Winter weddings hold their own unique beauty that many often overlook. Imagine, if you will, a crackling fireplace draped with holly or fresh greens from a pine or spruce tree. Winters are cozy and romantic, the perfect setting for a wedding. Not only will you find more availability of a space to hold the wedding and reception, freer schedules of caterers and photographers, but there is a world of possibility for winter weddings.

For example, a landscape of drifts of powdery white snow make a beautiful backdrop for photographs. Replace the limo ride with a horse-drawn (or perhaps reindeer-drawn) sleigh for a unique and romantic first ride for the bride and groom.

Warm colors like plum, cocoa or even a dark crimson are perfect for winter weddings. White is also a popular classic color for winter weddings. Possibilities for the bride’s wedding dress can include layers, heavier fabrics, and elegant, traditional styles like the Victorian style dresses. Cloaks or shawls are another way to keep warm and include an elegant style to the wedding dress.

Decorations can include winter flowers like poinsettias, amaryllis or even mistletoe. Christmas lights can add a festive, yet elegant touch to the winter wedding decoration theme. Ice sculptures can provide another beautiful and elegant decoration to the winter wedding.

Wedding favors can be decorated with winter symbols such as snowmen and snowflakes. Christmas-themed cookies, like gingerbread men, make a wonderful wedding favor, as well.

One symbol that is connected with winter is perfect for weddings – the snowflake. In nature, there is hardly any other object that showcases beauty and elegance as well as a snowflake, and it makes the perfect symbol to display for the winter wedding, combining uniqueness with classiness.

There are many winter resorts that would provide an ideal location for the winter wedding and reception, as well as a winter honeymoon. When we think of winter, we often think of snuggling close with a loved one and the timeless and classic beauty of nature. Winter is the perfect time for a wedding, and there are a limitless array of possibilities for the winter wedding.

By: Tonia Jordan

This article has been submitted in affiliation with http://www.Prye.Com/ which is a site for Wedding Invitations.

If you and your fiancé haven’t yet chosen a date to wed, then consider the upcoming holidays for your nuptials. Your “to do” list seems ever-growing with Christmas parties to attend and gifts to purchase, so the Holiday Season may not seem like the ideal time for you to plan your wedding.

On the contrary… you should take advantage of this special time. The first reason is that more of your family members are likely to attend. Chances are you were going to spend a few days with them anyway. People have already asked for time off from work, so the extra day or two isn’t going to hurt them financially. They were probably already planning on giving you a gift, so maybe it will actually be something you have on your registry or a practical item that you need to start your new life together as husband and wife.

Another great reason is that the decorations are already intact. What a beautiful time of year – with festive lights; romantic red and green colors; poinsettias; and lovely music. If you use the decorations that are already in place instead of spending hundreds of extra dollars on lavish “wedding décor”, your wedding budget will be drastically reduced. Aside from that, your yearly anniversary will bring back charming memories of the holiday season.

Fancy gowns and cocktail dresses are plentiful at nice department stores for easy choices for the bridesmaids. Men will already be buying suits to dress for special events. You won’t have to worry about fittings or finding just the right outfit to wear.

Photographically-speaking, the holidays always provide dramatic images that stand out. The Christmas lights really pop off the picture. People’s faces always look happy. Indeed, the holidays are a magical time of year. Many will look forward to your wedding as another excuse to deviate from their diets or to meet up with friends they haven’t seen for awhile.

Plenty of reception facilities offer discounts for off-nights. Saturdays are always the most expensive. Consider a Friday or Sunday. Or the week after Christmas when many people already have time off from work and school. What a perfect excuse to keep the party going for an extra week. Your wedding day… and it could be coming right up!

If you think it’s just too soon to plan such a big event, just remember some of the most fun you’ve had in your life were the events which were spontaneous.

By Anne Violette, a freelance writer and professional

In the movies, everyone seems to get married in June. But a winter wedding can be terribly glamorous, cinematic and magical. With the right elements, your winter wedding will be a wonderland.

Attire for Your Winter Wedding
Think about you and your sweetie in the elegant look of old Hollywood; the groom in tails, and the bride in a white long silk dress with a white fur or faux fur wrap. Evoke the season with “ice” –diamond or diamond-like jewelry. 90% of wedding dresses are strapless or sleeveless, but that’s not so practical for a bride who wants to take pictures outside, or needs to walk any distance. Look for wraps, shrugs, and capes, or dramatic coats. I’ve always loved the look of a bride in a white dress and a large red shawl, huddled against her groom who has a red boutonnière.

And don’t forget your bridesmaids! An attractive wrap to wear on the day of your wedding and beyond makes a great bridesmaid present.

Where to Have a Winter Wedding
Look for an inn with a fireplace for an intimate winter wedding. For a larger affair, you may be able to use a historic mansion or private club that will still have intimate warmth. Unless you’re getting married in a state that will have guaranteed snow during your wedding date, avoid a room that has a large picture window. You may imagine drifts of beautiful snow, and end up with a grey rainy day. Be sure to ask what seasonal decorations they use – you’ll save money as many sites are already heavily decorated. Also, check to make sure your site will be adequately heated during the winter months; old churches can be especially drafty.

Planning the Menu
You can have all of your favorite food but add some winter touches like a squash dish, or warm pumpkin soup. Consider serving eggnog, spiced wine, or hot chocolate (alcoholic or non-) as special treats. Look for an all-white cake, decorated with snowflake patterns, silver embellishments, or sugar sculptures. Ask your caterer about using a decorative snow globe as a cake topper

Winter Wedding Flowers
Decide whether you want to go for a silver and white elegant look, or celebrate the season with reds and greens. For those who like silver, look for dusty miller, silver-dollar eucalyptus, and baby blue eucalyptus, mixed with white flowers such as roses, football mums, crocus, lilies and stephanotis. If you’re looking for a brighter bouquet, consider red roses with holly and pine-tree greenery. In season flowers such as tulips, roses, and ornamental berries generally will be less expensive choices. (Talk to your florist, as your region may have different availability)

The Décor for Your Winter Wedding
Decorate your tables with simple and inexpensive white poinsettias, or fill the room with light by arranging pillar candles on a bed of pine branches At the after-Christmas sales, stock up on strands of small white lights, then string them decoratively around doorways, over tables and on archways. Bright red cranberries in a bowl surrounding floating candles make an easy and inexpensive centerpiece. Look at this article for other simple holiday centerpieces.. Or, decorate a pre-made gingerbread house for each table, and center it on a bed of greenery with candles around it.

Favors
If you and most of your guests celebrate Christmas, an ornament makes a perfect favor. An inexpensive homemade favor is a pretty tin of spiced hot chocolate mix or hot cocoa mix with marshmallows. Also consider a snow globe, with a bride and groom inside, or a holiday cookie cutter with a cookie recipe attached that says your names, wedding date, and “truly cut out for each other”.

Special touches

• Have the bride and groom travel by horse and carriage to the reception, complete with a fur throw to keep them warm of course!
• Decorate the reception with miniature and life-size Christmas trees.
• Commission an ice sculpture to decorate the reception hall
• Use a crystal bouquet for that extra wintery feel. As a bonus, you’ll get to keep your your bouquet forever.
• Greet your guests with warm coffee or hot chocolate as soon as they come in the ceremony or reception site.

From Nina Callaway

Themed weddings are becoming more and more popular. Not the themed weddings that consist of people wearing Hawaiian shirts, but rather weddings with holiday or seasonal themes. A wedding with décor and fashion planned around the season in which it takes place can be a very elegant and beautiful expression. Or, if you prefer, you can turn your wedding into a season that is, well, out of season (a “summer” wedding during winter). No matter how you do it, however, putting together a wedding with a seasonal theme actually makes the planning less stressful. After all, the season provides the colors and the décor. And can even help you figure out what you want the members of your party to wear.

Winter

Dark, rich color is reminiscent of winter. Burgundy, deep blue and green, and even dark purple all add warmth to your reception. Choose a hall or church with wood accents to increase the warm feeling. Faux white fur on your dress, and faux fur trim for the bridesmaid dresses can add a wintry look to your wedding party. You can even indulge in a Christmas theme. But rather than put bridesmaids in bright green and red, instead clothe them in toned-down gold, or silver-gray. This is a more elegant Christmas motif.

Spring

A spring wedding is fresh and beautiful. However, unless you plan to marry in late spring, it is best to plan an indoor wedding. Fresh spring flowers, like crocuses, tulips, snowdrops, and pansies are lovely and colorful, and make great centerpieces. Dressing your bridesmaids in cheerful and bright colors mimics springs bursts of life. You can use a color run (dressing each attendant in a different color of the same style dress) to imitate the look of colorful flowers.

Summer

Many brides are beginning to choose wildflowers for their bouquets. Summer blooms of daisies, buttercups, and other pastel and light colored flowers make excellent choices for the bridal and attendant bouquets, as well as for décor. Colors inspired by summer’s easy-going attitude are pale, like pastel yellows and blues, reminding guests of blue water and sandy beaches. Sundresses make elegant and simple dresses that can be used by the bridesmaids – or even the bride.

Autumn

This season presents many beautiful possibilities. Adding colored leaves to a bouquet of roses is a unique and charming touch for a bridal bouquet. Have boutonnières and attendant corsages made from groupings of autumn leaves of red, yellow, gold, and even dark purple. Colors that make good décor for fall weddings are earth tones: rusts, golds, yellows, and light browns.

Imagine the ski lodge in the distance with its welcoming real woodburning fire, the winter sun sparkling off the crisp white snow and the sky as blue as can be. You are assured a day of fairytale proportions.

When it comes to your color scheme think red and green. Not Santa suit and holly leaves, but rich burgundy or plum and a forest green that the pine trees would be proud of. Think fur hats and mufflers with black boots and long coats. Think traditional and old fashioned.

If you decide that you’re not the traditional type, there are still options for a winter wedding. For a winter wedding of cosmic proportions think silvery blue and brilliant white, think glam and glitz, and modern and funky.

Whatever choice you make, I have to admit that the draw of a winter wedding is strong. Should a snow storm occur at a most in-opportune moment then a fire side wedding ceremony must be one of the most romantic.

If the evening weather suits why not set out a bonfire and take your wedding outside, at least for part of the time. There can develop a great sense of camaraderie around a campfire, unlike any camping trip you have ever been on! A group song may even be called for!

There are many choices to be made on the run up to your wedding day and the choice of time of year is just one of them. Each season has its own attractions to offer and winter is no different. If you decide on a winter wedding enjoy and have fun, bring out the seasons special qualities and it wont let you down.