Wedding Planner NJ - A Bouncing Baby Shower!

Michelle's baby shower at the Mountainside Inn in Clifton was a "rockin'" good time as momma-to-be was surprised by around 80 family members and friends with a dinner, dancing, and well-wishes all around.

Arranged by her mom Nilda, planning entailed finding a suitable location that would accommodate the planned festivities, which included for entertainment a DJ, dancing, and some fun games. While all the popular music hits got people up on the dance floor, what really had the crowd moving their hips, however, were the sweet sounds of "Sweet Mother," sometimes called Africa's anthem.

	Prince Nico Mbarga - Sweet Mother .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

The "Left-Right" game had people laughing as a token was passed around the tables following the harried adventures of Mr. & Mrs. Wrights as they made their way to the maternity ward. The guests that were left holding the token at the end were declared the game's winners and received a small prize. The "Baby Bottle" game -- where guests drank a beverage of their choice from a baby bottle without using their hands -- also left the crowd cheering!

Of course, no baby shower would be complete without the expectant mother seated in her rocking chair opening gifts. From hand-made receiving blankets and toy chests that resemble baby building blocks, to strollers, rattles, and plenty of diapers (check out the three-tier diaper cake!), Baby Olivia will be warm and cuddly wherever she goes

Wedding Planner NJ - Google Weddings Site

It's not going to replace The Knot anytime soon, but search engine king Google just launched Google Weddings that gives brides-to-be a nice, simple platform to create a wedding site, share announcements and photos, and yes, plan your wedding.

The interface of Google Weddings is very clean and simple, just like its search engines. Created with input from wedding planner Michelle Rago and the gorgeous site of wedding planning ideas Style Me Pretty, visitors are offered four main choices: creating a wedding website on Google Sites; editing photos and creating announcements; a gateway to Google Docs for planning worksheets; and a portal to Picasa, Google's photo sharing web platform.

As a New Jersey wedding planner, I think this is a great tool for couples, though I didn't find the planning guide initially to be as intuitive as the simplicity of the rest of the site suggests it would be. Clicking on the first link "Wedding Planner" takes you to a rather ugly spreadsheet that gives couples tips on how to proceed with their plan, such as starting with your guest list. You then have to back out of the page and head to the other links to get to the various other spreadsheets for the address book, budget, music, etc. Again, these are Google Docs, so they're not so stylish.

You also have the opportunity to enter to win a $25,000 dream wedding designed by Michelle. That's, of course, around the average cost of a wedding these days, but couples shouldn't pass up the opportunity of having their wedding costs defrayed.

I plan on recommending my clients make full use of the site. Google Weddings is a great tool to use and I think it will help couples getting married to plan and keep their weddings on track and within budget.

While The Knot also offers many of the same tools, the site is, let's say "busy," so getting quickly to what you need isn't always a simple task. Google Weddings on the other hand gives couples the means of finding the items that means most to them right away.

Wedding Planner NJ - A Very Decent Proposal

Isn't that sweet? While no one really know how many people get proposed to on Valentine's Day, but according to one French study, the number of people popping the question in Paris on February 14th jumps 20-fold compared to any other day. Apparently it has to do with tourists whisking their loved ones away to the City of Love around that day and using the overwhelming power of the moment to propose.

Vegas, baby!
I think it might also have to do with stacking the odds in favor of getting a "yes." Yet according the the quite a few people runaway to Las Vegas to get married every year, though there's no hard and fast number on how many do so on Valentine's Day.

The number crunchers over at the U.S. Census Bureau say that more than 6,000 people a day, or 2.1 million people annually, got married in 2009 (how many of you hired a wedding planner?) with Las Vegas being the second most popular city in the world to do it in. Those 114,000 people tying the knot there placed second only to Instanbul, Turkey, which came in at No. 1 with 166,000. That might help explain why jewelry stores nationwide sold some $2.4 billion worth merchandise last February alone.

Love is in the air
So as we fast approach another Valentine's Day this year -- it officially became a Christian holiday in 496 A.D. -- we're likely to see yet another spate of marriage proposals being served up. But even if you're not jetting off to gay Paree or rolling the dice in Vegas, try to act surprised if your beau suddenly lands on one knee in front of you and asks you to be his Valentine forever.

After all, statistics also show that January is one of the top months for breakups, no doubt because Valentine's Day is right around the corner and who wants to break hearts then? So if you've made it through that cruel month with your relationship still intact, that can only mean your heart-shaped box may be filled with love yet.