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Top Ten Hidden Wedding Costs You Need To Know About

Quick! Off the top of your head name five wedding-related expenses.

Go ahead, think. We’ll wait…

…… …… ……

Got ’em? What were they, the dress, the venue, the food/drinks, the invites, and favors, perhaps? Those are good guesses but totally undermine the other less-common expenses that, as you’ll see, are still supper important to consider. The Loverly blog explains the top ten “hidden” wedding fees you may have forgotten to add to your budget:

1. Postage: Engaged couples do make MANY trips to the post office because wedding invitations often need extra postage due to their weight and shape. (Don’t forget the stamp needed for each guest’s RSVP, thank-you card, and save the date.)

2. Service fees, tax, and gratuity: The fine print on your catering contract may indicate you’ll have to pay sales tax on your food and booze plus an additional service fee (often 20%) and an 18% gratuity. So if your venue has a, for instance, $10,000 food and beverage minimum, an 6.85% sales tax + service and gratuity could add another $4,485 to your final bill (which amounts to an additional 45%!).

3. Tips: If gratuity isn’t included in all the contracts, be careful because etiquette still dictates that you give most vendors a tip of some sort. Most couples should plan to tip the photographer, videographer, florist, musicians/DJ, driver, officiant, hair and makeup stylists, and any others in charge of providing you with wedding services.

How to Clean Your Clothes Properly

How to properly clean and take care of your clothes

Even if a label tells you how to clean something, there’s no guarantee it’s going to be easy or cheap to do so.

Ever been hit with an outrageous dry cleaning bill or realized that that gorgeous new blouse you just bought had impossible-to-understand care instructions?

Yup, we’ve been there and so have our clients. Oftentimes we give them some advice that’s worked for us at home but there have still been a couple times when we just don’t know what to say!

Sure, we’re not dry cleaners, but over the years as tailors we’ve nevertheless been able to collect several prized tips on cleaning and caring for clothes that would make even the most experienced in the dry cleaning business proud. So we racked our brains for past instances of when clients used our tips, and even did some additional research (the Glamour site was a great resource!), and gathered all of that advice to hopefully help you better (and more inexpensively) deal with your trickier clothes.

These Are The Jeans That Look Best on Your Body

It’s not about everyone having the same skinny jean anymore. It’s about your daily state of mind. (Sharleen Ernster Lazear, Chief Design Officer at Guess)

At Alter Creations, there’s one thing we take as commandment: All women are beautiful.

The problem, however, is that not all of them know how to flaunt that beauty, so they end up wearing less-than-flattering clothes that leave them looking more disheveled than put-together.

One staple that they most often neglect is their jeans! But we’d like to (help) put an end to that by teaching you some helpful hints about the perfect jeans FOR YOUR BODY TYPE + a few fit tips that we’ve gathered both from our experience and from a recent issue of Glamour.

[Note: The brands we mention here didn’t sponsor this post.]

If You Have A Bubble Butt

Pick a rise that’s high enough to be flattening in front AND back–no gapping.

Brand you’ll want to check out: NYDJ ($110 at amazon.com/fashion), Hudson Jeans ($165 at hudsonjeans.com), and Lands’ End ($59-69 at landsend.com)

Six Tips for Becoming The Best-Dressed Wedding Guest

Not upstaging the bride doesn’t mean guests ought to look disheveled and frumpy. On the contrary! A well-dressed flock of guests only enhances the lucky couple’s own appearance and is a definite wedding Do.

We recently caught an interview with fashion powerhouse Nicole Miller and decided to compile her best tips for would-be guests here. “With more than 32 years of industry experience and a Fashion Group International Lifetime Achievement award under her belt, it’s safe to say that Nicole Miller knows clothes.” Read on to see her wedding attire dos, don’ts and must-haves and find out how you can turn into a role model of a guest!

HOW NOT TO LOOK TOO CASUAL

It’s always better to be a little overdressed rather than underdressed in my opinion. That said, being overdressed should not mean erring on the side of formal and stuffy. It’s important to stay true to your personal style, regardless of the occasion!

WHAT “BLACK-TIE-APPROPRIATE” MEANS NOWADAYS

Imagine yourself standing next to your hot date, who is wearing a tuxedo. Do you feel comfortable in your outfit? If so, then it’s black tie appropriate! Black tie these days does not have to mean a full-length gown — shorter dresses are appropriate if they have special detailing or something that sets them apart from other more casual cocktail length dresses.

19 Must-Haves for a Summer Wedding

Summer is definitely our favorite season. And Summer weddings are wonderful to have in places like Park City where it never gets uncomfortably hot. (>> Just a shout-out to one of the wonders of this [quaint but ever-growing] town!)

Regardless of its location, sometimes you might want to take your Summer wedding to the top and set it apart from all those other Summer weddings. Lucky for you we got not one or five, but 19 things you should have at your wedding to delight both your guests and yourself. Below are some of our absolute “must-have must-haves.” Here are all 20.

1. Flavored water to keep guests hydrated: This is not only pretty, but it’s so functional. Make sure to have plenty of these available!

2. Sunglasses! (Safety first :)!)

3. Fresh Fruit: Healthy munchies are better than mere cupcakes and cookies, right? We might want to raid a fruit bar, but a sugary, fatty snack bar doesn’t sound all that appetizing.

How To Create A Wedding Day Timeline

We came across a great post on SouthernWeddings.com about all the important details needed to know for arranging your wedding day timeline that we just KNEW we HAD to share with you!

Emily (the post’s author) starts out by suggesting you gathering information and materials and “collect all of the information you have, especially the parts that are externally set/not in your control.” The following are some of the questions she poses to help you out:

What time can you get into your receptions space?
How many hours does your photography/videography package cover?
Are you doing a “first look” shoot?
How far apart are your ceremony and reception locations?
Are you doing a First Dance or parent dances?
Will you have a Cocktail Period? How long will it be?

She then recommends you add times and details as you confirm them. “As decisions are made and information comes in, start plugging each piece into a doc (Word or Excel, your choice!).”

Our Blog Has Fabulous Fashion Tips & Resources

If You Have A Bubble Butt

HOW NOT TO LOOK TOO CASUAL

WHAT “BLACK-TIE-APPROPRIATE” MEANS NOWADAYS

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