Wedding Inspiration and Styling Ideas | The Wedding Community Blog

Why Choose a Barbecue for Your Day to Remember?

June 22, 2010November 21, 2016 The Wedding Community Leave a comment

Barbecues are great fun and they bring the whole family together by their mere definition. What could be better to bring the bride and groom’s families together than a roaring barbecue feast?

You could have a barbecue for your wedding breakfast, or as an icebreaker event before the wedding. It’s a great, informal way of bringing both sides of the family together before the big event.

The Barbecue can also be a day after event. Once the happy couple have left for the honeymoon there are always some family and friends left the next day. What better way to say your farewells than at a family Barbecue.

A Guide to Teeth-Whitening

June 18, 2010November 21, 2016 The Wedding Community 2 Comments

It’s all well and good for the Americans to poke fun at our standard of dentistry. But when you clap eyes on some of the ultra-bright gnashers they display you wonder whether you wouldn’t sometimes prefer the occasional snaggle-tooth. Ok, maybe not. There’s one thing that we can all agree on though and that’s that stained teeth are a bit grim. If you’re sorting your teeth before your wedding here’s a quick guide to some of the ways you can get pearly whites.

Whitening Toothpaste

WHERE: At home

COST: A few quid

TIME: Long term

METHOD: It’s as easy as brushing your teeth.

EFFECT: Subtle. It’s just your regular toothpaste but with added chemicals, abrasives and polishing agents. It provides extra stain removal but won’t actually change the natural colour of your teeth. Even the most effective toothpastes will only lighten teeth by one shade on the chart, so it’s not the option for a quick, pre-wedding fix.

RISKS: Products that include pumice may cause damage to the enamel.

Whitening Gel

WHERE: At home

COST: £20ish

TIME: Two weeks

METHOD: A gel applied twice a day directly to the teeth. The magic ingredient peroxide ensures decent results.

EFFECT: More noticeable than the toothpaste thanks to the peroxide. Yay peroxide! It is a bit poisonous though. Boo peroxide.

RISKS: Gum irritation. Unsupervised dental fiddling. You wouldn’t do your own fillings, would you?

Nervous groom - Picture by Hayley Ruth Photography

What Terrifies Men About Weddings

June 10, 2010November 21, 2016 The Wedding Community Leave a comment

On first inspection you’d think a wedding would rank somewhere between, “Small girl with ice-cream” and “parcel delivery” on your average bloke’s internal list of terrifying situations. But when you start to break it down the Big Day contains many situations that rank way higher on the Terrifying-O-Meter. Perhaps even somewhere between “Rooney broken bone” and “getting things caught in zips”. So what is it that’s giving your groom, best man or father of the bride a nasty case of wedding nerves?

Walking Down the Aisle

Sounds stupid doesn’t it? The bride’s the one who has to do the aisle-walking dressed in the big frock and pokey shoes. Yet the father of the bride is the one who’s sweating over it.

Why? Well mainly because it’s his big moment. All those eyes turn towards him, he has to stick to that weird slow-walk rhythm, and he knows that at the end of the aisle he has to hand his daughter over to some spotty oik he’s only met 12 times.

How to combat: Practice makes perfect on the walk. Also, try to have the big, “You know I’ll always love you Dad” talk a month or so before, not in the car on the way to the church.

Saying His Vows Right

I do. Just two little words that give men more problems than nearly any others. In this case though it’s not the weight of the ceremony or the pressures of commitment that petrify him. It’s the sheer bloody simplicity. Someone says the words and you just have to repeat them; that’s easy! Exactly, so you’d be really stupid if you messed them up, wouldn’t you?

Destination wedding couple kissing on beach

Top Tips for a Destination Wedding

June 9, 2010November 2, 2016 The Wedding Community Leave a comment

Michelle from Pierre Carr shares her top tips for a destination wedding…

A large majority of couples are now paying for their own weddings. Also, more couple are choosing to get married somewhere exotic with close friends and family looking on. The destination wedding has become increasingly popular.

According to Mintel, one in six, that’s 16% of British weddings, now takes place abroad. That equates to an estimated 51,300 overseas weddings, a massive 43% increase since 2003.

By mixing great weather with high standards of service, UK couples now realise that an overseas wedding can be the way to go. However, whilst many brides dream of a wedding abroad there are many reasons why many back out.

To help dispel these reasons here’s a list of tips on how to make destination weddings possible.

1. Cost

The average wedding in the UK costs £20,000. Your money can go a lot further abroad, depending on the exchange rate.

Look for Offers

Hotels have lots of offers. If you stay in the hotel for x number of nights you can get your wedding free. Or if your guests stay for at least three nights you can get your accommodation free. So check the possibilities at your chosen venue.

The Ties That Bind

June 3, 2010November 21, 2016 The Wedding Community Leave a comment

Ties. Actually, let’s narrow things down a bit: wedding ties. Actually, I’m in a digressive mood so let’s start not with ties but with handfasting. Did you know that in different cultures (notably European and pagan cultures) they represented the idea of marriage not just with tiny Shepherds Pie canapés and expensive dresses, but by tying the hands of the bride and groom together? Cool, huh?

Often each of the guests secured a cord around the couples’ joined hands. This symbolised not just their togetherness, but the guests’ complicity in joining them together.

I think that’s lovely. Just think, if you’re angry about how much you’ve had to pay for your hotel you could tie your cord really tight, constrict the blood flow in their hands and laugh as their hands dropped off. That’ll teach them to not block book the local Travelodge.

Wedding ties and specifically how to tie them is one of the things that as a groom you probably won’t think about until the morning of the wedding. At which point knowing how to tie a cravat, or execute the perfect Four In Hand will make you the coolest Mother Hubbard in the room.