Planning a wedding is stressful enough, a wedding in December, coupled with holiday stress, could push any harried bride-to-be over the edge. However, who could resist getting married during the cool Yuletide season, amidst the brightly-decorated pine trees and twinkling tivoli lights?
To help you plan a holiday wedding, Jeannette Guzman-Nocon of the Wedding Professionals, a December bride herself, offers the following tips and ideas.
Invitations and Motif
According to Nocon, the invitations should reflect the formality of the wedding and the lesser decorations there are in it, the better. To reflect the Christmas theme, she suggests embossing poinsettias or any Christmas symbol of your liking on the invitation. These could be in the corners or appear as the border. You could also tie the leaves of your invitation with nice ribbons of gold and red, gold and green or shiny ribbons of red and green.
Since Christmas is associated with the colors red and green, you could opt to have this combination as your motif. Nocon suggests that shades of pink or lighter green could also bring holiday cheer to your wedding.
Decorations
Fill the church with nice bouquets of poinsettias, roses, carnations, and lilies, combined with mums, berries and misty blue or baby’s breath. Swath the pews with tulle of white and your motif. At the end of the pews, tall tree branches covered in clear Christmas lights will provide a romantic “first shot” as the bride enters the church.
Outside the church, Nocon suggests placing metal stands filled with big arrangements of scented flowers to give guests a whiff of Christmas scent as they enter the church.
Nothing beats the ambience created by wonderful music so have your choir/musicians incorporate some Christmas tunes to their repertoire. These songs could be played during the taking of pictures.
At the reception, a fully decorated Christmas tree is a must. Most big hotels have tall Christmas trees in their lobbies so this won’t really be a problem.
Filipino Christmas would never be complete without the strands of twinkling lights. Nocon suggests placing them around the areas you would like to accentuate, like the cake table or the newlyweds’ table.
Swags of brightly-colored cloth hanging from the ceiling also create a nice, softer touch. You could ask your florist about this one. Then, have your musicians play Christmas carols while dinner is being served.
Nocon also advises never to forget having your picture taken with the festive Christmas tree so your Christmas wedding will be forever immortalized.
Food and Drinks
Food and drinks are often remembered by the guests so it is pertinent that the menu be well-thought of and tasted before ordering them. Nocon says that considering that December is a festive month in the Philippines, it may be a good idea to serve fiesta fare like lechon, hot chocolate, roasted calf, wine, apple pie and chocolates. For more options, consult with the hotel or your caterer.
Getting married in December may mean twice the stress but also twice the cheer. Happy holidays and best wishes!
