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An Easy New Way to Compile Your Guests' Addresses

One of the most annoying parts of the wedding-planning process is gathering the addresses of your invitees. WhitePages just introduced a new tool that promises to make that task a little bit easier: WhitePages Mailer.

whitepages mailerPhoto courtesy of WhitePages

How it works: By connecting through your Facebook account, the tool will match up your contacts with relevant public records (based on their name and location), pulling in any possible address matches. I tested it out using my contact and found that nine times out of 10, the correct address was pulled in.

Pros:
► If a contact's name pulls in multiple records and you can't figure out which is correct, you can have the tool send a message to that person asking them to verify their address.
You can organize your contacts into groups, so you don’t have to weed through all 500 of your Facebook friends.
► For your friends who aren't on Facebook, you can manually add their existing WhitePages listing to your personal database, allowing you to still store all of your contacts in one place.
You can export the list as an Excel file, making it easy to send to your parents and future in-laws to double-check their invitees. 

To Wait or Not to Wait: The Great Baby Debate

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge delighted many royal watchers by announcing that they're expecting a child together. When the news broke, media outlets and civilians alike reacted with phrases like "Finally" and "It's about time!" One would assume that William and Kate have been married for ages; yet they tied the knot just over a year and a half ago. If you're reading this and you're a newlywed, you may also relate to being bombarded with questions from well-intentioned loved ones, eager to know when you're having your first baby.

Like many other couples, Wills and Kate reportedly mapped out their baby timeline prior to saying "I do." Just two months after getting engaged, Ms. Middleton told the press that, "I hope we'll be able to have a happy family ourselves. [The royal family has] been great over the years, helping me with difficult times, and we see a lot of each other, and they're very, very dear to me."

There are many factors that can go into the decision of starting a family. Couples may hope to conceive before reaching a certain age, while others leave it up to chance on their honeymoon or hold off until certain career goals are met. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average age of a first-time mom is 25.4. But when is the right time to have kids, exactly? In an effort to gain more insight, I turned to the all-knowing Facebook and posted a status asking, "After your wedding, how long did you wait (or will you wait) to have kids?"

10 Songs to Play at Your Bridal Shower

Each week, we feature music recommendations from Scratch Weddings, the nation's leader with the best wedding DJs at affordable prices. This week's post comes from DJ Lil Ray. The Brooklyn-based DJ creates her infectious musical blend of with a mix of crowd favorites and unexpected hits. Since relocating to NYC from her native Atlanta, DJ Lil Ray has blown up: opening for acts like M.I.A. and Childish Gambino, spinning at SXSW and the GenArt Film Festival and making regular DJ appearances at NYC's hottest night spots. Lil Ray loves to spin weddings because of the special energy of a festive crowd. "Weddings are so much fun! It's great playing to a big group of happy people who are all there to celebrate together."

Photo Credit: David Schwartz Photography

The bridal shower — the better-behaved older sister of the wacky hat-wearing bachelorette party — is an opportunity for a bride to relax and enjoy this exciting time. Like a wedding, a well-planned bridal shower takes a lot of work — which is thankfully left up to close friends and family, so the bride-to-be gets to just show up and enjoy (lucky you!).

Etiquette Q&A: “Is It Acceptable to Only Serve Cocktails & Desserts?”

Q. “My fiancé and I are planning a wedding for about 150 guests, and half of them will be from out of town. Is it appropriate to have a cocktail hour and dessert reception? Or should I provide a full meal?”

A. It’s perfectly fine to have a cocktails and dessert reception. And I wouldn’t worry about not having enough food to feed your guests. Believe me, I’ve been to many a wedding where the cocktail hour fare far outshone the reception dinner! It’s all about offering fabulous, abundant food at stations as well as passed hors d’oeuvres.

Think pasta bar or a Tuscan table filed with Italian breads, cheeses and olives. Offer comfort foods (a surefire crowd pleaser) like mac ‘n cheese, French fries, mini burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches and shot glasses filled with soup.


Photo Credit: Mel Barlow
Photo Credit: Red Loft Studios

If your budget allows, you can have a made-to-order sushi station or a seafood bar featuring lobster, shrimp, oysters and salmon.

Avoid Holiday Weight Gain!

bachelorette party

Photo Credit: Jonathan Wherrett

Eggnog, cocktails, Christmas cookies, cakes, hot chocolate, holiday parties, dinners... 'tis the most festive (and my personal favorite) season of the year!

Our social calendars are beyond full, and with so much more on our plates, it’s easy to let your exercise routine be the first thing to go out the window (along with your waistline).

But please, refer to line one of this article (re: excess amounts of decadent food and drink)! It is at this time of year that I believe it is most important to stay on top of that workout regimen — not only to combat the holiday weight gain but to beat stress and not feel guilty about all the indulgences (yes, I encourage you to soak it up; it only comes once a year). So enjoy it, just learn how to navigate so you don’t roll into the new year at your heaviest (not a good start).

Plus, don’t you want to look and feel your best at all your holiday parties? That’s right ladies, feel empowered to break out that firey red dress! And for the men, bulging guts are not jolly unless your name is Santa.

The Holidays: How to Avoid a Family Feud

‘Tis the season to be merry… except when unwelcome family feuds intrude upon all the merriment! Newlyweds especially often have to deal with unhappy parents and in-laws questioning their plans on where to spend the holidays. Do you visit his family, her family, both families? And how long do you stay? We asked Deanna Brann, Ph.D, an expert on mother- and daughter-in-law relationships and the author of Reluctantly Related: Secrets to Getting Along With Your Mother-in-Law or Daughter-in-Law for some sage advice.

reluctantly related

According to Dr. Brann, couples want to please everyone but typically end up pleasing no one and feeling awful about it. And parents often ignore that now, as a married couple, you and your spouse want to create your own family traditions. What to do? Here’s what Dr. Brann suggests to help you navigate the holidays:

► Before even considering your different families and what they want, sit down with your spouse and decide what the two of you want to do. (This is not about doing what your families want you to do, but instead, ask: If you could do anything you want, what would it be?)

Who's Getting Married on the Gossip Girl Finale?

With just one more episode remaining before the series finale on December 17, The CW has released some evidence that Blair and Chuck will be exchanging vows on the final episode. 

gossip girl series finale wedding
Blair, in a gorgeous Elie Saab gown, with BFF Serena.

gossip girl series finale wedding
Blair's step-father, Cyrus Rose, performs the ceremony in Central Park.

gossip girl series finale wedding

gossip girl series finale wedding

Now, we all know that Gossip Girl loves a good dream sequence, so the jury's still out on whether this is really happening. What do you think?

—Kristen O'Gorman Klein

12 of the Hottest Rings of 2012

'Tis the season for holiday proposals! More than 800,000 couples will get engaged during the holiday season, according to Robbins Brothers, a destination engagement ring store. In celebration, they've compiled the "12 Engagement Rings of Christmas," showcasing the year's most popular ring designs:

Tiara

Inspired by the tiara Kate Middleton wore for her 2011 nuptials, this sparkling ring features intricate side scrolls and 94(!) diamonds around a 1.5 carat center stone (from $2,495). 

robbins brothers tiara engagement ring

Jingle Bell Rock

We love this whimsical, modern take on a halo design: The curved, diamond-encrusted band comes together around a 1.5 carat diamond (from $3,620).robbins brothers jingle bell rock engagement ring

The Ritz

Romantic and elegant, this dazzling ring features a cushion cut diamond surrounded by a halo, with two rows of diamonds on the band ($6,495).

Love Lessons From My First Year of Marriage

Good news—my husband is home from his deployment in Afghanistan! Words can’t describe how incredible it feels to have Michael back.

We recently celebrated a big milestone: Our first wedding anniversary. We spent this entire past year living thousands of miles apart from one another, so we encountered a few challenges that most couples will never have to face. We didn't get to talk on the phone as often as we would have liked, and I only saw a pixelated version of his face a handful of times. In fact, the two weeks we spent together in the middle of his deployment was the longest time we'd seen each other in person since we got engaged. I'll admit—it was rough celebrating our first anniversary with a phone call, but knowing that we'd get to spend our lives together as soon as he got back made it all worth it.

Even though we were halfway around the world from each other, we still learned some valuable lessons about marriage:

champagne toast to a new apartmentToasting to our first night in our new place!

eating pizza on the floor
Here, we are enjoying each other's company with pizza and beer in our furniture-less apartment.

What No One Tells You About Destination Weddings

When my fiancé Edwin and I planned our destination wedding in Italy the first time around (read about why we had to cancel our wedding, here), we were surprised by how time-consuming and expensive the process was. All of that crazy-gorgeous scenery came with a cost: Guests treated us more like travel agents than the bride and groom, and vendor interactions were confusing, at best. Here are five things I wish someone had told me before I started planning.

1. It can be tough to navigate all of the legalities.

Despite the challenges, we instinctively knew that we wanted to get married abroad. We looked into Hawaii (some islands have a 10 p.m. curfew) and Mexico (bloodwork is required in order to obtain a marriage license). We even thought about eloping to Paris—what's more romantic than The City of Lights? But when we found out couples must live in the city for a minimum of 40 days in order to legally get married there, this lovely idea quickly turned into a headache. We finally settled on Italy; although they require a civil ceremony prior to any religious or symbolic blessing, we think it's charming to have a separate ceremony to celebrate privately.

paris elopement
Photo Credit: One and Only Paris [Photography] via Intimate Weddings

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