Is a Halloween wedding right for you?

"How about a Halloween wedding?"

"Halloween! What would that look like?"

Before you dismiss Halloween for your wedding, take in the bigger picture. 

Financially speaking, when it comes to planning a wedding, Halloween is a holiday with benefits. In general, the cheapest months to book wedding vendors are January, March, April and November because for the most part, wedding vendors are more available these months. The same holds true for Halloween. As a result, if you are a savvy planner, you can find discounts and sometimes special incentives to book a Halloween wedding. 

Halloween wedding decorations

Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving offer a plethora of options for decorating. If you don't have a wedding planner, check out places like Lings which offers pre-made free-standing floral arrangements designed for decorating the wedding archway, aisle, welcome entrance, table centerpieces, etc.  

You can save on decorating for your reception too. A plentiful array of inexpensive Halloween decorations offer a variety of color with a fall theme including squash, gourds, and pumpkins in a variety of colors like green, yellow, red, blue, white, teal, purple, pink and even black. Use candle lanterns for ambience, or add a splash of color with potted mums available in shades of orange, bronze, burgundy, or white and complimented with silk leaves, nuts, dried fall berries, or multicolored Flint corn to create attractive centerpieces. Stores like Hobby Lobby sell a variety of centerpiece selections at a reasonable price. 

Halloween a less busy holiday

When it comes to holiday weddings, events planned around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s present busier schedules, and more expensive travel reservations, hotels, etc. Halloween does not pose that issue. Not only can you find better deals for venues, but if you plan a honeymoon following a Halloween wedding, you can often enjoy cheaper travel-related prices. For instance, if you want a beach wedding, the shoulder season in Florida, includes November making it a reasonable possibility.

  

Difference between Halloween wedding and Halloween theme

So far, what I’ve discussed is a wedding that takes place on or near Halloween. If you want, this can be a traditional wedding of your dreams that takes advantage of the benefits associated with the holiday. But now, let’s talk about a Halloween wedding theme. This can be as creative as your imagination allows, but if you are thinking of a church wedding, not every church is open to having a Halloween themed wedding if you dress up like the living dead. 

However, if you think it a quirky fun fit to have a costume wedding for the bride and groom, wedding party, and guests if they want to participate, then Halloween is a perfect fit.

You can even pull of an elegant classy look with the right dress in black. Add a splash of color to pull of a bold color scheme. And if someone wants to complain about the black dress, you can point to the history of the wedding dress and how traditionally women were married in their best black or dark colored dress.

 

Select the wedding venue to meet your needs

If you choose a different venue, like a large house, or an old house, or barn, you can capitalize on the freedom to choose a spooky theme with guests dressed in costume. However, one more thing to consider, if you invite older guests like a grandmother, make sure to prepare them. Historically, Halloween celebrates superstition, lost souls, and would be considered a dark celebration. This might offend some older conservative guests.

The bottom line is that if you are planning to get married, Halloween is a day that offers some positives. How or if you take advantage of them is up to you. If you decide to go for it, what a Halloween wedding would look like for you is up to you. It does offers a new avenue of possibilities. As you consider them, take a step back and think through your choices. One important question to answer is: Do you really want your wedding album to be filled with photos of you wearing skeleton makeup? If not, you can have a wedding that takes advantage of the savings and leave the costumes in the attic. The choice is yours. It’s your wedding! 

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The day you received your engagement ring is a day you’ll never forget. It’s a story that will pass to friends and family and maybe even generations. The ring holds special memories, but do you wear your engagement ring when you walk down the aisle?

Do you wear your engagement ring on your wedding day?

Many brides-to-be don’t think about what to do with their engagement ring on their wedding day, until that day! Or maybe at the rehearsal. If you’re reading this to find out what to do about your engagement ring on the day of your wedding, relax. You have a number of options.

What to do with your engagement ring on your wedding day?

First, you can wear your engagement ring if you want, but it does tend to make things a little awkward during the ring exchange if you follow wedding tradition. Traditionally, the groom slips the wedding ring onto the ringfinger of the left hand during the vow exchange. Wedding ring tradition also places the wedding ring on the finger before the engagement ring. So if you wear the engagement ring, you might have to pause to remove it with nervous fingers and then slip it back in place after the wedding band is on.

This is one of those personal choices. I think it is an unnecessary risk as I’ve been to a wedding where the ring was dropped and disappeared under pews. Wedding guests hunted for it dressed in their wedding finery. It did create a memory, but if it isn’t the type of memory you want to add to your special day. Here are some alternatives to consider:

• Wear your engagement ring on your right hand for the ceremony. Once your wedding ring is in place, you can move it to your left hand or wait until after the ceremony.
• Make the engagement ring part of the ring ceremony with instructions for the groom to place the wedding band on the finger first, followed by the engagement ring.
• Wear your engagement ring on your left hand, and have the groom place the wedding band on top of the engagement ring. After the ceremony you can put them right. (Talk to the wedding officiant about this plan and ask if any problem exists from a religious standpoint).
• Give the engagement ring to trusted family member, friend, or someone in the wedding party the Maid of Honor to hold during the wedding. You can retrieve it after the ceremony and still have it available for photos. If you choose this option, make a plan for the ring the return of the ring after the ceremony.
• Wear your engagement ring on a delicate chain as a necklace for the ceremony.

From ancient times, the ring exchange is a tradition that represents the commitment two people make to each other on their wedding day. The last option is to omit the ring exchange ceremony and opt for an alternative ritual like handfasting. If you do something like this, you can always choose to exchange vows with a ring exchange privately.

History of Italian wedding soup

A legend of sorts accompanies the Italian wedding soup recipe. The story says that this soup was served at Italian wedding receptions and that it worked more or less as an aphrodisiac. Following the wedding reception, when the bride and groom consummated the marriage they’d be full of plenty of vim and vigor. Even as I researched this I wondered about the effect of the soup on the other wedding guests. But that would be another story, and if it were true, I don’t think the soup would be reserved for wedding receptions. While it’s a great story, the truth is that Italian wedding soup has nothing to do with weddings. Not only that, but some people suggest its origins have nothing to do with Italy because Spaniards carried it into Naples. But again, that’s one side of the claims. The other side is that it was a well-known recipe in Italy long before that. I'm not here to solve who is right.

Why is it called wedding soup?

Minestra maritata, which means “married soup” is an ancient peasant soup recipe. That's how it got the name Italian wedding soup. It earned the title originally because of the 'marriage' of the main ingredients. Originally, it consisted of inexpensive bits of leftover meat and leafy greens. The green vegetables (minestra) blended well with meat (maritata) and was eaten by people in Italy who couldn’t afford food. It was usually made using bits of sausage or meatballs and whatever green or slightly bitter veggies they had on hand and often contained no meat at all. The soup helped them not to feel hungry throughout the day much like the cabbage soup fad years back. If you’re looking for the recipe, it turns out there are a number of variations. As the stories go, some say it originated in Naples, others in Calabria, and others in Puglia, but all the recipes contain green vegetables and bits of meat. The recipe also has ties to America because the Neapolitans brought it when they arrived, though the Americanized version tends to be lighter. The one thing they all have in common is that they are a delicious way to add some greens to your diet.

How to make Italian wedding soup

Today, pasta often finds its way into the soup pot. I’ve included a video below of the soup I’ve tried. It won’t disappoint, though it is far from a peasant dish with some added ingredients. For this one, pasta is added to the soup bowl before serving.

 

While Italian wedding soup isn’t traditionally a soup served at weddings, feel free to add it to your wedding menu and serve it with crusty bread, homemade croutons, breadsticks, or an arugula salad. For fun, you can add some Italian wedding cookies to your dessert table too. And if you’re not planning a wedding, it’s still a perfect dish for the holidays. Special, delicious, and with history you can make your own. Plus it's easy to adjust to be keto friendly too.

 

Photo credits: Tom Ipri

7 traditional wedding garter fun facts

The garter toss is a popular Western wedding tradition. This ritual can be traced back to the Medieval ages, but before we delve into the fun facts of wedding garter history let me explain how this tradition works today. 

 

How the garter toss works today

The garter toss is considered a lighthearted tradition that takes place during the wedding reception. Most often, the bride is seated on a chair while all the guests circle around. The bachelors within the group congregate in one area. The groom then removes the garter. How this is done varies these days, but most often the husband removes the garter from the bride’s leg (usually worn just above the knee), with his hands. Once he has it in his hands, the groom turns his back and tosses it over his head to the group of bachelors. Think of it as a counterpart to the bouquet toss to the single women. Some people even have the woman who catches the bouquet dance the next dance with the bachelor who catches the garter. This leads to the question, where did this tradition come from?

7 traditional wedding garter fun facts

1. The garter toss started in England and France where guests tried to take a piece of the bride's dress for good luck.
2. Zealous guests often followed the couple from the reception to their marital bed, ripping at their clothes for a tatter of good luck.
3. To appease the eager guests and give the bride a break from the nerve-racking experience of people tearing bits form her wedding dress practice grooms started to toss out a piece of the bride's wedding attire. This was the inspiration behind the garter toss and bouquet toss. It started with the toss of the garters that held up the bride’s stockings up.
4. The garter toss was used as a distraction so the newlyweds could make a quick escape from the wedding reception as everyone scrambled to get their hands on the good luck charm.
5. Today the wedding garter symbolizes good luck to the bachelors in attendance.
6. Superstition attached to the garter is that whoever catches it will be next to get married.
7. Today the garter toss is a way to gather all of the unmarried men to the dance floor.

 Garter toss not for everyone

While this is a popular wedding tradition that’s meant to be lighthearted in today’s Western culture, it is not for everyone. Some consider the long-standing tradition to be raunchy or at least awkward. Like any tradition, if you feel this way, feel free to skip it entirely.