More reasons to think about a garden wedding

My colleague Darcy Miller, from Martha Stewart Weddings, and I have been quoted in this wonderful article in the Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, California. Find out the extra perks of planning your big day outside in the beauty of nature, including how your wedding day expenses can last a lifetime.

What would you do to lose weight for your wedding?

Fitness Magazine has just released the results of their new survey on what today's brides would do to reach their ideal weight for their weddings. Put off the big day? Move in with their mom-in-law? The results show that there are still WAY too many women out there who would consider desperate measures rather than a slow and steady, healthy approach, so that's why you need a good health regimen and realistic goals! Pick up the new issue of Fitness magazine to get started on the best plan for you....and remember that you're going to be a radiant bride if you're healthy and glowing, not sick and exhausted from not taking care of yourself.


BRIDEZILLA CONFESSIONS!
Fitness Magazine Reveals Exclusive Survey Results

29% of women would be willing to move in with their mother-in-law if it meant reaching their ideal weight by their wedding day.

May 6, 2008, NEW YORK, NY—Eighty three percent of all brides-to-be want to slim down for their wedding, and they need to lose a lot—33% are hoping to unload 30 or more pounds before The Big Day.

Just how far will brides go to look their best? Fitness surveyed more than 1,000 of them and discovered that 36% would take weight loss pills or supplements, 1 in 7 would fast for a week and 6% would try plastic surgery in order to achieve wedding-day body bliss.

Full survey results are available. An excerpt below:


· Only 14% of brides-to-be say they are at their ideal weight.
· 1 in 5 women would postpone her nuptials if she wasn’t at her goal weight by her wedding day.
· 80 % of brides want a gown that conceals their belly; 46% want a dress that flaunts their cleavage; 32% of women say they want a gown that camouflages back fat.
· After losing weight for the wedding, 50% of women give themselves 12 months, tops, before they gain it back.
· While 83% of women want to lose weight before they walk down the aisle, just 34% of men do.
· 63% of brides say “my fiancé loves my body exactly as it is,” but the feeling isn’t mutual: Only 47% of engaged women say the same thing about their man.
· 1 in 3 brides purposely buys a dress that doesn’t fit. (22% buy one that’s too small, 11% purchase one that’s too big.)
· 17% of women admit to considering their friends’ weight when selecting bridesmaids, but only 5% encouraged them to shed the pounds.
· The top two tricks for losing weight: 43% of brides-to-be double their workout time and 41% go on a strict diet
· The celebrity bride women most want to look like? It’s a tie between Eva Longoria and Jennifer Lopez (27% each)

For more information on Fitness, log on to http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/.

What a weekend!

Joe turned my birthday weekend into a dream come true! It's my first birthday as Mrs., first birthday in the new house, and last birthday of my 30s! Everyone has the usual teasing attitude about being over the hill (all in good nature, of course), but I feel like I'm in my 20s! I guess that's all that matters...how you feel and how others make you feel. On both counts, it was an awesome weekend. Too many highlights to mention, but I have to say how much I *loved* going to a new garden center and stocking up on flowers and plants for our front yard, then going to Home Depot to pick up a few extra trees with my birthday gift card [Something to keep in mind...if you want to purchase plants or trees to fix up your place for the wedding weekend, Home Depot guarantees their plants! And their prices are outstanding. Something to keep in mind...as well as for potted herbs as party favors, a great 'green' gift idea. I also love the idea of getting parents a tree as your wedding thank you gift...something they'll enjoy for years and years.]

For my birthday dinner, Joe and I went to the same jazz club where we originally had our first date. How fun to look at those two bar stools now and remember how it all started :) We now have 1 1/2 cakes in our refrigerator (yikes!) and a bunch of leftovers from my family's traditional Memorial Day barbecue. This is my parents' big party of the year, so there was no way we were going to miss that. Just a great weekend all around, and *12* chapters edited in spare morning time [that means waking up at 6am every day on a holiday weekend to churn out a fresh edition of my very first book...great new resources added, plus a new destination wedding section, so keep an eye out for it this fall. Don't worry...I'll remind you!] Also coming out soon: The Bride's Survival Guide, a full-photo book on wedding flowers, and more. Now that the wedding's done, it's back to full-throttle!

But first, a big thank you to my Joe for the best birthday weekend ever.

Catch me in Marie Claire

My Wedding Etiquette Expert Q&A is in Marie Claire magazine! Check it out on newstands or on their site .

What are your bigtime etiquette problems? Send me a note at my Sharon Naylor Weddings site, and I'll help you out. I'm also at iVillage Weddings' Ask the Etiquette Expert message board if you want my help plus group input.

Choosing your first dance song

Check me out in this Pittsburg Post Gazette Story on choosing your first dance song. The article is part of a syndicate, so you may see this same story in your own hometown newspaper, along with a recent AP story that's floating around out there right now.

Lots of big things cookin' these days, so stay tuned for updates! Right now, I'm working on an array of fun articles, editing two books and writing two more books -- all due this summer! With this tough economy, everyone wants material on how to get more wedding for less money, and it can be done! And done beautifully! You just have to get an inside peek at each of the industries in wedding world (catering, photography, etc.). That's where my books come in, so give yourself an advantage by checking out my site.

Watching the wedding video

Our wedding DVD is in! Justin Cristaldi did a fabulous job on our wedding footage -- I especially love how he did the whole 'Wizard of Oz' thing moving from black and white to a color transition when I approached the top of the aisle...just a fantastic capturing of the best moments of our day, and Joe and I got to see a lot of the details we missed while we were getting ready, while we were taking photos, etc. How amazing, one month later, to see how great a time everyone was having, to see my parents dancing after 5 long years of cancer treatments, and to see my handsome groom looking at me with such love in his eyes. I took the DVD over to my parents' place today (yes, I cut out of work for the morning because they *really* wanted to see it right away :) and they really enjoyed it. The best thing about watching the video with someone else is that you get to see it through their eyes, hear about which details thrill them, and hear the insider stories about what else we missed that was going on during the wedding. Always inspiring and smile-inducing.

So if you're planning your wedding right now and thinking about skipping the expense of a wedding video...DON'T DO IT. This footage only gets more valuable over time, and it would be a shame to miss out on watching the DVD with your kids someday. There are budget tricks to getting more for your videographer dollar, and you can find those in my book 1000 BEST WEDDING BARGAINS. I'd just hate to see you regret not hiring a pro later down the road.

Thank you, Justin, for an amazing job! The honeymoon montage was spectacular -- we had wanted that version of 'Over the Rainbow' for our reception but didn't get around to acquiring it...so what a thrill to have it on our DVD. We'll treasure this!

Christian Lacroix Wedding Water

You've put a lot of attention to the details of your wedding, from the gown to the cake to the menu and songs you'll dance to. Now, you have a chance to add some designer 'Wow!' to your water bottles. Legendary designer Christian Lacroix has created this gorgeous lace-inspired wedding water bottle for Evian, and it can be a part of YOUR wedding. How much would you guess that it costs? $100? $200? $500? Click here to find out, and get ready to start shopping for your own designer wedding water bottles.

How adorable are these?

These "Mint To Be" wedding mints were a big hit at our wedding! We had them placed in the restrooms, and guests were stuffing their purses and pockets with them! Joe gets credit for spotting these on the Kate Aspen wedding favors site, which I strongly encourage you to explore for the best, cutest, most useful and best-priced wedding favors on the market. Check out the destination wedding favors, and keep this site in mind for your family's additional upcoming parties, too!

8 days, 7 nights at Caneel Bay

It was the perfect honeymoon -- Caneel Bay in St. John (http://www.caneelbay.com/) is heaven on earth, and the kind of 5-star treatment that celebrities enjoy (Brad and Angelina were supposedly at the cottage next to ours sometime prior to our arrival, and someone said they saw Matthew McConnaughey out on a boat..."Was the guy wearing a shirt?" "No." "It must have been him then!" We'll take it.) We felt like we were in a dream the entire time...with the ocean just steps from our room, deer and wild donkeys roaming the grounds of the protected wildlife preserve where the resort is located), unbelievably blue ocean, perfect weather, and such great fish and fruit that we felt super-energized. I could go on and on, but you have to experience it for yourself. Seriously. I've been to many island resorts, and this one is by far the best I've ever experienced...and to get to share it with my husband, my best friend? Priceless.

Okay, some insider stories from our honeymoon that won't appear in any magazine features on our trip:
* Joe goes snorkeling and sees angel fish and rainbow fish. I go snorkeling and come face to face with a barracuda. We also passed over a stingray or two. I preferred to watch the fish from the dock from that point on. :)
* I SO wanted to see a dolphin that I thought *everything* in the ocean was one. "Dolphin!" I would yell out over breakfast overlooking the bay, and Joe would shake his head and say, "No, that's a person snorkeling." or "No, that's a rock."
* We saw a donkey that was very excited to see us.
* Add banana and Baileys to a pina colada and you get something very, very good.
* Don't wear Keds if you're going hiking after it rains. But do play in the sprinklers if you can.
* Get an underwater camera.

We had so many adventures together -- it was my first time kayaking, Joe went scuba diving, we hiked -- that there wasn't one day where we just lounged on the beach. We could do that anywhere. Caneel Bay offers so much beauty and the best massage I've ever had in my life, that we didn't want to miss a moment. Stay tuned for my feature article on this resort. We're going back for our anniversary next year, and probably every year after that. I quote Joe: "This place just gets more beautiful every day." How did we ever vacation elsewhere?

"A Wedding Out of a Movie"

We're back from the honeymoon [Add Caneel Bay in St. John to your Places to Get To list! www.caneelbay.com], and I'm thrilled to report that our wedding was amazing. Beyond our dreams. Guests said it was like a wedding out of a movie, and we gratefully share the credit with the amazing vendors we hired and Bill Chriswell and his staff at The Park Savoy (www.theparksavoy.com). Joe and I started from Minute One with the goal of giving our friends and family an unforgettable experience, a wedding day filled with the finest food in the state, the joy of child guests, great entertainment and beauty...and the day turned out to be pure magic. Perfect weather. The trees all in bloom. Every detail perfect.

From the smiling faces of our guests, we knew we had met our goal. People were texting photos of the cocktail and dessert buffets to their friends at home!

Since the most important part of any wedding, no matter how perfectly designed and blessed, is the PEOPLE who come together to celebrate your happiness, we are even more thrilled to report that all of our favorite people had an absolute blast all the way through the wedding weekend. We have terrific friends and family, and we're so fulfilled to know that they enjoyed the day with each other as well as with us. It couldn't have been more perfect.

And I got to marry the most wonderful man on Earth.

Details from the wedding will soon appear in magazines, so I have to stay a little bit quiet here, but I can say that we had a paparazzo! And that a line in the vows quotes Bret Michaels from 'Rock of Love,' and that my Something Blue was a Smurf [Joe knows I used to collect them when I was a little girl], and that we danced a spotlight dance to Vinx's 'Man and Wife' [ www.vinx.com to hear the amazing voice we fell in love to.]

I'm catching up on work right now [I haven't been out of the office this long in 15 years! And yes, I did check my e-mail from the resort :O], but the next report will be on the honeymoon....with pictures.