The Best Wedding Gifts to Give

So you have been invited to another wedding and you want to get the happy couple a great gift. Tired of giving toasters, glassware, and money? Let's get right to the point, this year's top gifts to receive are photo frames, monogrammed items they can show off, and weekend vacation get-a-ways.

Photo frames are always a perfect gift to give for many reasons. If you choose a stainless steel or a neutral finish such as black or gold aluminum, you don't have to worry about matching the decor of their house. These types of frames usually compliment any room. When choosing what size to get, I would suggest purchasing 5" x 7" and 8" x 10" photo frames. The 5"x7" is a perfect size to place on the bedside table, fire place mantel, or a coffee table without taking up too much room or making too big of a statement.

And an 8" x 10" frame can be displayed on a wall, placed on a desk or an accent table. Have the frame engraved with the happy couples name or special message for a real personal touch. The Signature Frame is very popular this year, not just for weddings but for all special occasions. It is a great alternative to the traditional paper guest book and is a very special keepsake. Your guests simply sign directly on the frame for a lasting impression.

The solid wood beveled frame can hold an 8" x 10" picture and comes complete with the easy-to-use Signature Engraving Scribe??which permanently etches signatures into the sturdy, high quality alloy surface, additional matting, hanging hardware, and a micro-fiber polishing cloth to remove smudges. This Signature Frame is an amazing keepsake that will be treasured forever.

Monogrammed gifts such as bath towels, robes, bar gear, and party ware are wonderful keepsakes that have an elegant appeal. Engrave a set of wine, pilsner and/or shot glasses with the couple's initials. A sleek Pewter Medallion Mug engraved with the couples name and or a special message is something they can use for all their favorite beverages. For a more prestigious gift, give a silver plated or stainless steel wine opener or stopper engraved with the couple's initials along with a personalized Napa Wine Carrier that can be embossed with their initials as well. Bar and party items are always a welcome gift as this is something that is not often purchased on their own and enhances the happy couple's entertaining experiences.

Weekend getaway trips can be found in every city and town at affordable prices. The obvious, amazing weekend trip would be cruises or a weekend at a lovely Inn or Spa. Booking these types of trips can be risky because you cannot be sure the dates you reserve will be convenient for the couple to attend and many trips are not refundable. You would definitely want to inform the couple of your intentions prior to purchasing these types of trips. Search weekend getaway on the web for things to do in your area, you can find local Hotels, Spas, Wineries, and Inn's that have packages you can purchase that can be used for up to one year. Put together a special, romantic basket that is filled with decant chocolates, fine wines, cheese and crackers and tickets to a concert or play. Tickets to a roller rink or ice skating ring are also a fun, romantic activity.

Whenever you are in doubt of what type of wedding present to give, try to think about what they like not what you like. Don't buy them a useless gift such as a bird statue or big purple vase that doesn't even go with their d矇cor, be safe and give cash!

How to Post Newspaper Wedding Announcements

One of the most traditional ways for a bride and groom to spread the good news of their marriage is with an announcement in the newspaper. Even in these days of electronic media, many couples still want to do the old fashioned notice in their local paper, for their scrapbook, if no other reason. This is what you need to know about how to post newspaper wedding announcements.

The first step is to decide which paper or papers you would like to place your wedding announcements in. Often, a bride will place a notice in both the paper for her current residence and the paper for the town in which she grew up (generally only if her parents still live there or the family has strong ties to the community). Keep in mind that most newspapers do charge a fee for placing a wedding announcement, and in some cases that charge can run well into hundreds of dollars. For that reason, couples may prefer to choose only one newspaper for their announcement. Something else that couples should be aware of is that smaller community papers will tend to charge less for their events section than the large metropolitan publications. If all you really want is the announcement to post in your wedding album, you can save some cash by placing your notice in a small paper if you have one in your town.

As for timing, try to have your announcement ready to file as soon after the wedding date as possible. All papers have deadlines, so you won't necessarily be able to share the news of your marriage in the Sunday paper the week after your wedding, but it would be nice to have it posted in a timely manner. One idea is to have your announcement written and your paperwork filled out before the wedding, so all you need to do after the event is add your favorite wedding photo. Some newspapers require notices to be submitted by fax or mail, whereas others have easy online submission formats. Be sure to see a proof of your announcement before approving it. The last thing you want is for the paper to spell your name wrong or mis-print your wedding date!

There are two general styles of wedding announcements for newspapers, the formal version and the brief summary. In the long formal version, the notice will talk about everything from the officiant, to the best man, to how the bride met the maid of honor. It will also mention where the bride and groom attended college, their current occupations, and where they will honeymoon, in addition to the standard details about the date and location of the wedding. The short version of an announcement will cover just the bare minimum: names of the brides and groom, date and location of the wedding, and the officiant. The longer announcements are more fun to read, but the shorter ones will be less expensive, as the papers charge by the line.

The photo included in your wedding announcement will generally be printed in black and white, though some papers will print in color for an additional hefty fee. Choose a picture which is timeless and shows the bride and groom in all their finery. People want to be able to see the bride's wedding gown, her pearl jewelry, and her hairstyle! The groom should be in the shot too, but really it is the bride's gown and pearl wedding jewelry which will get all the attention from casual readers of the newspaper. Remember that your wedding announcement will become a part of posterity, and select an appropriately elegant photograph. Be sure to check on the specific photo size and orientation requirements for the newspapers you intend to use for your notice.

Placing an announcement in the paper when a couple is married is an old custom which is still popular today. With care, you can be sure that your wedding announcement will be a newspaper clipping that you will cherish forever.

Designing a 50th Wedding Anniversary Photo Album

Wedding Anniversary Celebrations

Wedding anniversaries are a cause for celebration whether the couple are celebrating their first anniversary or their 10th. By the time a couple reach their 50th wedding anniversary it is an even greater cause for celebration because this is a major milestone in any marriage. Celebrate a 50th anniversary in style by creating a customised photo album using photos of the happy couple together. You can even scan old paper print pictures and use one of these as the cover of the album.

Choose A Favourite Photo For The Cover

The album cover is the area that you can customise yourself through the addition of one or more favourite photographs. The standard layout affords you the opportunity to print a single photo on the front and again on the back but you can choose a second picture for the back instead if you like or even have a photo montage or other unique design created for one or both of the covers.

Choose An Album Size

There are three sizes of photo albums and depending on the size that you choose your album will include either 60 or 100 sides of photo album page and will be able to house various different sizes of picture. Small albums provide 60 sides of 6' x 4' photos, medium offer 60 sides of 8' x 6' photos, and large albums provide 100 sides of 10' x 8' photos.

Self Mount Photo Albums

The photo album is a self mount photo album which means that the recipient has to apply photo mount pieces before they can stick the pictures down on the pages. However, many people enjoy this tactile experience of finishing their own photo gift and this is the case then the photo album is the ideal gift opportunity that can be given to your husband or wife, or to the couple celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Professional Album Books

As well as a 50th wedding anniversary photo album you can create a customised design for a 50th anniversary photo book. The photo book also provides the opportunity to customise the front cover but instead of leaving the recipient to mount their own images, you can include the photos and they will be printed on each and every side within the photo book.

Anniversary Photo Calendars

The photo album, in its various guises, is just one type of photo gift that can be personalised with pictures and turned into a stunning looking 50th anniversary gift. Choose 13 photos of you and your partner and create a personalised yearly calendar. This is a functional and beautiful looking gift as well as one customised especially for the occasion

Photo Restoration and Editing For Your Wedding Photos

Taking photos is necessary at wedding ceremonies and other such parties. However, you are not able to get the perfect pictures every time. Sometimes, you are not able to take the perfect pictures because of bad camera quality. Sometimes, you get blurry pictures because of too much movement at the time of taking the picture. And on other occasions, the lighting plays a big role in ruining your pictures. Too much lighting along with bad lighting can also be bad for your pictures. If there is too much light, you will observe glares and extraordinarily white spots in your pictures. With photo restoration, all these problems can be dealt with.

If you have had a bad experience with pictures on your wedding, you can take services from a photo restoration professional to restore your pictures. A lot can be done to your wedding pictures with the help of latest photo editing software and tools. Not only can you restore the pictures that have become faded but you can also add wedding photo effects to them. With the help of photo retouching and photo enhancement, you can bring life to your wedding pictures that have dull colors. Brighter, darker or lighter colors can be added to your wedding pictures with the help of photo editing software.

With a background change, photo restoration experts can create a perfect picture of your couple. Due to bad lighting, your pictures can have a very dark background at times. Who would want to have a dark background on a wedding picture? With background change, you can get rid of the dark background issue from your wedding pictures. If there is something in the background that is ruining a romantic picture of the couple, you can have the background changed to your liking. Even if there is no background or picture is not from your wedding, you can make it a wedding picture by using background change options.

If some features of your face or body are not looking good in the picture, you can make them disappear with the help of photo retouching. Photo enhancement can be used to balance any colors distortion in the pictures. If you visit a professional's office or website, you will find a huge range of wedding photo effects that could be added to your wedding photos. With photo restoration and editing techniques, you can add items on your wedding pictures. How about trying different color effects on your plain white wedding gown?

The History of Reportage Wedding Photography

Reportage Wedding Photography is still thought by many to be a recent trend in photography. In fact it has a long heritage and was often called candid photography in the context of a wedding. Seen by extreme traditionalists (a rare breed now) as a new fad, it was felt to threaten the supremacy of the medium format camera with its staged shots and posed set ups.

In the old style, photographers always had a big camera set up on a tripod and even a hood over the head of the photographer. This Very formal and very posed art of portraiture was born, like so many of today's cultural norms, of technological limitations. Way back when, photographic technology required long exposure times, long winded plate or film changes and "keep still" poses. Fast 35 mm film basically solved this problem, again with certain limitations. Lighter cameras holding rolls meant that photojournalistic techniques could be applied to wedding photography.

The game changer was that wedding photography needed no longer to be posed. Wedding Photography could now become Reportage Photography. Precious moments, unrepeatable in a pose are only possible with the participants being unaware that a camera is in use. Fast film offered this to a degree, although the fastest film was ISO 1600 or 3200 and were very grainy. In fact the grain produced by fast film (which enabled action freezing photojournalism in low-ish light) became a signature "look" found in Time magazine and other iconic journals.

Naturally, wedding photography started to borrow this look and start demanding the grainy black and white look. The grain is of course a form of visual artefact - a distortion of the truth in reality. Today's technology now takes this several steps further with the equivalent of ISO 102,000 available on some machines. A shot at ISO 6400 is now considered routine - affording incredible reportage wedding photography options to the photographer - with no grain in sight.

At times the modern, digital photographer is asked to add a simulation of celluloid film grain to otherwise pristine photograph. Although it can look great, it is an intriguing fact of aesthetics that a photograph can seem more timeless and real with artefacts added to it.

Part of the maturation of reportage wedding photography has to be the evolution of the Wedding Album. Rather than present the married couple with a simple book with best pictures placed in order of preference, the wedding photographer's task now includes the design and layout of a book that well tell the story of the wedding. Photographs are placed in a digitally printed book, in chronological order. Each photo relates to each other photo as part of a linear story, bringing vividly back the memories of the big day.

Designing DIY Photo Wedding Invitations With Unique Styles

Many of us overlook the significance of wedding invitations when compared to the catering costs, renting the venue and the price of the wedding dress. Though these things do matter during the wedding preparations, but just think what is a wedding without invitations? No invitations equals to no guests. If you prefer to make your wedding a special occasion for the guests, then you can easily design your own photo wedding invitations.

These picture wedding invitations set the tone for the wedding. You can easily choose the theme for the wedding and have pictures of you and your spouse printed upon the invitations. Couples who prefer to have beach themed weddings can have their photos taken at their favorite beach and then add it to the beach themed invitations.

Creating or designing such invitations guarantees that your invitations are unique and cannot be copied by any other individual or couple. If you have no time to design your wedding invites, you can easily go in for custom made invitations that come with an option of changing the theme, layout and even adding photographs of you and your spouse.

You may come across many websites that allow you to get personalized wedding invitations at reasonable rates. All you have to do is download the templates depending upon you preferences and choose a lovely photo of you and your spouse to scan and attach to the invitations. The details of the day can either be printed or written inside the wedding invites.

Another option available for you when it comes to doing DIY photo wedding invitations is to hire graphic designers to create the picture wedding invitations with special graphics or photos. You can even have the borders of the invites altered and modified to make them even more attractive to the guests. Graphic designers can help you to make the invites more suitable for both traditional and modern wedding scenarios.

Many couples prefer the DIY kits since they come with all the necessary supplies to design beautiful and adorable wedding invites. Most of the DIY kits come with envelopes, a bunch of themed invitations and some accessories. The instruction guides found inside these kits makes the task more easier of you since all you have to do is follow the steps given inside the guide.

Many of the personalized wedding invites also come with a color change option for the photos. Couples can either choose for sepia tones or go in for black and white photos depending on their choice. Sepia tones give the photos an older look while the black and white ones makes the invitations feel more elegant and sophisticated.

Not only your friends and family love this creative photo invitations, but you will also cherish these in your scrapbook or photo album for the rest of your life. Some people who have received such type of invitations are known to have framed them as portraits. It again all depends on your creativity skills and preferences.

Simple, Yet Classy Bridal Shower Favors

Simplicity and beauty radiates in every woman about to get married. With simplicity comes class and elegance. This simplicity and elegance are mutual to every bride and should be shared in the night before the wedding to all girlfriends and dear family members for one night to remember. There are so many favors that one can choose as a giveaway marking the bridal shower event that will take place. One that could represent the bride the most is a simple yet classy memento of the bridal shower shared with friends and family.

Going for just the simple but nice favors, some examples are personalized candles wrapped in a lace ribbon with the bride and groom's name, personalized silver heart key chain which is a simple remembrance of the bridal shower celebration, a personalized cordial candle shot glass that comes in different crystalline colors, a mini silver wedding photo frame that could hold a picture of everyone that attended the bridal shower, a calla lily designed vase shape candle which emanated elegance and purity, a silver photo purse valet that will be a nice and stylish remembrance of the bridal shower and an all girl celebration, another would be a silver beaded chest jewelry box which will be very useful to all guests, an elegantly designed compact mirror which is a must on every girl's handbag, and many others. Some of these are not just simple and classy but very useful to dear guests who attended the bridal shower celebration.

Aside from simple and classy, there are other bridal shower favors that are simple yet emanate merriment and all the means of having fun. Some examples of these are personalized glass beer mugs and engraved square shot glass for a girl's party celebration, personalized mint tins with heart mints or French mints, and a personalized satin ribbon bubbles combo kit. For guests with sweet tooth there is the almond candy and chocolate combo kit. Another is the "Bubbly" Champagne Bubbles which is a suitable for any joyous celebration such as a bridal shower, a deck of playing cards with a personalized label on the case making every deal much fun for your guests, and many others. These are all suitable for a boisterous bridal shower celebration making it an unforgettable night.

These will be a cool and easy reminder of the occasion which is the celebration of the bride-to-be's last night as a single woman. That's why it is wise for the bride to choose the best favors that will serve as a nice and simple reminder of being one of the single girls whom are free and fun filled all the more with the company of friends and family members. These simple yet classy favors are available online and can be ordered in bigger quantities to save more on the prices. So aside from being wise on choosing a classic for the bridal shower, be sure to also choose a favor that suits bride's budget as well.