"Wedding invitations—check...again…”

May 4, 2011 - From everything I’ve read about wedding planning, once you’ve chosen your venue and finalized your guest list, you should order wedding invitations, and everything that goes along with them. But in my previous blogs, I’ve mentioned that I’m a little indecisive…okay, maybe a little more than a little…so maybe ordering invitations early isn’t the best idea for all of your brides like me.

Our first venue of choice was a beach house in Destin. But we decided we wanted to have our wedding closer to home, so we found a beach house in Gulf Shores. I didn’t think we would change venues again—the house was beautiful, it wasn’t too far from Mobile, and it was on the beach. Perfect, right?

So I ordered our wedding invitations, and I was so excited when we got them in! They were beautiful! Little did I know at the time, but those invitations will collect dust in my spare bedroom at my house until they are recycled…But now, we have decided on our venue 100%, so yesterday I reordered our invitations.

So today my advice to future brides is, figure out exactly what you want before you make any big purchases. And as you think about your venue, think about the logistics. For example, if you are planning a large wedding at a house or a similar venue, where will everyone park? Will you need to provide transportation from a parking area to your wedding? Where will all of your guests go if it rains? And possibly the most important question, and something I didn’t think about until about 6 months out, where will all of your guests go to the restroom? I mean think about it—300 guests, and 4 restrooms…that could be a stinky situation…literally…



Four days before the big day at London’s historic Westminster Abbey and no invitations have yet to reach the doorsteps at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and this means that U.S. President Barack Obama and the First Lady are not attending the Royal Wedding.

In a report by IBTimes, a list of the British Royal Wedding Guests show that the prominent individuals invited at the wedding include some members of the British royal family, members of foreign royal families, foreign dignitaries and government officials, religious representative from various faiths, and members of the UK military.

And in the partial list released on Saturday, it was clear that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will not be joining other powerful political leaders at the Royal red wedding invitations .

The buzz that the Obamas have been D-listed at the royal event had started as early as January and more eyebrows were raised when no Obama were listed in the reports in the partial list of invited guests released in February and March.

A report by the Daily Mail on February 20 noted that the Obamas were not amng the 40 heads of state who received the gold-embossed invitations to the April 29-wedding.

The media have been as keen for the U.S. First Couple to partake in the even as they were constantly grilled over the upcoming nuptial.

In response to the recurring questions fired by The Vogue in early February, First Lady Michelle Obama confirmed she had yet to receive the invitation from the Royal Family but emphasized that she would go when asked.

"I haven't been invited," the First Lady was quoted as telling Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on their show Live! With Regis and Kelly by The Vogue Magazine.

The First Lady added: "Marriage is a personal private thing, they should invite who they want to invite," before adding, "and if I get invited, I'll go."

The invitations sent by the Royal couple have raised questions since the official request were sent in February. This includes the invitations to Bahrain Crown Prince who had recently announced that he would miss the event following the escalating purple wedding invitations in his country.

The British Royals have invited 1900 selected guests to the event expected to be viewed by an estimated 2-billion people worldwide.