With the stress of throwing a fabulous wedding weighing heavily upon engaged couples, it’s no wonder brides often have wacky, anxiety-filled dreams about blue frogs and wilted flowers. The Knot has gathered a charming collection of real wedding nightmares for your reading pleasure (terror?). Having the wedding of your dreams may not be quite what you expected if you share some of these brides’ nightmares. Here are a few of my favorites:

“My fiance was clueless about the planning, and I dreamed he told his groomsmen it was okay to show up with no shirts–just bow ties under their tux jackets.”

“I fell through a hole in the dance floor. Thankfully, it was absurd enough that I could laugh about it without worrying it was going to come true!”

“One of our dogs ate the wedding cake, so we had to go to 7-Eleven and feed the guests boxed cake and cookies instead.”

Check out the entire article for a good laugh to help ease any tension you might have over wedding planning!

If so, you’re probably like me, excited and can’t wait until Sex in the City hits the big screen! Expected to come out on May 30th, the anticipation is growing, excitement is running high with everyone waiting to see what happens to our favorite TV girlfriends.

If you’re still getting over Aidan or wish you could be Carrie, why not throw a Sex in the City themed bachelorette party? Get a few of your closest girlfriends together for martinis and lots of gossip and gab. And invite them all with one of these perfectly suited party invitations!

Orange is fiery and bold. A burst of citrus creates a lively mood for a larger-than-life couple who really wants to stand out at their wedding. Choose a subdued orange hue and mix it with brown in autumn or brighten up a summer wedding with bright juicy tones. Here’s another inspirational board for you brides-to-be who are head over heels in love with orange. How about mixing two popular and unlikely tones, orange and green for something unique. Inspired by the bold complementary colors of a fresh green and bright orange centerpiece I adored in Napa’s famous Copia restaurant, I pulled various similar tones to complete this distinctly modern look.

Stuck in a rut with your wedding planning? Need new ideas? Take some inspiration from bridal magazines and create a bulletin board filled with photos and pages from a magazine that catch your eye. By gazing into all the things you love, you might be inspired with a creative idea for your wedding.

Here’s my version for a fun and fabulous pink and olive color scheme.

Martini Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Invitations

There’s a lot of little things you learn about your own wedding that no one can really tell you until you go through it. I hope this post will help prevent the same thing from happening to you. When choosing your wedding stationery, don’t go conservative. With your costs exceeding your original budget, it’s easy to understand why some, like me, try to keep costs down by limiting the number of stationery ordered.

This was a BIG mistake! I later realized that there were a few people who we wanted to invite but thought we could not accommodate for. In addition, there were just some guests that we forgot to add to our original list. Talking to some other girlfriends I found out that this is really common. Some friends have had to ask families to return their invitations and RSVP cards so that they could reuse them for other guests.

As for my fiance and I? We were extremely embarrassed but were lucky that we found some extra invitations hidden among all our wedding things. Save yourself from having to ask your guests to return their invitations or worse, having to invite additional guests verbatim. Buy several extra sets to keep you covered and safe from having this happen to you.

Here’s a few new designs I love.

So, it’s Friday afternoon and I am craving something sweet. This got me thinking of the idea of edible favors. What do you think? I, personally, love the idea. In fact, after my wedding everyone treated themselves to a full candy buffet featuring some of our favorite sweets treats from our childhood. The candy buffet was a hit with our guests, but there are lots of other edible favor ideas out there too. Here are so delectable delights to whet your appetite and spark some ideas:

Mini Cupakes

Image: Brides.com

Personalized Jam

Image: Modern Bride

Candied Apples

Image: Modern Bride

Chocolate Truffles

Image: Beau-Coup.com

Lolipops

Image: Beau-Coup.com

Candy Buffet

Image: My Wedding

When I began planning my wedding, I became overwhelmed with the entire wedding lingo. What was a place card, for example, and what was the difference between that and an escort card?

A place card is used to tell guests specifically where they will be sitting. Usually in the style of a tented or folded card and done by a calligrapher, these cards are put at the table setting of each guest. Some have colored stickers on them to help waiters identify what type of entrée you requested whether poultry, fish, or vegetarian, for example. Escort cards help guests learn what table they will be sitting on. Creative couples sometimes assign places they traveled to instead of numbers to each table. I have seen escort cards lined up on a table filled with orchids, strung on a line with laundry pins, pinned to fresh fruit and my favorite hung from the bare branches of a tree.

Here’s a beautiful example of a place card from a wedding I attended last year. With candles and a vibrant pink floral centerpiece, this was definitely one of my favorite designs I’ve seen at a wedding.

I went to another wedding event recently where I realized that do-it-yourself (aka DIY) has become a must in wedding planning. There are a number of sites dedicated to it that do it well. Besides Martha Stewart, who is known for her elegant crafts and decadent details, there are a few others such as www.diybride.com that has a variety of tips and hints for brides who want to roll up their sleeves and get involved. Although I am not the Queen of Crafts, I think there are still ways for brides-to-be like me who are artistically challenged.

How about having a candy bar filled with jars of sweets with cellophane bags for your guests to take home? Personalize gift tags with your wedding information on them and leave them out for guests to seal their bag of sweet treats. I found these perfectly sweet gift tags from Tiny Prints. You can add whatever you want on them to make your wedding more personal. How’s that for doing it yourself? It’s fast, simple, and easy.

Falling Flowers

One thing I’ve learned about planning my wedding is that everyone will give you lots of advice about how to do your day. Whether it’s who to invite or what you should wear, people will give you advice even if you don’t ask for it. While the best thing to do is to listen to them and then decide for yourself what you want to do, I have recently been given advice worthy of being retold here.

1) Have a wedding day of coordinator. Whether or not you can afford to drop down 10% or more of your total budget, having a day of coordinator is possible and may be one of your best investments to insure your day is stress-free. Think of a good friend who is organized and loves to plan, and this may be someone you can ask. Or how about asking a relative who would love to get involved? A day of coordinator will be the go to person of the day. So try to ask someone who knows you and your tastes and someone you can depend on to make sure things run smoothly.

2) Delegate, delegate, delegate! Don’t keep all the responsibilities to yourself. When people ask you for help, and they will, try to think of things they enjoy doing so that helping you will feel fun and not like a chore. For example, one of my friends loves doing sign-ins for events, so she was happy to do this for me. At first, it was difficult to ask people for help because I thought it might burden them. But the more I did it, the more it seemed that friends and family were sincerely happy to help.

3) Relax and let go! You know that saying that “anything that can happen will.” Well your wedding is no exception! Sure you want it to be perfect. It’s the day you’ve dreamed about most of your life and you’re investing a lot of time and energy in it. But it’s one day. Try to appreciate the extra moments you have spending with friends and family to plan all these events. And most important try not to lose sight of what makes this day truly magical-your relationship!

That’s it! Just three ways to hopefully help you enjoy your wedding, and all the planning that goes into it, a little more.

I think outdoor weddings are so pretty! That’s all I ever wanted for my wedding. Whether it was going to be at a beach or in a garden, that’s the only thing I ever dreamed about. When my dream became a reality however, I realized that there were a few challenges I didn’t initially think about. For example, the weather! For all you brides out there, who love an outdoor wedding as much as I do, remember to think of alternative indoor locations. Although I’m praying for a sunny day, we’re fortunate to have an indoor place just in case. Also, right now there are such great ways to counteract the various kinds of weather possibilities. Have a bucket filled with chic umbrellas to give out to guests for cover, or hand out cool bottled soft drinks as favors. Wedding Paper Divas has great place cards that could be used to tie around trendy bottles of pop. If you have a wine themed wedding and getting married in wine country, using their Wine Country place cards to hang on wine bottles would match perfectly with your theme and be so ultra-hip and cool.

Wine Country Place Cards

I’m leaving you with a few nature themed cards to get you inspired for your own outdoor wedding!