Beautiful Wedding Receptions (Pennies from Heaven Series) (Paperback)

Your wedding reception will be the party of your life. It will be a time to gather all the people who are meaninful to you and your husband. This book is about creating the wedding reception of your dreams.




The Perfect Wedding Reception : Stylish Ideas For Every Season (Hardcover)
Book Description

Once couples decide to say "I do" there are dozens and dozens of decisions to be made. It's hard to know where to begin and even more difficult to fit all the dozens of details together into one wonderful event. Thankfully Maria McBride-Mellinger, author of acclaimed bridal books, stylishly illustrates just how to create a dreamy reception that will be forever memorable.

The Perfect Wedding Reception features exquisite wedding celebrations designed by Maria McBride-Mellinger that capture the magic of each season in refreshing, contemporary style. The nuptial adventure begins in a formal spring garden but soon its off to a beach front for a fanciful summer wedding, to a revolutionary era stone barn for a rustic fall wedding and finally to a gracious country home for a candle lit winter wedding feast.

Glorious photos of each location, flowers, menu selections, table details, centerpieces, bouquets, invitations, wedding cakes and favors tell the story of each wedding with helpful tips and most importantly McBride-Mellinger's favorite resources from around the country that will actually help bring your wedding reception to life.

Whatever season you choose to marry Maria McBride-Mellinger offers delightful flourishes to tempt every couple as they plan the party of their lives and create memories meant to last a lifetime.

Review: Perfection!
As a second-time bride, this was the book that "did it" for me. My October wedding reception, while not the exact replica of Ms. McBride-Mellinger's, incorporated as many of her ideas as I could. This is an absolutely beautiful book which will be an inspiration to any bride to be that wants a classy, memorable wedding befitting her chosen season. The settings, invitations, floral designs, cakes, and small touches are unique and certainly can be "scaled down" for those on a smaller budget.
Not the end-all, be-all catalogue of a bridal book...but a digestable and exquisite source of inspiration.

Review: Beautiful pictures, but not enough different weddings
This book has wonderful pictures of four weddings, one in each season.
The pictures are truly extraordinary, but they are almost exclusively of these four weddings, so there aren't tons of different ideas for each season, rather one "theme" idea for each season. One thing that disappointed me was that her summer wedding was a casual one on the beach, so if you want more formal ideas for a summer wedding you are out of luck. Like other reviewers have said, most of these perfect presentations would be completely out of a lot of people's price range, but you could definitely pull a few ideas that you loved from her spreads and make it work on a smaller budget. By and large this is a good supplementary book on reception ideas, with tons of photos and some good "idea" text (as opposed to "how-to" text.)

Review: OSTENTATIOUS IDEAS FOR EVERY SEASON BUT NOT EVERY BRIDE
If Kennedy or Vanderbilt is your last name and I mean The Kennedys and The Vanderbilts, if Bill Gates is your wedding sponser or if you are a member of the Royal Family then this book is for you. If you live in the real world you may not want to bother reading a book that would embarrass even Martha Stewart. Even if your wedding budget isn't that of a small nation you can uncover some ideas to use on a realistic day of bliss. But I would leave out the "Honeymoon bed out in the open" next to a swamp unless you are marrying Jeff Corwin or the Crocodile Hunter. Look at page 116 and see if you would like to spend your wedding night there but McBride-Mellinger says "far from sight of the area's inhabitants". It's also far from sight of a bathroom,room service and Walgreen's to get some mosquito spray and close to sight for anything with four or six legs or even eight hairy ones that hopefully would be four groomsmen rather than a spider. As in all the weddings in the book, the cakes are works of art, the prettiest I've ever seen (pgs 106&107, 214&215 "a masterpiece" and the chapter on Confections) and the flowers are magnificent. If you read this book make sure to have a dictionary for all the $2.00 words as it must have been written with a word processor in one hand an a Thesaurus in the other. Also, a really good cook book will come in handy to try and figure out what everyone was eating. McBride-Mellinger is even so helpful as to tell you how to dress the "help" as if in this day and time the guests even know what to wear, where the "help" should go to the bathroom, and to prepare food incase they work more then four hours. But do show respect because Maria McBride-Mellinger has a very high opinion of herself and a much over inflated ego. "The Perfect Wedding Reception" is that: perfectly ostentatious,pretentious,over the top and prefectly not for middle class America. The book is a "perfect" waste of a good tree. For over 30 years I have been a floral artist and wedding planner with the experience of over 500 weddings in all parts of the US and Europe.

Review: creative suggestions
This book suggests many creative ways to make your wedding reception fun and unique. The author describes 4 weddings (one for each season) thoroughly and with an artist's eye for detail and color. She also provides an extensive index for all aspects of reception preparation and planning. The pictures vividly display the character of each wedding, bringing them to life. I would have prefered some extra examples with illustrations of decorationg ideas for each season that were not part of the featured wedding. It would have been nice to have some more practical examples of possibilities. The featured weddings are gorgeous but, for people like myself, a bit out of reach financially. Surely, one can put a creative, unique twist on some less eccentric styles to make them equally as special, beautiful and perfect for any wedding.

Review: Very helpful
There are some wonderful suggestions here to make your day special. You will read this and remember the little things to do. One recommendation would be to direct readers to Katherine's Song, the wedding song in Defenders of the Holy Grail (Ken Agori)...this is THE song for this millenium. Of course, this may belong more at the service, but at the reception for the first dance, WOW!! THis book is worth the money...

Review: One of the Best
In preparation for our wedding, I ordered just about every book that I thought looked appealing and got great reviews, literally HUNDREDS of dollars' worth of books! This and its companion, The Perfect Wedding, stood out among the rest.
I liked it for the following reasons:

1. Beautiful pictures of original ideas. There were lots of pictures and lots of ideas. Obviously you aren't going to find a book that has absolutely every idea for flowers or cakes (it would be HUGE!), but the ones that this book included were very nice.

2. Good mix of pictures and text. About 3/5 of the book was pictures and ideas. It was divided up into 4 sections representing the 4 seasons, so you could get ideas for your specific season (getting inspiration from the best of your season is a great idea!). The other 2/5 of the book was resources with phone number, addresses, websites, etc., so you could actually get ahold of the people who put together the beautiful things in this book or go to the places that would give you more of a similar idea.

3. Not just for the wealthy. Granted that I personally am not too concerned with books geared for my budget, this book gave ideas for all ranges of budgets. Of course, some of the cakes, flowers, etc., must have been expensive, but she also gives ideas that are more budget-conscious.

I would recommend this book, no question. It's better than Colin Cowie's, on par with Martha's, and definitely much better than Vera Wang's.

The Ultimate Wedding Reception Book (Paperback)




Review: Wedding Details (Hardcover)

Book Description
Whatever the setting -- a minimal, modern buffet, an intimate wedding breakfast, or a sophisticated formal reception -- this invaluable book is full of elegant and imaginative ideas to help you transform your wedding day into a magical and memorable occasion.
Throughout the book, clear and concise text is paired with evocative, inspirational photographs that are guaranteed to capture the imagination.

About the Author
Mary Norden, a succesful textile designer, has been commissioned by Liberty, Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent. She has written for Homes & Gardens and is the author of Gift Wraps: Baskets & Bows and Decorative Embroidery. Sandra Lane is a successful still-life photographer. Her work appears in magazines such as Elle Decoration and Homes & Gardens, and she has photographed several of Mary Nodens's previous books. She lives in London.

Review: Great resource tool
I have a small wedding business and found this book very helpful. It is a very simple short book but it is loaded with great ideas for weddings and receptions. Pictures are excellent, lots of new ideas to try, I would recommend it as a resource guide and was very happy to receive it as a gift off my wish list.

Review: Big Things Come In Small Packages
A cute-sized book chockful of ideas! Creative ideas on favor packaging, table settings, floral arrangements. Inspirational ideas that can be easily adapted to your budget and style.

Review: Practical and modern-day ideas
Cute-sized book offering plenty of creative, practical and modern ideas on wedding favors, table settings, and floral decorations; beautiful still photography for inspiration.

Wedding Invitations, Announcements, Place Cards, and More (Paperback)


Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Although engraved invitations have become standard for weddings, cards printed by hand are always in good taste. Most people do not have the handwriting skill for hand printing, so they fake it with a computer script or hire a calligrapher. This book has classic calligraphy instructions for those who would like to try it themselves, with a little practice first. Several types of alphabets are included, with detailed instructions on strokes and layout. A section on wedding etiquette has useful information on invitations, thank-you notes, and place cards, with photographs of many examples. An excellent book for public libraries. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Bette Matthews is the author of The Wedding Workbook, Cakes (For Your Wedding), Wedding Toasts and Vows, and the upcoming A Wedding for All Seasons. She has worked as an event consultant and stylist with a New York caterer, and is in the early stages of a start-up venture designing and producing handmade wedding invitations. Bette lives in New York City with her husband, photographer Antonio M. Rosario, and their two cats.

Excerpted from Wedding Invitations, Announcements, Placecards, and More : A Brides Guide to Simple Calligraphy by Bette Matthews. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Calligraphic Wedding
“You’ve dreamed about this day your entire life. And as you move further and further into the planning process of your wedding, each and every detail seems to grow in importance. Small elements combine to create a full-bodied effect.

“The written word has great prominence in wedding festivities. It may be in an obvious capacity, such as invitations, place cards, or menus. Or it may be something less noticeable, such as a favor tag, the name on a guest book, or a handwritten note on a gift basket sent to a guest’s hotel room. The opportunities for beautiful lettering are vast. Calligraphy can enhance your writing at its core.

“This book provides a basic introduction to calligraphy and some of the multitudes of lettering styles—some simple, others more complex. The instructional opening chapter offers an overview of tools, materials, and technique. The chapters that follow are divided into overall styles: Classic, Elegant, Romantic, Modern, and Artistic. These divisions are purely subjective, so don’t feel as if you have to confine your imagination. With a little thought or with minor changes, your alphabet of choice can be translated to any project in the book. Calligraphy is versatile and transcends any classifications we impose upon it.

“The projects in this book incorporate a full range of wedding concerns, from engagement to post wedding activities. Invitations, envelopes, and place cards are the most obvious items with which calligraphy is typically used. There are also ideas for gift tags, guest books to record good wishes, programs, and more. The quality of your finished product will be affected by the quality of your materials, so choose fine papers, ribbons, and flowers for these projects, and you won’t be disappointed.

“The last section of the book is the gallery. This is a showcase of professional work from experienced calligraphers offered to inspire you. Each of these pieces is created by an artist who learned the craft one step at a time, just as you are about to do.

“Practice, relax, and enjoy the learning process. Above all, let your own character, your own vision, and your own penmanship shine on the page. Don’t strive for perfection; strive for personality.”

Review: With This Book, You Can Do It
With this book -- and a lot of practice -- I was able to do the calligraphy for my daughter's wedding.

The book includes a number of romantic alphabets in styles from Celtic to modern, forms for invitations, many examples of custom woprk, and step-by-step instructions for projects ranging from favors to menu cards to guest books. There are also suggestions for working with a professional calligrapher.
This is a practical book for anyone planning a wedding.





Easy Invitations: Use Your Home Computer to Create Stylish Stationery for Weddings, Birthdays and Other Occasions (Paperback)

Book Description
Easy Invitations, Announcements, and Personalized Stationery is the ultimate guidebook to creating invitations and personalized stationery using a home computer and printer.
This book provides design ideas and instruction for creating professional quality, customized invitations and note cards using card stock, envelopes, and other readily available stationery. Use it as a standalone guide or in tandem with PrintingPress software by Mountaincow, which offers easy stationery layout, photo tools, a built-in address book, and hundreds of templates and graphics.

Easy Invitations, Announcements, and Personalized Stationery features original ideas for major life events such as birth announcements, traditional and modern wedding invitations, save-the-date cards, milestone birthdays, anniversary parties, and coming of age celebrations. It also includes ideas for thank-you notes, personalized stationery, informal get-togethers such as dinner and cocktail parties, a wine tasting, and even a romantic picnic for two. This book offers tips for making any party distinctive with creative and easy place cards, menus, gift tags, and favors.

Includes bonus CD-ROM with 3 fonts and 70 illustrations

About the Author
Patty Hoffman is the director of Communications at Mountaincow, a software maker that specializes in customizing invitations and stationery using a home computer. She has written about crafts, lifestyle, and entertaining for numerous magazines, including Seventeen, Family Circle, and Details.

Megan Eisen, CEO of Mountaincow, has written PrintingPress and many other software applications. She is an expert in graphic design and has created a wide variety of stationery and original fonts and graphics for invitations. Her stationery is featured in upscale stores such as New York’s Kate’s Paperie.

Josh Eisen, president of Mountaincow, has written PrintingPress and many other software applications. He is an expert in the use of computer technology for custom invitation printing and has been quoted in Greetings, Etc magazine.

Easy Invitations, August 30, 2005
Reviewer: Sarah OBrien - See all my reviews

This is an awesome book. I've been making cards on my computer for years, and I found this book very helpful. After reading it, I purchased the Mountaincow Printing Press Platinum CD. They are both fantastic. The fonts are the best, and I also like the graphics. I have learned some very helpful things about using my computer to expand the possibilities for making cards that end up looking extremely professional. I'm a perfectionist, and this book and CD met all my expectations.
Sarah

Review: Design Invitations, Thank You Notes and Stationery
Whether you want your wedding to be traditional or nontraditional, you want it to be personal and one way to achieve this is to design and print your own invitations, thank you notes and stationery on your computer. This book written by Patty Hoffman, Megan Eisen and Josh Eisen is just what you need to inspire and jump-start your creativity. But this book is not only about weddings.

The book is sectioned by topics covering the most important events in our lives including weddings, births and birthdays, seasonal and celebrations. Each section begins with a case study and personal story about the real people that are the inspiration behind the sample projects. Each section has sample projects which are discussed in depth explaining what type of papers, inks, images, fonts and design layouts were used and why. Although the authors are associates of Mountaincow, a software and stationery company; the book is written so that you can use any software you might already own. This book does not have step-by-step instructions for using graphic and printing software. The purpose of this book is to inspire your creativity for designing your own invitations and stationery.

Throughout the book the authors show you how to decide on a theme for your special occasion and how to apply that theme to everything including invitations, place cards, party favors and thank you notes. They place special emphasis on designing your own monogram with or without their company's PrintingPress software and choosing the perfect graphics and fonts to include in your designs.

Besides the eighteen projects, the book also has a Tools and Techniques section that covers everything from choosing paper, inks, and a printer to how to compose the message for your invitations. The authors also discuss their PrintingPress software. Although this software was not included on the accompanying CD, the CD does contain decorative borders, fonts, images and project layouts in the PrintingPress software format.

Patty Hoffman is director of communications for Mountaincow and author of several craft and lifestyle articles. Megan and Josh Eisen are co-owners of Mountaincow and the authors of the PrintingPress software.

Review: Great Gift
What a great book. Easy to follow, full of original ideas and examples, and it makes a perfect gift for friends into scrape booking, entertaining, and basic design. I've already bought four extra copies - to my friend's delight!

Review: Wedding Stress
I found this book to be very useful. I am planning a low budget wedding reception and this book gave me great ideas for low cost/creative invitations. I also thought the software was very user friendly.




The Artful Bride: Wedding Invitations : A Stylish Bride's Guide to Simple, Handmade Wedding Correspondence (Artful Bride) (Paperback)

Book Description
Every couple wants to announce their wedding with style and aplomb. Savvy, stylish brides are looking for ways to add their own style and sophistication to their wedding without relying on tradition-heavy standards. This beautiful guide contains everything a bride needs to personalize her wedding correspondence elegantly-but also simply and inexpensively. It includes more than 20 fashionable and fun-to-make invitation and correspondence ideas.

About the Author
April L. Paffrath is a freelance editor and writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition to book and magazine editing, she has written architecture profiles, travel pieces, cooking articles, and craft how-to's, for magazines such as Scientific American Explorations and Martha Stewart Living. She is coauthor with Laura McFadden of The Artful Bride: Simple, Handmade Wedding Projects (Rockport, 2003).

Laura McFadden is a freelance art director living in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is a former design director for Inc. magazine. She currently runs her own graphic design studio, called Laura McFadden Design, Inc., and has contributed to various craft books and magazines for publishers such as Rockport Publishers, Martingale & Company, and Handcraft Illustrated. She is coauthor with April Paffrath of The Artful Bride: Simple, Handmade Wedding Projects (Rockport, 2003).

Review: Beautiful & Creative Ideas
I've never understood why folks will shell out the big bucks for what they could more or less do on their home printer -- pretty, but bland. This book has beautiful, personal invitations ranging from the offbeat to the traditional (my favorite is the frog idea). Making invitations yourself doesn't mean sacrificing style or tradition, and this book is an excellent starting point.

Review: I have FINALLY found invitations I love,
I have been looking at invitations, and haven't found anything that is quite right. Not to mention everything is very pricey. I would much rather cut the price of the invitations and spend the money saved there on other wedding expenses. I have been looking at kits. I never really found anything that suited us. They were plain and not very origional. So I have been looking online for ideas and I saw this book. I love it! It has wonderful ideas, easy directions, and great pictures. We decided to take one of the invitations and change it a little to better fit us and what we are looking for. It really is wonderful because you don't have to follow the directions exactly, you can change the color/pattern, or just add your own special touch!

Review: Fun & Beautiful Invitations
The projects in this book range from fun and quirky (like my favorite - The Bride in a Can) to beautiful and classy. There are ideas here for weddings on the beach, old fashioned weddings, nuptials that include travel, and for simple ceremonies too. A lot of the ides in this book could be converted for use for other kinds of invitations, I used one of the pretty ones to make invitations to a party for my mother's birthday. Lots of color photos inside (nicer than the photo on the cover would make you think!) There are also illustrations & templates. I also gave this book as an engagement gift to a friend and not only did she love the gift, she made her invitations based on a project in the book.

Review: Innovating wedding invitation ideas
Innovating wedding invitation ideas to let the real you shine through. Imaginative ways to help you decide if the non-traditional route is more your style. Page after page of creative, artful invitations, announcements, save-the-date cards, and shower invitations. Directions and material list accompanies each design. Templates are also supplied. People will remember an invitation created by you from The Artful Bride: Wedding Invitations.

Wedding reception
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A wedding reception is a party held after the completion of a marriage ceremony. Some sort of post-marriage party is traditional in most societies around the world, but with considerable variety on the details.

In most Western countries, following a meal with copious quantities of food and alcohol (traditionally paid for by the bride's family and known as the Wedding breakfast) speeches are made by members of the wedding party wishing the couple well in the future. Traditionally, the speaking parties include bride's father, the best man (who usually slips in a few hopefully good-natured jokes at the couple's expense), and then finally the groom. In the modern U.S., speeches are more often given by the best man and the maid of honor.

After the speeches, the bride and groom begin their First Dance, which used to be called the "bridal waltz" (in most contemporary weddings a recent romantic pop song is played and the bride and groom's dance is rarely an actual waltz). Different dance styles are now used, depending on the nature of this pop song.

The wedding reception dance party may involve a certain sequence of special dances. For example, after the First Dance, the groom may escourt his bride to her father for a special Father/Daughter dance.

Following the various special dances, the guests are invited to join in the dancing. The party continues with toasts and various celebrations until the bride and groom leave in a car "decorated" by the couple's friends.

Wedding traditions vary considerably between countries, and even between regions of the same countries. Some traditions include:

The money dance or dollar dance, at which guests pay a small amount of money to dance with the bride or groom. In some cultures, the money is pinned to a special apron worn by the bride. In others, the money is collected by friends, who sometimes give a shot of alcohol to each guest as they pay. This tradition is common in the U.S. Midwest, but considered tacky in other regions.

Tossing of the bride's bouquet and garter. The bride tosses her bouquet over her shoulder to a group of all the single women present. Whoever catches it is supposed to be the next to get married. Similarly, the groom tosses the bride's garter to the single men, often after removing it from her leg, to the amusement of the guests. Sometimes the man who catches the garter is supposed to put it on the leg of the woman who catches the bouquet. Sometimes the garter is sold in a raffle instead of being tossed. In some regions of the U.S., this is considered tacky.

Clinking of the glasses: Guests will often clink their glasses during dinner to ask the newlyweds to stand up and kiss. Some couples pass out wedding favor bells for guests to ring instead of clinking glasses.