I LOVE sparklers!!! What a grand entrance as Mr. & Mrs.!!!

Get yours at Sparklers Online! L.O.V.E. it!

(top photo by Melanie Mauer, bottom photo from Sparklers Online gallery)

Be sure and grab yourself a copy of The Real Simple Weddings 2009 magazine that is now available at Crate & Barrel. This magazine is full of great tips, wedding inspiration and is simply a must have! Fun tidbit from the mag: www.costofwedding.com.  Enter your zipcode and find out the average cost of weddings in your zip code! It even breaks down average costs of attire, flowers, invitations, etc. Average cost for Encinitas (my home town) weddings: $28,897-$48,161!!! Wowza!

With “love birds” being one of the hot trends right now for wedding themes, I was so excited when I saw the super cute love bird salt & pepper shaker wedding favors from Products with Personality! They already come in really cute packaging, but if you want to want to personlaize them even more, you can add the matching ribbon band with your names & wedding date!

And to keep with the “love bird” theme, fill these “feed bags” with bird seed for guests to throw in your honor!

A BIG thank you to Sarah at Products with Personality for sharing their fun and unique wedding favors with Bridal Inquirer…and for this awesome blog love!

The FABULOUS Amanda Lynn has graciously offered one lucky Bridal Inquirer reader a FREE engagement session!!! This includes up to two hours at your desired location (Amanda is located in North Orange County (CA), so within reason), all high-resolution images on a DVD and an image of your choice as an 11×17 or 11×14 print. To enter to win, all you need to do is ask ONE wedding related question on the Bridal Inquirer Forum, and then comment on this post that you have done so. Winner will be chosen using random.org and announced via email on Monday, Jan 26th, 2009. To see more of Amanda’s work, please check out her website here. Thank you very much Amanda and GOOD LUCK ladies & gents!

(PLEASE NOTE: existing members may also be included in this drawing so that is why you must also comment on this post so that I know who wants to be included in the drawing. THANK YOU!)

Hurry Hurry Hurry…Flowers by Coley is having a 40% off sale on their Mindy Weiss gift items! If you have a Bridal Shower that you are going to, I promise you that any gift from Mindy Weiss will be a hit! And at 40% off, you can’t go wrong! The “ultimate wedding organizer” planner book is a must have item for any bride! Happy Shopping!!!

I recently received a question from a bride regarding their seating chart. She was concerned that her parents should not be at the same table as the grooms parents. A family member of the groom said it was improper to have them together and that they should each have their own tables. At my own wedding, we had passed appetizers and a formal buffet style dinner, but it was open seating and was a bit more of a casual setting. So while I do not personally have experience with seating charts, I have been to numerous weddings. And for each one that I have been to or been in, both sets of parents always sat together. IMHO, you are joining families so it seems to me that they most certainly should and would sit together. Emily Post says, traditionally the brides family sits separate from the grooms family and she also goes on to say that divorced parents should never be seated together. Claudia Lutman of Luxurious Wedding Ettiquette had this to say about seating arrangements. I personally feel your wedding day is YOUR wedding day and you should do what makes you and your fiance happy. What better time, than at one of the happiest days in both of your lives to join the families together??? Ladies (& Gents), what did you do???

I  have a VERY cute gift idea for you!!! Williams-Sonoma now carries Sprinkles Cupcake Mix!!! A friend of mine at work got me the Red Velvet Sprinkles Cupcake Mix for a Christmas gift this year and they turned out FANTASTIC! I have had Sprinkles cupcakes while I was living in LA and I thought for sure these would taste nothing like them, but they DID! I am no Betty Crocker so they were a little more complicated to make than your normal cupcake mix, but they are worth the work. We were registered at Williams-Sonoma as are a lot of brides/grooms, so if they have any kind of bakeware on their registry, how perfect would Sprinkles Cupcake Mix be to add to the gift??? Some of my favorite gifts from my shower were the red mixer, measuring cups and personalized spatula set from Williams-Sonoma! You can also purchase the cupcake mixes from the Sprinkles website directly. Happy Baking! 

Bridal Inquirer is glad to be Blogging it Forward! Every year my family gives to St. Judes in honor of my grandparents in lieu of gifts for holidays…so when I saw this, of course I knew I had to re-post!

Let’s Eat Cake, an amazing fundraiser hosted by the equally amazing Melissa Margarita-DiStefano, is coming up quick: Tuesday, February 17th at the Plaza Paramount Hotel! Let’s Eat Cake is a cake decorating competition with all proceeds going to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Learn more about the fundraiser right here.

In an effort to make sure we get the word out to everyone (and raise money), we are starting this chain-blog (Ok, not sure if that is correct terminology. But it’s like a chain letter so let’s just go with it, shall we?)

Here’s what we need you to do…Repost this post (or create your own new version) on your blog and ask others to post it on their blogs. Melissa will donate one dollar to the fundraiser for EVERY BLOG that posts on Let’s Eat Cake this week! With the power of the blogosphere, that can QUICKLY add up! Let’s make Melissa Pay! Once you have reposted it, leave a comment letting us know that you posted it along with the url to the blog. It’s for a great cause and it will be fun to see how far it will go! So lets do it… Lets blog it forward and raise money for a great cause!!!

**Kudos to Unique Designs for creating this fun chain-blog effort!**

P.S. Ok, Melissa… time to kick in another $1!

P.S.S. If any business wants to help out with a matching challenge, Melissa would love to hear from you!

Blog it forward, then leave a comment and share your blog link!

Not only are these fabulous pictures taken by Hatlestad Photography, one of Bridal Inquirer’s Featured Vendors, but you might recognize the bride! It is non other than Melissa of Melissa McClure Photography. Melissa & Tim were married on January 3rd, 2009. A big congratulations to Melissa & Tim and a big thank you to Hatlestad Photography for sharing these photos with our readers! Beautiful!!!

It’s time to pay it forward ladies! One of my favorite blogging friends, The Broke-Ass Bride, is one of the twelve finalists in a green wedding contest hosted by Trees Instead! First prize is an all-inclusive, all paid eco-friendly honeymoon in Costa Rica, but the top five finalists also win trees to be planted in honor of each of their guests! How awesome is that??? Let’s start the year out right by helping a bride out (yo!…as Dana would say) and the environment!!! To vote for The Broke-Ass Bride, please visit her blog or the Trees Instead website for full details. Good Luck Dana!!!

XoXo, Bridal Inquirer