Tag Archives: light

5 Simple Ways to Wow Your Wedding Guests

You’d like to think that simply looking your stunning best will be enough to make your wedding guests say ‘wow,’ and it will! But it’s also true that every bride looks amazing on their special day. If you want to make yours stand out from the crowd, then you’ll want to go the extra mile to make it memorable. Below, we take a look at five ways you can make your guests feel the love – and have a day they’ll always remember.

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Pick a Unique Venue

You could pick a venue that’s close to where you live, but where’s the fun in that? There are a million and one unique, beautiful venues across Europe, and with inexpensive flights available to and from many countries, it’s not that much of a hassle to ask your friends and family to travel overseas. If you’re not of an overly traditional bent, then you might want to consider getting married away from the church. A beautiful ceremony set among lush woodlands, with fairy lights making the space look extra magical, for example, is guaranteed to impress your guests.

Make a Strong First Impression

Of course, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to wow your wedding guests before they reach the ceremony. You can make a strong first impression by investing in beautiful wedding invitations, and by asking your guests to RSVP with added details – such as a song they’d like to hear at the wedding party. You may even ‘wow’ your guests by simply asking that they don’t bring anything other than themselves – that means no gifts – to the wedding, which is a touching detail if the ceremony is taking place overseas. Get creative with your invites, and you’ll have people keenly anticipating the fun days to come!

Riding in Style

The ceremony and the party rarely take place at the same place, so how are your guests going to get from one place to the other? Normally, this will involve a series of taxis, but there’s not going to be anything normal about your wedding! Instead, put on some funky transport, such as a themed party coach, or limos, or – if it’s not too far – a series of horse carriages for everyone. It’ll be much more exciting than having everyone patiently queuing for the next series of taxis to turn up.

Extra Touches

You’re going to have people from all walks of life attending your wedding; relatives, old friends, work colleagues, and so on, and they’re not all going to know one another. So why not help them up by adding a “who’s who” to the seating plan? You can show everyone how they know each other through six degrees of separation. It’s a great way to move past small talk and onto the fun times!

And Relax

You’ve got a dance-floor; how about a place to relax? Some people don’t want to dance all night but do want to be involved. Create a space that allows them to be involved and also unwind. They’ll love you for it.

How to Organise the Perfect Indoor BBQ In Winter

There is one thing we all miss in the winter: the ability to invite people around for an afternoon of barbecue. If you feel like your social life has suffered as the weather got colder, you might want to get creative and recreate the feeling of summer in your home, and hold an indoor party that cheers you up and makes your weekends more exciting. Below you will find a few tips on how to get started.

House Party

Get a Quality Grill

There are plenty of great quality health fryers and grills you can use, and the results will be the same as on the flames. You might want to get an indoor electric or gas grill set up in your kitchen, or keep it outside, and have the party in the conservatory, if you have one. If you are not sure which type of meat will be the best for your indoor grilling, you can always ask your local butcher or farm shop for advice.

Make Loads of Punch and Mulled Wine

To warm up the atmosphere and your visitors, you might want to get the punch and mulled wine on the hob, instead of cold beer and wine. You can create your hot cocktails yourself, and lay them out for your guests to try and rate. Get your recipes and creativity going, and impress your friends this winter.

Create a Menu and Start Cooking

House BBQ

Get some finger food on the menu, as well as the grilled meat. Offer bacon sandwiches, savoury pies prepared the previous day, and order some pastry from your local shop. Don’t forget about the fresh salad and entree, and get a bowl of soup out, so your guests can help themselves whenever they want to. You can make your own coleslaw, bake your rolls fresh, to go with the meat and the soup.

Get the Caterers In

Depending on the size of your party, you might want to get some help. Caterers can help you out with equipment that keeps the food warm and fresh, as well as laying out the dishes. Check out Singapore caterer ezBBQ to find out what services are available, and how you can make the most out of your indoor barbecue. Alternatively, you can order a hot pudding from a local catering company, and torch your own creme-brulees.

Add Lighting, Decoration, and Music

To get the conversation flowing, and cheer up your friends arriving, you can decorate your home with winter paintings and snowflakes. You might want to get a winter wax melt on the go, and install a mood light. Create a playlist that you can stream from your phone and control the volume according to what your guests are doing.

Just because it is cold and wet outside, your social life should go on. Organise a creative indoor BBQ party, and cheer yourself and your friends up. Make sure that you have adequate extractor fans installed in the house, though, otherwise, your house will smell of barbecue for a long time.

 

Don’t Assume A Girl Wants A White Wedding When You Can Have This Much Fun

Just Married

Any avid fans of this blog out there may well remember a blog I did about assumptions you should never make about a girl. There were things on there about how pink isn’t every girls favourite colour, how every girl doesn’t love wearing heels, how some girls love football and that the only genre of films we want to watch are chick flicks. It’s nonsense, as is the belief that all girls want to have a white wedding.

We don’t.

Sure, white weddings are beautiful and elegant and timeless, but that doesn’t mean the classic white wedding is every girl’s cup of tea. Nah ah. Not when there are so many ways to dot some personality around and add a splash of pizzazz and have some fun with the one day that will be remembered forever.

And with that in mind, we have pulled together a list of impossibly fun wedding ideas for all those girls that want to step away from the white wedding thing:

  1. Pre-Wedding Sports Day Party

A lot of the time, the big day will be the first time your guests have met one another and that means there will be a lot of shaking hands, air kisses and testing the waters before people get really loose. Well, why not get past all of this by having pre-wedding sports day party where your bridesmaids and groomsmen can get to know each other in the most fun environment possible.

meet up

  1. Request A Dance Floor Classic

Another great way to make your big day the best kind of riot is to have space on your wedding RSVP cards for song requests. But don’t just let them have free reign, specify that their choices have to be from the naughties. That way you will get some real dancefloor fillers. We’re talking Snow Patrol “Chasing Cars” and Rihanna “Disturbia” and “It’s my Life” by Bon Jovi.

  1. Break Invitation Convention

When it comes to wedding invites, most people think they have to choose a white card with silver writing and then a pretty flower illustration. But that’s nonsense. You can do what you want. You could pick blue wedding invitations if you fancy, or have a scratch card sort of thing where the date gets revealed, or you could invite everyone to a multi-storey car park and then chuck the invites down the stairwell like you would an American house party.

  1. Flower Girls From A Different Generation

Think of a flower girl and you probably imagine your cousin’s daughter’s wearing pretty frocks as they sprinkle petals down the aisle. But just imagine how amazing it would be to break convention and have your grandma’s play the role instead, skipping along with baskets on their arm. Amazing.

sparklers

  1. Hand Out Them Sparklers

Okay, so this modern trend is fast becoming a wedding mainstay, and for good reason. The sparkler exit is just the most epic way to leave your own bash; each of your friends waving sparklers in front of the night sky as you and your love leave for your new life together. Trust us, this will be the photo you cherish more than any other.

  1. Midnight Feasts, Yes Please

Everyone tends to get a little peckish late in the night (when those signature cocktails of yours start to kick in). Well, instead of having cheese and biscuits or whatever else, you should hire a food truck to come and save the day. Come on, how cool would it be to have a burger van show up as everyone starts to feel hunger rumble away in their bellies.

  1. Liquid Confidence

There are two things that will get most people on the dancefloor; great music and a glass of wine. That tends to do the trick. If, however, there are still people that aren’t quite feeling confident enough, you should give the classic chalkboard a makeover using some quotes like, “Trust me, you can dance” – Vodka. You’ll be amazed at how much it works.

  1. Colourful Bridesmaids

Traditionally speaking, bridesmaids all wear the same dress in the same colour. And it looks nice. But we would much prefer to be supported by an array of friends rocking different shades. Have them look stunning in the same dress, just let them rock different colours. It looks soooo good. It really-really does.

  1. Order Of Service

We love how personal people get with their order of service programs. They have a so and so is going to speak and such and such a hymn is going to play and then this poem will be read. But why not just keep it short and simple. “Music will play. We will get married. The party kicks off.” Done.

Remember, Remember

…The 5th of November!!

guyfawkes
For those who are not in the know, the 5th of November is the night we celebrate Guy Fawkes.

But… Who was Guy Fawkes?
Imagine England in the 1600s.. Still under shock and divided between Catholics and Protestants; of course this goes way back since the reign of King Henry VIII. Four kings later, religion did not change and the pressure was still undergoing. The story of Guy Fawkes happened two years after James I was crowned as king. In fact, Fawkes was one of the main members of The Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A group of Catholics have attempted to bomb, or rather blow up the House of Parliament and kill the king. The idea was to protest against the rule of a Protestant King. Guy was the chosen one, the one to light the fuse on D DAY. Because of this reason, he got a lot of attention regarding the conspiracy story; and also a day named after him.

If the story sounds familiar to you… It is probably because you have watched the film V for Vendetta.
Join me tonight and make it a yearly habit; Join me by watching this. Lets remember this night of treason, together.

So, what are we celebrating on this day?
I would dare say, that for the Brits, this day is Thanksgiving Day. The tradition itself started on the same day and year that the Gunpowder Plot had the failed coup. It started as a joyful celebration of Londoners, relieved that their King was saved. This was done by the means of a bonfire.
As time went by, the celebration became more elaborate. Preparations for the Bonfire Night did not include just the bonfire, but also fireworks. Before this day, some would also dare making a dummy of Guy Fawkes, the Pope and some even of politicians. Guy’s dummy is placed on top of the bonfire, and once it is alight, people would throw into the fire the other dummies. Fireworks display fills the sky all over Britain, and some would also light their own fireworks from their home garden.

Bonfire Night is not just celebrated in Britain, as the tradition itself crossed oceans all over and has become popular in a lot of the British colonies along the years. Canada and New Zealand for instance still celebrate it.

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When I lived in England, I was very keen about this Day. I even got my own mask. X

Raining Again

The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was, the rain.
The first thing I heard when I woke up today, was the rain.

The room, was still so dark at 7AM. I thought, I woke up in the middle of the night rather than a few minutes before my alarm went off.

I love the rain, when it’s not accompanied by wind… As such I was happy with a rainy Monday morning. I thought to myself, better the rain than a sweaty summer’s day.

Now, it’s almost bed time again, and I wonder if I will hear the rain again… or whether it was the last rain before summer hits our islands… I hope there will be more rain, even if not abundant.

I miss you already XOXO

Fire & Ice

fire and iceIn the moment
Whilst darkness caresses
the light

…and the light embraces
the darkness

I struggle to stay alight
leave thoughts behind.

Emotions in dire
my heart afire:

wondering
conflicting
constricting
refraining
from believing –
your eyes so cold
daunted, unbold.

________________________
//By Steffi ~

Am I?

I am everything and nothing;

I am –

The light within your sorrows
Your ray of hope.

Your living nightmare;
The darkness in your dreams.

I am –

The occasional disappointment;
The untrustworthy.

The temptress, biting your neck;
Handcuffs and high-heels.

I am what I choose to be.

_______________________________
By Steffi ~