5 ways a bride can dress her best on her big day

Written by: Rabbi Melinda Bracha Bernstein

www.melindabernstein.com

Every so often my mother and I go through her memory albums and books. Whenever I take out her wedding album, she gets very upset.  My parents were happily married for 64 ½ years until my father passed in 2015. According to her, the wedding album didn’t capture their first moments as husband and wife very well and she adamantly refuses to allow me to share her wedding album.  She does like one photo and allowed me to share it with you. It’s sad for me because when I look at her wedding album, I see her beauty.  Of course she’s my mother and I am immediately biased, however I truly honor her emotions and disappointment.

I don’t want this to happen to you and that is why I am writing to share a few things that will help you be sure you won’t. First of all, it’s important to share a bit of my childhood experiences so you can appreciate these tips.  When I was growing up the place my mom took me to the most was the 163rdstreet mall in North Miami Beach.  Not only were there several big stores for her to fill her desire to shop, there was an outdoor playground with a train ride for her to take my brothers and I on before the travel home.  All of my life my mother has taught me the art of thrift and the value of coordination so I guess I have her to thank for this advice.  Thanks Mom!

Before I give you the 5 tips, what does dress big mean to you?  For myself, dressing big is an art form that reveals a natural essence and intrinsic beauty of the bride.  With the wedding “paparazzi” ready to snap away and share their excitement, dressing big will enable even the amateur to capture and accentuate the you inside your dress and under your makeup and hairdo.  Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out there, here are the 5 ways a bride can dress her best on her big day!

1. Choose colors that will aesthetically enhance your wedding theme. If you are going for a seasonal theme, then make sure those colors blend with you and your beloveds skin tones. If you don’t know your skin tones, google has lots of charts to help you.

2. Make sure your venue has color or existing décor that compliments your ideal colors. If you’re already in contract with a venue and didn’t consider the colors, you may have to modify your vision and use their colors to determine your wedding theme. There are plenty of ways to not let this be an obstacle though.

3. Beauty is not just skin deep, it is soul deep and you deserve to indulge your soul at every turn before your wedding. Plan early so your wedding flows with greater ease. Even if you love to organize and/or have budget constraints, find a friend who is knowledgeable about wedding planning and has the time to help out. Or better yet, HIRE a wedding planner. (more blogging on this later)

4. Make sure your wedding officiant is able to follow your vision or share with you their talents and skills so your ceremony is well remembered with exuberance and joy. This stands true for all your other vendors too. I suggest you make a list of your desires and if you’re unclear, ask each vendor what makes them stand out and choose according to what your heart feels.

5. Speaking of standing out and what your heart feels, get your wedding officiant and guests to dress in a complimentary style as you. Think about your future pictures and what you want to see. When I work with couples I always give them a questionnaire to fill out so that our consultations are efficient. I’m looking to see your colors, your theme and your level of religiosity (if any). Most of the time people don’t even think about coordinating with their officiant, but I can assure you, I do. Thanks mom!

Whether I am flown out of the South Florida area for a wedding or stand with a couple in the areas of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach, South Florida, for a wedding; I want to help my brides dress their best!

An artisan bride and all around colorful couple, Brandon & Lindsay. Their wedding was outdoors at Benvenuto Restaurant.  Lindsay and Brandon have a special flair and it stood out the moment we met in person.  When I arrived at the wedding, I noticed the creativity of their colors on many of their guests.  I chose to wear my handmade Tibetan prayer shawl over a sleek and unique white dress.  This shawl has been with me since my days in California but never had I worn it for a wedding.  I had also never seen so many guests with hair dyed in lilac to match the wedding colors either.

8 Tips To Keep Within your Floral Budget For Your Wedding

Wedding Floral | Not Just The Bouquet Anymore

Happy Monday everyone! We know Monday's have the potential to be a drag so here's a blog post, written by the amazing Kelly Dixon of Union Blooms Floral to brighten up your day :)

This will be Part 1, so be sure to check back to see more tips from Kelly!

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Wedding floral is one of the items for any wedding that sets the tone, theme, colors, and what can be one of the most budget killing expenditures for any budget.  As a floral designer, who specializes in weddings and events, here are tips for how to keep within budget while getting the look you want as well as what to ask your florist and my tips for making sure your day goes as seamlessly as possible.

1.     Use Pinterest to find the overall look you want.  But only use Pinterest as a guideline.  That huge hydrangea and rose covered arch you’re looking at may be out of your budget, but it’s the general look you want. That cascading bouquet with Phalaenopsis orchids may be stunning but is it the flower or the overall look you like?

I tell all my clients to bring photos of ideas they like to a consultation.  Why? It allows me to see what their overall vision is and how to tailor it for their particular budget.

2.     Once you find the look you want and decide on colors, STEP AWAY from Pinterest.  After you have made your final decision it can cloud the overall look with multiple new photos being sent to your floral designer, leaving he/she questioning the notes they took at your consults and culled from your emails and phone calls.

There will always be a new trend, a new color palette, but feeling confident in your final choice is important for the outcome to be as close to what you envisioned.   

3.     The MOST important part of your wedding floral is the bridal bouquet.  Why? It will be in nearly every photo of the bride.  A breakdown of your proposal per cost should show the bridal bouquet being a pretty hefty part of your proposal costs.  A good designer will know that this is the “showstopper” piece and the most attention needs to be put on the bridal bouquet.

Many times, I have had clients who said they wanted a small bouquet. Happily, I will accommodate that request with varied responses on the day of the wedding as the bride wishes her bouquet was bigger and more elaborate.  It is frustrating for a designer to spend hours if not days working on a wedding to find a client who is not as pleased with their decision.

4.     Listen to your designer.  It’s 100 degrees in August and you want tulips and hydrangea.  You’re insisting on those two flowers, your designer is begging you to reconsider.  There is a reason for this.  Designers spend a lot of time designing your pieces, whether they be the personal floral, ceremony floral or reception floral.  They know in August, tulips will be dead by the time the wedding starts and the hydrangea will look like something left over from the week before.  Designers know what flowers will do well in what situations. Listen to their advice to help alleviate wedding day disappointment.

Case in point.  One of my first weddings, yes, in August, and yes she insisted on red tulips.  Not only was the cost higher as they are out of season, I knew her venue, which had no air conditioning, would not be a good fit for her desired tulips.  I showed her red garden roses, dark red standard roses, and still, she held fast to the red tulips.  While the assembly looked good, the outcome was a huge disappointment.  Sitting in a church for 2 hours before the ceremony with no air conditioning the tulips were fully open and petals falling by the time the ceremony started.  Her bouquet? It was nearly dead by the end of the ceremony.  She was upset, she was angry.  While I fully understood her disappointment, I only redirected her to the countless emails with the flower options and me as the designer begging her not to use the tulips and the reasons why.

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Kelly Dixon | Union Blooms Floral

Info@unionbloomsfloralweddings.com | www.unionbloomsfloralweddings.com

Preparing For Your Session | Part 1 'The Client'

You're gonna look great! 

There are many different kinds of sessions that photographer's offer. The first thing you should do is understand what kind of session you are having, don't worry, most of the session names are pretty straight forward. This allows you to get into the right mindset and distinguish the different variables that set your session apart from the others. For example, if you are meeting with the photographer for an engagement session, you want to look beautiful and in love. A lot of the time, you won't be posing in an engagement session looking like you're about to go to a Halloween party. However, if that is how the two of you met, by all means, I think that would be an awesome session and I would love to photograph it! If you're preparing for an editorial session, you'll want to check out different magazines and I don't have to remind you how wonderful Pinterest for ideas. Just be aware that the photographer is also an artist, and while getting creative ideas, will most likely not want to copy the exact photo that you have. Here are some more words and pictures!

Whoops! :P

Confidence!

There is a laundry list of items you could think about to get ready for your session, but the best thing to do is keep it simple. 

1. Be you and be comfortable. Being yourselves will overall get you the best photos! The clothes that you wear should reflect your personalities and how you see yourselves :) They should also be clothes that you can move around in, play in, and work your body into different poses. Don't be boring like a plain white shirt with khakis, but venture to find your clothing spirit animal, just keep it in the same color family so it's not chaos.

Don't have one of those moments like when you look back at your high school yearbook and think "What was I doing!?" We've all been there. 

2. Now, I always carry certain props with me but that's because I feel they bring a certain energy to an image. It's like putting italics on a word :P 

Now, we don't know if the baby is a boy or girl yet so they chose Daphne and Myles as names

I do ask my clients to bring items with them that they like. ^^^ Amber and Jimmy brought baby blocks to spell out their baby's name. #SoCute

3.  Most likely the photographer will have a great location set out for your already, but if you have a special place that you'd like your session to be, let them know! We love going to places that make you happy, it makes for better images!

4. Think about how you'd like to display the images you've taken! The products Sonacity Photography offers range from small prints, to albums, to large prints on metal! How big do you want that canvas of your family to be? Would you like to be able to see all the photos in an album? Remember, these moments become family heirlooms that will be treasured by your children and grandchildren. So be sure to make ridiculous faces and stick your tongue out at them. 

5. Trust your photographer :) -Thanks, Carlos Romero!

What are you thoughts? How do you get ready?

If you have any questions or feel I've left something out, feel free to contact me! The inquiry page is really close by :)

Are you stress free about your wedding day?

Awesome Wedding Intro!

Ladies and gentlemen, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. YOUR WEDDING DAY IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN! Will it be hectic, hell yeah. and you should be ready for that. Prepare. Take some yoga and relaxation classes. Get your pilates on. Should it be stressful? Hell no. You know how people get these gorgeous, smiling photographs on the craziest and most hectic day of their lives? Besides downing a bottle or so of wine, half a bottle of whiskey, a pack of Yuengling, and taking a Xanax bar or two, they remember they get to spend the rest of their life with the person they love. You've spent months and/or years planning this day to be perfect, but the honest truth is that who knows how the weather will turn out, how traffic will be...damn you I4, or what will happen that is out of your control. You can only control how you perceive the day. Fact, you will be surrounded by people you love, people who you admire and who admire you. People who want the best for you and want you to be happy. These are the truths that make your wedding day stress free and wonderful. Have fun with your friends, soon, you'll be marrying your best one!  

Who else would you be able to do fun stuff like this with? Your best friend ;)

The queen and her king

Tran + Umair

Venue: Costa De Este | Vero Beach

These two are a perfect blend of fun and power, kind of like the Obamas. During the portrait session, Umair was calling himself the king but fellas, we all know who runs the relationship ;) Tran, of course looked beautiful in her wedding dress and the day could not have been more perfect. The green surrounding the venue along with it's white walls made for such elegant images. The colors of the sky, matched with the water, are vibrant and achieves a calming affect. You could tell that these two were smitten with each other, laughing and smiling the throughout the session. 

I hope your honeymoon in Hawaii was wonderful!