With the gluten-free movement taking the country by storm, more and more people find themselves getting tested for–and diagnosed with–food allergies. As a member of this illustrious group, I am loving the idea of an allergy-free wedding.

Normally, eating at restaurants and social events is a huge hassle: Do you cook with corn oil? Does that sauce have corn syrup in it? Can you check and see if your powdered sugar is made with cornstarch or flour? The list of questions becomes so tedious after a while that you inevitably settle for a salad, sans dressing, and call it a day. It’s great for a diet, sure, but a wedding is supposed to be a chance to splurge! So when planning your menu, think about those of us who haven’t tasted a gummy bear, tortilla chip or sip of soda in a decade. With adept catering or just a little extra elbow grease on your part, you can host a fabulous allergy-free event that everyone can enjoy.

I ran across this BrideFu post on the topic and, although it fails to mention my particular allergy, I think it has a lot of great insight into allergy-free weddings in general. You might think it’s impossible to cook without the items on the site’s Big Eight list–eggs, milk, wheat and fish in particular–but it’s actually really easy to do with a flexible caterer. You don’t even have to change your entire menu. Just add a few delicious dishes without these ingredients and advertise them to your guests, as The Lovely Scones blogger did for her nuptials.

Creating your own allergy-free wedding is a great way to make sure that no one is fretting over the fritters on your big day. Just don’t be surprised if you find someone like me hungrily hunkered down over a heaping plate of your corn-free culinary creations!

I am excited to welcome a Katie M. as a regular contributor to both Tiny Talk and Diva Dialogue. For a little more information about Katie, read below:

Katie M. is a Marketing Copywriter at Tiny Prints. She has the privilege of viewing nearly every piece of stationery before it goes up on the website, giving her the ultimate inside scoop on upcoming trends in the stationery world. She loves classic designs with a surprising twist, and enjoys finding new ways to express her ever-evolving personal style-a blend of traditional glamour and bohemian whimsy that makes Tiny Prints & Wedding Paper Divas a perfect fit!

Some other interesting tidbits that Katie has provided about herself:

I am obsessed with: health & fitness, skincare, being allergic to things (I am allergic to corn and proud!), UCSB, all things adorable (my puppy included), the beach, rock climbing, cooking (primarily because I can’t eat normal things), getting real mail, having fresh flowers around, discount shopping, and shoes (who isn’t?)

Everyone at Wedding Paper Divas and the other contributors to Diva Dialogue look forward to learning more…

Now that the wedding’s over, what else do we have to look forward to? Lots that’s what! Many brides leap from wedding planning to the next biggest thing and that might be moving or planning for a baby. As I have graduated from wedding to marriage, I have also switched from my daily dose of reading tips from The Knot, a bride’s best friend in wedding planning, to their sister site The Nest. The Nest brings the same detailed, fun to read tips but for newlywed couples needing help on everything from buying a home to saving money. Being married also means a switch from buying wedding invitations to purchasing address labels with your new names on them or moving announcements to notify friends and family of your new residence. Smoothly transition to your new status as newlyweds with these. The Happy Mailbox address label is from Tiny Prints.

There’s something about the color yellow that evokes bright, sunny, summer days. Thread this happy hue throughout your wedding for a fun, modern look that will brighten up a spring or summer wedding, be sweet in autumn and golden in winter. Here’s some lovely yellow shades that we hope will inspire your yellow wedding this or next season.

pictures from top left: dress and earrings from Anthropologie,

candy buffet from Mel’s Brainstorms,

Desert Bloom cake from Brides.com

Great post on Polka Dot Bride this morning. I LOVE the idea of colored wedding shoes - this is a fun and subtle way to show some personality!

Click here to check it out.

There was a lot of things that happened that I wish I knew about before the wedding and there were also things that I did know that really saved the day. Read on for tips to make your big day extraordinary!

1) Create an Emergency Kit. One thing I’m glad I remembered to do was put together a kit containing sewing materials, tape, lipstick, powder, tissue and Tylenol just in case. I put the entire thing together in a plastic container and gave it to my coordinator to hold on to. Although fortunately I didn’t need to sew anything on that day, my husband was the best man at a wedding where the button on his rented tux fell off right before the ceremony. Lucky for the resources of his friend, a paper clip saved the day!

2) Get organized! Another thing I’m happy I did was get organized a few weeks before the wedding. The week of the wedding was so hectic I’m happy that I did everything early. I gathered things like checks for my hair stylist and makeup artist, my perfume, earrings and our wedding rings into one large plastic bag so that I wouldn’t have to scramble around looking for it that day.

3) Go over the details of your wedding day with everyone involved. I’m sad to say that this important detail was overlooked for our wedding. Although we had at different points of time met with our vendors and friends, we didn’t thoroughly go over everything right before the wedding. Emails and phone calls are easily forgotten so it’s best to meet with everyone, sit them down, and make sure they take detailed notes about what’s important to you.

4) Talk to your family before the wedding day. Getting married is emotional for everyone involved. I was lucky that my dad made me sit down with him the night before the wedding to talk about how he felt and what it meant to him that I was getting married. Although I was tired and anxious about the next day, I think that it was an important discussion that made the wedding day even more special for him and for me.

5) Make memories and savor moments with your new husband. The day went by so fast! I tried to take everything in but it was hard. The one thing that I treasured were the times I spent with my husband. Whether it was when we took pictures or when we danced, those are the moments I truly love and remember about my wedding day.

IDoSugar posted an interesting topic on wedding traditions and their meaning today.  Here are a few highlights:

- “It wasn’t until Queen Victoria donned a white gown that this virginal shade became the wedding-dress color of choice.”

- “The tradition of fathers walking daughters down the aisle actually goes back to the days when dads used female offspring as bartering tools to pay off debts or make peace.”

- “In the past, newlyweds would just sneak off to a separate room after the ceremony to consummate their union, and the wedding guests would crowd outside the door. The bride tossing her bouquet started as a way to divert guests’ attention.”

- “The original reason people saved (the top of their wedding cake)…was so that it could be served at the first baby’s christening.”

- “Throwing rice…Initially, this tradition wasn’t limited to rice; guests could also opt for oats and corn.”

To read the full post, click here.

What are wedding announcements? Thank goodness for them since they help make those who you weren’t able to invite part of your wedding. There were so many uninvited guests who generously gave my husband and I gifts and I wanted to do something for them (besides sending them a thank you) and everyone else who couldn’t make it to the wedding or who weren’t invited.

Here’s the 411 on wedding announcements. They were traditionally sent by parents and usually up to a year after the wedding. Today couples also send them. Announcements are kind of like the announcements you see in the newspaper except you are sending it to specific family and friends. You shouldn’t expect a gift but of course if you receive one make sure you send a thank you.

They are perfect for us because we had a small wedding and it also works if you had a big wedding but still had a lot of people you couldn’t invite. They’re also great professionally to alert business associates and colleagues to the change in your last name.

Wedding Paper Divas has a wedding announcement I think I might send.

Sweet Matrimony

Although I haven’t gotten all my pictures yet, I did get a sneak preview. And because I wanted to give those who couldn’t make it a wedding picture, I was overjoyed that Wedding Paper Divas has a line of photo cards to select from. Since then, I’ve been playing around with all of their beautiful, modern photo cards to see which one I might send. The fun part of it is that you can customize any photo card, not just the thank you ones. The card that I ended up choosing, however, surprised me. Because the picture I chose had so much details on it, I found that a simple card worked best and decided on the Contemporary Solid Thank You Cards: Willow. Here is the result.

A big trend this season is including scents as an important part of your wedding day. You’ve got your other senses covered such as the look and feel of your wedding but how about smell? My friend, for example, gave me a bottle of perfume to be worn on my wedding day. Why might you ask? Well scientists learned that scents trigger emotional memories and using scents could effect the mood of the wedding as well as help the bride and groom and their guests remember the day. This way whenever I spray on a spritz of Orange Blossom, I’ll be reminded of my wedding day.

Besides your normal scents from floral centerpieces, fragrant candles, or flowers that can be placed on guests’ tables, there is a company that can custom create various aromas to add texture to your wedding. One company called Scentevents has created a scent machine that can recreate a variety of aromas such as flowers, wedding cake, chocolate or champagne and scent areas up to 2,000 square feet. Talk about having a sweet wedding!