The Wedding Genie

It’s been a few weeks since we heard from our favourite wedding blog for men. Andrew never disappoints and this week its advice for the Bride’s father. Enjoy!

5 Essential Tips for The Father of The Bride

There seems to be a general feeling that the Father of the Bride is often the forgotten man of the wedding planning process. The feeling is that you’re probably experienced enough to cope with the nerves and tough enough to cope with the emotions. But that’s why we often end up feeling sorry for the FOTB (you’ve even got the worst wedding acronym for crying out loud) and decided to round-up some essential advice for all the dads out there prior to the big day.

Deal With The Nerves Before They Ruin It

It’s perfectly natural and acceptable for you to feel nervous. Nerves about the ceremony and speeches are in the top three subjects that fill the Staggered inbox. Fortunately, both can be cured with some simple preparation. Write and practice your speech at least a month in advance of the big day and do everything you can to make it to the church rehearsal as this will give you an idea of where to stand when.

Speeches Are Easy When You Prepare

You can find way more information on Staggered about wedding speeches but this is it in a nutshell. Between 5 and 8 minutes, less is more, stand straight, don’t mumble and speak from the heart. Always write your speech in full (never “wing it”), because even if you don’t use it you’ve always got it in case you need it. Give a copy to your daughter for the wedding memory box. The Father of the Bride welcomes the guests, sets the tempo, welcomes his new family members and talks about his daughter without embarrassing her!

It Will Be Emotional – Get Ready

Blokes and emotions are never a good mix, for the simple reason that we’re often a bit slower at dealing with them and how they affect us. Take some time before the wedding to talk to your daughter about the wedding and what she means to you. Too many men think they’ll come out with the perfect speech in the car on the way to the church and end up feeling that they never quite explained how they feel – or worse: end up at the church a sobbing mess!

How To Deal With The Money

The good news is that this generation are getting married later, the bad news being that they’re living with their parents longer. As a result more of them are paying for their own wedding. If you’re still footing the bill and you find that the wedding is placing too much of a burden on your finances then make it clear that costs need to be cut. Everyone wants a perfect wedding, but no one wants that to come at the expense of a stressed dad. Also there are thousands of resources out there on how to get a champagne wedding on beer prices, use them!

Plan Your Advice

As with the emotions, this is another topic that should be tackled in advance of the big day. It’s tradition that you pass on some advice – whether that’s in your speech or just in passing. This is a big thing both for the bride and the groom and many people remember for their whole lives what was said to them at this point. So make it wise, make it original and make it something personal. Think about your marriage: what have you learned? What can you say that will improve these young people’s chance of happiness? But remember, no pressure…

www.iamstaggered.com is the UK’s leading men’s wedding website.

Until next time, happy planning

A few pearls of wisdom from a mans perspective, I would have loved to have seen Andrew’s Alsation best men!!! and his brides reaction to his choice of best man.

Picking Your Best Man

One of the few wedding jobs going that is emphatically the groom’s responsibility is choosing the best man. Now that doesn’t mean that certain people *cough* the bride-to-be *cough* might not offer an opinion or two on who it should be, but they ultimately know that the best man is as serious as male friendships get and therefore they should back the heck off. We’re not going to join the roster of people queuing up to tell you who to pick, but we do have some advice.

Pick with your heart, not your head.

What the bride wants is for you to pick someone who won’t take you to a strip club on your stag do. She wants you to pick someone who will say disarmingly charming things during his speech. She wants someone who looks good in a suit and won’t spend the reception at the bar chanting: “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” with their pants on their head. In essence, the bride wants you to pick your grandmother. The guy you’re thinking of choosing might fit the above description, or they may be a rogue of the first water. Just remember that you’re picking your best man on the qualities of deep friendship, of shared experiences and, damn it all – on love. Go with your heart.

Don’t pick a woman

You’re angry aren’t you? You’re thinking – “How dare they, women can be just as much a best friend to a man as a man can.” Well, that’s a debate for another time (as is the old When Harry Met Sally men can’t be friends with women because sex gets in the way discussion – However, the reason you can’t pick a woman is simple: the bride. No matter how ugly your female friend is and how Platonic the friendship, there will always be a part of the bride burning with jealousy that another woman is a closer friend to you than she can be. And you’re going to make her feel like that on her wedding day. Bite the bullet and ditch the gal pal.

Don’t pick two best men

The two best men scenario is just wrong. The speeches go on forever, the stag dos are a planning nightmare and the photos look weird. All of this just because you can’t admit to your best friends that you like one more than the other. You are not six-years-old. If you cannot tell your adult male friends that you want one to be a best man and one to be the usher without the dissolution of your holy friendship trinity then there’s something wrong. Grow a backbone and choose.

Don’t pick a dog

That’s even worse than picking two best men. If your best friend is a dog then you need therapy.

You can’t say no

It’s weird but we get *a lot* of best men emailing us who are struggling with their speech because they know practically nothing about the groom. We should probably be explaining that you can sensitively say no to a bloke if he asks you to be his best man, but you can’t really, can you? If someone asks you to be a best man, you pretty much have to take the role. You’d just have to do it and be the best man you possibly could be.

So who are you going to pick?

Staggered is the UK’s leading men’s wedding website. At his wedding the editor had four female Alsatian dogs as his best men. None of them wanted to take the role but they all felt it was better to do it and not say anything.

Until next time, happy planning.

Ha Ha this is the inside track advice on what terrifies your man when he thinks of the wedding. Take heed to this advice so that you can stay one step ahead and help him out!

What Terrifies Men About Weddings

On first inspection you’d probably think a wedding would rank somewhere between, “Small Girl With Ice-Cream” and “Parcel Delivery” on your average bloke’s internal list of terrifying situations to be confronted with. But when you start to break it down the Big Day contains a number of situations that rank wayyyyy higher on the Terrifying-O-Meter; perhaps even somewhere between “Rooney Broken Bone” and “Getting Things Caught In Zips.” So what is it that’s giving your groom, best man or father of the bride a nasty case of wedding nerves?

Walking Down The Aisle

Sounds stupid doesn’t it? The bride’s the one who has to do the aisle-walking dressed in the big frock and pokey shoes and yet the father of the bride is the one who’s sweating over it. Why? Well mostly because it’s his big moment. All those eyes turn towards him, he has to stick to that weird slow-walk rhythm and he knows that at the end of the aisle he has to hand his daughter over to some spotty oik he’s only met twelve times.

How to combat: Practice makes perfect on the walk and try and have the big, “You know I’ll always love you Dad” talk a month or so before, not in the car on the way to the church.

Saying His Vows Right

I do, just two little words that give men more problems than nearly any other. In this case though it’s not the weight of the ceremony or the pressures of commitment that petrify him, it’s the sheer bloody simplicity. Someone says the words and you just have to repeat them, that’s easy! Exactly, so you’d be really stupid if you messed them up wouldn’t you?

How to combat: Get hold of the text of the wedding ceremony you’ll be using and go through it a few weeks before. You can even practice if you like. Then it’s up to the registrar or vicar to put you at your ease. Fortunately, they’re nearly all very good at their job and if you schedule in a meeting a few weeks before then they’ll help put you at your ease.

Wedding Speeches

This one is perhaps the most understandable. After all, writing a wedding speech is difficult enough when you consider the formalities and the etiquette you need to observe and that’s before you factor in that it’s supposed to be eloquently emotional (the groom/father of the bride) or effortlessly entertaining (best man). Twin that with most people’s natural hatred of public speaking and you’ve got the perfect storm of fear.

How to combat: If they’re struggling to write it send them to a professional speechwriter like Burn The Toast for help with their speeches for weddings . Alternatively, move the speeches to before the dinner, restrict everyone to toasts only or cancel them altogether.

Commitment

Ahhh, where would the romantic comedy genre be without this old trope, that secretly men fear the idea of living with a woman more than they fear sharks, or fire, or sharks on fire? It’s almost unheard of for men to actually act anything like the male characters from Friends. The closest most men will ever get to the commitment question is when one of their more laddish mates says, “You know that means you can only sleep with one woman for the rest of your life?” A question that’s easy to contend with because the friend in question last had sex in 2001.

How To Combat: Ignore it. He’s bought the ring and gone down on one knee, he’s not about to flit now.

Confetti

It’s evil stuff.

How to combat: Fire.

I loved this blog today, thanks Andrew, you are a star.!

Staggered is the UK’s leading men’s wedding website and the perfect place to find proposal ideas, stag do pranks and  stag do ideas, mens wedding suits and wedding speeches. We can even tell you about lolcat proposals.

Until next time, happy planning.

I have to say that I fell prey to this for our wedding but I was pleased with the results, it was lovely to have shiny pearly whites on our photo’s. Here is the low down of choices and costs.

It’s all well and good for the Americans to poke fun at our standard of dentistry , but when you clap eyes on some of the ultra-bright gnashers they display you wonder whether you wouldn’t sometimes prefer the occasional snaggle-tooth. Ok, maybe not. There’s one thing that we can all agree on though and that’s that stained teeth are a bit grim. If you’re sorting your teeth before your wedding here’s a quick guide to some of the ways you can get pearly whites.

Whitening toothpaste

WHERE: at home

COST: a few quid

TIME: long term

METHOD: It’s as easy as brushing your teeth.

EFFECT: Subtle. It’s just your regular toothpaste but with added chemicals, abrasives and polishing agents, so it provides extra stain removal but won’t actually change the natural colour of your teeth. Even the most effective toothpastes will only lighten teeth by one shade on the chart, so it’s not the option for a quick, pre-wedding fix.

RISKS: Products that include pumice may cause damage to the enamel.

Whitening gel

WHERE: at home

COST: £20ish

TIME: two weeks

METHOD: A gel applied twice a day directly to the teeth. The magic ingredient peroxide ensures decent results.

EFFECT: More noticeable than the toothpaste thanks to the peroxide. Yay peroxide! It is a bit poisonous though. Boo peroxide.

RISKS: Gum irritation. Unsupervised dental fiddling. You wouldn’t do your own fillings, would you?

Whitening strips

WHERE: at home

COST: £30ish

TIME: two weeks

METHOD: Similar to the gel, but more convenient. These thin strips coated with a whitening gel are applied twice daily for 30 minutes a time.

EFFECT: You’ll see results within a few days, and the whitening effect lasts for around four months. Perfect for a pre-wedding pick me up, because she’s stuck with you when your pegs go yellow again.

RISKS: As with the gel.

Tray-based whitening

WHERE: at home

COST: around £90

TIME: Up to four weeks

METHOD: A plastic tray is filled with a whitening solution and fitted around the teeth for a couple of hours a day or overnight.

EFFECT: Pretty good, but still not approaching a professional finish due to restrictions on the chemicals involved in the UK. Kits bought from outside the UK may contain nasties like acids. And if the tray is an ill fit, results may be patchy.

RISKS: The tray won’t be fitted especially for your teeth, so there may be some discomfort. Risk of gum irritation, gum discolouration, blistering in the mouth and sensitive teeth. To minimise the risk, look for the British Dental Health Foundation approved logo on the product.

Professional bleaching

COST: £400

TIME: Up to four weeks

METHOD: Tray-based as above, but less risky. The tray will be made specially from an impression of your teeth and a protective gel or guard will be provided to protect the gums.

EFFECT: Hollywood white. The dentist will be able to use a more powerful bleaching agent for better results.

RISKS: Minimal, thanks to the involvement of the professionals.

Power whitening

COST: £700

TIME: One hour! It’s the quick fix option.

METHOD: A rubber dam is put over the gums, gel is painted on the teeth and lasers are shone on the teeth to activate the chemical. It’s like Star Wars IN YOUR MOUTH!

EFFECT: Hello, Simon Cowell! No, stop, please, I’m going snowblind. In dentist’s terms, it’s up to five or six shades lighter.

RISKS: Sensitive teeth, sore throat, white patches on gums, blinding your bride with your teeth.

Staggered : www.iamstaggered.com] is the UK’s leading men’s wedding website and the perfect place to find proposal ideas, stag do pranks and stag do ideas , mens wedding suits and wedding speeches. We can even tell you about how to shave.

Until next time, happy planning.

Thank goodness I don’t have to do this everyday but if I did these are great videos to help, thank you boys. Over to Staggered.

Ties. Actually, let’s narrow things down a bit: wedding ties. Actually, I’m in a digressive mood so let’s start not with ties but with handfasting. Did you know that in different cultures (notably European and pagan cultures) the idea of marriage was represented not just with tiny Shepherds Pie canapés and exorbitantly expensive dresses but by tying the hands of the bride and groom together. Cool, huh?

Often each of the guests was asked to secure a cord around the couples’ joined hands to symbolise not just their togetherness, but the guests’ complicity in joining them together. I think that’s lovely, and just think, if you’re really angry with how much you’ve had to pay for your hotel you could tie your cord really tight, constrict the blood flow in their hands and laugh as their hands dropped off. That’ll teach them to not block book the local Travelodge. Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s a handfasting ceremony you might like to try out when you’ve got five minutes spare.

Ok, I’m done digressing. Wedding ties and specifically how to tie them is one of the things that as a groom you’ll probably not think of until the morning of the wedding. At which point knowing how to tie a cravat, or execute the perfect Four In Hand will make you the coolest Mother Hubbard in the room. So here presented via the wonder of YouTube is exactly that. By the way, if you’re stuck for ideas about wedding ties then you really need to go and see Swagger & Swoon, amazing service and a very high quality product for a bloody reasonable price.

How To Tie a Cravat

How To Tie A Windsor Knot

How To Tie A Bow Tie

One final piece of digressive trivia for you – did you know that mathematically speaking there are 85 ways to tie a tie? The mind boggles.

Have you heard of Staggered ? It’s the UK’s leading men’s wedding website and the perfect place to find proposal ideas , stag do pranks and, mens wedding suits and wedding speeches . We can even tell you about bacon tuxedos.

Until next week.