Wedding Season is here... some helpful tips to save you money on that big day from Shades Within You, Event Planners

Choose a less popular day and time.

Most weddings take place on Saturdays which means it is the most expensive day to book a reception hall. Consider having an evening ceremony and reception on a Friday. If you really want a good price for a Saturday look into booking the ceremony in the morning and having an early afternoon reception. Brunch weddings are a popular new trend that are considerably less costly than evening dinner receptions. Other budget ideas for the ceremony and reception: consider a Sunday afternoon wedding or serving only a light meal instead of a full dinner.

Cut out unnecessary expenses.
One of the best ideas is to skip some extras you don’t really need. Do you really need a professional videographer? If you really want a video of the ceremony today’s high resolution handheld video cameras can do a great job and it’s likely you or someone you know has one. Ask someone in the front row to record the wedding for you. Other low cost wedding ideas include asking the photographer to deliver the negatives to you and arranging for your own prints and skipping rental cars or limousines and simply driving your own car to and from the wedding.

Do it yourself.
There are plenty of inexpensive things you can do yourself rather than hiring someone to do them. Make your own centerpieces and decorations even wedding favours! Low cost wedding ideas for the favours include things like small decorative pouches or boxes of candy or a candle that you have decorated yourself with ribbon. You can also print your own invitations place cards and thank you cards at home using affordable kits available at stationary stores. There are many do it yourself low cost wedding ideas that can save your budget while still making your wedding beautiful!

Look for experts among your friends.
There may be a wealth of inexpensive wedding ideas hidden among your friends and family. Find out if anyone is a good photographer and if they will do the honours at a good price for you. Do you have a friend who plays an instrument and can supply ceremony music? Or maybe you know someone who can officiate at your wedding. Not only are these great ideas but hiring friends also makes the day more special. Your friends may even have more ideas to share!

There are many wedding ideas to help you stay within your budget and still have a beautiful wedding. Doing a little work yourself and asking friends to help out are all wedding ideas that are easy to implement. Hopefully with these great low cost wedding ideas you will have some money left over for a great honeymoon

Let Shades help you make all your dreams come alive on that special day

Just some of my images created by T. Singleton from Shades Within You

This was taking at the South Street Seaport in NY

Looking outside

This is a image from 3000 thousand ft in the air 

Snow a look from my lens

Just look up and see what you can find

Enjoy

Shades Within You, LLC
Event Planners
Photos
Flowers
One stop shop
Customers are number one

T Singleton Photos

L. Cook Design

Created by L. Cook Shades Within You, LLC

Design by L. Cook Shades Within You LLC all design below to Shades

Photos by T. Singleton and belong to Shades copyright

10 Ways to Make your Menu Memorable

There is no sincerer love than the love of food," said George Bernard Shaw. While you and your sweetie may disagree, your wedding guests will most likely be eager to fill their bellies with tasty treats. A little menu planning can easily woo the crowd. Here are ten tantalizing tips to make your wedding meal memorable -- and have your guests licking their lips:

1. Dream Up a Theme
One of the most fun (and often easiest) parts of developing a theme wedding is deciding the menu. From a traditional New England clambake to a spicy Southern barbecue, theme-wedding menus create a fun, exciting, and memorable event. It might even be the way you eat the food that stays in your guests' minds -- cracking crabs at a Maryland riverside wedding, nibbling satay at a Thai-inspired city garden reception, or roasting marshmallows over the flaming bonfire at a wedding "campsite."

2. Go Regional
There are many people who take culinary vacations, traveling through countries in search of the local fare. Turn your wedding reception into its own culinary vacation by creating a menu featuring regional specialties. It may be foie gras from the Hudson Valley, spicy chicken wings in Buffalo, or even the largest cheese spread ever seen in Wisconsin.

3. That's Entertainment
Who said that food only pleases the palate? You can devise a wedding menu where the food preparation is as flavorful as the food itself. Consider a sushi bar complete with professional sushi chef -- the performance of slicing and rolling turns simple ingredients into works of art right before your guests' eyes. Or perhaps French chefs donned in aprons and hats will create flaming crepes tableside.

4. All in the Family
Something in between a sit-down meal and a buffet, family style offers a natural way to get tables of guests talking while creating a very festive and homey atmosphere. Each dish is delivered to the center of the table and guests pass them politely (or grab and hoard, depending on your family). Italian food might be an obvious choice, but Asian, Mexican, and Indian cuisines work well here too.

5. That's So You!
The wedding day is all about the bride and the groom, so why not plan a menu that has special meaning to the two of you? Perhaps your first date was at a baseball game -- why not serve hot dogs? Or maybe the two of you love to fly fish -- highlight freshwater fish on the menu. Or he proposed over a romantic picnic lunch -- recreate the magic by recreating the meal. When your guests think about what they ate, they will automatically think about the couple of honor.

6. Presenting...
The eyes have it -- when it comes to remembering things, that is. Your guests will very likely recall a fabulous-looking buffet table before they remember what foods it featured. Be creative -- instead of serving soup in a bowl, have it ladled into a hollowed-out acorn squash. Or have asparagus tied up like a present with leek leaves. You could even serve coconut shrimp inside a coconut and garnish with a tropical flower.

7. Less is More
Sometimes the simplest foods presented in an elegant, bountiful manner have a more memorable effect than a wide variety of offerings. Colin Cowie offers this advice in his book For The Bride: "You can make a statement of style with one or two spectacular dishes. For example, instead of having ten different tray-passed appetizers during the cocktail hour, serve mountains of jumbo shrimp or sliced smoked salmon." Remember, KISS -- keep it simple, sweetie.

8. Ride with a Trend
Trends come and go and if you can jump on one before it's passé, all the more power to you. Ask your caterer what's up and coming. Perhaps she's got some unusual idea that will make the kind of memorable statement you're looking for. It might be something as homey/funky as a mashed potato bar, complete with your choice of spuds and toppings, presented in a martini glass. Or maybe a true Belgian treat -- pomme frittes served with the traditional mayonnaise in paper cones. Just remember -- they're trends, so plan accordingly if you're setting up your wedding menu a year in advance.

9. A Honeymoon Preview
Don't worry-we're not suggesting anything X-rated here! Just that you consider planning a menu based on your honeymoon spot. If you're off to Venice, serve a spread one could imagine eating in a gondola. Or if Hawaii's your destination, feature luau fare (without the flame-eaters) -- perhaps even the spit-roasted pig. Maybe it's Japan where you'll be spending the week -- how about a Tepanyaki station (Japanese barbecue), where guests choose raw meats, shrimp, veggies, noodles, and sauces and watch it get stir-fried.

10. Five-Star Elegance
If dining out in the fanciest of restaurants is your idea of luxury and you happen to have a lot of dough, treat you and your guests to gourmet, white-glove-service dinner. Plan a multi-course meal, complete with a refreshing intermezzo (with hot lemon-scented towels after the fish course, of course). You can choose from French or Russian service: With French, the waiters prepare food on stands set up next to the table and then serve individual plates; Russian service features white-gloved waiters who carry each course on a large tray and serve guests directly from it. For that added touch, offer a different complementary wine with each course.

Grand Ma Wisdom (Posted by Tassajo S.)

Some Days I Think I need my rest

Wisdom to live by

On Crediting Others
No matte what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. - Althea Gibson

On Responsibility
Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good. - Norman Schwarakopf

On Patience
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. - Lee Tolstoy

On Foresight
Change before you have to. - Jack Welch

On Dreams
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. - Thomas Jefferson

On Bouncing Back
Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat. - Malcolm Forbes

On Persistence
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. - Leonardo da Vinci

Darkness (Created by Tassajo S)

Darkness has fallen
No turn
No voice
No peace

Life is confussing
Help no voice
no peace
no life
no love

Darkenss has fallen
I want to believe
Not all that I see

Turn run
be free

We are made to believe
all that we see
Darkness has fallen
we lose hope
we lose destiny

Darkenss has fallen
We see black and white
we see clouds
no were to turn
no were to run

No Peace
No hope
No lives
No freedom

DARKNESS, DARKNESS, DARKNESS
NO HOPE, NO FREEDOM, CAN'T BREATH
HELP

Darkness has fallen
Help
I can't see
I can't feel
I cant' believe
All hope is gone

Light Please Light
Give me hope
Give me peace
take aways the darkness

Let me be free

Political Life (Created by Tassajo S.)

Something for you to think about.....