Winter wedding ideas, please!

Hi everyone! This is an awesome messageboard you girls have going here! I am hoping you can help me out here too!

My brother is getting getting married on Dec 28th 2003 in Florida and is having his reception here in NY the weekend after. His fiancee is crazy about a winter wedding...probably because she hasn't seen snow down in FL! We're all dreading it! God forbid there's a blizzard!

Anyway...so the wedding is this winter. My brother swears he's too busy to take care of all the planning and since my sisterinlawtobe doesn't live here, I feel compelled to help him out a bit.

He likes teh North Ritz Club and I've heard good things on here, although I wasn't too crazy about Gus - found him a bit rude for my taste.. He wasn't even listening to what I was saying! I dind't find him very accommodating, but my bro loves the place.

I need some unique ideas for the reception, please! BTW, I don't celebrate Christmas, so the Christmas trees and snowmen are not an option for us. Anything will help!

Thanks in advance.

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please!

I am a big fan of the winter wedding. It's a very magical time in NY! My sister is getting married on the 18th of January. But one closer to the holiday season really has a lot of creative alternatives. There are white lights with ivy, snowflake cookie favors sprinkled with little silver sugar balls, red tulips everywhere ($ that time of year but SO pretty!), muffs for the girls, warm cider and Irish coffee, knit wool socks for favors, sparklers, all kinds of stuff. I love the idea of all white flowers also (I am doing that in Nov.) Even though you dont' celebrate Christmas, little pine tree miniatures with white lights would be great accents for tables - and of course, a jingle bell bouquet for the bride!


Just some thoughts! Pick up a few back issues of Martha - she goes nuts with the holidays. Good luck to your family!

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please!

Oh and TONS of candles!!!!!

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please!

Love the winter wedding theme!
I always wanted to do that!
My ideas are:

Pointsettias for the tables(you can do this yourself with the beautiful ones at Home depot!)

Red velvet dresses for the girls.
Love the muff idea!

A red and white color theme would be so elegant!

Good luck! you will find this websight so helpful!

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please!

I love all of the above ideas! Definitely pick up back issues of winter Martha stewart weddings - she has tons of ideas - you can getn them on her website.

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please!

Wow! thanks girls... every bit helps, really. I really love the ideas...will try em out with my bro. Someone gave me the idea about ice sculptures.. that would be so awesome!!! does anyone know about any places in NY? websites? cost? We're having a large reception...600, we'll need to decorate many tables! My bro's not into flowers... he wants something unique...but then again isn't for spending thousands for centerpieces alone.

How are silk roses, by the way?

I will definitely order MS winter wedding issues from her website!

Thanks!
Maryam

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please! (Long)

Hi (this is VERY long so beware )
I am having a winter wedding...I don't celebrate Christmas either, but snowmen will be prominent fixtures at my wedding (no religious symbolism when it comes to snowmen). We chose to stay away from a red/white type of theme - although candycanes and the like aren't 'religious', many associate them with Christmas - we are doing mostly white, with a lot of greens (pine) to go with the winter season. Here are some of the things we are doing:

1. My bouquet will be white roses, stephanotis and 'frosted' pinecones, hand-tied with white ribbon

2. Our chuppah will be all white roses with pine - I'm trying to think of another color to throw in there, but am stumped...if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!!!!!

3. Our place cards will be placed in frosted pinecones, that will surround this beautiful acrylic snowman I found in CVS for about $10!! I will put fake snow around his base...

4. Our centerpieces will be white flowers with pine for filler

5. My girls are wearing black and white, and will be holding callalillies with silver ribbon

6. Our caketopper will be a snowman/snowwoman. The cake is included at our reception hall, but when the wedding gets closer, I want to see if they can put snowflakes on the cake.

7. Just decided on our invitations! They are custom-made from Favorite Things (a vendor on this board who have been AMAZING to work with so far) - the backing will be silver handmade paper with falling snowflakes in a deeper silver. They have a vellum overlay with a silver satin bow on top. I LOVE them!!

8. Our favors will be mugs with hot cocoa and hershey kisses. We're still tossing this idea around. I think we're going to get mason jar mugs, fill them with the hot cocoa and kisses, then put funny sticky labels on them with a silly winter picture of FH and me, then get ribbons made up with our names/date to tie around the top. I want the labels to say something about the season like 'Nothing warms the heart more than 2 people in love'. The labels will peel off, so it's definitely a favor they can use again and again. We're going to look for a fabric with either snowmen or snowflakes to put under the lids (like jelly jars)...

Sorry I babbled...I really love planning all this stuff!! If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!! Oh by the way...we were planning on doing sparklers for when we walked out of the chapel, but I tested them out at a campsite a few months back and they are VERY DANGEROUS. It is force of habit to shake them when you light them, and pieces of it came flying off and almost hit my friend!! I can't imagine if that was my veil or a guest! So that idea is out We're now considering getting bells to ring, because it will be dark so you won't see the bubbles. Good luck!!!

Re: Winter wedding ideas, please! (Long)

Marnles - thanks so much for taking out the time to post all your ideas! I will pass them along to my bro.. =) there's a lot of work to be done - and very little time... and i appreciate all your ideas to help us along the way!

ps - in our tradition we always throw rose petals on the arriving and departing bride and groom!