Budget Planning...

ATTIRE


Wedding gown (s)--- Evening gown (s)--- Headpiece and veil --- Ceremonial outfit (s)--- Morning suit --- Evening suit --- Bridesmaids’ dresses --- Page boys and flower girls’ outfits --- Lingerie --- Bride’s accessories --- Groom’s accessories --- Wedding bands --- Hair and make-up --- Alterations and dry cleaning

CEREMONY


Location rental --- Rentals (canopy, tables, chairs, etc.) --- Catering

RECEPTION

Location rental --- Food and beverage --- Alcohol --- Corkage --- Cake

ENTERTAINMENT


Professional fees --- Equipment rental --- CDs

EXTRAS


Thank you gifts --- Wedding favours --- Ring pillow --- Officiant’s fee/offering --- Marriage licence

FLOWERS AND DECORATIONS


Bouquet --- Bridesmaids’ bouquet --- Flower girls’ bouquet --- Boutonnieres --- Corsages --- Decoration for ceremony site --- Decoration for dinner sit --- Bridal car

PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY


Pre-wedding photography --- Event day photography --- Event day videography --- Album --- Video --- Additional prints/copies --- Additional albums/videos

STATIONERY


Invitations and envelopes --- Programmes --- Menu cards --- Thank you notes --- Guest registration book --- Postage

The Wedding Planner Countdown Checklist...

TWELVE MONTHS OR MORE TO THE WEDDING…
 Meet the folks and family.
 Pick a theme.
 Decide on the type of wedding you want. Formal or informal.
 Set a date. Select backup dates in case the site or church you want is already booked.
 Agree on the budget and how to split cost.
 Compile guest list.
 Shop for ceremony, reception and dinner venue.
 Meet with suppliers such as photographers, florist, gown designers and so on, or start looking for a wedding planner who will take care of all these details.
 Start flipping through magazines for ideas.
 Assemble bridal party.


SIX MONTHS OR MORE BEFORE THE WEDDING…
 Reserve venues and pay deposits.
 Book caterers for reception.
 Confirm suppliers for the wedding and pay the required deposits. This would include wedding planner, photographer, florist, wedding cake, entertainers or sound system rental, among others.
 Order bride’s gowns and dresses, groom’s suites, shoes and others accessories. If you are not getting them custom made, then make reservations for the rental pieces you want and start window shopping for accessories.
 Organise attire for bridal party (especially if you want a specific design or colour theme) and important family members such as the mothers of the bride and groom.
 Design and order invitations but do not print them too early in case there are any last minute changes.
 Shop for wedding bands.
 Plan honeymoon.
 Start a beauty regimen.
 Get registered or inform your place of worship that you would like to hold your religious ceremony and register your marriage on that day.


THREE MONTHS OR MORE TO THE WEDDING…
 Decide on favours.
 Finalise wedding invitation details.
 Finalise guest list.
 Choose gifts for wedding party.
 Book make-up artist and hairstylist.
 Book a room for wedding night if it does not already come with your wedding package.
 Make travel and accommodation plans for out of town guest, if necessary.
 Sample dinner menu at hotel or restaurant, and confirm reception menu with caterers.
 Buy accessories, lingerie and other items you will need.
 Have your first gown fitting.
 Start a draft seating plan.
 Pick out ceremony, reception, dinner and dance music. Start compiling into CDs.
 Plan the days programme.
 Draw up a duties chart if you are getting friends to coordinate your wedding. If you have a wedding planner, get him or her to outline the duties and help needed for that day.


TWO MONTHS TO THE WEDDING…
 Approach friends for help. You will need ushers, emcees, guest registrars, decoration crew, clean-up crew and so on including people responsible for minor details like handing out corsages.
 Mail invitations.
 Order other wedding stationery such as programme, menu card, guest book and so on.
 Run through your seating plan with the folks.
 Start work on any special presentations like home videos and slide shows. Let friends and family know if you would like them to make speeches and toast.


ONE MONTH TO THE WEDDING…
 Call guest for RSVP.
 Have a second gown fitting.
 Meet with officiant (e.g. your priest) to run through the details of the ceremony.
 Schedule a briefing meeting for attendants and helpers.
 Run through your checklist and make sure all the details have been taken care of.
 Start drafting your vows.
 Find a bridal car.
 Meet with photographer and florist to finalise the details of what you would like for that day.


TWO WEEKS TO THE WEDDING…
 Inform caterers and hotel/restaurant of the final guest count.
 Have a final dress fitting with accessories and lingerie.
 Break in wedding and dinner reception shoes at home.
 Run through the reception programme with your emcee.
 Introduce your wedding coordinator to the venue organiser. If you are using a wedding planner, you can do this even earlier.
 Buy any items needed for religious or cultural ceremonies.


ONE WEEK TO THE WEDDING…
 Collect bride’s gown and groom’s suits.
 Finalise guest list and seating plan.
 Schedule a rehearsal with all relevant parties.
 Prepare red packets, payments and money gifts for those involved in the ceremony. Start gift wrapping thank you presents.
 Prepare a detailed programme, duties list and contact list.
 Finalise your honeymoon travel arrangements, and pack for honeymoon.
 Call suppliers to reconfirm details of the wedding.


ONE DAY TO THE WEDDING…
 Have a manicure and pedicure.
 Decorate bridal car.
 Relax!

The Aghast...

I was so devastated after I checked my final exam's result today. I waited since 16 Dec to get...THIS?! WHY!

I used to get higher grades and better than...THIS! 3.11 GPA! Argggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! What have I done wrong?

I was so upset and weak. I've work so hard to maintain my grades. It's my 4th semester grade. And what I get now is way too far from my expectations. My dream to get the Vice Chancellor Award is crushed now. I feel guilty to my family, especially to my parents.

Suddenly I came up with this idea--maybe I've done something wrong in my life that I get this punishment. Allah knows that my study is my priority, and I can't accept any failure regarding that. So, HE gave me this test to remind me about something that I forgot or I'm careless about.

Alhamdulillah anyway...

It's been a while...

It's been a while since my last comment...been so busy with my life schedule... Busy ke? and sometimes stuck with no ideas what to write...

Next semester is just around the corner. End of this month I'm sure. Realizing that, I did calculation for my budget yesterday which cause me hard to sleep and my head can't stop thinking. How can I manage my expenses if I need more than I have!!!! No!!!

Help me!!!

I'm planning to do prepaid business for mobile...but don't know where to buy with special price... I've found several in the net, but couldn't decide which one to try...need some advice.

What Famous People Think of Fashion...

“I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes. I had one thousand and sixty.” Imelda Marcos “A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months.” Oscar Wilde “All the American women had purple noses and gray lips and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the United States could be my life's work.” Helena Rubinstein “A designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes.” Edith Head “About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.” Manolo Blahnik “When in doubt, wear red.” Bill Blass “I don't do fashion, I am fashion.” Coco Chanel “They think him the best dressed man, whose dress is so fit for his use that you cannot notice or remember to describe it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson “A good model can advance fashion by ten years.” Yves Saint Laurent “I don't design clothes. I design dreams.” Ralph Lauren “A woman's dress should be like a barbed- wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” Sophia Loren “Fashion is architecture. It is a matter of proportions.” Coco Chanel “The goal I seek is to have people refine their style through my clothing without having them become victims of fashion.” Giorgio Armani “Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” Alexander Pope “I like fashion to go down to the street, but I can't accept that it should originate there.” Coco Chanel “In difficult times fashion is always outrageous.” Elsa Schiaparelli “Fashion anticipates, and elegance is a state of mind ... a mirror of the time in which we live, a translation of the future, and should never be static.” Oleg Cassini “The novelties of one generation are only the resuscitated fashions of the generation before last.” George Bernard Shaw “Fashion is more usually a gentle progression of revisited ideas.” Bruce Oldfield “Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.” Edwin Hubbel “I base my fashion sense on what doesn't itch.” Gilda Radner “Chanel is composed of only a few elements, white camellias, quilted bags and Austrian doorman's jackets, pearls, chains, shoes with black toes. I use these elements like notes to play with.” Karl Lagerfeld

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.” Jean Cocteau “Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.” Quentin Crisp “The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.” Hubert de Givenchy “Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.” George Santayana “Today, fashion is really about sensuality—how a woman feels on the inside. In the '80s women used suits with exaggerated shoulders and waists to make a strong impression. Women are now more comfortable with themselves and their bodies—they no longer feel the need to hide behind their clothes.” Donna Karan “Respect is love in plain clothes.” Frankie Byrne “Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.” Henry J. Kaiser “The lamb began to follow the wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Aesop “Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.” Ralph Waldo Emerson “She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on witha pitchfork. Jonathan Swift “When his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador: If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.” Albert Einstein “Clothes don’t make a man, but clothes have got many a man a good job.” Herbert Harold Vreeland “Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes. Men who like women never notice what they wear.” Anatole France “Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing." Dave Barry “While clothes may not make the woman, they certainly have a strong effect on her self-confidence — which, I believe, does make the woman." Mary Kay Ashe “The dress is a vase which the body follows. My clothes are like modules in which bodies move.” Pierre Cardin “I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.” Katharine Hepburn “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Mark Twain “The expression a woman wears on her face is more important than the clothes she wears on her back.” Dale Carnegie

The History of Cupcakes...

The cupcake evolved in the United States in the 19th century, and it was revolutionary because of the amount of time it saved in the kitchen. There was a shift from weighing out ingredients when baking to measuring out ingredients. According to the Food Timeline Web, food historians have yet to pinpoint exactly where the name of the cupcake originated. There are two theories: one, the cakes were originall cooked in cups and two, the ingredients used to make the cupcakes were measured out by the cup.

In the beginning, cupcakes were sometimes called "number" cakes, because they were easy to remember by the measurements of ingredients it took to create them: One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda. Clearly, cupcakes today have expaned to a wide variety of ingredients, measurements, shapes, and decorations - but this was one of the first recipes for making what we know today as cupcakes.

Cupcakes were convenient because they cooked much quicker than larger cakes. When baking was down in hearth ovens, it would take a long time to bake a cake, and the final product would often be burned. Muffin tins, also called gem pans, were popular around the turn of the 20th century, so people started created cupcakes in tins.

Since their creation, cupcakes have become a pop culture trend in the culinary world. They have spawned dozens of bakeries devoted entirely to them. While chocolate and vanilla remain classic favorites, fancy flavors such as raspberry meringue and espresso fudge can be found on menus. There are cookbooks, blogs, and magazines specifically dedicated to cupcakes.

Cupcakes