Antigua’s best loved all-inclusive resort, the Jolly Beach Resort and Spa, is the perfect destination for couples to have a child-friendly honeymoon. Nestled in 40 acres of beautiful lush gardens with stunning sea views, Jolly Beach is offering newlyweds an idyllic family getaway or ‘familymoon’, where children and relatives can join in with the wedding celebrations. The rise of the ‘familymoon’ over the traditional honeymoon has stemmed from couples wishing for more of a family-bonding experience, wanting to include the children in their honeymoon as well as their wedding plans. This is especially true to those that are remarrying; 7 out of 10 couples that tie the knot at Jolly Beach are celebrating their second marriage, so there is the desire to build on a new family unit - as well as a new bond between one another.

As a result of this trend, Jolly Beach now organises and accommodates wedding ceremonies that involve the children. If they are under 18, the sons are allowed to be best man, holding and presenting the rings to the marriage officer, and the daughters can be flower girls or the maid of honor. If the children are over 18, they can fully participate in the wedding service and sign on behalf of the bride and groom.

Beverly King, award-winning wedding coordinator at the resort, says that some couples that are remarrying even exchange rings with the children, or participate in a sand ceremony that signifies the joining together of the two families.

Jolly Beach Resort and Spa can then provide everything the whole family will need for an enjoyable familymoon. When the newlyweds want some privacy, there are endless activities to keep the children busy; the resorts famous Kidz Club has a host of activities for all ages including a playground, outside games including dodge ball, aqua aerobics, nature walks and, for the younger member’s, Caribbean story time. Teenagers won’t be stuck for entertainment either, with the Jolly Teenz Club they can enjoy night-time BBQ’s on the beach and a games area with a Nintendo Wii and Xbox, air hockey, ping pong and indoor basketball.

One of the biggest joys of the familymoon is being able to spend quality time together. Have a night of stargazing and roasting marshmallows over an open fire, or try group lessons of kayaking or sailing. Take a snorkelling or scuba diving trip, or choose from one of the largest ranges of water sport equipment found in the region including Hobi Cats, Sunfish Sailboats, Aqua Finns, Windsurfers, Kayaks, Paddle Boats, Surfbikes, and Float Mats. If all that sounds too exhausting, why not all relax around one of the resorts two swimming pools? Or take the whole family down to laze on the beautiful white sand beach by the glittering Caribbean Sea.

Wow! What a year it’s been at Snooty Frox of Harrogate. We had the pleasure of dressing many of the distinguished guests for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton which generated a real buzz. Snooty Frox is an exclusive ladies department store where we offer The Ultimate Shopping Experience. We have some exciting new collections for this season – including John Charles which is a first for Snooty Frox. We also stock pieces by award-winning designer Ian Stuart of London and have a room dedicated to Condici. We are looking forward to welcoming many more customers to Snooty Frox of Harrogate. We cater for mother of the bride or groom and wedding guests and have more than 50 designers in store. Visit our website www.snootyfrox.co.uk/ or visit us at: 34-36 Hookstone Road, Harrogate, HG2 8BW

Snooty Frox are also exhibiting on stand number 15 at The UK Wedding Shows Harrogate show this weekend 24th and 25th September 2011.

In a world ever more obsessed with mobile Apps, Wedding UK have come up with the newest way for couples to plan their wedding day. The Wedding UK App is a wedding directory and planner, aimed at easing the stress of creating your perfect day.

As any bride knows, the months leading up to your wedding day are spent glued to the computer, trailing through Google searching for what you need. However, with the help of Wedding UK, the App knows your location and will display a list of local businesses (up to a one hundred mile radius) who provide wedding services - from cars, dresses, flowers, cakes, stationery, favours, bands and many, many more.
It gives busy brides all the information about the company, including photographs and contact details, so they can relax on the sofa together with their iPhone or iPad and hubby to be!

That’s not all though - once you have your wedding dress picked out, and your invitations ordered, you can use Wedding UK’s planner. Within the same App, you can start creating your guest list, seating plan, gift list and keep track of the ever important wedding budget! There is also a handy checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything.
The App has been a great success since its launch at the end of April and more and more businesses are being added every day. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this new App though is that it’s free to download and use! Nowadays we use our phones to plan so much of our lives by email and online calendars, so it makes sense to use the technology to plan special events as well.
The App can be downloaded from Apple’s App store for free now by searching for Wedding UK and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

We are sometimes curious about the people that get involved in the wedding industry - the wealth of products and services seems to increase every year as couples strive for the perfect and original wedding day, and more companies are looking at whether their services could adapt to be incorporated in to a wedding scenario. Sometimes it is a business decision that has led to them making a change and moving on to doing more wedding related work, but for others they may have always wanted to be a part of someones ‘Big Day’. Entertainment is a personal element for a wedding, with couples having their own taste and opinion on what will work for them, and we spoke to Michael from 4th Coming Events Limited to see how he got involved.

“I have been in the entertainment and event industry since I was a child. Starting from the age of 5 years old; I spent weekend after weekend, season after season, touring a huge amount of entertainment venues due to my parent’s entertainment company. There were many eye openers for me such as meeting a drag artiste for the first time back stage, not quite knowing exactly why such a glamorous lady had such a deep Yorkshire male accent. Moving on through the years, I gained a vast amount of experience and met an extensive range of entertainers; many of whom I still work with today! With such a range of performers and acts, we have covered every event type from parties, weddings, corporate events through to store openings, promotions, family fun days, etc.

Over the years, I became particularly interested in the wedding industry, as I had the opportunity to offer performers, acts and event supplies that had perhaps not been previously considered for weddings. Thankfully, the requirement for wedding entertainment is still growing and now more than ever couples are looking for new ideas or trying to search out acts that will perfectly fit with their wedding in terms of theme or style, fulfilling a purpose (i.e. maintaining the momentum of the day in order to keep the guests involved and entertained) or simply adding that extra wow factor. My advice when looking and budgeting for entertainment for your wedding is to first look at your basis schedule for the day and then work out a priority list. For instance, usually music for the evening reception is the most important, followed by music during the wedding ceremony period. Therefore, it is important to add these to your initial budget when planning your wedding. However, other entertainment such as magicians, caricaturists, fun casinos, photo booths, chocolate fountains, etc, should not be overlooked as they can play a really important role in keeping your guests entertained during long periods of waiting around, i.e. whilst photos are being taken or between the wedding breakfast and evening reception. Often these entertainment extras are more valuable than you would realise, in that they maintain the momentum for the guests, helping them relax and breaking the ice for guests to start talking. It really does make your wedding stand out, leaving wonderful memories, and it is these small touches that are often remembered the most.”

Come and see Michael at the Harrogate show in September or contact him on 0113 368 3848

Katy our blogging bride gets us up to date with all the arrangements that she and fiance James have made so far. There are all kinds of things that need to be sorted out for their wedding day, so prioritising is the key, and being organised of course.

“James and I wanted to get some of the main things planned and have been talking about our wedding day with our families and friends. It is a good idea to use companies that have been personally recommended and so we chose to have our reception at Southport Old Links Golf Club. The staff are very friendly and helpful, with lots of ideas – and the food is lovely! We want to have a wedding breakfast for sixty guests and an evening buffet for 100 guests. The entertainment for the evening will be provided by my step Dad who is in a band and we will also have a DJ and karaoke to get everyone in the party mood. If we have any money left in the budget we would also like to have a casino table, but I’ll keep you posted on that one! I am lucky to have a wonderful aunt who is helping me with the wedding stationery. She has a very good eye for design and with my friend who works for a print company, they should be able to come up with something good! The wedding cake is also being made by someone we know through a friend and this will save us some money as they do not have the same overheads as some of the big companies, and we will get the personal touch. We are not going for the traditional fruit cake and feel that cupcakes have been done to death, so we have opted for a chocolate tier, toffee tier and vanilla sponge tier with white icing and sugar flowers in shades of green down one side. Excited!”

Photographers Richard and Caroline Wynn-Davies will be exhibiting with us at the Harrogate show in September. This husband and wife team are passionate about the service that that they offer and have a friendly approach which has led them to lasting friendships with their clients. Richard got in touch to tell us about a competition that they will be running at the show, which is too good an opportunity to miss.

Ten couples will have the chance of winning a fabulous engagement shoot, and one of these couples will go on to win a stunning wedding photography package!

Richard is looking forward to chatting to lots of brides and grooms about what they are looking for on their special day, and how they can make their wedding a really memorable occasion with some great images. For further details about the competition or to get in touch with Richard and Caroline visit their blog at www.richardwynndavies.co.uk/blog

Katy, our blogging bride will be keeping us up to date with her preparations, as she plans her wedding to James next year.

“So, we have now set the date officially as 25th May 2012 and have decided to have a church wedding. I took a few days off so that James and I could look at some venues together. We found the Church of England website very helpful and located our local parish church. If you want to get married in a different church there is a great link on the site to help you. We had difficulty with our first choice of church as they had some strict rules and the second one had no Reverend at the time. It is good that we could be flexible and in the end we decided to use our local church and went to meet the Reverend there. We had to answer a few questions about the date of the wedding, names, address and parents details, but we didn’t go in to any depth with the discussion as he was leaving the parish before the date of the wedding! We have been reassured that another Reverend will be available and they will contact us in the new year to go over the details of the service with us. Once the venue for the service was sorted out we could breathe a sigh or relief knowing that we at least had somewhere sorted out to get married, even if we had nothing else arranged!”