Wedding Glee

If you’ve been to a European wedding, you’re likely familiar with bonboniere (also called bomboniere).  A bonboniere is a gift that the bride and groom give to their guests to take home as a thank you and memento of their wedding or other special event.

History of the Bonboniere

Bonboniere started as an Italian tradition of the exchange of sweets between the newly united families at a wedding as a symbol of good luck in the fourteenth century.  The practice spread across Europe and was a favorite of King Louis XIV.

These gifts included sweets, and over time the favored sweet became sugar coated almonds that are called confetti in Italian.  Five almonds would be wrapped together to represent happiness, children, longevity, wealth and health.

Bonboniere Today

Bonboniere haven’t changed much over the years.  They almost always include the candies wrapped in netting.  It’s also common to have a tag attached to the candies with the bride and groom’s names and the wedding date on it.  Some people go in for larger favors of a practical nature such as picture frames, small vases or other trinkets, but they all have the traditional candies attached.

Candy Bar Buffets

A fun new trend in wedding favors is to offer a wedding candy buffet.  Your guests choose which candies they would like to take home.  You can have a lot of fun planning your candy buffet.  You can choose candies that go with your color theme, you can choose your favorite candies, or you can just pick whatever you want.  The way that the candies are displayed is up to you as well.  Candy buffets are fun because everyone enjoys the feeling of being a kid in a candy store, and that’s the feeling you can capture for your guests.

Whatever way you choose to do your bonboniere, don’t stress over them.   Remember, they are supposed to be fun gifts for you to give to your guests.

Bridal magazines are a great source of information and inspiration for prospective brides and grooms.  They are chock full of information that will be useful in planning your upcoming nuptials.

Bridal Magazines Can Help You Plan Your Wedding

Not sure what all goes into planning a wedding?  Not a problem! Pick up a bridal magazine and you’ll be set.  Wedding magazines are full of information including time lines to help you get started so that you’ll know when you should have each task finished.   They include checklists to help you keep on track, so you won’t be late with getting your invitations out or finalizing your order of service.

Some of the best information that bridal magazines provide is the things that no one will tell you, like how to get along with your mother-in-law and how to talk to your fiancé about finances.  These are important things that will impact not only your wedding, but also your married life, so don’t skip over them!

Find Inspiration for Your Wedding

As you flip through the pages of a bridal magazine, you will be inspired.  You’ll find things that you want to incorporate into your plans, and you might even find some things that you don’t want to use.

Another area a bridal magazine will help is for your dress.  Choosing a dress is a big decision, and looking at pictures can help you to narrow down the features that you want.   Make note of the features you like on different dresses.  You’ll be able to take these ideas with you when you go dress shopping so that you can find the right dress for you.

Bridal magazines also offer a variety of opportunities to sign up for information and free wedding samples (such as truffles, invitations, etc). Be aware that when you sign up for these you’ll start getting a lot of wedding “junk mail” but some brides enjoy that…getting access to more wedding information.

Do You Want a Fairy Tale Wedding? Can you have it without a lot of debt?

Wedding myth would have you believe that every girl wants to have a fairy tale wedding and be able to look back with fondness on the day that she was able to be the princess.  Whether that is true or not, do you really need the fairy tale? And, can you afford it? Do you want to be a bride or groom that starts his or her married life in deep debt?

Fairy Tale or Bust

The fact of the matter is that for one reason or another, many couples are paying for their own weddings.  It really comes down to a choice of spending all of your money on a dream wedding or starting off married life together with some money behind you, maybe toward your house.  Fairy tale weddings are romantic, elaborate and typically very expensive affairs filled with glitz and glamor.  Before you get in over your head, take the time to stop and think about how romantic it is to celebrate your union by going into debt.

Have Your (Wedding) Cake and Eat it Too

You can have a memorable wedding without breaking the bank.  If a fairy tale wedding is what you really want, then choose the elements of the fairy tale that are most important to you and focus your energies and money around them.  Take your inspiration from bridal magazines and find a way to make things personal for you and your groom.  It will take some creativity and lots of time, but you can find ways to create your own version of a fairy tale that won’t cost a fortune.

Something to keep in mind is that every fairy tale ends after the princess gets her guy and they get married.  Unless your family is royalty and you have a great inheritance, your happily-ever-after is going to need a stable financial base on which to build.

Planning a Debt-Free Wedding

When trying to figure out what you can afford for your wedding, carefully plan for your wedding budget. Then, figure out how long you can save for it. A good rule of thumb might be to save for a year. If you want your wedding to be under $10K, you’ve got to save over $800 a month. If you want a more expensive wedding, you either have to save more or save longer. (Check out some great  wedding budget books)

There may be items that a family member will pay for and ways to cut your wedding budget and of course you may receive some monetary gifts but instead of having a wedding that you ‘hope’ will pay for itself, careful financial planning and outlining of a workable plan will help you start your married life without the stress of wedding debt.

Here’s a fun fairy tale wedding contest you could participate in and who, knows…win money for your wedding. You never know!

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Catering and Food Ideas for Bridal Showers

When it comes to deciding on how to cater an event like a bridal shower, your options are truly limitless.

Whether you are the future bride and you are planning your own bridal shower, or if you are a close friend or family member of the future bride and you would like to throw her a shower before her special day, here are some ideas to keep in mind before deciding on what type of food you would like to serve at the shower:

Drinks

If you’re hoping to serve beverages at your bridal shower, then the type of beverages you choose truly depends on the style and theme of the celebration. If you’re hoping to have a “tea party” sort of setting, then make sure there is plenty of tea and coffee for your guests to sip on throughout the event. However, if you’re hoping to have a more party-type of atmosphere at your shower, then be sure to purchase some wine, champagne, beer, punch, or even a fancy kind of cocktail to serve to the guests.

Appetizers

When it comes to choosing appetizers to serve at a bridal shower, remember that it doesn’t necessarily have to be quality over quantity. You can choose a variety of different appetizers which can range from simple and fun snacks like pretzels or chips and dip, to elegant and fancy appetizers like hot d’oeuvres. Some other ideas include sandwiches, sausage balls, fruit and bread dip, stuffed mushrooms and peppers, devilled eggs and much more.

Main meal

Depending on what time of the day you plan on holding the shower, it may be a good idea to research into what kind of main meal you would like to serve your guests. Because most bridal showers occur in the afternoon, you may not even have to serve a main dish at all. However, if you’re hoping to have a night-long celebration filled with drinks, laughter and partying, then filling your guests up with food while they drink may be a good idea.

You can try looking into the various catering companies that are in your area, or if you’re limited on funds try asking a close friend or family member to cook an easy meal to serve at the shower.

Dessert

When picking a dessert for your bridal shower, try to pick something that will be entirely different than the cake that is being served at the wedding so it doesn’t seem redundant. If a chocolate cake is going to be served at the wedding, then perhaps look into a vanilla, lemon or almond cake for the shower.

Not just limited to cake, you could also serve cupcakes, tarts, cookies and much more. You could even put some decorations onto your dessert that suit the style and theme of the wedding and/or shower, or you could even make the cookies into little heart or flower shapes as well.

If worse comes to worse and you find yourself getting too stressed out about planning the shower, it may also be a good idea to call your favourite local bakery or even a catering company and ask them if they have any ideas on what you should serve at the shower, along with details on the pricing as well.

Bio: Aside from school and working part-time as an Assistant Chef, Bridget Sandorford is the resident Culinary Schools blogger where recently she’s been researching Toronto culinary colleges as well as Korea culinary colleges. Her passion for food is only met with her passion for writing. She lives outside of Charleston, South Carolina.