? There are many activities to consider. Will the wedding be near a lake? How about planning a day at the lake on Saturday, filled with pre-wedding activities like swimming races and beach volleyball.

One popular pre-wedding activity is a scavenger hunt. Prior to the wedding weekend, a list of meaningful items should be drawn up, and guests placed in two teams. The list should include things like "get a brochure from the jewelry store where (groom) bought (bride)'s ring" or "take a picture of the group at the location where the couple got engaged". You will have to tailor the scavenger hunt list to the location of the wedding and the energy of the guests who will be participating.

You can even offer lavish prizes for the team that wins the scavenger hunt, such as gift certificates or gourmet food and wine baskets. It might seem an obvious choice to divide the teams into groups who know or are related to the bride and teams who know or are related to the groom, but it might be a little more fun to mix it up a bit. You can create teams of friends versus family, or men versus women (always a popular choice).

Another activity that's popular during wedding weekends is a competitive sport activity, such as baseball or flag football. Again, add a special twist. Offer prizes for performance (first home run gets a kiss from the bride) or make silly rules, like members of the bridal party have to wear tiaras while running bases or members of the groom's family should always have their shirts on backwards.

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It's important that during the wedding weekend, planners keep in mind that the weekend itself might be expensive for some guests, particularly those who had to fly in for the occasion and many of the activities should be free, or inexpensive. If they are more expensive, and planned for the entire group, they should be paid for by either the bride and groom or their families.

But there are plenty of activities that don't have to be expensive, but can provide big bang for the little buck, such as the scavenger hunt suggested above. If the wedding weekend guests will mostly be family, you can schedule a home movie-viewing event, including home movies from both the bride and groom's families. For even more fun, consider an activity where the movies are mixed up and the guests have to guess which family's videos they are watching. This might sound easy, but depending on the contents, it could be hard, particularly if the bride and groom are babies in the photos.

Outdoor Wedding Reception Activities

If you are having your wedding reception out of doors, that opens the door for many activities that would be hard to pull off indoors. You can plan games and activities based on the outdoor theme and carry that theme indoors if part of the reception is inside as well.

Depending on where the reception will be held, you can plan many activities based on the setting. Whether it is the park or on a farm, there are a myriad of activities you can plan.

Let's start with some basics based on popular wedding locations. One fun game for a winery wedding is a blindfolded wine tasting game. If the bride and groom are wine drinkers, this might not a game the bride and groom should be a part of, but instead guests and wedding party members. Blindfold perhaps a half dozen volunteers and have them do a blind taste test (provide something to clean the palate between sips). The volunteers should guess which wine is the pinot noir, which is the Cabernet, and so on. A bottle of wine is the obvious prize for the winner of this game.

Say you are having a reception at a country club on a golf course. It's possible your theme will include golf elements, so why not include golf in some reception activities or games? You certainly could head to the golf course for a "hole in one" contest, or have a driving contest to see which guest has the best stroke. As a simple, "who gets the centerpiece game", you could have people guess how many golf balls there are in the floral centerpiece (which could decorate a plain large glass vase filled with flowers). Similarly, there could be a large vase or other clear container filled with golf balls at the reception somewhere and guests could guess how many golf balls are in the vase.

A silly game could be made on the dance floor by asking everyone to include their best golf swing into their dancing for one particular song.

Now, if your reception and ceremony are both to be held outdoors and guests will be milling outdoors, think about games or activities that can take place outdoors and still keep to your level of formality or informality. For example, if the reception is being held at a park, perhaps guests might enjoy a "walk down memory lane". Prior to the reception, someone can use potted plants or arbors to create a little private lane, which guests can walk through. Along the path, guests will find pictures of the bride and groom at various stages in their lives. There should be a place for guests to record their thoughts and memories along the way as well.

If your wedding and reception are fairly casual, you can always tell guests ahead of time to prepare for a ball game or some other fun outdoor activity. Women can bring a pair of sneakers. Just imagine the fun photos you'll get out of a rousing game of football or baseball played by women in dresses and sneakers and men in suits and sneakers!

You can provide a challenge activity involving barefoot dancing in the grass or a Frisbee toss in the backyard. Is there a pool in the yard where the reception will be held? Why not have a swimming activity for after the whole of the reception is done?

Pre Wedding Reception Activities

There are so many little details to worry about when planning a wedding some might get forgotten. One tiny detail that often gets overlooked is how to keep guests entertained before the wedding reception "officially" begins.

There is no requirement that brides entertain their guests at all. After all, they have already attended your wedding ceremony (which was surely engaging and entertaining, right?) and they will soon get music, food and drink. What more could they want? It turns out, a lot. While the bride and groom are off having pictures taken, the guests are left to their own devices, chatting with other guests and wondering when the buffet will open.

In that light, it's worth at least considering some pre-reception options for keeping wedding guests entertained until the reception begins. Here are a few options, some tradition, some not so, but still fun.

 

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First, you can do the traditional thing and provide guests with drinks and perhaps some light snacks. If the wedding is in the summertime, how about providing lemonade and iced tea? Or if it's the winter, coffee and hot tea or even hot cocoa depending on the style of your wedding. Providing a light snack isn't a bad idea, either, and that can be some appetizer-type food or just nuts, especially if the meal will be heavy.

Now, if you want to stray from tradition, there are many options. Some brides opt for entertaining the guests in the truest sense of the word. Clowns, anyone? How about live music? 

If you want to venture into the fun and funky, consult the party planning pages of a local children's or parent's magazine. Here, you can find people who will entertain your children at their birthday parties, but many of them will happily take on wedding jobs. You can hire a clown to make balloon animals for the kids (and adults) in attendance, or to juggle a few things. Some clowns are true entertainers and will happily get the crowd involved by fetching items out of women's purses and juggling them.

Other non-traditional options for entertaining your guests include hiring a band to play music beforehand. If you plan to have classical music at your wedding, you can have a band come and play covers of current pop songs, or you can simply have your hired band arrive a bit early to entertain guests waiting for the full reception to begin.

If there are many children at the wedding, it's not too expensive to hire a children's band to sing and entertain the children for a bit. Then if the kids are a bit bored at the reception, they'll still have the memory of the earlier entertainment with them. In addition, while the children are being entertained, the adults can have a chance to chat and they will surely thank the bride for thinking of them in that way.

Some other options for entertaining your restless crowd before the festivities begin are to include them in the reception before it begins. This is a great time to ask people to sign the guest book and write something meaningful, since they will have more time than they would usually have as they file into the reception hall.

If the reception and the wedding ceremony take place in the same location, but the bride and groom are off having pictures taken, it may not seem as if there's this dilemma of how to keep the guests entertained, but there in fact, is.

In this case, you can have servers circulate with appetizer trays or you can do something more elaborate, such as some of the suggestions above. One popular option doesn't involve entertaining the guests at all. Say the wedding is being held at a historic house or mansion. During the lull before the reception, guests can be given a tour of the property. If the wedding and reception are both being held at the couple's new home, a tour of the property might be in order (assuming the guest list is fairly small).

Bridal Shower Games

If you're hosting a bridal shower, there are literally hundreds of games to choose from. Some are silly, some are serious, but all are about having some fun with the bride before she's married. Here's a sampling.

One fun game really puts the bride on the spot with regard to her knowledge of her husband-to-be's life. Prior to the party, have someone ask the groom a series of questions, such as where he was born, what his favorite food is, things like that. Then at the bridal shower, put the bride on the spot by asking her the answers to the questions. See how many she can get right (hopefully at least half!). If she does well, give the girl a prize; she deserves one.

One all-time favorite game is toilet paper wedding dresses. This game involves separating the guests into teams consisting of at least 2 people and no more than 5. Give each team a roll or toilet paper (or 2) and have them fashion a wedding dress out of the toilet paper. One of the team members will volunteer as the model. Provide them with a "dress up trunk" filled with jewelry and shoes. They must make the dress out of the toilet paper, but they can accessorize with the provided jewelry, shoes, gloves and hats. Place a time limit on this (5 minutes is adequate) and have the bride vote on the best dress. Be sure to provide prizes for the winning team!

Another fun game that's always a hit is making the bride get dressed while blindfolded. Tell the bride she is to pretend she's on her honeymoon and the power has gone off. She must prepare for her wedding night in complete darkness. Provide her with a suitcase filled with items and then blindfold her. She must get dressed in a certain period of time (2 minutes is adequate) while completely blindfolded and with no help from the guests. Include some silly items like oversized sunglasses, garden gloves or a flannel nightgown just to make it fun. This is a photo opportunity, so be sure someone is waiting to record the end result!

Another fun game puts the shower guests more on the sport than the bride. In this game, everyone puts their purses in the center of the room. Create a list of items commonly found in a purse and assign a point value and create a list of less common items and give them a higher point value. So you might give lipstick 2 points, a tampon 3 points, and sunglasses 5 points. But a granola bar could be 10 points and a staple remover, 15 points. Then go through the purses awarding points and give the person with the highest number of points (and therefore, the most items and probably highest number of unusual items) a prize.

Before the shower, create bingo cards for this shower bingo game. In the squares, put pictures of items you think the bride will receive at the shower. So, boxes might include things like lingerie, towels and the like. As the bride opens gifts, have people mark off that item on their bingo card. If nobody gets a "bingo" give a prize to the person who marked off the most number of items.

This next game is a derivation of a popular game that's often played at bachelorette parties and involves a stripper. This is the clean version. About 30 minutes into the party, have the bride leave the room and pass out pieces of paper. Have everyone write on the paper everything they can remember about the bride's outfit, hair, etc. How many rings is she wearing? What color is her blouse? Is she wearing open or closed toed shoes? Once everyone is done recording their observations, the bride comes back into the room and a prize is awarded to the person with the best observation skills.

Choosing A Perfect Wedding Ring

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The big day has been set, and now you have tons of wedding preparations to attend to - preparing the guest list, looking for a caterer, shopping for the perfect wedding dress, and a lot more.  All of these are essential in putting together a memorable wedding, so remember to have all these on your wedding checklist.  Also do remember to include on the top of your checklist, "choosing a perfect wedding ring."

Selecting a wedding ring is not as easy as it looks.  It requires much thought, too.  After all, it is the wedding band that binds the couple together and will be worn by the bride and groom for their entire married life, and therefore must be something that they would not get tired of wearing.

Most important when choosing a wedding ring set is to decide on a budget. The couple should consider how much they could afford to spend for the wedding rings.  Based on this budget that the couple have in mind, decide on the material they want their wedding bands to be made of.

The materials from which wedding rings can be made of have evolved through the years.  However, the most popular are still those made from classic 14K or 18K yellow gold.  Gold rings remain to be very popular both for wedding and engagement.

Wedding rings made from white gold are also gaining popularity, it being very stylish-looking and exuding a very modern aura.  Also, white gold goes well with other silver and platinum jewelry, as well as with most clothing fabric.

Platinum being one of the hardest metals is also a very suitable material for a wedding ring.  For one, it is very durable and therefore will endure wear and tear for a very long time.  Platinum wedding rings may also be a symbol for enduring love that is if couple wanted a romantic twist in picking a wedding ring.  Platinum rings looking very similar with rings made of white gold looks very stylish and elegant.  However, platinum wedding rings are the most expensive, but if the couple considers the fact that it is something that will last them a lifetime, then the cost probably would not really matter.

Titanium is a popular material especially for wedding rings for men.  It is light, long lasting, and is not as expensive as platinum.  Titanium wedding rings are similar to white gold rings in appearance.  The only different is that titanium wedding rings are so light you can hardly feel it when worn on your finger.

As for the wedding ring style to choose, there are the traditional plain bands, the more elaborate ones with beaded edges.  There are also the modern designs of two-tone wedding bands.  The Celtic wedding rings engraved with ancient knot work are also hot these days.  Solitaire rings with a precious stone are also classic designs for wedding bands.

Often times, the bride may want to match her wedding ring with the engagement ring.  Of course, this is also something that has to be taken into consideration, especially is she wants to wear both rings on the same hand.

In choosing for a wedding ring, foremost consider your budget and then decide on the material.  Also, having to wear your wedding bands for a really long time, it is also worth considering choosing something that would best work with your clothes and the other jewelry you usually wear. Above all, choose a wedding ring that you will be most comfortable in wearing.

Good luck on your wedding ring shopping!

In any speaking engagement, one of the most important factor (and the most neglected, too) is the audience. People are so worried about the speech itself that they tend to forget the real factor that will affect the whole execution of the speech.

There are many kinds of speeches and one of them is the wedding speech. It is that part of the weeding that everybody is so excited to hear.

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In a wedding, there are three primary wedding speeches that will be heard. The first one will be coming from the bride’s father. This is usually the most emotional speech and the most unforgettable one. It becomes so touchy when the father includes in his speech how he is endorsing his daughter to his husband.

The second part of the wedding speech is the groom’s speech. Here, he will thank his parents for all the love and care. He will also thank all those who made the celebration possible and memorable.

And last is the best man’s speech. Usually, this type of wedding speech is the most enlightening one because it entails the lighter side of the event. The best man will tell stories about the groom and his crazy antics.

Of all these wedding speeches, the audience should be the primary factor that should be considered when making the wedding speech. Through the analysis of the audience, the speaker will be able to identify which things that should be said and which things that should be left out.

In most cases, the most common misconception of most wedding speakers about wedding speeches is that they thought that they are speaking before the bride and the groom only, which should not be the case. The wedding speech should be delivered to the whole guests. In fact, the impression most wedding speakers make would reflect back to the bride and groom.

For example, if you are to make a wedding speech and you have thought of including some jokes that you think would make the couple happy, try to think of the audience first if it will make them happy too. There may be instances wherein your joke will not amuse the elderly ones who will be present at the wedding.

Problems and conflicts may happen just because of the wedding speech you have made. So, it is extremely important to make a speech that will focus on the general interest of the audience and not centered on the bride and groom or to your own judgment of what you think would be funny and okay.

Another misconception that wedding speakers usually make is that they tend to think that wedding speeches are not all worth the trouble. That is why most of them would not make a speech that is well-thought of, with words that are carefully chosen, and the idea creatively generated to come up with a good speech.

Usually, they would make a speech that they think will do for the time being. Just to get over it, they would just think of mentioning some stories and that is it.

What matters most in a wedding speech is the reaction and impression that the audience will have on your wedding speech. Just like the way you want to talk to your boss or your colleague and consider their feelings and principles is also the same way you should be delivering your speech. You should also consider the audience’s feelings and beliefs.

Moreover, you should know how to identify with the audience. Through identification you will be able to come up with a wedding speech wherein the audience can relate to whatever stories or information that you will be telling them.

So, now you know how important wedding speeches can be, it is important to take note of the most important factor before making a wedding speech — the audience. And because wedding speeches are important part of the wedding, it should never be taken for granted.