The Meaning Behind Traditional Wedding Dresses

In every traditional wedding, it is the bride that is the center of attraction. More often than not, the duty of the bridegroom is to show up with ring in hand and in some countries, foot the bill for the wedding ceremony. Everything else, every particular detail is left for the bride to decide.

Whether women agree with me or not, the planning of a wedding is something a bride looks forward to. As a species, it is a celebration of our continuity as a race. The details for planning a wedding are very specific. Brides get to choose from the theme and color, the menu, the floral setting for the tables, the church, the reception, the dresses for the bridesmaid and entourage and the most important item of all: the wedding dress.

The history of the wedding dress has many roots. The color white symbolized the purity of the bride before her wedding day, and traditionally meant that the bride was untouched for her husband. The veil represented the mystery of the features of the bride on her wedding day. There was a time when marriages were arranged in order to consolidate power, wealth or land between two families and it was only during the wedding itself that the bridegroom was able to see the bride. Through the centuries things have changed and now the veil which used to be thick and concealing is now thin and revealing. The whole process of the bridegroom lifting the veil and seeing the bride is a throwback of the old ways when the bridegroom saw his bride for the first time.

The train and dress of the bride have significant meanings as well. The bridal train was meant to be long and flowing and initially used to cover up the tracks of the bride and the bridegroom, especially during the middle centuries when kidnappings of brides were frequent for ransom purposes. Even the best man had a role in those days as if there was an attack during the wedding procession of a rival tribe, it was the duty of the best man to guard the couple an aid them in escaping such an incident.

If you are in the Bridgend area, there are lots of wedding dress shops for a bride to shop around. These wedding dress shops in Bridgend still have the homey feel of wedding dress shops. The bride and her entourage which may consist of her mom and the maid of honor to say the least can spend an afternoon talking to the owner of the wedding dress shop who may be the wedding dress maker herself to talk about the wedding design the bride needs. These wedding shops in Bridgend make the bride and her family feels like their own family.

Most wedding dresses are reflection of the Bride itself and Bridgend wedding dresses has wide array of choice that every bride can choose. Avoid the wedding rush, check out Bridgend wedding dress shop now!

Wedding Photography: Backup Strategies for your Digital Photos (Part 1)

Digital wedding photography presents special challenges to the every day wedding photographer. The risk of losing the precious wedding moments of a couple brings nightmares and anxiety to most photographers that I know.

As a professional wedding photographer and a certified computer systems administrator I will offer some recommendations about the best way to protect digital wedding images.

1. Star by formatting the flash cards and/or micro drives in the camera that you will use to take the photos. Even when it is possible to format the flash cards in your computer using a flash card reader it can lead to compatibility issues and data loss.

2. Although flash cards are very resistant to abuse it is always better to play it safe and keep them away from shock, heat, and magnetic sources.

3. Once you return from the wedding download the images to your computer. Once they are downloaded, browse through the images to ensure they were successfully downloaded and then create backups to CD and/or DVD. Never browse through your images on the Flash card. In our studio we create two DVD copies of the files and we also copy them to two different hard drives on different computers. One of the DVD copies is stored at a different location.

4.A Computer RAID (Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks offers a great deal of fault tolerance to protect your data. There are several levels of RAID and each of them offers different levels of data protection. For practical and common implementation I am going to discuss the most common types of RAID:

·Level 1: Mirroring and Duplexing: requires two drives and the data is written (mirror) on the two drives simultaneously. If one of the drives fails the data can be recovered from the good drive.

·Level 5: Block Interleaved Distributed Parity: This is one of the most common and solid implementations of RAID. It requires a minimum of 3 drives and allows the data to be written across all of the drives. If one of them fails you simply replace the failed drive and the RAID is automatically rebuilt.

Most operating systems allow you to build some form of RAID however if the OS fails you also lose the RAID. The recommended RAID is trough the use of a RAID card.

5. Tape backup offers a very solid way of backing up your files and operating system. It has been around for a long time and has proved to be the most reliable form of backup. Tapes are very portable and make the storage at outside locations very convenient. Tape backups require a backup program what makes scheduling backups and automating the process easy.

6. Offsite FTP Backups Can also be set automated using computer programs. At a set time interval or continuously the computer that holds the data connects to a remote location server and uploads the files. The main disadvantage is that they create a lot of Internet traffic and in the case of wedding photographers that store gigabytes of images the transfer time can become prohibitive.

In Part 2 I will discuss additional strategies to protect your beautiful wedding photos.

Juan Carlos Torres is a very respected and awarded wedding photographer in Oregon. He has a Masters Degree in Remote Sensing with a strong background in digital image processing and photography. He is a member of the several professional photographer organizations including the Professional Photographers of America, the Professional Photographers of Oregon, the Wedding Photojournalist Association, and the Oregon Wedding Photo Guild. His wedding photographs are unique and very artistic and have been featured in national and international magazines. For a sample of his works please visit Eugene Oregon Wedding Photographer and Portland Oregon Wedding Photographer For a discussion on wedding photography see our Blog at Oregon Wedding Photographer

Inexpensive Wedding Ideas - Frequently Asked Questions

If you have been looking for inexpensive wedding ideas, you have probably come up with a list of questions a mile long. This article contains some great answers to some of the more popular questions related to your wedding budget, the invitations, and ways to save money on the food and entertainment. Once you have gone through the answers below, you will be ready to plan a fantastic event on a reasonable budget.

How Do I Start Planning My Wedding Budget?

The tighter your overall spending limit, the more important it becomes to plan a detailed budget so you can see early in the process what you will be able to include and what must be cut. Overall, your budget will be divided into seven broad categories. Your reception will take up approximately 50% of the total budget for the wedding, with another 40% being equally split among bridal attire, photography, music, and flowers. The last 10% will be split among the invitations, postage, and other miscellaneous expenses. Get your overall budget split into these broad categories first and it will enable you to start drilling down into the specifics more easily.

Do I Need Professionally Printed Wedding Invitations?

Homemade invitations used to be a symbol of tackiness, but these days that has changed. Modern color printers and graphic design software has made it very possible to create dazzling invitations on your own computer and print them at home or at a local print shop such as Kinko's for way less money than a typical printer would charge.

What Are Some Cheap Options For Food And Entertainment?

Because food is so expensive and will make up such a big portion of the budget for the reception, you will want to consider just how formal you want your meal to be. A formal wedding and reception will probably demand a sit-down meal or at least a buffet service. Sit down meals are the most expensive option because of the extra staff required in terms of waiters and waitresses, as well as the extra cooks needed to prepare the individual entrees. A buffet is a great alternative because it costs less for a caterer to prepare and will ensure that everyone has something they can eat.

You might consider abandoning the traditional sit down mean if your budget is extremely tight. Instead an elegant option would be to feed your guests "cocktail party" style, with nice hors d'ouvres being served at a food station or by roaming waiters on trays. This is a fun way to host a reception because it allows your guests to be more mobile and able to mingle freely with others.

Obviously, inexpensive wedding ideas can be found for every aspect of your special day, from the ceremony to the honeymoon. With a little creativity and research, you can see how your budget, invitations, and food costs can be trimmed down without eliminating any of the most important parts of your wedding.

Find out how you can have the most exciting, affordable wedding ever through my easy to follow course. Find out more on how to plan a wedding here. Lisa Harris runs a website dedicated to sharing a variety of inexpensive wedding ideas and many more great tips.