How to Make an Unforgettable and Personal Wedding

Weddings are among the happiest of occasions for the bride and groom, their families and friends. It is a time of a new beginning, a coming together of two families, a milestone in the lives of the bride and groom.

What better time than a wedding to tell the ones you love how much they mean to you, how grateful you are for their support and how happy you both are to be joining each other's family? What better time than to show others a more personal side to your relationship and how much you enjoy each other's companionship and the relationships you have with your loved ones?

With all the preparations both before and during your big day, you may not have as much time to focus on giving your guests the attention you would like to. Here are some ways to make your wedding a more personal affair, and one in which you demonstrate your affection for your loved ones as well as show others your more personal side. These little touches will make unforgettable impressions on your family and friends.

1. Design your own invitations including a special quote to signify your love for one another or your excitement about joining your two families together. Choose invitations that reflect your personal style or hobbies. If you like a certain flower, select invitations displaying the flower in the border. If you and your partner both enjoy golf, let your invitations reflect this with a picture of a couple on a gold course "tee-ing off to a new life together".

2. Forget the Jordan almond and the impersonal favor that will end up in the garbage anyway. Give your guests something that reflects your personal style. If you like to cook, measuring spoons or wooden spoons engraved with your wedding date and names are nice touches. For smaller weddings, jars of homemade jam, ingredients for cookies or your baking specialty along with the recipe could be a nice touch. Golf balls and tees with your wedding date and names reflect the golf lovers and will surely bring pleasure to your fellow golfers.

If you met your future hubby or wife in a coffee shop or enjoy gourmet coffee or tea, give a coffee spoon or tea bag infuser with small bags of coffee or tea as wedding favors. You can find these bags of coffee anywhere online with hundreds of styles to choose from to make them personal such as one with leaves for a fall wedding with the inscription "falling in love" on it; a snowman and woman couple with 'Tis the season' inscribed for a winter wedding, kissing golf balls with the inscription "tee-rific couple". Bookmarks-both paper and silver plated or leather make good gifts for the reading lovers' couple. Packets of flower seeds inscribed with your wedding date and a pair of gardening gloves with a tag that reads "the perfect fit" are cute gifts for the gardening couple to give. Wine lovers would delight in receiving a wine stopper. Couples who love to travel could give away leather luggage tags. If you take some time to reflect on hobbies or other things that define your relationship, you are sure to come up with a neat alternative to the traditional dollar store frame as a wedding favor.

3. Design your own wedding program. You can easily do this yourself. Arts and crafts stores sell packages of blank wedding programs in which you can then design and print on your own. Include a special quote, your wedding day plans, your wedding vows written inside or even a special thank you to your loved ones. The bride and groom can take this opportunity to write a special note to their respective families and new in-laws on the program. This is something that is sure to make eyes well up with tears and will be something your family will want to save forever.

4. Instead of place cards with just your guests' name, take this opportunity to personalize a short note to a special guest on the inside of the card. While this may be impossible for larger weddings, those family members who are especially close to you would love to have a personal note to them sitting on their table. If you love to bake, make cookies and write your guests' name on it with icing to use instead of the traditional place card. Purchase tiny flower pots or candles and write your guests name on the side to use as a place card. The place setting would also be a good time to provide your guest with a small mint or chocolate after sitting through your ceremony and awaiting their meal. You can find personalized wrappers online or in a store or make your own chocolate reflecting the theme of your wedding such as flower chocolates.

5. Reserve a small table at the entrance to your hall, restaurant or home. On this place frames with photos of your family and friends who are no longer with you as a way to remember them and have them with you on your special day. This is sure to touch the hearts of many of your wedding guests.

6. Ask your guests to write a short story, thought, memory or wedding advice in the guest book instead of just their name. This would be particularly good for smaller weddings. This will become a keepsake you can cherish instead of just a book with signatures that you may only look at once or twice again. You could also include photos of guests on the page you would like them to write on for smaller weddings.

7. For a smaller wedding, provide each guest with a flower reflecting your bouquet as they arrive at the ceremony site. You can also ask your florist to make two flower inserts in your bouquet, one of which you give to your mother, the other to your mother in law. Their hearts would be touched to receive flowers from your bouquet. Instead of the traditional bouquet toss, give your flowers to an elderly relative, a beloved aunt or grandmother or some other special relative.

8. Dedicate a song or two to your grandparents or special relatives in which they can dance. After the wedding couple dance their song, have your DJ invite other couples to the dance floor by length of relationship (i.e. can we have all the couples who have been together for one year come up; five years; ten; 25, etc.). Then the DJ can ask each couple to sit, starting the newly wedded couple so that the last standing couple will be your oldest relatives. It will be a special moment just for them.

9. Make personalized CDs to give away to guests with songs from your wedding day or songs that you and your partner love if you are not having a DJ or dance reception. This is a gift most people will appreciate as who doesn't like a new CD?

10. Make a photo album containing pictures of both of your families. Include photos of relatives who have passed away, wedding pictures of your grandparents and parents and photos of the two of you together over the years. The more focus you put on your family and loved ones in the album, the more everyone will appreciate the time and thoughtfulness that went into you creating your first "new family" photo album. As an alternative, you can scan the photos and create a CD in which you can give to your family as favors or thank you gifts. It will be like a live family tree and every member of your family will appreciate this. You can decide to show the CD during your wedding reception or a video that either you or a professional have done using photos of your family and depicting both your roots and the progress of your relationship during the time you were together before marriage. This is also a way to ensure there won't be a dry eye in the house.

11. If you are a good baker or cake decorator, consider making your own wedding cake to give it a more personal touch. If you are having a groom's cake, make the cake reflect a more personal side. Design or have a cake designed in the shape of a baseball diamond for the baseball lover, a deer for the hunter or a golf ball for the golf lover. Give slices of your wedding cake away for guests to take home. You could also give cookies or petit fours you baked as a special thank you.

12. Give your mother or mother in law a pendant or ring with you and your new spouse's birthstones in them as a thank you. You can give double picture frames to your father with a photo of him holding you as a baby and then one of him walking you down the aisle or dancing with you. You can also give your grandparents a double frame of a photo of their wedding day and yours once you get your photos developed.

13. Select corsages and boutonnieres for your parents, in laws, and other special relatives with their favorite flower. They will appreciate the sentiment and can save the flowers as a special memory if they wish.

14. Include beloved pets into your ceremony, especially if it is outdoors in a park or at your home. Make a flower collar or purchase a ring bearer pillow made especially for dogs to hold your rings.

15. Include beloved family members and friends in your wedding ceremony by asking those not in the bridal party to do a reading from a religious or other book during your ceremony. Or give all your guests candles to light after the unity candle is lit. This will work better for smaller wedding ceremonies.

16. Send flowers to your mother in law or mother on the morning of the wedding. You could also choose to send flowers to your wife or husband to be with a sweet note attached.

17. Take time to make toasts to your family, and for smaller weddings, you can both as a newly married couple stand together to express your gratitude, love and excitement about being a part of your new blended family.

18. If you or your partner has children, include them in the ceremony. You can find wedding jewelry from any jeweler or online which can be included as part of the ceremony during the exchange of rings ceremony. You and your partner can include as part of your vows, your promises to cherish, protect and love your new step child.

19. Writing your own wedding vows in which you share with your guests your loving thoughts and memories are another sure way to touch the hearts of everyone in the audience as well as your partner. You could choose to take this time to reflect on the meaningfulness of becoming a part of your new family.

20. Make guest bags for guests who are coming in from out of town. You can either drop these off to them at their hotels or have the hotel give them to them at check in. In these bags, you can include directions, local attraction information, small snacks, bottles of water, lotion, candles, toiletries or items of affection such as photos, a sentimental note or a note of appreciation for them traveling to be with you on your special day. They will delight in this unexpected treat.

If you take some time to reflect on what is meaningful for you, and what will best express both your personality and what you and your partner want to say to those you love and wish to thank, these or other approaches are sure to make your wedding day a more personal and memorable one.