Chocolate biscuit cake

With Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Royal Wedding now imminent, it’s interesting to see that they’ve chosen not one, but two cakes to mark the occasion – one of which is a Royal wedding chocolate biscuit cake!

A wedding cake is a central part of any wedding celebrations, but it’s often hard to decide what to choose. The traditional white iced, tiered fruit cake provides a classic look, but for those who aren’t so keen on fruit cake or want something more personal, then an alternative wedding cake may seem more appealing.

Sponge cakes, chocolate cakes, mini cupcakes and even cheese cakes have done the rounds as the alternative wedding cake choice at many weddings. But with Prince William choosing a special chocolate biscuit wedding cake, perhaps it may be a trend that will take off?

 The McVitie’s unbaked chocolate biscuit cake is being specially made by McVitie’s using a secret Royal Family recipe. Ingredients include crushed Rich Tea biscuits and dark chocolate – mm, delicious!

The chocolate biscuit cake will feature alongside a more demure, classic multi-tiered fruit cake, which is being made by Leicestershire baker, Fiona Cairns. Kate Middleton has apparently being very involved with the design of the cake and it’s it will feature William and Kate’s new cipher – involving their entwined initials. 

The wedding cake will also be decorated with edible sugar flowers – English roses, Scottish thistles, Welsh daffodils and Irish Shamrocks.

So, if you can’t decide on one single wedding cake, why not follow the Royal example and have two? A traditional, iced cake and a more funky, personal favourite wedding cake. If it’s good enough for the Royal Family, it’s definitely good enough for you!

Vintage wedding trend

Whilst some aspects of weddings and wedding planning remain the same, whatever the year, there are other areas that come and go as far as trends are concerned. Here are three of the most popular wedding trends likely to be making an appearance this year.

1. Eco-friendly and Green Wedding Trend

Eco-friendly and green weddings have been growing in appeal in recent years and we’re likely to see a lot more of them this year. There are lots of aspects of weddings that can be made more eco-friendly and you can go as green as your budget, and imagination, takes you.

Some of the popular and trendy ways of making your wedding more eco-friendly include through using a recycled wedding dress, recycled handmade wedding invitations, using locally produced food, choosing a green venue and making donations to a favourite green charity instead of receiving gifts.

2. Do It Yourself or DIY Wedding Trend

Thanks to the influence of the recession, more couples are opting for low key, do-it-yourself weddings to save on money and add a more personal touch to their special day.

As well as being a good money saver, this is a growing popular trend as it’s a particularly good way of making your wedding unique to you.

3. Vintage Wedding Trend

The trend for vintage weddings is ever increasing. People love buying and wearing vintage wedding dresses, using vintage wedding transport to get to their wedding, choosing all sorts of wonderful vintage wedding accessories and decoration and even having their wedding photographs produced in aged, or sepia, vintage finishes.

With a love of all things vintage continuing in shops too, both old and replica pieces, the accessibility of buying vintage items is helping this trend to soar.

Wedding food trends

The issue of what food you’re going to serve your wedding guests is one of the all important questions you’ll need to address. But whilst there are always going to be plenty of tried and tested long-term favourites on the wedding food menu, if you fancy doing things a bit differently, then what trends can we expect to see hotting up this year?

1. A Wedding Cake Made of Cheese

Cheese wedding cake

Already popular, the idea of swapping a traditional sweet, fruit wedding cake for a funky layered ‘cake’ made of cheese is likely to continue in 2011. The ‘cake’ can be stacked up in the traditional wedding cake style, but instead each layer is a different type of cheese.

The bride and groom can still do the traditional cutting of the cake, and the cheese can be served up at the end of the meal, or kept ready to serve at an evening buffet.

2. Miniature Desserts

Serve miniature desserts at your wedding

If you’re having a dessert at your wedding, then there’s usually a small choice of options. To add variety and a different twist to the dessert course, we could be seeing more wedding parties opting for the restaurant idea of serving a wider choice of miniature desserts.

These miniature desserts, served on a joint platter on a table so guests can help themselves, or a small selection per guest, offer the same delicious sweet desserts, but in smaller form. Popular favourites for this include miniature chocolate brownies, mini crème brulee, mini raspberry cheesecake and miniature lemon tart.

3. Rustic Carved Meats

Serve rustic carved meats

Some wedding experts are suggesting that the trend for serving tables of guests rustic carved meats on wooden boards may gain in popularity this year. The idea is that the potatoes and vegetables are served direct to tables, along with boards of carved meats, such as pork, ham, turkey and chicken.

Serving at the table can reduce the need for guests to queue up for their meals, as is the custom at some weddings, and provides a more informal and relaxed element to the meal.

4. Entertainment Between Courses

Surprise your guests with singing waiters

The format for most wedding breakfasts is that entertainment comes after the meal, but a new take on it, especially if you’re having several courses, is to provide entertainment from singers or other entertainers between courses.

The idea of opera singing waiters for example is increasingly popular. The singers act like normal waiters and waitresses, then suddenly spring into action singing between courses. Many of them offer more than just opera and have something to suit all musical tastes; there may even be room for audience participation too!

As well as making your wedding memorable, it gives people the chance to properly digest each course and adds to the atmosphere of the day.

Outdoor weddings always look so perfect when you see them on TV or in films, but things don’t always go quite so smoothly in real life. If you’re thinking of holding your wedding outside, then here are some five tips for successful outdoor weddings.

1. Outdoor wedding decorations

Outdoor wedding venues need decorating just as much as indoor weddings. Think about your venue and consider the types of wedding decorations that would work best. If you’re getting married in the countryside, then large planters of flowers or shrubs could serve as decorations and maybe bunting may be appropriate to hang from the trees. If you’re getting married under a gazebo or outdoor structure, then you could consider handing decorations from the roof.

2. Outdoor wedding seating

Think about what seating you’ll have available for the guests at your outdoor wedding and how you’d like the seating arranged. One of the benefits of outdoor weddings is that you can move the seats around as you please, so you could have them arranged in a circle or oval, rather than the traditional indoor church setup.

3. Outdoor wedding receptions

If you’re having your wedding ceremony conducted outside, you’ll need to think about whether you want your reception to be held outside too. If you are going to, will you need a marquee or are you going to brave having everything outside in the open air?

Outdoor wedding bliss

4. Outdoor wedding weather effects

Don’t forget to take into account the effects the weather may have on your guests. For example, if the wedding is in a very hot location, then you may need to provide some degree of shade so your guests don’t roast or get sunburnt. Equally, if it’s an area where there may be lots of mosquitos or bugs around, then it may be worth burning some citronella candles to keep buys at bay.

5. Have a plan B lined up!

The weather is one of the most unpredictable factors involved in outdoor weddings, be it wind, rain, snow or excessive heat. Anyone planning on holding a wedding outdoors, however perfect it may seem, would be wise to have a plan B lined up just in case. If there’s a building nearby, then consider whether everything could be easily transported inside to provide shelter if need be.

Bridal wedding shoes

For brides, the next most important thing after choosing a wedding dress is choosing wedding shoes. The perfect wedding shoes may seem hard to come by, but if you know what you’re looking for and what you need, then the task of finding the perfect shoes is made easier. Here are 10 essential tips to help you choose wedding shoes for your special day.

1. Choose your wedding shoes after you’ve chosen your dress. This will help you pick wedding shoes that match or complement your wedding dress.

2. If you’re having an unusual wedding dress colour, then consider having shoes dyed to match your outfit. To ensure a perfect match for your special day, get them professionally dyed.

3. If you want comfortable shoes, then it’s worth bearing in mind that with a long length dress ,shoes may not show too much, so you could get away with practical footwear or flatter bridal shoes.

Choose stylish wedding shoes

4. If your wedding dress is a shorter length, then your shoes will be more visible and on display, so you could be more flamboyant with your bridal shoe choice. It’s also worth bearing in mind that shoes with ankle straps can help your legs look longer.

5. If you’re getting married outside or on a beach, then strappy sandals may be perfect. But choose the heels carefully, as narrow heels may sink too easily into soft ground or sand and make it tricky to walk elegantly.

6. Check out the flooring in the wedding venue and choose your shoes appropriately. If the floor could be slippy, wedding shoes with glossy soles may make a walk down the aisle become more of a slide.

7. Don’t forget to consider the height of the groom when choosing what heel size to pick. Two inch heels may seem tempting, but if it will mean you’re towering over your groom on the day, they not be quite so ideal.

Be daring with your wedding shoes

8. Footwear experts suggest it’s best to choose wedding shoes in the afternoon, as feet have a tendency to swell during the day. This will at least help prevent your wedding shoes from suddenly feeling too tight in the afternoon.

9. Whatever wedding shoes you choose to buy, make sure that you wear them in a bit first, before the big day. Wear them around the house, walking and standing them. This will help reduce the risk of them rubbing or causing blisters on your special day

10. If you think there’s a chance that you may not find your bridal shoes comfortable all day, then choose a second pair (if ever a girl needed that excuse!) for wearing in the evening, for dancing in at your wedding party.

 One of the essential parts of planning a wedding is choosing wedding invitations to send to your guests. There are a lot of different options available on the market, or you could take the creative route and design your own.

Whatever you’re going to do, you’ll have to carefully think about the type of design for the invitations that you’d like to choose. Here five practical tips for choosing wedding invitations.

1. First Impressions Count

Your wedding invitation is one of the first things that guests to your wedding will see so it’s important that it makes the right impression. You want it to be memorable, so that people think fondly of your wedding, but not too weird or wacky that it will stick out in their minds for the wrong reasons!

2. Wedding Invitation Cost

The cost of your wedding invitations is likely to be an important factor. If you’ve got a budget to stick to, then you need to think about the most cost effective way of obtaining invitations, as well as getting the quality you desire. Of course, you can seriously cut down on the cost of purchasing wedding invitations by making them yourself.

3. Wedding Invitation Design

The design of your wedding invitations can reflect both your wedding theme and your individual personalities. When you’re first planning your wedding theme, think about the way in which it could be reflected by your wedding invitations. For example, if you’re having a red theme and want hand-tied ribbon bouquets, then the same ribbon could be incorporated into your wedding invitations, such as tied around them or stuck onto them.

Elegant wedding invitation

4. Wedding Invitation Colour

The standard colours of wedding invitations are white, cream or ivory card, but there’s no reason why yours can’t be produced on coloured card instead. If you’re using white, cream or ivory, then it’s a nice idea to coordinate this with the colour of your wedding dress.

5. Wedding Invitation Size

Don’t forget to consider the size of your wedding invitations too. They need to be an ample size to enable you to include all the relevant information on them, but not too big that it will cost you more to send them through the post.

Wedding invitation

So you’ve got engaged and are busy planning your special wedding day. It’s only natural to want all your friends and family to be free to celebrate your day with you, but when should you send out the official wedding invitations?

Choosing When to Send Out Your Wedding Invitations

There’s nothing worse than announcing your much planned wedding day date and then finding that your nearest and dearest can’t come, as they’ve already got plans for that day or have major commitments elsewhere. But it’s often a conundrum for brides-to-be on when is best to send out your wedding invitations.

On the one hand, you don’t want to send them too early, that it may slip people’s minds, but neither do you want to send your wedding invitations too late and risk the problem that may already have other events planned by the time they do receive it.

As a rough guide, sending out wedding invitations about four months in advance is the average choice of many wedding parties. But if you’re having a wedding abroad and want people to attend, or you wedding is in the heart of one of the popular wedding periods, such as June, July or August, or on a day when there are other major events happening, then you may want to choose to let your wedding guests know sooner.

Send Out Save The Date Cards

As a prelim to sending out your actual wedding invitations, you could send out some ‘Save the Date Cards’. These help give your wedding guests advance notice that you’ve set a date for your wedding and remind them to keep the date free from other social engagements, but allow you plenty of time to sort out your proper wedding invitations.

If your wedding is in the summer, then it can be good to send out Save the Date Cards with any Christmas cards you’re sending. Just pop the small date card inside the Christmas card and save money on stamps and postage costs.

Alternatively, you could email everyone with an electronic Save the Date card and save money on postage altogether. Of course, you’ve got to hope that everyone will read their email (there’s always someone who doesn’t!) and make a note of it in their diary.

Bridesmaids have duties too!

For those lucky enough to be chosen as a bridesmaid, the main benefit may seem like getting to wear a pretty dress for the day. But bridesmaids, and especially chief bridesmaids, should ideally do more than simply walk up the aisle before the bride. Here’s a guide to seven of the common duties bridesmaids may be asked to do.

1. Help choose the bride’s dress

A chief bridesmaid, as well as some of the other bridesmaids, may be invited along to help the bride choose her wedding dress.

2. Help choose the bridesmaids dresses

If you’re lucky, you may get to provide input into choosing the bridesmaids dresses – which can be great if you really detest a particular style. It doesn’t guarantee you won’t end up with a dress that doesn’t appeal, but it can help reduce the risk!

3. Attend wedding fairs

Many brides attend at least one wedding fair in the run-up to their wedding. They’re packed with information and ideas about all aspects of weddings and can be a good place for doing wedding research. A bridesmaid may be invited to attend with a bride and it can be a fun day out.

4. Help with wedding planning

Some brides may welcome help from bridesmaids with wedding planning, such as making arrangements for the reception, ordering flowers, making favours or helping choose a reception venue.

5. Sort out last minute problems

A cool, calm bridesmaid can be a great help with sorting out any last minute wedding glitches. If something doesn’t go quite to plan, and the bride is in a flap, a bridesmaid may need to step in and take control of the situation.

6. Help the bride get ready

On the day of the wedding, a bridesmaid may be expected to help the bride get ready for her big day. Help may be needed in particular with getting her wedding dress on and arranging the veil, if she’s wearing one.

7. Help at the wedding reception

The work doesn’t necessarily stop for bridesmaids after the ceremony, as they’re often required to help out at the wedding reception too. Some couples may appreciate help from bridesmaids with directing people to sign the guestbook, advising on where to put presents or simply socialising with the guests.

Decorate with balloons

When you’re planning your wedding reception, one of the issues you’ll need to think about is how you’ll decorate the reception venue. There are lots of ways in which you can make your mark on the venue, from simple measures, to extravagant gestures. Even if you only have a modest budget, there are still plenty of great decorating options available for you. Here are three ideas for decorating your wedding reception venue.

1. Decorate With Helium Balloons

A long-term favourite, helium balloons are a popular choice for wedding reception venues. Forget birthday party balloons and think luxury balloons – these are stylish and superior balloons which can transform an ordinary venue into a special location. Helium balloons can be chosen to match your wedding colour theme and they can be plain, decorated with a subtle design or large hearts or monograms. If you want to declare you’re ‘Just Married’ then there’s a balloon can do this for you too!

Tip: Ask a helium balloon specialist to create an arched balloon effect, to arrange over the top of the bridal table.

2. Decorate With Candles

Create a romantic atmosphere at your wedding venue by decorating with candles. For winter weddings, candles are a lovely way of adding flickering light and extra interest to a room, but during wedding receptions in the rest of the year, arrangements with candles – large and small – can look very effective too. Just remember to take care if you’re using lit candles and ensure they’re positioned sensibly and away from the risk of being accidentally knocked – especially by the train of a wedding dress!

Tip: Try arranging candles in groups of three, ideally with three different sized candles. For a personal touch, consider having your wedding date or names printed on them.

Decorate with candles and flowers

3. Decorate With Fresh Flowers

An ever popular choice for decorating wedding reception venues is to use fresh flowers. Flowers can easily be coordinated with your wedding colour theme, as well as linked in with the flowers you have in a wedding bouquet. If you’re keen on creating a contemporary look, then there are plenty of innovative ways of using fresh flowers. Fish bowl style vases, for example, where the flowers are wrapped around the inside of the vase, produce stunning centrepieces for wedding tables.

Tip: Choose seasonal flowers for your wedding, as they’ll be widely available and cheaper to purchase than out of season blooms.

Experiment with wedding makeup

In the run-up to your wedding, one of the things for brides to plan and choose is what makeup you’ll have for your wedding and whether you’ll do it yourself, or hire a makeup artist. Here some tips to help you choose what you’ll do with your wedding makeup.

Your makeup for the big day is likely to be something you don’t think about until the final few months of preparation. Ideally, by then you should have sorted out your wedding colour scheme and got a wedding dress, so you can coordinate your makeup if you wish.

Do Your Own Makeup or Have Makeup Done For You?

One of the first issues to think about in relation to your wedding makeup is whether you plan to do your own or hire a makeup artist to do your makeup for you. Whilst the latter option is more luxurious and can help you feel pampered on your special day, if you’re happy doing your own or are on a budget, then it can work out well for many brides to do their own makeup.

Whichever option you choose, it’s a good idea to have a run through in advance, so you know what makeup you’re doing and which products you’re using. This is especially important if you’re buying or trying any new makeup for your wedding – such as a special eyeshadow, foundation, mascara or lipstick – as you need to ensure that it suits you in looks and in effect. You don’t, for example, want to have a sudden allergic reaction to it on your wedding day!

Choosing Wedding Makeup Colours

Think about how makeup colours could be toned or chosen to match your wedding colour scheme. It doesn’t have to be anything outrageous, but if you’re having pink roses in your floral bouquet, you could perhaps find a matching shade of pink lipstick to fit the scheme. Do choose colours that suit your complexion and skin colour too – if you’re unsure, wear them in advance to make sure you like them and that they look right on you.

Natural Wedding Makeup

Wedding makeup doesn’t have to be plastered on, it can be as natural as you want it. If you don’t normally wear much makeup, then don’t be persuaded to go for a really made up look if it isn’t your style or something you’re happy with. Remember that the makeup you wear on your wedding day will be something you’ll see forever more in your wedding photos, so it’s important that you like it.