The Blog for Irish Brides (and Grooms!)

Facebook Competition - MyWeddingFile.com

To celebrate their first birthday and to add to their 2,000 + couples membership, MyWeddingFile.com are having a Facebook competiton and are giving away some super prizes!  You know I don’t like to have any of my readers out of the loop for any free stuff that’s going around, so here’s what you can win:

Click here to enter the competition (warning: you have to become a fan of MyWeddingFile.com on Facebook to enter the competition) G’luck!

Fill the Honey-Pot

I have to hold up my hand and admit I am not a fan of cash in cards for wedding presents.  I know, I know people don’t want ten toasters, and others think the idea of a gift registry/ordering gifts is a bit cheeky and tacky.  But honestly, what is more crude than cash?

There is a new concept knocking around, dubbed the “HoneyPot“, where wedding guests can contribute towards the cost of the honeymoon for the couple.  In this way, they don’t have to go buying gifts, but don’t have the stigma with how much cash to put in the card on the day either.  From the couples point of view, they can pay for the wedding themselves and have the amazing gift of a holiday from their guests.

MyHoneymoon.ie is a unique online wedding gift registry enabling guests to give couples the ‘Gift of Travel’.  Here’s what the company themselves have to say about it:

Honeymoons make ideal gifts and in the present age where many couples already have their furnished house, pots, pans and Waterford Glass, we thought it would be of benefit to an engaged couple to enable invited guests to give the gift of travel online as a direct contribution to their honeymoon. We simply tailor-make the honeymoon, then create a free online honeymoon gift registry which allows them to direct their guests to the site above.

Wedding Guests and friends can make their monetary gift online and couples have full access to all payments. Couples can give as much or as little information on their honeymoon as they wish and all gifts are acknowledged on line.  For example, they can specify which tours and trips they want in their package and guests can buy them specific experiences eg. bungy jumping etc.

The company also offer special gift cards on which couples can write their unique access code and include in their wedding invitations.  From the day the registry is created, guests can purchase gifts. The account tracks all of the gifts and their givers for easy thank-you’s after the dream trip!

I like the concept and I have talked to a few other brides who do too….what do you think?  Comments below please! :)  You can find out more info on www.myhoneymoon.ie

Wedding Mappr

There are a lot of nifty online wedding tools out there that simply do not work in Ireland, mostly because we lack post codes. Happily, Wedding Mapper is not one of them - just type in Cork, Ireland or any other location and you can start mapping your whole wedding.

This is a handy thing to link to on a wedding website if you have one, or you can just provide the URL of your personalised map in your invitations.

In addition to pinpointing your wedding and reception locations, Wedding Mappr is really useful for out of town guests. You can use it to show them helpful information like local hotels and restaurants, not to mention the best pubs to pass the time in between your wedding and reception. And after the wedding, you can use it to map and review your venues and vendors to help out other local brides, too.

Recessionista Wedding

Sarah Traynor, the author behind “How to Have a Champagne Wedding On a Bucks Fizz Budget” and Aisling Mackey the force behind DIYWedding.ie have recently launched BudgetWedding.ie which is packed full of practical tips and articles for the budget-concious bride.  You can read up on DIY-ing your own Flowers, Favours and Stationary; and she also poses some great questions as to whether you should even consider DIY elements, particularly with the stress-factor involved.  Sarah, like me is a big fan of putting your personality into your wedding and she shares some great tips and insights.

If you want all of this in one neat little package, then hop over to Amazon and buy the book. The great thing about this is it is all Irish-focused so very relevant to all of those planning a big ol Irish wedding!

Soon to be added to the site is a supplier directory of budget wedding suppliers, so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks!

The Elephant in the Room

We’ve mentioned wedding websites here before, and here is another I came across today that might be of interest to you.  Totally FREE to use, you can create your “event” ie, your wedding, add a guest list and send out email invitations and updates, and allow people to RSVP online.  You can give guests all of the info about the day of the wedding and any pre or after meals/events you are having around the big day itself.  You can give them links to accomodation, read what you can do in the area etc etc.  View a sample custom-built wedding website here.

Visit http://www.eventelephant.com to check it out and create your own web page from scratch!

Grooming the Guy

While this blog is pretty focused on you brides-to-be, I thought I’d been neglecting the fellas out there who may be searching the net and struggling with the whole marriage thing.  From deciding on WHEN to pop the question to wedding budgets and future plans, the man of the moment is faced with huge life-changing decisions and is often left resource-less while the ladies are laden down with glossy mags telling them in exacting detail EVERYTHING they need to know about the preparation for the big day itself and indeed what to expect out of married life in general.

Today I stumbled across www.groomgroove.com, a website with heaps of articles and information for the grooms out there.  While it is an American site, I haven’t found an Irish one to match it in terms of content and relevance just for the boys.  There’s also plenty of info on there for the best man and the groomsmen - make sure they all know what their duties and responsibilities are!

So - pass this on to newly engaged guys out there or indeed any prospective grooms-in-the-making!!

Bride poking - Ireland’s newest craze?!

There are currently over 400,000 people in Ireland registered to Facebook and over a million users of Bebo on this fair isle, so we know there’s plenty of you out there who like poking each other and tagging photos! I have recently come across a brand new site to apply the wonder of social networking to wedding couples. This is already hugely popular in America as it allows brides & grooms-to-be to share all of their plans with the people in their lives.

Typical wedding page

My Wedding File is an all-Irish company that offers couples a free wedding website when they register. Similar to the likes of Facebook and bebo, it allows you to create your own wedding page with details on how you met, the engagement, google maps to give guests directions, all of your wedding event details (rehearsal dinner etc), introduce the wedding party to the other guests, upload photos yourself, or allow guests to upload photos after the big day, a guestbook and a countdown clock to when you tie the knot!

As a bonus for this month, if you register (it’s free, so why not?) before Friday 13th February, you will be entered into a draw to win a honeymoon! The lucky couple will stay in the luxury 4 star hotel, Caol Ishka, in the beautiful Siracusa, Sicily. Direct flights, transfers and 7 nights luxury accommodation are included in the prize.

All you have to do is visit My Wedding File and register to be included in the draw. The winning couple will be announced on Valentine’s Day Feb 14th, 2009.