Your Wedding Advice - StrictlyWeddings.com Blog

December 28, 2009

Operation Slim Down for your Wedding Day!

We’ve heard time and again that the secret to weight loss is that you burn what you take in. Basically, eat healthy, control your portions and work out 3-5 times a week. But if you’re wanting to look your best on your wedding day, listed below are a few thoughts to get you started on your path to loose. These are actually good habits to get into and live by.

We’re currently on Jenny Craig, so some of the references are from what we’ve learned there. Also, for Christmas we got the “So Easy” cookbook by Elle Kreiger. Love that it gives you all the calorie details with each recipe and she’s into cooking food that has flavor!

Water, Water and more Water!

Start getting your fill on water (no, coffee or diet sodas don’t count). We’ve been told at least 5-8oz glasses and 8 is better. Find you a fun/colorful water bottle that you don’t mind taking with you everywhere. Keep one in the office, one in your car and one at home. If you don’t like the “flavor” of your water, filter your water, add a few slices of lemon, limes or oranges to flavor it and Crystal Light sells individual serving packets in all sorts of flavors.

Portion Control

Our understanding on what makes a “normal” serving is way out of wack. Here are some visual guidelines:

• 1 tsp = tip of thumb
• 1 tbsp = whole thumb
• 1/4 cup = golf ball, large egg
• 1/2 cup = 1/2 orange, small fist
• 1 cup = baseball, light bulb
• 1 oz meat/cheese = tube of lipstick
• 1 oz snack food = rounded handful
• 2 oz meat/cheese = 3 fingers
• 3 oz meat/cheese = deck of cards, computer mouse (woman’s portion)
• 4 oz meat/cheese = palm of man’s hand (man’s portion)
• 1 low-fat muffin or piece of fruit = tennis ball

Calories In/Calories Out

Modify your portions and strive for 1200 calories per day. (Here’s what it looks like)

• Breakfast – 1 oz lean meat (one small egg, 1 turkey sausage), 2 starches (1 pancake, english muffin, 1 slice bread, low-sugar cereals), 1 fat (1 tsp margarine), 1 milk (1 cup non-fat milk, 1 container fat-free, light yogurt)
• Morning Snack – 90-110 calories (cheese stick, small piece of fruit like a clementine or apple)
• Lunch – 2 oz lean meat, 2 starches, 1 vegetable, 1 fat (soup & salad; lean cuisine will do, too)
• Afternoon Snack – 90-110 calories
• Dinner – 4 oz lean meat, 2 starches, 1 vegetable, 1 fat

Starches = beans, lentils, bread, cereal, pancake, popcorn, rice or pasta, low-fat snack foods, starchy veggies like corn, peas, potatoes, yams), tortilla

Free Foods = sugar-free gum, non-starchy veggies (you’ll find me munching on carrots, pickled okra, cherry tomatoes …also spinach is great fresh or steamed with a little butter and lemon).

Note: When cutting back on calories, it’s important that you take a daily multivitamin.

Cut Back on Drinking

A 5 oz glass of red wine equates to two of your “fat” servings. Alcohol eats up a lot of calories quick! So save it for one glass on the weekend or special occasions. Instead of that glass of wine, try a wine spritzer (it’s half the calories) or look into non-alcoholic beverages.

Exercise

We know, that’s the big “duh!” But your results will be so much greater if you will exercise. You know this. We all know this. It’s doing it that’s the tough part. Start with twenty minutes of exercise a day to start the calorie burning process. Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Walk to the lunch place instead of driving if you can. Find a buddy to walk and talk with or exercise with. Pay for a personal trainer to get you on a program and if you can afford it, use them once-a-week. Being accountable to someone (other than yourself) is a huge motivator.

Whatever you do, good luck. A word from the wise (and years of fighting weight gain) … a husband who loves you, will love you no matter those few extra pounds. BUT when “us women” feel good about ourselves and how we look, then often, it’s our husbands who benefit from that confidence!

StrictlyWeddings.com Spa Partners:

Treat yourself to a spa treatment at one of our partners with each milestone you make (first 10 pounds, 1/2 way mark, reaching your goal)!

Dallas – Exhale Dallas, The Spa at the Crescent, The Spa at Willow Bend

Chicago – Ruby Room, Exhale Chicago, Peninsula Spa by ESPA

July 28, 2008

It’s Botox for You, Dear Bridesmaids

By ABBY ELLIN
New York Times

After the band was chosen and the napkins color-coordinated to match her shoes, Kacey Knauer, a bride-to-be, had another critical matter to address: her skin, and the skin of the nine women in her bridal party.

So Ms. Knauer, the 35-year-old owner of TempTrends, a staffing agency in Manhattan, invited her nearest and dearest — including her mother and future mother-in-law — for a night out at the TriBeCa MedSpa, replete with mimosas and cupcakes. An aesthetician assessed each woman’s face and devised a treatment plan — a quick chemical peel, say, or an injection of a wrinkle-filler. Or maybe, for a bridesmaid with age spots, a series of Fraxel laser treatments over months, allowing for recovery time.

Camellia Zheng, right, performed skin evaluations for Kacey Knauer, center, and her bridesmaids at TriBeCa MedSpa in New York.

 

For Ms. Knauer, who will be married in December, cosmetic interventions for herself and her entourage are as vital as the centerpieces or food. “If I were 25 or 26 and getting married, a bracelet, necklace or matching earrings would be fine,” she said.

But at 35? “Giving them a bracelet isn’t as special as spending an evening together. Plus, as you get older, everyone is more conscientious about their skin and appearance,” she said. “Giving them something for themselves — as opposed to something that they’ll never wear again — is more meaningful.”

And let’s not forget the pictures of college roommates-turned-bridesmaids quickly posted to Facebook. It is no longer sufficient to hire a hairstylist and makeup artist to be on hand the day of. Instead, bridal parties are indulging in dermal fillers and tooth-whitening months before the Big Day.

Some brides pick up the tab for their attendants, replacing the pillbox inscribed with the wedding date with a well-earned squirt between the eyes. In other cases, bridesmaids — who may quietly seethe about unflattering dresses — are surprisingly willing to pay for cosmetic enhancements. “Most women, when they come in here, they want it,” said Camille Meyer, the owner of TriBeCa MedSpa. “They know they’re aging.”

For Karen Hohenstein, who held her party at the Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa in Chicago, convincing her friends was as smooth as a Botoxed forehead. “It wasn’t me saying, ‘Hey, we all could use a little something,’ ” she said. “It was, ‘I want to do this,’ and a couple of people said, ‘I do, too.’ ”

Karen Hohenstein, left, jokes with her attendants-to-be at a Botox party at the Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa in Chicago.

 

But for every accommodating pal, there’s another who feels going under the knife is beyond the duty of bridesmaid. Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. “We’re all Asian and didn’t have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two,” said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.

Not for nothing are some maids known as slaves of honor, but this kind of cajoling is a recent development on the wedding front.

Marie Scalogna-Watkinson, the founder of Spa Chicks on-the-Go, a mobile spa, said she receives five to seven calls a month from brides seeking Botox or Restylane for their bridesmaids. Five years ago, collective makeovers were unheard of, she said.

Dr. Fardad Forouzanpour, a cosmetic surgeon in Beverly Hills, Calif., said his business has increased more than 40 percent since he began offering what he calls Bridal Beauty Buffets in 2006.

In the last two years, bridal party tuneups have increased roughly 25 percent, estimated Susie Ellis, the president of SpaFinder.com, a site that lists 4,500 spas worldwide.

Just as timing matters when it comes to securing a hall, it’s best that brides-to-be don’t delay scheduling appointments, aestheticians and doctors say. “You wouldn’t get a cut and color the week before,” said Dr. Jessica Wu, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills who advises coming in three to six months before the big day. “We do a trial run of Botox about four months ahead of time. Then, two weeks before the wedding, we do that last treatment.”

Ms. Meyer of TriBeCa MedSpa suggests that a bride contact her the minute the question is popped. “Brides really appreciate the fact that we put everything in a regimented schedule for them,” she said. Since February 2007, she has staged more than 30 bridesmaid parties and has 18 planned so far this year. “If you have to do eight treatments, six weeks apart, that could take up to a year,” she said.

Fraxel laser could also set you back $1,200 a session, which even without the economic downturn, amounts to quite a bit. These days, Robyn Bomar, an event planner in Destin, Fla., overhears brides doing cost-benefit analyses. “They will never choose Botox over a great dress, but they will say ‘Maybe I’ll have a buffet over a sit-down at the rehearsal dinner,’ ” she said. Or: “I’ll spend the money on Botox rather than lunch.’ ”

In June, Jennifer Peterson, 31, a production director in Los Angeles, and eight friends indulged in Botox, Restylane, massages, facials and microdermabrasion at Infinity MedSpa in Valencia, Calif. Her friends chipped in for her treatments, but she is considering giving them each a $100 certificate to the spa — a gift she is sure they will appreciate. “Everybody does Botox out here,” she said.

The beauty procedure thank-you gift is becoming more common, said Ms. Bomar, who coordinates about three parties a month. Time was when the bride arranged for everyone to get manicures at the same time, followed by lunch. But today? “It’s much more likely that she is footing the bill for eyelash extensions, airbrush tanning and a bevy of other cosmetic procedures,” she said.

Five years ago, plastic surgeons, dermatologists and tooth-whitening centers “were virtually absent” from bridal expos, said William F. Heaton III, the president of the Great Bridal Expo Group, which produces events in 40 cities nationwide. “Now we’re getting a half dozen phone calls a week.”

This year alone, American Laser Centers, a chain, has participated in 830 bridal shows, said Amanda McInnes, a marketing director.

Two weeks ago, Health Travel Guides, a medical tourism company, exhibited at the Dallas Bridal Show for the first time. “We received 30 requests for quotes among the bridal show attendees — mostly for plastic surgery such as liposuction and breast augmentation,” said Sandra Miller, the company’s chief marketing officer. “But also many for cosmetic dentistry and inquiries for providing quotes for bachelorette getaways that will feature beauty treatments.”

A bride’s request that you whiten your grayish teeth can strain a relationship. Samantha Goldberg, a wedding planner in Chester, N.J., recalled a bride who asked her attendants to get professionally spray-tanned for a Hawaiian-theme reception.

Alas, two women were claustrophobic and couldn’t bear standing in a tanning capsule. “They asked the bride if they could use regular tanning cream from a salon,” Ms. Goldberg said. The bride refused; she wanted everyone to be the same shade. The women ultimately declined to be bridesmaids. “Friendships of 20-plus years gone over a spray tan?” Ms. Goldberg said. “Sad!”

And how does a bride break it to a mother-in-law that she’d love her crow’s feet to be frozen into submission? Very delicately.

“My mother is in her 60s. She’s been talking about it for so long, so I said ‘Let’s do it,’ ” said Stacey Berlin, 29, a marketing consultant, who is having a party at Aquamedica Day Spa in Long Branch, N.J.

It was trickier with her future mother-in-law. “To her,” Ms. Berlin said, “I said it as a joke: ‘You should do Botox for the wedding!’ She giggled, and then I said, ‘I’m serious. It’s exactly what you need to freshen up.’ At first she kind of laughed it off, but the more we talked about it and I told her my mom was going to do it, she said ‘O.K.’ ”

May 14, 2008

Survival Kits For The Bride, Groom And Even Bridesmaid!

Say “yes” to no stress with the new Bridessentials Kit by Ms. & Mrs. Tucked in a slim silver case, the Bridessentials Kit is compact enough to tote around for the entire wedding day. And with 25 essentials inside—including a “Something Blue” Heart-Shaped Crystal—this survival kit is comprehensive enough to conquer almost any wedding day calamity.

Prevent groomzilla sightings with The Groom’s Survival Kit by Ms. & Mrs. Inside this handsome attache is a collection of 26 personal care and emergency solutions designed just for the groom. He may think that he doesn’t need this kit — until disaster strikes, of course. Topped with a “stress” ball and chain, this practical collection can help any guy tie the knot with composure and confidence.

Bridesmaids are there to support the bride in every way. But who helps them when they face a minor emergency? Enter The Bridesmaid’s Survival Kit by Ms. & Mrs. This compact collection of 18 essentials comes in a discreet, silver-tone mesh case so that ladies can keep it within reach all wedding day long. The matching gift tag reads: “Thanks for being my bridesmaid. I couldn’t have survived without you.”

Say “I do” to disaster relief with the Wedding Day Survival Kit by Ms. & Mrs. Inside this chic, reusable train case are 30 must-have items to help brides fend off any last-minute fiasco. With these essentials by her side, a bride can be prepared for virtually any emergency on her wedding day and beyond. Topped with a white satin ribbon and “life-size” novelty diamond ring, this kit makes the ultimate bridal shower gift.

 

All kits are available at Mr. and Mrs.

April 01, 2008

Sick On Your Wedding Day and What To Do About It

With all the nerves and stress leading up to the big day, your immune system will definitely be compromised. Here are some tips from  WeddingFavors.com that will help if you are sick on the day of your wedding:

Red or puffy eyes–Get two small baggies and put a few ice cubes in them. Cover them with two fluffy washcloths and lay them over your eyes for 10 minutes. This will brighten your eyes up and reduce the puffiness by constricting the blood vessels.

Lackluster lips–Apply a rosy-pink lip gloss to your lips. The color brings a vitality to your pucker, unlike nudes, which can make you look corpse-like.

Red face–Apply a creamy bronzer. It counteracts the pinkness.

Cold sore–There’s no real quick fix here, but you want to start the healing as soon as possible. An over-the-counter medication like Abreva can speed the healing, and you can wear it under make-up.

Diarrhea–Relief is in your medicine cabinet or at the pharmacy. Immodium A-D, Pepto-Bismol and Kaopectate will all help stop the runs.

Headache–break out the extra-strength Tylenol, Advil, Exedrin, whatever you’ve got handy. 

Sore Throat–This tip comes from opera singers. Anything warm (not too hot!) and thin (like tea or broth) is good for relaxing the throat. You can add some things to your “hot water infusion” to increase the healing power like honey, lemon, ginger, cayenne pepper or licorice. If you’re a smoker–DON’T!

Bloating–Coated peppermint oil is a quick fix for abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and gas. Peppermint oil is available in capsule form.

Cold, congestion–Sorry. No quick fix. Take what you normally take for a cold, and be glad you can make yourself look good despite feeling under the weather. Get into survial mode and do whatever it takes to enjoy your day.