A Peek Into the World of Chinese Wedding Rings

January 3rd, 2009

Wedding is a special celebration which lasts up to a lifetime. And there could not be anything better than a wedding ring which serves as an epitome of commitment, love and trust between the two partners. Since 11th century, the ritual of exchanging wedding rings has been practiced with utmost excitement and passion. And one Asian country vehemently follows this tradition of wedding rings. Well, you guessed it right; it’s none other than China.

As the ritual of exchange of wedding rings is prominent in China, the Chinese wedding rings are also very popular. The land of the mystical dragons and ancient culture blooms with unique styles and designs of wedding rings. In Chinese weddings, the style and the class of the wedding rings play an important role. In fact the jewelers constantly keep on updating the materials and designs of the Chinese wedding rings.

Coming onto the aspect of the materials used in the Chinese wedding rings, there are basically 4 types of material used. These are diamonds, platinum, yellow gold and white gold.

Let us take a peep into how these materials are incorporated in the making of Chinese wedding rings.

Diamond Wedding Rings

Diamond wedding rings are a very popular choice as Chinese wedding rings. These rings are prominently made up of two types. The first one is a solitaire Chinese wedding ring and the second one is the diamonds Chinese wedding rings. Well, the solitaire Chinese wedding rings consist of a single diamond on the whole of the ring. This diamond is placed on a band which can be made up of any material like platinum, yellow gold or white gold. Moreover one can choose a colored solitaire to make the ring look even more beautiful and charismatic.

The other types of diamond Chinese rings are the ones on which more than one diamond is placed. These rings can have numerous small sized diamonds or three big size diamonds, and various other diamond combinations.

Platinum Wedding Rings

Platinum Chinese wedding rings are a symbol of class and society. There are several types and styles of platinum Chinese rings. Some of these rings include the sacred symbols of the Chinese cultures. On the other hand, some rings contain some famous and holy quotation, while the other rings have the dragons engraved on them.

If one prefers to have a simple platinum band for a Chinese wedding, he can also buy a plain platinum wedding band to represent the beauty in simplicity. Some Chinese platinum wedding rings can also have the inscribed names of both the partners.

Yellow Gold Wedding Rings

Yellow gold wedding rings are the most common types of Chinese wedding rings. These rings are available in different karats according to the gold content used in the making of them. On an average, a Chinese wedding yellow gold ring is made up of 14K gold. This implies that the ring has 58.3 % gold along with 41.7 % of other metals. Another common category of golf Chinese wedding rings is the 18K gold ring wherein the gold content is 75%.

White Gold Wedding Rings

Well, many people confuse white gold wedding rings with platinum wedding rings. However, white gold wedding rings are yet another popular choice as Chinese wedding rings. These rings are made up of a metal called palladium which is responsible for the white color of the ring.

So which ring have you chosen for your wedding?

Invaluable Tips For Wedding Planning

November 21st, 2008

Wedding planning might appear to be an indomitable task; but if it is done systematically and with perseverance, it can prove to be an enjoyable and successful experience. The best advice that anyone can give you is that you should involve your friends and relatives to the maximum extent possible. The following tips can prove to be very useful:

Start Early: If you are going to do it yourself, invest in a Wedding Planner book. It’s always better to give yourself plenty of time to accomplish all the objectives of the wedding planning checklist. Start your planning process about one year before the wedding so that you get enough time to look for bargain offers and find the most appropriate vendors. You must remember that you can take out only a few hours every week from your busy working schedule. As such, if you don’t want anything to go wrong during the wedding, you should start early with your preparations.

Involve Others: A professional planner would be ideal; but if you can’t afford one, you should take the help of your friends or relatives. The Internet is a very good source for a timeline, a budget guideline, and a list of vendors. You can also look up a few books on wedding planning.

Make A Budget: There is no doubt that your wedding is your biggest day and you want the best of everything to make it a glittering affair. However, most people are restricted by the amount of money that they can set aside for this purpose. You should, therefore, make a budget indicating the total amount of money that you can conveniently spend and then allocate portions of the budget for each aspect of the wedding planning. This will help you in selecting the various items and services that you need to get and checking whether you have strayed from your budget.

Organize Your Guest List: An important aspect of wedding planning is the mailing of invitations. Spend some time to feed the names and addresses of all your guests in either a word processing document or in a spreadsheet in your computer. When the time comes for sending out the invitations or thank-you cards, this information in the database will be immensely helpful. You will be able to check whether all invitations have been sent and also the number of RSVPs received. This record will enable you to store the addresses of all your guests for the future as well.

Help Is Always Around The Corner: There are so many aspects of wedding planning that it is very difficult for you to do everything on your own without faltering at some step. This can lead to a lot of tension. You should not, therefore, hesitate to accept the help of your near and dear ones, who will be more than pleased to extend a helping hand.

Just follow the above tips for wedding planning and you will find that all aspects will fall in place like a jigsaw puzzle. Best of luck!

Express Your Love With A Diamond Ring

October 27th, 2008

She is the most important person in your life. Maybe she picks you up when you’re down, or is the mother of your children, or just cares for you unconditionally. Or maybe it’s a combination of all three. Whatever your reasons are, the truth is simple and undeniable – you are crazy about her. So why not express your love with an unbreakable diamond ring? We all know that nothing melts a woman’s heart like diamonds, but the ring you select has to be a fit to her personality and style. In this article, we’ll give you some simple tips on making sure the diamond ring you give is one that takes her breath away.

The most important (and overlooked) aspect when it comes to selecting an unbreakable diamond ring is to keep your sweetheart’s tastes in mind. Many guys want to impress their woman by “picking it out themselves”. This often leads to a scenario where she “happily” accepts the ring. She may actually be thinking that she hates it, but will feel compelled to wear it because you picked it out with love. This is one situation you definitely want to avoid – and it is so easy to do

By keeping her in mind and paying attention to her preferences, you will express your love with an unbreakable diamond ring that she will adore. For example, watch her the next time a jewelry ad comes on TV or the next time you pass a jewelry store window. Pay close attention to her reactions to certain pieces, even those being worn by other people. Make a casual comment such as “Boy, that sure looks nice” and see what kind of response it gets. Women love to give “subtle” clues when it comes to diamond rings. Unfortunately, men don’t always pick up on them.

It is also important for you to take stock of the rings she currently wears. And we’re not talking her grandmother’s antique ring that she only wears on special occasions. You want to be taking note of the diamond rings she wears on a regular basis, as these pieces will be your guide to the diamond ring you select. She wouldn’t wear something all of the time if she didn’t like it, right? So, pay close attention to the style of diamond she prefers as well as the choice of metal (white gold, yellow gold, platinum, etc).

One last key piece of information and you’ll be ready to buy. It is helpful, but not necessary, if you can somehow find out her ring size. While she is at work or running errands, you could simply take one of her rings to the jeweler and voila! – you now have that mystery solved.

These tips will help you express your love with an unbreakable diamond ring that is sure to elicit a major reaction on her end. Remember, you don’t want to be the guy who just “picked it out themselves”. You want to be the guy that picked it out perfectly.

Develop A Systematic Wedding Planning

September 17th, 2008

The most important day in your life is your wedding, and there is no doubt that you would want this day to be a grand success. Making a proper and effective wedding planning should be your top priority if you want your wedding to be remembered by all your relatives and friends for a long time to come. However, the development of the wedding planning needs to be done systematically and thoroughly so that the various steps are accomplished in an orderly fashion without any stress.

Start Early And Make A Checklist

You should start early with your wedding planning and make a proper checklist of all that needs to be done. This checklist should also be accompanied by a budget plan that matches the various expenses needed to fulfill the various activities of the checklist. Preparing the checklist should be done with proper thought and with plenty of time. Whereas you might have all the bright ideas for the checklist, it would be a good idea to consult your parents who can offer valuable suggestions based on their experience.

Decide On The Venue

The other important things that need to be included in the wedding planning are the venues of the marriage and the reception. The venue for the wedding would depend on whether you want to have a church wedding or a civic wedding. There are many people who like to have their wedding in unconventional and non-traditional places such as a ship or in the mountains or even aboard a plane. However, if you want to have your wedding in a unique place, you will have to start very early with the wedding planning.

Reception Arrangements

The arrangements for the reception also need to be included in the wedding planning as you might like to hire a singer or a musical group for providing live entertainment for the guests. Moreover, the other aspects that need to be decided well in advance are the food, the wedding cake, the flowers, and the decorations. Besides these, you would also have to organize the various clothing items such as morning suits for the men, hats for the ladies, the wedding dress for the bride, and the dresses for the bridesmaids.

Finalize List Of Invitees

Perhaps the most important aspect of the wedding planning is finalizing the list of the invitees. The activities connected with this aspect are: finalization of the wedding invitation cards, sending out the same to the various people, and making out a seating plan in such a way that there is minimum resentment among the guests.

Other Miscellaneous Arrangements

The wedding planning should not overlook many other small arrangements that have to be made. These include appointments at the hair salons for the bride and the bridesmaids, the rehearsal dinner, gifts for the bridesmaids, distribution of gift lists by the couple, center pieces for the various tables, and plenty of confetti.

A proper wedding planning can go a long way toward ensuring the success of your wedding functions.

Computerize Your Wedding Planning

August 26th, 2008

It’s the age of the computer and the Internet, which have given immense benefits to mankind. You can use these tools to great advantage when you apply them to your wedding planning. With the help of these resources, you can have all the information that you need regarding the various aspects of your wedding planning by just clicking a few buttons on your computer.

Your computer can slash your workload, and you can utilize the available time to think about other matters. Your workload and worries are bound to increase as the wedding day comes nearer, and at this stage your computer can be your friend in need.

Choosing the right wedding planning software is very important, and you should take care of the following aspects:

Important Considerations For Choosing Wedding Planning Software
1. The wedding planning software should be user-friendly, and it should have a free tutorial program so that the user can know about its operations and intricacies. It would be ideal if a free trial is available.

2. Since the checklist for wedding planning needs to be constantly updated in order to keep track of the progress and shortcomings, it is essential that the software offers suitable facilities for doing so.

3. Keeping track of the money spent vis-a-vis the budget is very important at every stage of the wedding planning. The software should offer proper budget determinants that keep you aware of the budget variations. It is also essential to have a timeline that will keep reminding you of when certain actions have to be taken and how much they cost.

4. The starting point of planning for a wedding is a checklist and the possible sources or a list of vendors associated with each activity in the wedding planning. Having software that provides a list of vendors can be a great help.

5. The wedding planning software should not merely be a provider of information but it should help you stay in control at every stage so that you can have the type of wedding that you have been dreaming about. The software should make your actions easier, quicker, and without any stress.

The wedding planning software should be your trusted companion that can do a lot of your wedding planning work. Basically, it should keep on giving a proper feedback of what has been done and what is still pending and about which way your budget is heading. It should help in printing of invitations and give proper information regarding the address book so that the guest list can be properly finalized. It should also help in tracking the approximate number of people who will attend the wedding based on the RSVPs and also help in the seating arrangements.

You need wedding planning software that will help you with every aspect of the wedding planning process.

A Guide To Wedding Invitations

August 21st, 2008

Wedding invitations are an integral part of a wedding’s theme and the “mood” you want to set for your ceremony. After all, if the purpose were to solely inform the guests of the details of the event, then you could just send an email or postcard. However, the invitation also serves as a souvenir of a special occasion, and an announcement of a couple’s love. Like the wedding ceremony itself, it must be beautiful and personal.

Selecting the Wedding Invitation’s Design

There are thousands of ready-made wedding invitations to choose from; simply select a design, send the details, and the printer can have it ready within weeks. With such a wide selection, it may be difficult to pick which one is best. Here are the things to consider: * Formal or casual. You want a wedding invitation to complement the overall theme and mood of the wedding. Is your wedding formal or casual? A formal wedding may need classic script fonts, formal wording, and the traditional double envelope. A more casual invitation may use more modern fonts and more natural wording (i.e., instead of “we cordially invite you”, say “please join us…”), but care must be taken to retain the solemnity of the occasion. Let’s say you want to enclose a photo of you and your fiancé—not typically done for traditional invitations. Wear appropriate clothes to the photo shoot: shorts and tank tops simply don’t work.

* Color. You should always choose a subdued color. If you are using a rather bright color for your motif, like turquoise, opt for a delicate ribbon trim or small accents at the sides or corners rather than applying it to the whole invitation. This makes the invitation look more classy, and again, is in keeping with the nature of the event. It’s a wedding, not a night dancing at a trendy club.

* Personal Touches. You can add a short poem, a photo of the couple, or a song lyric from the wedding ceremony.

Wedding Invitation Inserts

Most wedding invitation companies can provide a selection of templates where you just have to fill in the specific names, places and dates. However, many couples prefer to make their own, to make the invitation less stiff and more personalized. If so, here are a few guidelines:

* It is not necessary to put the entourage in the invitation. However, you can have a separate piece of paper listing the members that can be inserted in select invitations—specifically those that go to the entourage themselves, and to the more immediate family and friends. They would appreciate the souvenir; plus, it is a way of thanking them for their participation.

* You’d never forget to put the date and the venue, but many couples forget to put a map to the church and/or reception area. A map would be very helpful, and would save many guests any inconvenience especially if the wedding is located in a place they are unfamiliar with.

* If you are trying to control the number of guests, insert a small card that says, “We have reserved # seats for you.” This is a subtle and polite way of minimizing the headcount.

* If you are moving to a new home after the wedding, you can include another small insert announcing your new address.

10 Must Have Gifts Ideas For The Wedding Party

August 20th, 2008

It is traditional for the bride to give the groom a gift on the wedding day. Although the wedding rings that the couple exchanges can be considered gifts, many brides choose to honor their groom with an additional gift that suits his personality.

One unique gift ideas for your bridesmaids is an evening bag to be used as an accessory on the wedding day. This gift can be a lovely gesture and will serve the purpose of keeping the accessories of the bridesmaids’ uniform and will free your bridesmaid from the burden of searching for an evening bag that matches the dress. In this case you may choose to give the bridesmaids their gifts early in the wedding planning so that they don’t purchase a bag specifically for the occasion of your wedding.

A photo album complete with a picture of you and the bridesmaid or the entire wedding party can be another unique gift idea for the bridesmaids. You could purchase photo albums with the date of your wedding engraved on the front cover and start the photo album with a picture of you and the bridesmaid. This is a wonderful gift idea because the bridesmaid can place her photos from the wedding day in the album and will always have a precious souvenir from your wedding day.

Gift certificates to a spa or a salon also make unique gift ideas for your bridesmaids. Your bridesmaids most likely spent a great deal of time and energy in helping you to plan your wedding. The week prior to your wedding was also probably especially hectic with a great deal of last minute details to attend to and errands to run. While you will have your honeymoon to relax and renew your energy your bridesmaids do not have this luxury so by honoring them by presenting them with a gift certificate to a spa or salon you are giving them the gift or being pampered and the gift of relaxation.

A few more unique gift ideas for your bridesmaids’ gifts include handcrafted or homemade gifts. For example you could put together a CD of some of your bridesmaids’ favorite songs. You could make the CDs different for each bridesmaid and include a photo of the two of you on the cover and include a heartfelt poem on the inside of the CD cover. You could also create a scrapbook for each of your bridesmaids. You could either make the scrapbook a memory of your entire friendship together and include photos and other items from your various adventures throughout the years or if you plan ahead and take many photos documenting your wedding preparations, you could create scrapbooks as a remembrance of the wedding planning that you shared.

Personalized cosmetics bags can also be used as unique bridesmaids gifts. You could purchase attractive cosmetic bags and have them embroidered with your bridesmaids’ initials and the date of your wedding. Another nice touch with this gift is to include a few items such as lipstick or nail polish that complement each of your bridesmaids’ style and complexion.

Another unique gift idea for a bride to give to her bridesmaids is a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Assisting in your wedding preparations was probably extremely stressful and time consuming for the bridesmaids and they certainly deserve a night on the town and the opportunity to not have to cook for a night. This simple gift lets your bridesmaids know that you appreciate their efforts and that you want to thank them for all that they have done to support you.

Unique gift ideas for the bridesmaids can also stem from the wedding theme. For example if you are having a beach themed wedding you might want to give your bridesmaids a gift of a tote bag, a beach towel and a novel to enjoy on the beach. This unique gift idea ensures that your bridesmaids will remember your wedding fondly the next time they are at the beach.

Although the tradition of the bride and groom exchanging gifts on their wedding day is beginning to fade, many couples still wish to honor this tradition. Many couples spend so much money on their wedding and reception that they feel as though they cannot afford the additional expense of buying gifts for each other. While it may be true that the couple cannot afford one more extravagant gift it is also true that a truly thoughtful gift for the groom does not have to be overly expensive. If the couple is partaking in this tradition it is advisable that they exchange gifts that truly reflect the personality of their spouse.

Four Pillars For A Long And Successful Marriage

August 18th, 2008

It requires constant effort from both partners to have a long and successful marriage. After some time, some couples become very desperate and they are ready to throw the towel. They usually wonder how they spent so much time together as they can no longer love each other. Then they turn for help from counselors. These counselors usually advise the couple to follow the tips given below which are the four pillars holding the institution called marriage.

Attend to Your Spouse’s Emotional Needs:

Marriage is an emotional support that a husband and wife provide to each other. Over a period of time, the understanding of each other’s needs take a back seat. To have a long and successful marriage, it is very important to rediscover the ways to meet the emotional needs of your spouse. You have your own priorities and your partner have another set of priorities. In order to have a successful marriage, both of you should talk together and arrive at a joint decision in giving correct priority for the needs based on their importance.

Don’t Become the Cause of Unhappiness of Your Spouse:

Both the partners should take a conscious decision not to become the cause of unhappiness of your spouse. This decision is to be followed everyday. Even if you attend to each other’s emotional needs, it may not lead to a long and successful marriage. You should not hurt your partner’s feelings with your behavior and cause unhappiness for your mate.

Honesty:

This is the most important step in a long and successful marriage. If you are honest in dealing with your spouse, it helps in understanding each other in a better way. If you are not honest in the marriage, the adjustments you are making with your spouse become fruitless and it becomes a major cause in destroying a long and successful marriage.

Spending Time Together:

This is an important step in having a long and successful marriage. Without spending time together, you cannot attend to each other’s emotional needs. Especially after the arrival of children, spending time together with your spouse becomes secondary. However, you should give highest priority to spend time together. By prioritizing your career, home maintenance and other needs properly, you should find time to spend in each other’s company.

Conclusion:

All the steps listed above are just pointers leading to a successful marriage. Both the partners should try to follow the tips sincerely. This is the only way for a successful marriage.

Selecting Wedding Favors

February 21st, 2008

When selecting favors for your wedding there are a number of factors you should consider before making your final decision. Some couples do not give enough consideration to their wedding favors and this is quite unfortunate because the wedding favor is the one part of the wedding which your guests will take home as a reminder of your wedding.  A well chosen wedding favor can result in your friends and family members remembering your wedding day more fondly than they remember other weddings they have attended simply because they see or use your favor often and it automatically triggers memories of your wedding day. However, couples who do not put much thought or effort into the favors they distribute at the wedding may find their guests discarded their favors soon after the wedding.

This article will discuss some of the factors to be considered when selecting wedding favors. These factors should include price, usefulness of the favor and appropriateness of the favor. Considering each of these elements carefully will help the couple to make a wise choice when selecting wedding favors. Price is one of the most important factors a couple must consider when selecting wedding favors. This is so important because the price will often dictate the quality of the favors. While you can purchase some great favors at a very inexpensive price, there will likely be a great deal of comparison shopping involved to find the best deal on the favor. There will also likely be a great deal of research involved.  

For example you may find that items such as picture frames are out of your budget range but you may find other great items such as candles are well within your budget. You may also be pleasantly surprised to find out that although picture frames available from one distributor are too expensive, another distributor has enough picture frames in their closeout stock for you to purchase favors for your wedding. It is just important to remember to not be too disappointed about the items you cannot afford and to instead focus on finding the best favor you can afford.   Another factor to consider when selecting wedding favors is whether or not the favor will be useful to your guests. This is very important because favors which are useful are often much better received than favors which the guest cannot use. For example many guests will find items such as picture frames and candles to be useful but will be less impressed with favors such as figurines of a bride and groom. These may be very pretty but many of your friends and family member likely have a collection of similar items from other weddings they have been too and may simply not have room to display these favors. As a result the favor may wind up in a box in the attic or may be thrown out shortly after the wedding.  Finally, a couple should carefully consider the appropriateness of a wedding favor when making their final decision. This is very important because you do not want to give your guests a favor which they will think is inappropriate. Fortunately, when it comes to wedding favors just about anything is considered appropriate. From candy to office supplies and from statues to books just about anything is appropriate for the wedding as long as it reflects the theme of the wedding, reflects the underlying theme of love or is even just something which the guests can use and will appreciate. For example you can certainly give out dictionaries as wedding favors. Your guests will not likely be offended by this favor but some of them may think it is a little strange. However, if you give each of your guests a copy of a book filled with love poems no one will think it is a strange idea for a wedding favor at all. Perhaps the best way to determine whether or not a wedding favor is appropriate is to think about what you would feel if you were given that same item as a favor at another wedding. 

Are Bachelorette Parties for Good Girls?

December 13th, 2007

A lot of brides wonder, can I have a bachelorette party and still be viewed as a good girl? Many mothers and grandmothers advise their daughters that only “bad” women have bachelorette parties, and that a girl’s reputation can be tarnished by a wild night out on the town. So, these older women say, don’t have a bachelorette party at all.

However, for most modern brides, a bachelorette party is a right of passage, and a fair deal since the groom will undoubtedly have a bachelor party. Why should the boys be the only ones who get to celebrate the last days of being single?

Unfortunately, there is a tension between a traditional bachelorette party that may include strippers, random strangers at bars hitting on the girls, suck-a-buck tee shirts, and other penis shaped party favors, and maintaining some sense of dignity. For a lot of women, the thought of a wild bachelorette party with a male exotic dancer seems too risqué for it to be a fun night, and would make it a tedious exercise rather than a memorable adventure. Instead, many women opt for a stay at home, low key bachelorette party. This may be a great solution for girls who worry that they aren’t being a “good” fiancé if they go out and have guys hit on them all night, buying drinks for the bachelorette and making lewd comments. Instead, a bride-to-be can have a bachelorette party that is focused more on celebrating being a woman and having the women around her who mean the most.

This type of bachelorette party should be specifically requested if a bride is demure. No need to take a chance that one of your bridesmaids will think you want to go out to clubs and bars, if what you really want is a quiet night in. For a more simplistic, “nice girl” bachelorette party, it is great to focus on time with the girls in a way that seems more infused with class and propriety.

The party can be planned with pink as the theme - pink decorations, foods, and party favors, and guests wearing the girly hue. You can plan activities such as spa treatments, at home pedicures, or lighthearted games that are not bawdy as many bachelorette games tend to be. Another option is to host a bachelorette party slumber party, complete with pizza, sleeping bags, and girly movies. The point is that you can remain a “good” girl, and still celebrate your womanhood and fleeting single status with your girlfriends. Bachelorette parties don’t all have to be about wearing tight fitting clothes and flirting with strangers. Instead, the focus can remain on what makes the bride feel comfortable, supported, and loved by her bridesmaids and other female friends.

A small, intimate, at home bachelorette party may be the perfect solution for making the bride feel as though this right of passage has upheld her beliefs and allowed her to remain true to herself. Bachelorette parties can be whatever you want them to be!