Those little things...

[larussel03]

What sort of little things are you doing to make your day stand out/that much more special?

Some of my ideas are:

I''d like to write our own vows...or something short that we each say to each other in front of everyone before being married, since we''ll do the standard vows as well.

A friend of mine from high school is a soprano soloist, who actually wants to sing at the wedding, so as long as it''s ok with the church we''ll do that (we''re debating b/w 2 churches, a Roman catholic and a Melkite Catholic (we''re Arabic, and the Melkite church is great, but about 30-35 mins away from the receptin venue while the Roman Catholic church is less ornate but 15 mins away)

I''m going to have the DJ announce our families, then FI and I, and then we''re going to take the mic and announce our bridesmaids and groomsmen, just to add something personal about each of them, alternating b/w paired bm/gm

I''m going to type out the lyrics to our song and print them on narrow, nice paper and place a card with the lyrics on each table (Faith Hill, Breathe) titled "first dance as Mr. & Mrs." or something like that

Not sure what else...just want to add some unique touches....

 

[lilmaria]

our dj is going to play our cermony on two plasma screens along with pics of us when we were children, pics of us w/our family and pics of us together through the years. They also take pics of people dancing at the reception and play them during the reception. I''ve only been to one other wedding, my brothers, who had that effect and everyone was in awe...so as it might not be that special to my side of the famiily, his side and our friends will be knocked out of their seats!!! I can''t wait

 

[nytemist]

We will be wrting our own vows. Also, putting a baby pic of ourselves on the gift table with the matt to sign, candles, gilfts and all that. I''m also having a pic of my dad tied to my bouquet so he can "walk down the aisle" with me.

 

[SoonIHope]

We''re getting married at my family''s summer home in the Adirondacks (I feel like I say this too much, but then it would be presumputous to assume everyone remembers so I have to keep saying it!) where a bunch of my family has gotten married over the years. It was built by my great-great-great grandfather in 1848, and my grandparents, parents, brother, aunt & uncle, cousins...and several older generations have all gotten married there. We''re going to get pictures of as many of those weddings as we can and put them on a table somewhere in the house.

We''re going to write our own vows and have a friend of ours officiate so it''s more personal, and during the ceremony, my fiance''s father is going to play erhu (a Chinese instrument he plays semi-professionally and composes his own pieces for etc - this is the part I''m most excited about, he is sooo good!)

And this isn''t a very big thing, but I just bought some of these online!

We''re going to use them to label the dishes at the buffet or something like that since we aren''t actually having place settings. The cool thing is, my great-great-uncle is actually the guy who invented the Adirondack chair AT the house where we''re getting married, so a couple of the original chairs are there!

 

[AmberWaves]

Albi, this totally makes me jealous because #1, My friends wouldn''t want to officiate our wedding- to much "responsibility", and #2, I wish I didn''t need place settings!

I LOVE those chairs, and I just wish it had ANYTHING to do with our wedding!

So far, I know of nothing really stand-outish at our wedding. We''re going to give away two chocolates- my favorite: Scotchmallow from Sees Candy, and Raspberry Truffle, my fiance''s favorite!

 

[jcrow]

we are surprising our families with a photo montage at the night of the rehearsal dinner.

we''re probably doing the wishes instead of a guest book.

we''re probably doing OOT boxes/bags for OOT guests. they''ll include things common to our area. we are also doing personalized crossword games, word search and word scramble games too.

our band aslo will play some music specific to our area.

oh, and i''ve designed our invites- they include the history of both the cathedral and reception venue since they''re historical and our guests are mainly OOTers.

 

[chickflick]

We''re getting married on a cruise ship so I''ve taken every chance to make things a little more personal, since I think cruise ship weddings can seem a little "package-y" if you know what I mean.

--My fiancee''s twin sister is officiating (she''s a Presbyterian minister)
--We''re using acoustic versions of Beatles songs for all of the ceremony music, rather than traditional wedding music. The wedding party will enter to "In My Life", I''ll walk down the aisle to "Michelle" (my name song), and our processional song is "Here Comes the Sun"
--My fiancee'' is a former DJ so he''s programmed all of our reception music onto a CD that we''ll play at the reception, then we''ll hand out CDs of the music. Some of the songs are a bit unusual but it''s mostly dance music like "Starry Eyed Surprise"
--Our favors are all different so that couples aren''t getting the same thing, and they''re all related to the beach or cruise. One of our favors is adirondack chair picture frames, kind of like the place card holders posted above, and we''re putting a picutre of our beloved kitty in the frames just to incorporate him into the wedding somehow
--Our cake topper is a bit different- it''s a porcelain statue of Bugs and Lola Bunny in wedding garb
--Instead of a guest book we''re doing the signature mat thing, where guests will sign the mat at the reception, then I plan to frame it with a wedding pic of us and hang it over our bed

I''m getting some great ideas from what other people are doing so please, everyone, post your own touches so we can read more!!

 

[ellaila]

The one thing that jumps to mind that we''re doing is in our ceremony, the JP is going to say a prayer/wishing (something Native American I believe - not religious) and then my Dad will repeat it in Hebrew and my fiance''s Dad will repeat it in Spanish. I think that is such a beautiful way to incorporate our cultures and our parents in the ceremony! And we are also going to give each of our Moms roses when we walk back down the aisle as husband and wife

 

[ChargerGrrl]

Ok, don't laugh.
We'll be serving "wedding brew". FI is a home-brewer, and he really wanted to create a special Octoberfest-style beer for the wedding. Of course I had to help (otherwise it didn't count as wedding brew, according to him!) We brewed it in March, and it's fermenting away right now. He did try it the other day, and declared it yummy!

 

[Mannequin]

Been trying to book the big stuff this summer, so I am still working on all the fun small details. For favors, I want to have cookies for my guests. I will likely have to make them myself to save big bucks on them, but I want to do a sugar cookie with an iced monogram and/or wedding date on it in our colors. Also, we want to do centerpiece cakes so that every table has its own 8-10 serving wedding cake on it. When the time comes to cut the cake, I would like our MC to announce that after we cut our cake, the couple who has been married or together the longest at each table will be cutting the cakes on the guest tables.

 

[KimberlyH]

I purchased small planting pots (3") and stenciled each guests name on a pot to be used at their table setting and as their favor, I also stenciled pots with the names of my grandparents and a few of fiances'' family members, including his father, who are deceased. We are getting married in front of a fireplace and the pots with the names of the deceased will be used to decorate it. That sounds a bit morbid, but they are small and won''t stand out, so we''ll know their meaning but it won''t be a like a memorial or anything.

I have framed pictures from both our parents weddings that will be displayed in a bookcase in the reception room.

We have requested that no one give us gifts, as we already have two complete households to merge. We selected a few charities and if a guest is pushing for a suggestion for a gift anyways we''ve suggested they make a donation to those charities instead.

We aren''t having a wedding cake, just a selection of desserts for each guest.

We aren''t doing a garter/boquet toss.

 

[Selkie]

We are getting married on a tall ship, and won''t have a DJ or band, just CDs or an iPod. We have several friends who are very musically talented, and so last night we talked about asking each of them, plus my fiancé, to sing or play (on the guitar) a song of their choosing during the reception. Kind of a wedding jam session.

 

[larussel03]

FI and I are being married in a Melkite Catholic church where we were both confirmed, coincidentially, and the ceremony is really different and lovley. It includes a "crowning" ceremony and our first journy as a couple where we get to go into the alter section (set apart by gate like doors from the rest of the alter area) and out, followed by our best man and MOH. I'm very excited!

And I'm so doing the save the date magnets! Soooooooooooo cute!