No time to get to the spa? No problem. DIY it in your home bathroom.

Spas are wonderful, and there’s nothing more luxurious than being pampered for an afternoon at a lovely spa, especially as you prep for your wedding.  But who has an afternoon these days?  And if you did, would you spend it lying around with cucumbers on your eyes? No, you’d be catching up with sixteen different things you were meant to do yesterday.  So what’s to be done? Create your own spa in your bathroom at home.

If you look around at a spa with a critical eye, you’ll see that that mood is set by many things that you can recreate at home. The three most important, conveniently, are the three least expensive.

  • Lighting  There’s always a soft glow in a spa, making everything feel relaxing. You can’t work in dim light, right? You have to surrender to being peaceful.  At home, you can put your bathroom lights on a dimmer.  When it’s bathtime for the kids, you’ve got all the light you need. But when it’s time for your little getaway, you can dial it down.

    This too, could be a  spa!
    This too, could be a spa!
  • Scent Oh, the smell of a spa. Sometimes it’s floral, sometimes beachy, but always takes you somewhere other than everyday life.  One of the parts about spa-ing it up at home that’s better than your local day spa is that you can customize the scent. It can be exactly you.  Use a diffuser, candles or even your favorite perfume on strategically placed cotton balls (I swear it works) and your bathroom smells like a personally customized dreamland.
  • Sound Music sets the tone of any situation, and again, here you can customize.  If Enya irritates you, hearing her ghostly echoes kind of harshes your mellow at the spa, am I right? At home, you can customize your playlist, including only what you love.  Mozart, Marvin Gaye, whatever soothes you.

So now you’ve got a low-lit, sweet-smelling bathroom, with an awesome soundtrack. Get in there and start relaxing!

Be well, and love well.

Dinah

Bonus: Check out this awesome recipe for citrus infused spa-water!

A Back-Up Plan For Your Wedding Day. Rain? Snow? Heat? Be Covered.

This weekend’s heat wave /extreme weather caused difficulty for many California brides, grooms and planners.  Choosing wedding locations in California like Palm Springs, perfect for destination weddings, often make people think they don’t need to worry about weather.  Here’s the bottom line:

If any part of your wedding will be outdoors, always have a back-up location.

I’ll repeat.

If any part of your wedding will be outdoors, always have a back-up location.

2013.5.3 tall,dram white
Get the flowers (and your guests) out of the weather)!

Wherever your outdoor venue is, make sure that you or your planner make arrangements for a space nearby to be available in case of bad weather.  That could mean a tent, the church basement, or a banquet room inside, but make sure you have somewhere to go, and people designated to direct guests.

Chances are, you won’t need your back-up location.  But looking back at  the last year’s tornadoes, hurricanes and heat waves, you’ll surely breathe easier.

Live well, and love well,

-Dinah

Wedding Movie Wednesday Suspended – Supreme Court News

OK – yes, it’s Wedding Movie Wednesday, but what with the momentous events of this morning, I just can’t idly prattle on about wedding movies.  Today at the Supreme Court, we turned a corner as a country. All details aside, the bottom line is that love is love, and that a same sex couple getting married should cause no more uproar than any other two people (no comment from this Palm Springs florist on uproar caused by crazy families, everybody’s got those).

So,having overcome obstacles both dramatic and comical, we have a victory for love. I said no movie talk, but in the end, isn’t two couples embracing on the steps of the Supreme Court the Hollywood ending we all hoped for?

Be well, and love well. Finally EQUALLY well.

-Dinah

supreme-court-gay-marriage
DOMA and Prop 8 – The Supreme Court Decisions on Gay Marriage