Best little touches you've seen ?

Personal touches are the best! I saw someone who had a small cake for the bride and groom to cut and poking out of one side was a small Homer Simpson.  They also had a tip jar at the bar that said "Just put the tip in...see how it feels!" Both of these things reflected the couple getting married. It's nice to see not so traditional things!

Tip jar? no.

I always love when my couples choose to honor their moms and grand moms. I love when they include their pets in the ceremony script, if not the ceremony itself. I love my couples who pick interesting, weird, unusual and quirky readings that really express their taste (Game of Thrones anyone?) And I love handwritten vows that are a little left of center. Printed out and pasted into a vintage journal....

I love ethnic/cultural elements; broom jumps, glass stampings, Stefanas, cord/veil/coins; Seven Steps blessings; all those little parts that most people don't get to see unless they are part of that specific culture.

OH OH OH, and I love highly regional food at the cocktail hour; mini Philly Cheesesteaks, White Castles (not generic 'sliders') Dog House Dogs, Fat Sandwiches (both jersey specialties), any 'county fair' food; deep fried pickles/donuts/oreos...

well...you asked.....

We went to a wedding last year where the couple had 2 red marbles on the tables. The marbles were in memory of the groom's grandparents. His grandfather would play marbles with him but only with red ones which was the grandmother's favorite color.

Love that Bunny. I had a groom use his grandpa's fishing hat as their 'card box'. so sweet!

@Celia... It was a tip jar for the bartenders. And if you knew the bride and groom it was perfect for them.

We are thinking about using a guitar case for the wedding cards. FH loves to play the guitar.

Unique wedding parties: my 3 brothers served as bridesmen and my youngest brother and only sister were the ring bearer and flower girl

Personal food choice: we did a Japanese hibachi buffet and had sushi because I used to live in Japan.

Cultural element: my family is from New Mexico and even though we had our wedding in NC where we currently reside we incorporated a traditional New Mexican dance called La Marcha de los Novios which 95% of our guests had never experienced or heard of before.

Little details: Our table numbers were actually candy names and each place setting had a bride or groom box filled with that candy. It was even personalized for our guests Lifesavors were our vendors, sour patch kids for the kids, junior mints for the pre-teens, warheads for the young ROTC guys, nerds for the accountants, etc.

http://vimeo.com/110931938

Thanks everyone!! Keep the ideas coming! . It's always nice to know what people really enjoy at a wedding (we're looking for ideas to incorporate into ours).

Celia, what are some of the best ways you've seen couples honour their moms and grandmas at the wedding? We're both really close with ours moms, and I was Extremely close with my Nana before she passed.

We're also doing a regional food, you could call it - poutine bar for our late night snack!

Natassia I love the candy idea and how personalized you made it!

FH is a coke drinker and I'm a pepsi drinker. He has 2 aluminum bottles and we are going to use them to make our own cake topper. I'm hoping to use Game of thrones as my processional (if the church let's me get away with it). My mom wanted hotdogs for the midnight snack. We used to have a fast food place near O'hare that got closed down when the airport expanded. So she wanted a little nod to that.

Our officiant talked about our parents as part of the ceremony. Both sets are still together so he mentioned the date and location they got married and a few things we both had said that we admired in our parents marriages. Everyone told us afterwards that they loved how personal and meaningful our ceremony was.

A lot of times people give their moms, grandparents, and other special family members corsages and boutonnieres to recognize them.

Instead of a bouquet and garter toss we did an anniversary dance. We awarded the couple who was married the longest with my toss bouquet (my grandparents). It was really sweet.

My favorite at MY wedding was my husband's boutonniere. I ordered it for him from etsy. It was made of our pictures of him and his dad. His dad passed away about a year before our wedding. His family cried when they saw it.

@denise i know Gene and Judes does a lot of midnight snacks for weddings, so check there...also, there is a place in Wood Dale ( i assume you know where that is, if you were affected by the airport expansion) on Irving called Gina's. They have awesome hot dogs as well, (very similar to Gene and Judes) but they may give you a better deal since they arent so well known!

I love the rose ceremony for the moms; bringing them up to the ceremony space and thanking them, since usually, they just get plopped in the front row....

If you can incorporate a piece of jewelry from a grandmother, or a piece of lace or maybe a family tartan wrapping the bouquet that is amazing too.

I've also seen sand ceremonies with the couple and their moms and grand moms, which I really love.

@Amber what vendor did you get that boutonniere from on etsy? That is amazing and such a great idea!!!

This is from our wedding, but I loved it. We wanted to incorporate our families and came up with the idea of displaying their wedding photos. I have not seen it done before and quite a few guests commented on it, but I'm sure that it has been done before.

I love that Amber. My FH dad has passed also so I want to do something special for him.

We had a lot of fun making our ceremony personalized, and we spent lots of time doing it. It paid off and people were really able to see parts of me, parts of my husband and things we share together. We had a ring blessing/warming where our wedding bands were passed through the audience (we had a "ring bearer" supervise and there were only a few older children/1 baby in the crowd). Our rings were in a Tardis box (Doctor Who).

My husband also presented me with his tartan in the ceremony, and we "tied the knot" with his tartan and a piece of Chinese brocade for my family.

I think you just have to think deeply on what wedding and marriages mean to YOU -- and from that you'll end up with a really touching and meaningful day. I wore jewelry from my mom, and from both of my grandma's (not sure if anyone but them knew) and my new husband.

I love stuff from Etsy for personalization as well. Also, if you have a vision on decor and fashion and style, then do it! We got married in a very Celtic hall -- it had armor on the wall and everything, but I made it a bit more classic by adding florals, lots of candles, etc.

It was from https://www.etsy.com/shop/DanasPaperFlowers?ref=shopinfo_shophome_leftnav

She really did do a great job with it!

Thank you Amber!

For little touches (ok, some of these are big touches) that I have seen:

* At one wedding the bride played volleyball through HS and College, so they had a sand volleyball court set up during the reception and at one point had a bridal party game.

* At another the groom and his brother had a lip sync battle ALA Jimmy Fallon, they apparently do this at all of their family gatherings.

* One of my friends lost her father when she was in college, during her father daughter dance she danced with her husband a second time and they played a slide show of pictures of her and her dad. The entire room was in tears about 30 seconds in.

*At another wedding the grooms favorite food was bacon, so their cake was bacon flavored and he was so excited about it it was adorable.