wedding planning

A great many of our New Jersey wedding couples have gone back to the tradition of offering wonderful wedding favors for their guests to take home as they leave our wedding reception venue. (In the past few years, some couples chose to skip the favors as a way to save money, but thoughtful take-home favors are now back on the Must list!) What the couples choose to give as wedding favors has evolved from those tiny photo frames and wine glasses embossed with the bride and groom’s name to a new trend that makes guests much happier – edible gourmet treats.

Your wedding reception lasts several hours, and the wedding cake and desserts may have been served an hour or two before the close of your celebration. So when guests find that their wedding favors are delicious frosted brownies or theme-decorated cupcakes, they very often treat themselves to these treats before they even leave your reception! That’s the mark of a great edible wedding favor. Guests can’t wait to enjoy them.

Here are some of the most popular edible wedding favors that we’ve seen, and made, for our New Jersey wedding couple’s take-home treats:

• Frosted brownies
• Frosted cookies, in heart-shapes or cut into wedding theme shapes like a bride’s dress or a wedding dove
• Chocolate-chip cookies
• White macadamia nut cookies
• Gourmet truffles
• Theme-shape chocolates, such as hearts or butterflies
• Pastel sugar-covered Jordan almonds (a traditional, symbolic favorite of our New Jersey wedding couples!)
• Gourmet flavored wedding cupcakes
• Hazelnut cream-filled cookies
• Personalized candies, such as M&Ms sporting the initials or names of the bride and groom
• Wedding color-matched jelly beans
• Chocolate bark
• Fudge squares in a variety of flavors
• Seasonal-matched wedding favor treats, such as maple brownies for a fall wedding
• Baggies of gourmet-flavored popcorn or kettlecorn, the couple’s favorite snack
• And more…

Presentation is key for wedding favors, so package each edible treat in its own ribbon-tied box or cellophane baggie, and affix a thank-you message label right to the package, expressing your gratitude that guests came to share your day with you.

All the best, Caitlyn Bradley, Director of Private Dining, Ram’s Head Inn

Your wedding vows are the heart of your wedding, the most important and partnership-solidifying element of your wedding ceremony.  Here at our New Jersey wedding venue and at our garden weddings, we’ve heard some beautiful, sentimental wedding vows, and we’ve laughed along with the bride, groom and their guests at that little touch of humor that reflects the couple’s fun-loving partnership.

Great wedding vows capture your promises to one another, and tell all of your guests what you love about one another. Writing your own vows can be a daunting task, so use our top tips here to guide you:

1. Decide if you’ll write one set of wedding vows that you’ll both repeat to one another, or if you’ll each write your own vows privately, ‘surprising’ one another with your heartfelt words during the ceremony.

2. Take some time together to discuss what the core values of your relationship are — honesty, support, patience, kindness, loyalty, friendship – and use those keywords to create your promises to one another, as in “I promise to spend every day supporting your wishes, goals and dreams.”

3. Use your own voice in your wedding vows. How do you speak? Are you naturally humorous? If so, then add some of your personality to your vows. It’s not you if the words you choose sound like someone else wrote them, or are too formal, or too serious.

4. Is there a quote, scripture, poem or psalm that has always been central to your relationship? If so, build your vows around that theme and grow it from there.

5. See the future. Your relationship will take you places you cannot even imagine, and the point of professing wedding vows to one another is to face the future together, whatever it might bring. Your vows are promises to be faithful and to enrich each other’s lives not just now, but always.

6. Build from traditional wedding vow wording. If you love the traditional ‘love, honor and cherish’ vows, by all means include them. Many of our New Jersey brides and grooms start their vows with the traditional vows script, then add their own personalized ‘second half’ with their additional promises or a touch of humor.

7. Write a first draft, not censoring yourself. Just write and write, not worrying about length, and then you can edit your script down from there, keeping the ‘gold’ of your vow wording and cutting away what’s excess.

8. Read your vows out loud as you go. That’s the only way to tell if your vow wording sounds natural in your own voice.

9. Don’t be afraid of tears. Heartfelt, sentimental promises, plus the deep love you feel for your partner, are sure to get you misty-eyed, and that’s a very special part of a wedding ceremony. So don’t put pressure on yourself not to cry.

10. Write out your vows. You don’t have to memorize them. Print them out in full on an index card, and your officiant can lead you through them, or you can read them right off the page as so many other brides and grooms have done to get their wedding vows just right.

If there’s something you wish to express that’s not a natural fit for your wedding vows, include that private sentiment in a letter or card you send to your partner on the morning of the wedding.

Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, pleasantdale Chsteau

Wedding guest books have gotten so beautiful! Just a few years ago, it seemed like most brides and grooms bought standard, white or ivory, lined guest books from wedding websites – with or without the big, plumy pen – and now the same color and creativity that goes into modern wedding invitation design is going into the wedding guest book.

 When guests arrive at the ceremony or cocktail party venue, the first thing they see on display is the guest book they’re expected to sign as a record of their presence at the wedding celebration. Here are the new trends of the guest book awaiting their signatures, the guest book that becomes such a priceless keepsake to the bride and groom:

Guest Book Colors

 Wedding guest book covers may still be selected for their traditional colors of white, ivory, or ecru, with silver or gold trim or accents including the simple embossed wording of Guest Book on the cover. Many of our New Jersey brides and grooms say they like to keep the ‘something old’ of a traditional guest book design, since so much of their wedding is non-traditional, colorful and creative. And then we see many local wedding couples choosing, or making, guest books in beautiful colors that may match or coordinate with their wedding’s signature colors. The biggest wedding color trends reflected in guest books right now are pale pink, sage green, lavender, and the bright shades of turquoise, tangerine, sunshine yellow and lipstick red. The guest book welcomes guests with their first glimpse at the shades of the wedding venue décor.

 Guest Book Cards, Papers and Stickers

 Creative brides and grooms seek out easy, money-saving wedding DIY crafts, and the make-your-own wedding guest book trend has introduced this guest-pleasing option: the guest book table welcomes guests to sign individual, unlined index cards chosen for their coordination with the wedding décor colors, inscribing their messages on, say, lavender index cards with a deep purple pen, or with a shimmering silver pen. The cards are then dropped into a silver serving bowl or glass bowl, to be assembled into a scrapbook later.

Another trend is for guests to sign individual wedding theme-shaped cards or papers, such as heart-shaped paper stock, and wedding photo booth attendants now affix on guest book pages the self-stick strips of guests’ photo booth pictures, and finally the guests sign with silver pen or colorful Sharpie on ‘their page,’ alongside their sweet or silly photo booth pictures.

 What Guests Are Writing

 In years past, wedding guests simply signed their names on a line in a basic wedding guest book, and now we’re seeing wedding guests write heartfelt messages of “Congratulations!” and “We are so happy for you! What a beautiful, perfect day!” on a half- or whole page of the guest book. Brides and grooms love having the keepsake of personal messages written in their loved ones’ handwriting, which becomes all the more special over time.

 Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, pleasantdale Château

When you’re looking forward to your wedding day, one of the most enjoyable first tasks that bride and groom share is creating a bridal registry, and in today’s wedding world it’s become quite common to establish multiple gift lists for guests to look at as they decide what to get you for your engagement party, bridal shower, or wedding gift.

Creating a bridal registry is, according to wedding etiquette experts, a service to the wedding guests as much as it is a treat for you. After all, wedding guests want to get you the things you need and want for your home and lifestyle. They enjoy clicking onto your bridal registry, seeing the items you’ve selected, learning your style, and purchasing from your list.

Here are the top new bridal registry trends as reported by so many of our New Jersey brides and grooms:

1.   Create two to three different registries. Start with the traditional home décor and kitchen registry, and continue on to set up a list at a home improvement store (such as Home Depot or Lowes) to help you redecorate or remodel your home, or create a beautiful garden and backyard. You might create a honeymoon registry, or a charitable registry where guests can get you an exotic treat for your getaway, or donate to your favorite cause.

2.  Upgrade your housewares. Couples want the good chef’s saucepans and carving knives, or high thread-count sheets, so they’re registering for the newest and best items on the market.

3. Register for all seasons. When you’re adding sheets and bedding sets to your wedding registry list, be sure to register for lightweight fabrics that will be most comfortable during the spring and summer, as well as for heavier fabrics, blankets and throws for the cooler fall and winter months.

4. Register for electronics. Now, bride and groom registry picks include Energy-Star™ kitchen appliances, GPS systems, security systems and other electronic gadgets that make their homes comfortable and energy-efficient, and add to an exciting lifestyle in the future.

5. Register for entertaining. Our New Jersey wedding couples love to entertain, and they envision a future married life in which they’ll host holiday dinners and throw dinner parties, showing off their gourmet cuisine. If you dream of entertaining, add plenty of serving platters, barware, glassware, wine decanters, sangria pitchers and other entertaining musts to your bridal registry gift lists.

Don’t forget to keep adding items to your bridal registry gifts lists all throughout your engagement season, so that guests have plenty of affordable options, and so that you get plenty of chances to enjoy the fun of registering for wedding gifts together. Many official registries also have ‘completion programs,’ offering you 10% or 15% discounts on the gifts that remain on your list after the wedding, so when you add additional wedding gift items to your list, you can get them more affordably later on.

Thanks!

Christopher Gellings, Banquet Manager, Highlawn Pavilion

When the bride and groom step onto the dance floor for their first dance, the song they choose to dance to is more than just a pretty tune. It’s ‘Their Song,’ a deeply-meaningful first dance song that reflects their relationship, their joy, their new life together. First dance songs are now being chosen from a list of songs that have played a big part in the bride and groom’s love story, perhaps the first song they ever slow-danced to.

Wedding deejays and wedding bands in our North Jersey region say there is a trend toward perennial favorite first dance songs, and that many wedding couples say they’re choosing their first dance song together as a team. They’re also reporting that the couple is now choosing two special songs for their wedding reception’s spotlight dance moments: one for the First Dance and another for the bride and groom’s last spotlight wedding dance of the reception.

Here are the top First Dance Songs that you may wish to consider for your own big moment:

Amazed                                                Lonestar

At Last                                                 Etta James

Beautiful In My Eyes                             Joshua Kadison

Because You Loved Me                       Celine Dion

Breathe                                                Faith Hill

Can You Feel the Love Tonight            Elton John

Can’t Help Falling In Love                    Elvis Presley

Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You           Frankie Valli

Come Away With Me                          Norah Jones

Embraceable You                                 Nat King Cole

Everything I Do (I Do It For You)         Bryan Adams

Faithfully                                               Journey

Fly Me To The Moon                           Frank Sinatra

From This Moment                               Shania Twain

Groovy Kind of Love                           Phil Collins

Have I Told You Lately                        Rod Stewart

Here And Now                                    Luther Vandross

I Can’t Help Falling In Love                  Elvis Presley

I Could Not Ask For More                  Sara Evans

I Cross My Heart                                 George Strait

I Only Have Eyes For You                   Flamingos

I Swear                                                John Michael Montgomery

I’ll Be There                                         Michael Jackson

It Had To Be You                                Harry Connick Jr

It’s Your Love                                      Faith Hill/Tim McGraw

Just The Way You Are             Billy Joel

Someone Like You                               Van Morrison

The Best Is Yet To Come                     Frank Sinatra

The Way You Look Tonight                 Frank Sinatra

To Make You Feel My Love                Garth Brooks

True Companion                                   Marc Cohn

Unforgettable                                        Nat King Cole

Wedding Song (There is Love) Petula Clark

What A Wonderful World                    Louis Armstrong

When A Man Loves A Woman            Percy Sledge

When I Fall In Love                              Celine Dion

When I Said I Do                                 Clint Black

Wonderful Tonight                                Eric Clapton

Some songs are contemporary, some are classic, some country, but all – and so many more — are open to your consideration as the soundtrack for your lovely first dance as husband and wife.

Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Château

Your wedding favors make the stylish ‘last impression’ on your wedding guests, so be sure to choose lovely favors, and create a wedding favor display that’s pleasing to the eye as well. When you take time to creatively display even the most modest of favors, your efforts create an effect that makes it seem like the favors are more expensive, more upscale and more of a treat. At our New Jersey wedding venue, we’ve seen some of the loveliest wedding favor display trends:

• Place one wedding favor at each guests’ place setting, in front of their plates.

• Create a wedding favors table by your gifts table, and set on it large, elegant silver platters that hold organized, even rows of your packaged favors. We use the same presentation style for our petit fours and other small desserts, so your favor treats will share the same elegant styling.

• Accent your wedding favors table with a floral centerpiece matching those on the guest tables, or place an 8”x10” framed photo of the two of you, paired with a framed, printed thank –you note from the two of you, in the center of the table, surrounded by your favors.

• Arrange your wedding favors on three-tier serving pedestals, just like our banquet managers and pastry chefs use with our dessert offerings, for an elegant look that matches the serving-style the guests have admired all throughout your reception and dessert hour.

• You can also use these three-tier serving pedestals as favor presentations that our servers can bring to each of your guest tables, creating an upscale presentation at the end of your reception.

• Our servers can also present each table’s favors on an elevated serving platter or on a small silver platter, with the platter garnished with additional chocolates, mints, or – a favorite at our New Jersey weddings – pastel-colored Jordan almonds.

• If you’ll make a donation to charity in lieu of traditional favors, display a framed printed announcement of your charity choice, and place next to it a basket of packaged cookies, chocolates or mints for guests to enjoy as they depart.

• Arrange one of the hottest current favor presentations – the favor bar. At this long table, guests use tongs or scoops to select their own choices of chocolates, truffles, brownie bites, colorful candies or other favor choices from glass bowls and platters. They package their own edible favor choices in either clear Lucite boxes or cellophane bags that they can tie with a ribbon. You can serve just truffles, or you can mix up your favor bar offerings to include bite-sized brownies, fudge squares, petit fours and an array of dessert indulgences.

Edible favors are the top choice at our Southern New Jersey wedding venue, but we’re also seeing single long-stemmed roses packaged in cellophane and ribbon, displayed in a tall, beautiful vase, ready for guests to choose their own take-home wedding flower.

All the best,

Caitlyn Bradley, Director of Private Dining, Ram’s Head Inn

During your wedding rehearsal, you and everyone involved in your wedding ceremony will learn all of the important details central to the beauty and perfection of this most important part of your wedding day. You’ll arrange your bridal party members’ lineup, practice the processional, practice your vows and the symbolic or cultural elements of your ceremony, and make any last-minute changes you desire.

In years past, the wedding rehearsal was in the hands of the officiant who was in charge at the house of worship, or a wedding coordinator stepped in to run the practice session. Now, we’re seeing a fresh, new trend of a team effort encompassing the guidance of several authorities at the rehearsal. Our New Jersey wedding couples enjoy the input from specialists in each portion and style element of the ceremony.

The wedding coordinator handles the bridal party lineup and partner pairings, helps the child attendants learn how to walk down the aisle and where to stand, and instructs any musicians, readers, cultural performers and other players in the wedding ceremony. With a practiced hand and a level of authority that the excited circle of friends and family members listen to with great respect, the wedding coordinator also keeps you on an efficient schedule, so that you can get to your rehearsal dinner on time, with all crucial instructions received.

If you do not have a wedding coordinator working on your wedding, our banquet managers can happily step in to guide your group through every step of your ceremony held on our wedding garden grounds or in one of our ballrooms, and we too will keep you on schedule.

The officiant is another important member of your wedding rehearsal team, leading you through the spoken elements of your ceremony, providing calming guidance and often a sense of humor that puts everyone at ease.

And of course, you are also a member of the rehearsal dinner team, as the highest authority in the creation of your wedding ceremony. You can ask questions, request modifications, and let the officiant know if you have something already printed in your wedding program – such as a particular reading — that needs to be added into the ceremony.

Our wedding couples from Passaic County, Morris County, Somerset County and all other state-wide regions, plus our growing number of New York City and Long Island brides and grooms, actively co-create their wedding ceremonies, finalizing their plans during their all-important wedding rehearsal, and they can then enjoy the peace of mind of knowing that all of the plans are set, and all of the participants know what to do. All that’s left to do is relax, enjoy the evening, and know that your wedding planning team, especially including our dedicated banquet directors, will protect your plans and run everything wonderfully on your wedding day.

Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Château

Every bride and groom wishes to personalize their wedding décor, looking at their wedding ceremony site, their wedding reception venue, their wedding gardens…and one of the most popular décor ideas right now is decorating with your wedding monogram.

When you entwine your first initials together, or simply use the initial of your new, shared last name, this style of décor carries a great sense of symbolism. Your new, married monogram depicts your partnership, the joining together of your lives.

Here are some of the most inspiring ways that our New Jersey wedding couples are incorporating wedding monograms into so many aspects of their wedding décor:

Ceremony Decor

• On your wedding programs, with your entwined monogram featured on the front of your wedding programs or as a small, top-of-page accent on each wedding program page.

• At the start of your aisle runner, with your wedding monogram design silkscreened beautifully onto the fabric.

• As a part of your unity candle décor (some styles of unity candles feature oval ‘frames’ where photos can be slid in. Use this ‘frame’ to showcase your entwined monogram instead)

• As part of aisle or pew décor, such as a small silver frame containing your single last-name initial, attached to a pew bow or floral accent piece.

Outdoor Wedding Garden Décor

• Individual flowers, such as white roses, spell out your last name initial or entwined first initials in a large garden hedge or shrub.
• Your wedding monogram can be spelled out in staked flowers on the grounds, perhaps by a walkway.

• Pedestals at the start of the aisle can display floral pieces that showcase your monogram in flowers.

Wedding Room Décor

• ‘Gobo’ lights can project your wedding monogram beautifully onto the dance floor or onto the reception ballroom walls.

• Your guest book can feature your beautiful, custom-designed wedding monogram on the cover, and also at the top of each page.

• Your monogram can be printed at the top or far left portion of your place cards.

• Your monogram can be printed on each table number sign.

• Your monogram can be printed at the top of each guest table menu card.

• Ice sculptures can be designed in your monogram design, set on buffet tables or on food station tables.

• Place setting plates and chargers can feature your married last initial monogram.

• Table runners and napkins can be printed or embroidered with your married monogram design.

• Centerpiece designs can be made using flower petals arranged into your monogram shape at the center of each guest table.

• Pillar candles used as table centerpieces can feature your wedding monogram.

• Wedding favor votive candles and favor boxes can be imprinted with your monogram.

Wedding Food Accents

• Your wedding cake can be piped with your beautiful, intricate married monogram as the ultimate in indulgent wedding décor.
• Cupcakes on the dessert table can be piped with your last initial on top.
• Our pastry chef can swirl your wedding monogram in dessert sauce onto each guest’s wedding cake serving plate.

Have a great day!

Laura Madden, Senior Sales Manager, Pleasantdale Chateau

Your wedding video is a priceless capturing of your dream wedding day, and you get to help create it. When you alert your wedding videographer to what you do and don’t want on your wedding day footage, you play a big part in the final version.

The top wedding videographers we know from our elite community of New Jersey wedding experts, including award-winning video experts from the entire Northern and Central  Jersey and New York City regions, among others, want to hear from you about the types of footage you love, and what you have no desire for. For instance, you might not want your wedding videography to include interviews of guests at their tables. Some guests are camera-shy and cringe when they see the videographer coming at them. You don’t want your guests to be uncomfortable, so you might add ‘no table interviews’ to the Don’t list you deliver to your videographer well before the wedding day.

Here are some of the top Don’ts that today’s brides and grooms have in mind when it comes to their wedding videography:

• Too many special effects. Couples say they find it distracting when their ceremony footage keeps transforming from black-and-white to color, so ask your wedding videographer to use special effects minimally.

• Too much focus on us. A great videographer knows to stick close to the bride and groom in order to capture those wonderful looks between them, interactions with close friends and with the flowergirls and other magical moments. But today’s wedding couples want lots of footage of their family and friends enjoying the celebration.

• No line dances. Some brides and grooms agree to having line dances at their receptions, sometimes on request from their parents, but they often don’t need that footage shot, nor included in their final wedding video.

• No table interviews. Again, guests who get surprised by a camera in front of them often don’t express themselves eloquently. It’s not something they want captured for posterity. And wedding couples wish to spare them the awkwardness.

• No picking out music for us. Brides and grooms prefer to submit a list of songs they’d like used as the soundtrack for their wedding video, not to be surprised when the videographer adds songs they don’t like…or that remind them of previous relationships!

• No baby photo montages. Some of our New Jersey wedding couples choose instead to display those adorable baby and childhood photos as an entertainment feature at the start of their wedding dinner, not including them on their wedding video.

A large portion of wedding videography cost is due to the time it takes for your video expert to edit your video, especially if you’ve purchased a video package providing you with just an hours’ worth of footage. So your Don’t requests may even save you money by eliminating some editing elements such as special effects. Cost aside, though, the goal is creating the wedding video you want, one you’ll watch again and again in the future.

Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Château

Your wedding photographer wants you to be blissfully happy with your wedding day photos, so the new trend in arranging for wedding photography is one that local NJ photographers have actually requested: they want to know what you don’t want them to capture on your wedding day.

A great wedding photographer will adhere to your photo wish-list, while at the same time making sure that he or she is well-positioned to capture all of the most magical moments of your ceremony and reception. Top professional wedding photographers in the counties of Essex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Hudson and other nearby regions also know that the bride and groom want to enjoy their cocktail party and reception to the fullest, not spend an hour taking endless posed group photos. No reputable photographer wants to make you miss your cocktail hour, so join in the trend of delivering your Wedding Photography Don’t List to your photo pro in advance of your wedding day, letting him or her know which types of shots you don’t want, what not to waste time on. Wedding photographers we’ve known for years here at the Pleasantdale Chateau in West Orange have said they’re greatly relieved to know what the bride and groom are thinking. They appreciate getting a Don’t List. It’s not an encroachment on their expertise.

Here are the top types of photos to add to your own Wedding Photography Don’t List:

Boring Shots

• Posed lineups of the bridal party, with the ladies on one side and the groomsmen on the other. Today’s wedding couples request a more modern ‘blend’ of interspersed bridesmaids and groomsmen.

• Posed lineups of the bride and groom with sets of parents. More candid wedding photography shots are often preferred for these priceless shots.

• The cliché shot of the bridal party jumping up in the air, or running down a hill holding hands. While some wedding couples love these ‘fun group scenes,’ others would rather skip the ‘scripted levity’ photos and just have the photographer capture more natural group interactions, such as everyone dancing or sharing a champagne toast.

• Posed photos taken at each guest table. They have wedding cameras on their tables, so they can take their own at-table photos.

Uncomfortable Shots

• Tell your photographer if you wish to skip that cliché shot of the groomsmen holding you sideways, awkwardly, with everyone forcing smiles.

• If your photographer asks you to pose a photo of the groom dipping you backwards over a pool or pond and that makes you uncomfortable, just request to skip that shot and move onto the next. [A Don’t can be delivered in the moment, not on a pre-submitted Don’t List.]

• Tell your photographer about any awkward family situations, such as your father bringing his new girlfriend to the wedding, and you not wanting her included in the family photos. You might find it easier to skip the posed family lineups to avoid this situation, and instead just get photos of yourself with your father. Our favorite wedding photographers here at our New Jersey wedding venue are masters at handing tricky family photo situations, so that you don’t have to worry about them.

Your Don’t List can also include instructions on how you’d like your wedding photographer to capture you, such as getting you from your ‘good side,’ or not taking photos of you from the back. They’re your photos from the most important day of your life, and you’ll want every frame, every proof, to make your wedding wishes come true.

Best,

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Château