Groom's Wedding Blog from TheManRegistry.com

How to Romance Your Fiancée

April 19th, 2012

romance fiance dinner

Whether you are in the dog house or just genuinely want to show your fiancée how much she means to you, make sure that you bring the romance back into your relationship to show her how much you care about her. Plenty of people complain about romance being over-rated, but it often makes the difference between having a satisfied fiancée and one that is thrilled, so be sure to consider surprising her with one (or more!) of the following tips.

Romance Her With Food

Most people love to eat and, as they say, the way to a girl’s heart is through her stomach. If your fiancée is a foodie, you cant go wrong with something that is elegant, delicious and attractively plated. Anyone can get their girlfriend chocolate covered strawberries, but remember that presentation is everything. Place the chocolate covered strawberries on a white plate and drizzle them with a thin stream of dark or white chocolate. A little bit goes a long way!

Surprise Her With Comfort

We all have points in the day when we just can’t get comfortable. If you know that she’s going to be walking home from work or school, or when you can see that she is getting cold, offer her something to change her situation. Come pick her up without being asked or bring her a blanket. These little things show you’re thinking about her on a day-to-day basis, and that can make all the difference.

Make Her Something

Too many people don’t realize how talented they are. Think about what you are good at and then use your skills to come up with a gift for your girl. Whether you are woodworker, a game designer, a knitter or a singer, you’ll find that there are things that you can do for her that no one else can. Things like this can make a huge difference to how she feels about you, showcasing your personality and talents as well as making her feel as though you’ve made a real effort. Making your girlfriend something is a great way to keep things personal.

Kidnap Her

No, we don’t mean abduction, we mean sweeping her off her feet and away from it all. Tell your girlfriend to clear her schedule and to trust you. Take her off for an outing to a place that she didn’t expect, whether it is a camping trip, a fun new restaurant or just a walk by the lake. A small (or large!) change of scenery and routine is a fantastic choice to bring back the romance.

The most important thing is that when you want get that spark in your relationship re-ignited, don’t just sit around; be proactive and romance her in ways she’ll never forget!

Plan the Perfect Adventure Honeymoon

April 17th, 2012

plan the perfect adventure honeymoon
Adventure honeymoons are becoming increasingly popular with active couples that find romance in more places than beaches and fancy restaurants. For these couples, the connection that comes with facing a challenge together or reflecting on a day filled with exciting new experiences is unmatched. If you and your fiancé prefer a weekend of camping or hiking to a movie marathon, then an adventurous honeymoon is an alternative well worth considering. Here are 4 tips to planning the perfect adventure honeymoon:

1. Strike Your Perfect Balance: The key to planning the perfect adventure honeymoon is to assess what you and your fiancé want to do and experience. Communication is crucial so you both get your needs met without any misunderstandings. What combination of adventure and pampering do you prefer? What mix of activities would you like to do each day? There are a variety of ways to integrate active and relaxing activities into any honeymoon destination. For example, you can go scuba diving and parasailing during the day and enjoy a couple’s massage in the evening. If you’re at a mountain resort, you can go hiking and zip lining during the day and soak in a hot tub or do spa treatments at night.

2. Seek the Road Less Traveled: Once you have your short list of adventure honeymoon destinations in mind, use alternative travel resources to uncover potential activities. Most traditional honeymoon planning magazines and resources are filled with lavish, all-inclusive resorts and package deals. Consider ditching the wedding industry magazines for ones like National Geographic Adventure, Backpacker and Outside Magazine. They are full of trip ideas and generally include suggestions to accommodate wide range of budgets. Other great resources include alternative travel guides like Lonely Planet, Rick Steves’ and Let’s Go.  Consider staying in modestly priced hotels for part of the trip and use the money you save to splurge on lavish accommodations for the remainder. In most cases, avoiding traditional, all-inclusive resorts will allow you to stretch your honeymoon budget even further.

beach honeymoon adventure

3. Get Inspired! Here are 10 of our favorite adventure honeymoon destinations:

• Australia: Dive or snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. Take a road trip through the Outback.
• Colorado: Hike, mountain bike or camp in the rugged Rocky Mountains.
• Costa Rica: Go reef diving and deep-sea fishing on the Caribbean side, or visit the Pacific side for world-class beaches and surf.
• Hawaii: Take a helicopter tour over volcanoes national park, hike to hidden waterfalls, and relax on black sand beaches.
• Italy: Bike through Tuscany and enjoy the hill-towns, food, wine, and culture.
• Mexico: Explore the cavernous Cenotes and discover towering Mayan ruins.
• New Zealand: Go bungee jumping, cave rafting or glacier trekking on the south island.
• Peru: Hike the Inca Trail up to the awe-inspiring ruins of Machu Picchu.
• Switzerland: Small, mountain villages in the Swiss Alps are an ideal base camp for skiing, climbing and hiking.
• Tanzania: Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro then rest up at a luxurious safari lodge in the Serengeti.

4. Set-Up Your Honeymoon Registry: A honeymoon registry can make planning the perfect adventure honeymoon so much easier. If you’re like most engaged couples, you don’t need more dinnerware or pots and pans to outfit your home. You probably have most of what you need already, so why register for more stuff when you can register for the honeymoon of your dreams? Honeymoon registries may not be traditional, but neither is a vacation itinerary that includes tandem paragliding! When you set up a honeymoon registry, your wedding guests and loved ones can contribute towards the amazing adventures you’ll have on your honeymoon. Whether you want to learn to scuba dive, ski, or see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a honeymoon registry lets your guests in on exactly what you would like to do on your honeymoon and make it easy for them to contribute to memories that will last a lifetime!

So, even if you’re having a white-dress, tall-cake, traditional wedding, don’t be afraid to break the mold with a honeymoon adventure!

hiking honeymoon

About the Author: Andrew Marino is the CEO of HoneymoonPixie.com, an industry leader in providing honeymoon gift registries for engaged couples.  Couples create their free honeymoon registry website and receive honeymoon planning advice and travel tips.  Andrew also serves as a contributing Senior Travel Editor.

The comment section is open. Tell us about your ideal adventure honeymoon. Where would you go and what activities would you do?

[CONTEST] Grooms Gone Wild Over Storymix Media

April 16th, 2012

We’re proud to say that last year we were one of the first blogs to introduce the wedding world to Storymix Media and its ultra-cool crowd-sourced wedding video service.  We ran a contest that Kyle Fryman (and his smokin’ hot bride Brittany) were fortunate enough to win.

The personal aspect of Storymix Media gives it a unique touch. Instead of a standard videographer, your wedding footage is captured by your friends and family.  Since last year’s contest, we’re happy to report that many of our readers have used Storymix’s WeddingMix service to capture the fun, goofy, and crazy moments from their wedding.  The fact that couples get to use an online storyboard to decide what goes into the final product means your brother’s embarrassing attempt to hit on a bridesmaid during the toasts won’t get left out.

Now Storymix has upped the ante and has come out with with a new iPhone app to capture the before, during and after moments of the wedding.  That means that those last moments as a bachelor can be remembered forever on video.  Plus, even more people can contribute to your video. Anyone with an iPhone or iPad can capture the great stories, memories and laughs from your big day.

To celebrate the release of the app, Storymix is giving away a FREE WeddingMix package worth $400. The goal of the contest is to capture the memorable, unique pre-wedding experiences that feature the groom and his buddies having a good time before the big day, whether it’s having beers during the bachelor party, trying on retro tuxes or playing a pre-wedding round of golf.

THREE WAYS TO ENTER:

1. Each video sent to the Storymix Facebook wall will get you 10 entries into the contest. All you need to do is download the app for free (search WeddingMix on the App Store) and use The Man Registry “wedding” in the list with code 5P6X8.  You can upload the videos directly from the app to Storymix and your Facebook wall.  Then tag the video in FB (@Storymix in the description so we know who the video is from).  Feel free to also add videos from other devices as well.

2. Receive one additional entry each time you tweet this: #GroomsGoneWild over free wedding video package from @Storymix & @TheManRegistry http://goo.gl/HMven

3. Finally, receive one additional entry for each time you write a comment on the Facebook Timeline of The Man Registry or Storymix Media. Comments should state why you want to win the Storymix video package.

Don’t delay, the contest runs through May 6 and then we’ll draw a winner.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few unique clips grooms have taken with Storymix over the last year.

Videos deemed inappropriate will be removed. Contest will end at 11:59pm PST on Sunday May 6, 2012. Winner will be contacted via email or Facebook. Family members of Storymix Media or The Man Registry, LLC employees are ineligible to win.

The Best of the Web for Grooms – April 13, 2012

April 13th, 2012

groom spring 2012 wedding attire

Spring is in the air which means it’s time to start planning your wedding day getup. The gang at MyWedding have put together a collection of five awesome groom wedding attire ideas. Additionally, Ruffled Blog has also posted their favorite groom looks for spring.

In search of unique and affordable videography? Our friends at Storymix Media are running a contest that awards one couple with a free wedding video and slideshow. Check it our here.

Tax day is almost here. Have you filed your return yet? More importantly, have you figured out which money-related songs will be played at your reception? If not, here’s a starter list from Gigmasters.

In search of engagement photo inspiration? Huffington Post Weddings has the list NOT to look at for ideas.

We leave you with one of the best wedding toasts we’ve ever come across. If you haven’t seen this yet, prepare to be entertained (you can also check out more groom-approved wedding videos on our Pinterest board).

Create and Publish Your Own Mobile Wedding App with Appy Couple

April 10th, 2012

appy couple wedding app

In the mobile world, where no one does anything without a smartphone, it’s about time someone came up with a really useful service that makes keeping everyone informed about the wedding easy, practical, and beautiful.

Enter Appy Couple, the hottest new wedding planning iPhone/iPad app.

Face it, a mobile app for your wedding is so much cooler than a website—although they give you one of those too, just in case you need it.

It’s easy to use the app. Simply go online to appycouple.com, choose a design, and create an account. After that, it’s just a matter of adding info in their really well thought-out interface, uploading photos and filling in event details. It’s all real-time, so you can check out how your app looks every step of the way.

Appy Couple incorporates cutting edge technology throughout their whole system. Simple things, like being able to drag and drop Facebook contacts into your wedding party circles without posting anything to Facebook, have been integrated in the process by their team of master engineers.

Even more importantly, the Appy Couple team has taken great pains to get into the heads of couples in the midst of wedding planning purgatory… and done everything they can to smooth the way.

For instance: there’s plenty of scope for your fiancée to exercise her creativity and make sure even the app coordinates with her theme. She can choose color swatches, add music selections linked to iTunes, create an unlimited number of guest polls to ask anything from “What should we eat?” to “Who will catch the garter?” There are scores of designs to suit every wedding style. And of course, you might want to get in on the action too…

Appy Couple makes communicating with guests easier and more fun as well. You can shoot out a save-the-date to everyone as you add them to the guest list, and send an email about how to join your wedding on the Appy Couple app. The system is built to handle it, so you don’t have to bcc hundreds of people.

Guests can upload pictures to the app in real-time during events. That means no headaches trying to get all the photos together after the fact. They can shop the registry with a tap, add events to their calendars, RSVP without using a stamp and map their way while on-the-go.

The app is always free for guests. And although there will soon be a one-time setup fee for couples, right now, Appy Couple is in invitation-only mode… and they’re offering GroomsAdvice readers the chance to get it free using this code: GASP1.

The only catch is that they really want your honest feedback about the service. So head over to appycouple.com, use your GroomsAdvice code & let them know what you think.

share wedding photos app

communcate with guests wedding application

iphone mobile wedding application

appy couple is a sponsor of the man registry’s groomsadvice blog

Do you know anyone who’s used a mobile app to help plan their wedding? What function of Appy Couple would you find most useful? Let us know in the comment section below.

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