Wedding Planning Balance: Your Budget and Your Priorities

A reception at Craft, Tom Colicchio’s temple of fine food seemed beyond our budget when my husband and I planned our wedding. But in retrospect, there was a path to our twelve-course tasting menu with wine pairings.  Very simple: slash the guest list.  Even then, we wouldn’t have been able to do that, because having all our guests was a top priority.

You’ll be happiest with your wedding if you plan knowing you have to balance the two: your budget and your priorities.

  • BUDGET

First Step! Wedding Budget. I mean it! Write it down and everything. Before you start meeting with anyone, have a firm grasp on your – say it with me- BUDGET! Any wedding vendor worth their salt (in Palm Springs or anywhere else) should be able to take the parameters you give them and do their best for you.  My Little Flower Shop makes a point of working with brides- we make your vision come to life within your wedding budget. If a vendor turns up their nose at your numbers, it’s time to walk, supermodel!

  • PRIORITIES

    peojie
    Simple, beautiful centerpiece. A few blooms make a big impact! Photo by Djamilla Rosa Cochran Studio.

What’s most important to you? Sure you can spend $5,000 on amazing favors, but that may mean you’ll have a smaller cake, or fewer flowers (Don’t do it, for the love of beauty and grace! Cut something else!).  Pick what’s most important to you and spend your money accordingly.

And if what’s important to you happens to be earthshatteringly delicious, beautifully presented and flawlessly served food, I recommend you give the folks at Craft a call.

Live well and love well.

-Dinah

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

Nowruz 1387 / نوروز
Nowruz (Persian New Year) display (Photo credit: Ehsan Khakbaz)

 

After laying a big kiss on the first person handy, drunken revelers around the world will break into song tonight as their clocks ring in the New Year. The most popular tune, Auld Lang Syne, asks an important question in its very first line.  Should people who’ve walked in and out of your life, and experiences of the past be forgotten, and never thought of? The song has a simple answer – no – for old times sake, think kindly on your life- the highs and the lows, friends and the foes (oy vey, I’m writing my own song. Sorry about that).  At its core, Auld Lang Syne is a song about forgiveness. Through the year, we experience other new year’s celebrations in America.  And interestingly enough, they have a thread of forgiveness running through them too. Here are three:

  • The Lunar New Year celebrated by many Asian cultures. One Chinese tradition, according to Wikipedia, is to “reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.”
  • Rosh Hashanah he Jewish New Year, is a time for reconciling, and apologies.
  • NowRooz, the Persian New Year, includes among many traditions “sa’at- tahvil…a most crucial moment in the life of the family, especially with regard to forgiving past failings, putting away petty frictions that would otherwise fester into conflicts, and looking forward to more constructive relations.”

So when you put on your party hat tonight, and contemplate midnight, think about who you might want to forgive.  Oh yeah, and one more thing: think lip balm! Happy New Year everyone…

Live well and love well. And STAY SAFE.

Dinah

Wedding Movies, Take 1? Take 2? Take as many as you can before Valentine’s Day

It’s the season when Hollywood breaks out the movies to bring on that itch to get married.  Coincidence that most engagements take place between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and that there’s usually a matching break-out bunch of rom-coms featuring diamond sparklers and lacy veils around the same time? Maybe, but I don’t think so.  Here are a few of the Wedding themed films/TV entertainment coming out this December:

The Big Wedding – this one looks like it might be a Big Hit!
  • Cheerful Weather For The Wedding  – a “will she or won’t she?” set in 1930s England
  • The “Royal Pains” Wedding Episode – a 2 hour extended episode of your fave handsome MD in The Hamptons’ adventures
  • The Big Wedding – a star studded (we’re talking Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon and a slate of young guns too) remake of a French wedding comedy about a not-so-happy couple keeping up appearances at their son’s wedding.

There are certainly more.  Keep your eyes peeled for dresses, bouquets and other ideas that spin your wheels. Hollywood wedding inspiration, take 1!

Be well, and love well.

-Dinah