I was at the Wedding Fair this weekend, having a stroll around and looking at all the fantastic booths. I love the Wedding Fair, the “BIG” show and judging by the crowds, I am not the only one. In my travels through aisles of table settings and DJ’s, I bumped into a gal who I used to work with. She was there with her fiancée, brave fellow, and we got to chatting about his experience that day. He said something I thought was interesting (possibly as a joke) – he said he had hoped they would just walk out of there with their entire wedding planned. Oh, buddy – don’t we all.

I started thinking about it – could you really plan your ENTIRE wedding at a wedding show? Are there brides who power up, crack their knuckles and at the end of the day, come out with a good portion of their wedding done? Answer: with the right preparation, yes, I think you could lock down the majority of your wedding needs at the Wedding Fair and I also think you could come out with some great deals to boot.

By the right preparation, I don’t just mean bring your cheque book and a day planner. I mean lists and research – elbow grease. Come prepared; know what you want and who you’re looking for: what vendors you want to see and how much you are realistically ready to spend. I consider myself rather efficient when it comes to organization – and even the idea of that type of pre-planning makes my knees slightly buckle. You need help – I need help – we could all use a little help.

If you really wanted to get things done at the Fair, the best case scenario would be to hire a wedding planner and bring’em with you. That’s right – pay them to come with you, booth to booth, meet their contacts and see what the two of you can come up with, right on the spot. With a professional at your side, who understands what you need, what you’re looking for, and how much you’re willing to pay, you might be able to save some serious stress – and serious cash. Unless your wedding planner is a vendor at the show, this should not be a big deal for them to do. This is a great chance for them to strengthen their professional relationships by bringing their contacts business – your business.

If you can’t hire a wedding planner or a wedding coordinator (not all of us can!) – what is going to be the next best thing? I’ll tell you – it’s called Google Docs. I’m serious. Google Docs Weddings has 21 fantastic different templates from a request to update your address book ( where email recipients simply fill out a form and it pushes all the information into a neat and tidy excel spreadsheet) to templates that track all of the wedding dresses you’ve tried on.  Another great feature? With Google Docs, you can share the docs online – start a spreadsheet of the dresses you’ve tried on, share the spreadsheet with your bridesmaids over email so they can go into it online and then help you rank the dresses you liked best. Then use the spreadsheet to schedule the next time you’ll all get together to try on dresses again. And again. And again. It is the best part. And the best part about Google Docs? It’s free. Not a work often heard in the wedding world.

Google Docs – Using Wedding Templates

We can’t all have a wedding planner – but that doesn’t mean we can’t all be organized and it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of great events like the Wedding Fair. These vendors are there to make a deal – so get organized, get a spreadsheet going and go make your dream wedding happen.

Because photos of Google Docs are boring, here are some of the photos I took this weekend of some of my fav table settings (names of vendors coming!) There are tons more great photos on their Facebook page too.

I know. Engagement announcements in the newspaper are not what they used to be. Where now we say “If it’s on Facebook, its official.” they used to say “If it’s in print, its official.” Your picture in the paper was your big reveal – not your relationship status change. So do engagement announcements in the newspaper have a place in the wedding process today?
Engagement announcements in the newspaper are a relatively modern tradition, and none of my in depth Google research could find any solid facts on where they started. Detective Freckles is on the case! Newspapers began circulating to the greater public in the 1850’s, during the Industrial Revolution, so it is safe to say that the tradition is no older than 150 years. Marriages of families considered wealthy or with social prestige where reported as news, and it’s a good bet that’s where the trend caught on. Families began requesting certain marriages be reported in the paper and naturally, newspapers saw the value in asking people to pay for these social advertisements. I can see why people preferred the paper – running around telling everyone you’ve ever met in person seems *ahem* more time consuming than taking out an ad and telling the entire city in one swoop.

So a modern tradition yes, but is an engagement announcement in the paper necessary from an etiquette stand point? No – not according to Miss Manners.  She explains to her Gentle Readers in her book Miss Manners’ Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding (a hands down favourite go – to of mine) “There may be a so-called formal engagement announcement (etiquette recognizes no such thing).” Miss Manners sees it as gimmicky – just one more way modern weddings tend to turn from celebrations to spectacles.

However, in some social circles, a newspaper announcement still holds the same weight it did 100 years ago. The New York Times Weddings and Celebrations page is the social pinnacle for many. We’ve all seen that episode of Sex and the City – poor Charlotte. As this article from Associated Content tells us, there are few things you need to before you try and get your face on that page, including (but not limited too):

Step #4 – Include a Great Photograph

The New York Times has very specific guidelines for wedding announcement photographs. Your best bet is to submit a couple’s photograph that is taken as a landscape, that has your faces close together and that is laid out so that your eyebrows are aligned…”

So what about for those of us in Calgary – is there social pressure to take out an engagement announcement? Short answer – no. But it is becoming more popular, in line with the yellow filtered photographs and vintage wedding trends of 2010. I called the Calgary Herald to get a bit more information – you have two options. One, to place an ad in the Engagement Announcement section, which is black and white photos and not that popular. Bor-ing. Or you have the option to place your announcement in the Sunday Special Occasions section, as you get a bit more bang for your buck. You get a colour photo with a nice little border, a bit more text and the Sunday paper has a wider circulation so probably more readers. Price ranges $225 – $275, which isn’t cheap. Taking a look at the ads, I just don’t love them. They feel a bit stale – with limited text, and no HD printing (aren’t I fickle) – to be frank, they don’t feel like an updated version of this tradition.

So let’s circle back to where we started – with the internet, Facebook and the million other free ways of announcing your engagement, does an announcement in the paper have a place in today’s world? Yes – but I am not sure that it’s worth the money any more. You could spend the money on other things – like hiring a photography student to take photos at your engagement party instead or having a graphic designer do up a unique and personalized announcement to send out in an email. Ultimately, an engagement announcement in the newspaper is a keepsake, something to cut out and save in your scrapbook. And if you ever have an excuse to take an out an ad all about you, this is it.