World of Wedding

If you're planning on getting married, Efi Condovrakis has this very useful calendar to help brides organise the big day.

You plan it for months (or years), but there'll always be things you can't predict on your wedding day. Here, brides who've been there tell you how to prepare for the unexpected.



"Stage fright happens to brides, too"
"I'm a shy, quiet person and, normally, the idea of standing in front of 100 people would terrify me. Somehow, I thought it would be different on my wedding day. It wasn't. To my horror, straight after the 'I dos', a blotchy, red rash crept over my neck and face. Reassuringly, the celebrant told me it happens quite a lot."
Georgina, 33, Melbourne, Vic

"What's more important: wedding or marriage?"
"My family and friends were constantly asking about my wedding, but never questioned me about the fact that I was about to start sharing my life with another human being, which seemed much more important than, 'Are you wearing a band/veil?' I felt relieved when the pressure to have a perfect wedding day was finally over."
Gabrielle, 32, Perth, WA

"Don't make big plans for your wedding night"
"I had amazing plans for my wedding night - after the reception we wanted to kick on to a bar with our friends, and then have a romantic night in our candlelit wedding suite. But by midnight, I was exhausted. I'd been up for 19 hours and experienced a roller-coaster of emotions. So, instead, my husband spent his wedding night picking bobby pins from my hair."
Sharon, 34, Ashfield, NSW

"Parents will probably complicate things"
"Both my parents and my husband's are divorced and all have new partners. Trying to please all of them was incredibly difficult. But how can you ignore their demands when they're contributing money? Eventually, my husband and I decided we had to be firm and do what we wanted - after all, it was our day."
Kellie, 25, Cabarita, NSW

"Your dream dress will be over your budget"
"Before my wedding, I imagined getting married wearing a $500 classic, cream suit. But I ended up splurging on an antique lace dress, which cost thousands in fabric alone. We went so over budget for the wedding in general that we gave up and spent what we liked. So don't beat yourself up if you blow your budget."
Emily, 27, Perth, WA

"Some of your closest friends won't make it"
"I had this romantic notion that everyone I invited to the
wedding would attend. But in reality, some people won't be able to - especially if you get married overseas, as I did. It's easy to feel upset, but ultimately - like most wedding details - it won't matter on the day. Your wedding will still be incredible."
Fiona, 31, Rose Bay, NSW

"Even 'ideal' bridesmaids can cause headaches"
"I'd heard horror stories about lazy bridesmaids, so I thought my super-organised friend would be perfect. But Kate, who had a list - and an opinion - for everything, was so organised I started to feel I had lost control of my own wedding. Although Kate had good intentions, I wish I had picked someone more on my wavelength."
Michelle, 29, Prahan, Vic

"You're not the only one who might cry"
"At the weddings I've attended, the bride cried, so I thought I might, too. But as soon as I arrived at the church I felt calm. As I walked down the aisle, my husband-to-be was looking at me in a serious, but tender way I'd only seen once before - when he proposed. Then, during the vows, he cried. I squeezed his hand, and at that moment I knew we had made the right decision."

Engaged couples long for a wedding day that will be unique and memorable, but in these tough economic times many are becoming more cautious about how they plan and spend their budget.


According to The Wedding Report, a research company that tracks wedding spending in the United States, the average cost of a wedding in 2008 was $21,814. That is a 24 percent decline over the 2007 average of $28,704. This decline doesn't mean you can't have exactly what you want on your big day to create your dream wedding.

"You can rent almost anything you need to make your wedding match your vision," says Christine Wehrman, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the American Rental Association (ARA), the global trade association for the rental industry. "By renting items for your wedding, you have access to products that may have otherwise been too expensive in large quantities. You can get exactly what you want at a price that meets your budget."

Choose linens that match your wedding colors, or go for classic white to offset the color of your centerpieces. Linens can be rented in a variety of colors and textiles, and add a touch of elegance to every space. Create drama without adding cost by creating a monochromatic design for your table.

Centerpieces can be elegant or casual, depending on your style. Mix tall and short clear vases to add depth to your table and save money on large floral arrangements. Or choose a variety of candleholders to create a vintage-inspired look and a romantic, low-light atmosphere.

Planning an outdoor wedding? Tents can transform any setting into striking surroundings for your big day. ARA member rental businesses have a variety of tents to create the venue, as well as everything you need to make it beautiful and comfortable.

Large tents and elegant canopies come in a variety of colors and styles. Many come with cathedral ceilings, windows or even clear tops -- allowing guests to catch a glimpse of a dramatic sunset or a sparkling night sky.

Many ARA member rental stores offer personalized service through their Certified Event Rental Professionals (CERPs) who are specially trained to help you choose the right rentals to make your dream wedding come to fruition. Most offer on-site support the day of your wedding, and that's a day you'll be looking for all the support you can get!

You can also rely on the expertise of your ARA member rental store professionals before you book your venue. They can help you assess the potential site for things like power accessibility, ground water issues or overhead power lines that may interfere with your vision of a tall tent, among other situations.

The wedding cake is truly the crème de la crème of cakes. With so much tradition and many superstitions of luck surrounding it, the cake plays a pivotal part in your celebrations and should be an amazing centrepiece which reflects the sentiment of this momentous occasion whether traditional, classic, elegant, modern, themed or funky!


Try a Chocolate wedding cake

Ingredients

• Butter for greasing
• 200g white chocolate, chopped*
• 250g butter, chopped*
• 2 cups caster sugar*
• 1/2 cup milk *
• 1 orange, zest finely grated*
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour *
• 1/2 cup SR flour*
• 1/3 cup Grand Marnier*
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten*
• Extra 1/2 cup Grand Marnier
• 400g white chocolate, chopped
• 500g cream cheese, chopped
• 2 cups icing sugar mixture
• 600ml thickened cream
• 2 baby cabbages
• 375g pkt white chocolate melts

Here's how

1 Grease and line the base and sides of 3 deep, round, 20cm cake tins with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 160C. Combine the chocolate, butter, sugar and milk in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until melted. Transfer the melted chocolate mixture to a large bowl, let cool slightly.

2 Use a whisk to stir the orange zest, the sifted flours, Grand Marnier and eggs into the chocolate mixture. Keep whisking until the mixture is a smooth batter. Pour the batter into one of the tins and bake for 1 hour 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cover the cake with foil halfway through the baking time to prevent over browning. Remove cooked cake from oven and leave to cool in the tin.

Repeat with another 2 batches of mixture. You may need to extend the cooking time if you bake 2 cakes at one time.

3 To make the frosting: Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water, or in the microwave on medium for 2-3 minutes. Leave to cool. Place half the cream cheese and icing sugar in the small bowl of an electric mixer and beat until just smooth. Add the remaining cheese and sugar and beat again until smooth. Pour in the melted chocolate and beat until combined. Whip the cream until soft peaks form and fold it through cream cheese mixture. Cover the mixture and refrigerate for 1-2 hours until firm enough to spread. After refrigeration you may need to stir the mixture until smooth before spreading.

4 Use a serrated knife to cut each cake horizontally through the centre. Brush 1 tbsp of extra Grand Marnier over one cut surface of cake then spread with 1/4 cup of frosting and replace top. Repeat with other cakes.

Stack the cakes on a serving board or plate, sandwiching them together with 1/4 cup of frosting each. Make sure last cake is inverted so the base of cake is on top for a completely flat surface. Secure the layers in place by inserting 3 skewers vertically through the cakes. Cut skewers down to size, so they can be frosted over. The skewers can be removed when you serve the cake.

5 Cover cake with remaining frosting. Run a palette knife from bottom to top around the sides of the cake to form a decorative pattern. Swirl the frosting on the top with a palette knife. Refrigerate the cake until you're ready to place the leaves on cake and take it to the table. The frosting of the cake can be done the day before serving. Allow the cake to stand at room temperature for 1 hour before pressing chocolate leaves into frosting.

6 To make chocolate leaves: trim off any torn leaves from the cabbages. Then carefully remove 4 outer leaves. Melt 1/3 of the white chocolate melts for the frosting. Use a spoon to spread the melted chocolate over the outside of the leaves. Avoid having the chocolate run over the edges of the leaves. Allow the chocolate to set, then carefully peel the leaf away leaving the chocolate shell. Repeat with remaining chocolate and leaves. If you're careful, you can reuse the cabbage leaves. Coat another 4 leaves, making them slightly smaller by not coating the whole leaf. Repeat one more time with 4 smaller leaves. Once all the leaves are set, arrange the larger leaves around top of cake like a flower, pressing them gently into icing to set in place. Place next size inside larger leaves and so on. Use any smaller broken pieces to stand in the centre of the flower.

7 To serve: after presenting the whole cake to the guests, carefully remove the skewers and separate it back into 3 cakes, Cut the cakes into serving size pieces - tiny if you're serving a separate dessert or larger if the cake is being served as dessert.

You can store any unused cake in the fridge for up to 3 days.

It wasn't your typical rehearsal dinner, but it was everything Liz Jones and Josh Dilworth hoped it would be - authentic, casual and relatively cheap.

Guests by the dozens gathered in a barn on the Jones family farm for a simple picnic-style meal. Afterward, they played croquet, horseshoes and badminton, shadowed by towering grain silos and within earshot of lowing cattle.

When the sun set, they returned to the barn for an "open mic" that included guitar-playing, poems and the bride's fiv-year-old nephew singing "You Are My Sunshine."

Her father also offered a little advice to the guests, many of them East Coast city folk from the groom's side of the family.

"If you're watching out here in the cornfield tonight and it gets a little later, you'll see some guys come out of there and ask, 'Is this heaven?" Curt Jones said, grinning. "And you say, 'No, it's Iowa."'

Turns out, it was heaven, indeed, for a young couple looking to save some cash.

They might have have opted for a wedding in Austin, Texas, where Jones attends graduate school and Dilworth works in public relations. But while they'd been saving for a few years - with a working budget of $10,000 - they knew they'd get more for their money in northwestern Iowa, where she'd always enjoyed taking friends after she'd left home for college.

"It also meant we could say to people, 'If you can get here, it'll be cheap for you while you're here,"' Jones said.

She and Dilworth, both 28, married on a recent Sunday morning outside a state park lodge on the shores of West Okoboji Lake, just north of the farm. Renting the lodge for the entire day cost all of $200. Brunch for 130 guests, done by a local resident who caters on the side, was $11 a head.

Looking for ways to save on wedding expenses is an increasingly common scenario for young couples, faced with hefty student loans, credit card debt, a tough job market and ever-increasing living expenses. Many couples are choosing lower-cost locations, as Jones and Dilworth did, or planning smaller "destination" weddings away from home for family and their closest friends.

Teddy Lenderman, an author and longtime wedding consultant in Terre Haute, Ind., has noted the growing concerns about wedding costs among her clients.

"We just work at compromising and spending those wedding bucks where we can get the most impact," said Lenderman, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Perfect Wedding."

The average cost of a wedding in the United States is just under $29,000, according to the Wedding Report Inc., which tracks trends in the industry.

But these days, Lenderman says, couples are more likely to haggle with wedding vendors. Still others are buying wedding supplies from online discount merchants and other wholesalers. And couples are doing a lot more of the work themselves, with the help of family members and friends.

The whole notion of planning a low-cost wedding can be stressful. Beth Hoops, a 23-year-old recent college graduate in St. Louis, says even thinking about it causes her "panic attacks."

"For me, the economy might have a devastating effect on the type of wedding I have," said Hoops, who's already worried about paying off $50,000 in student loans. She and her 27-year-old fiance Steve, who works for the federal government, are considering flying off for a smaller wedding.