Atlantic City & Beach Themes – Atlantic City is a great place to get married and offers a variety of great themes to choose from: casinos and gambling, a historical seaside resort, the Monopoly board game or a simple beach theme. You could tie-in aspects of all of these or play up one aspect.

For an historic Atlantic City theme you could use old photographs or postcards of Atlantic City. For one wedding, a couple was planning to name each table after a famous landmark or event in Atlantic City history such as The Harlem Club, The 500 Club, the Diving Horse, Heinz Pier, Steel Pier, Miss America, etc. They were also planning to enlarge old postcards and photos of Atlantic City and place them on the buffet and cake tables. Each couple in the wedding party was rolled in to the reception on a rolling chair as they were announced. They also kept a rolling chair available the photographer to take black and white photos of their wedding guests.

Table Names – Your table names could also be named after casinos, casino games such as Blackjack and Poker, Monopoly board Streets, historical hotels like the Chalfonte or local beaches. One couple married at The Smithville Inn had their photos taken on different beaches standing in front of or sitting inside the lifeguard boats that say Ventnor. Brigantine, Margate, Ocean City, etc. The photos were part of each table centerpiece along with hurricane lanterns, with a candle and scattered rose petals. For the place card seating arrangements, guests were assigned to beaches – Ventnor, Margate, Longport etc.

Centerpieces – A fun centerpiece one couple used for a beach themed wedding was a vase filled with a plant and a beta fish. Seashells and sand can also work together with traditional flowers. Fill a large vase with the sand and shells and in the middle have a smaller vase to hold flowers or a candle. Your local florist will also have lots of unique ideas to help you work in your colors or theme.

Place Card Holders: Beach Flip Flop Place Card Holders and Sailboat Photo Frames are just a couple ideas.

Favors: Wedding favors have gone high-tech and the assortment of favors with a beach theme, or any theme, are endless! A few we’ve heard of that are cute for an Atlantic City theme include, beach pails filled with Salt Water Taffy, poker chip or slot machine candy. Tara Marsh, …..at The Sheraton Atlantic City, said one couple used message in a bottle place cards for a beach themed wedding. Sand dollar ornaments and candy that looks like beach stones are also fun ideas.

Gift Baskets: A popular trend is to leave gift baskets in the rooms of your special guests or bridal party members. Instead of using a basket, some brides are filling beach buckets with gift basket items such as Salt Water Taffy, seashell shaped soaps or chocolates, beach flip flops.

Wedding Cake & Toppers: Wedding Cake can be decorated with chocolate seashells and starfish or created to look like a sandcastle. Glass dolphins might make a nice topper.

Beach Ceremonies: If you’re holding a ceremony on the beach, here are five great ideas from Julie Forrest, Director of Special Events for the Flanders Banquet and Conference Center.

1. For a personal touch, provide your guests with his and her flips flops to wear onto the beach.

2. Provide beautiful baskets filled with monogrammed hand towels so guests can dust the sand off after the ceremony.

3. Use personalized sand sculptures for a unique aisle runner

4. Have your ceremony programs printed on decorative fans

5. Have a decorative sign printed announcing your wedding posted right in the sand to be seen as your guests come down onto the beach.

A theme for fall could be something as simple as incorporating fall colors into your decorations or something as more elaborate as a Country-Western style hoedown. Barns, hay bales, scarecrows and pumpkins all say fall and they're a prefect fit for other fall themes from Country Western to Halloween. For a Halloween theme you could go subtle with accent colors of black and orange or for more extravagant themes, check out some of the following ideas!

	White cowboy boots, a wedding dress with fringe, hay bales, pumpkins and square dancing could all make a fun fall theme. Favors could be small maple leaf candies or Vermont Maple Syrup. A buffet dessert table
could include apple cider and donuts. Fall mums and Asters in peach/apple baskets could be used as decorative accents or centerpieces. Flower arrangements in an assortment of fall colors would also work well for table centerpieces. Below are just a few ideas and a link to a wedding spotlight featuring many more great ideas for a country-western themed wedding!

Table Names – Your table names could be named after famous outlaws like Jesse James and Billy The Kid.  

Centerpieces – A western themed wedding featured in our spotlight made a cute centerpiece for the head table with cowboy boots.  They put a vase inside a cowboy boot and filled it with water and fresh flowers.

Place Card Holders: Horseshoe or Lasso place card holders are just a couple ideas. 

Favors: Cowboy hats, bandanas, western themed chocolates and miniature cactus plants are just a few ideas.

Music: Square dancing, line dancing, country music are all perfect fits

Sign in Board: For a sign in board you could have your photo placed inside a wanted poster border for a real western feel.  Go online for free graphics or stop by a print shop, graphics design shop for help putting one together.

Wedding Cake & Toppers: Yes - there are wedding cake toppers with a western theme including a bride roping in her groom.  

Halloween is a fun holiday and can make for an interesting, if not eerie, wedding reception. There are so many things you can do besides carved out pumpkins with a votive candle. A great place to get ideas, and craft instructions, is by picking up fall issues of women’s magazines like Better Homes & Gardens, Woman’s Day or Martha Stewart.

Decorations and Centerpieces: Luminaries are an interesting alternative to pumpkins. There are also new types of pumpkins in different textures and colors that can make interesting centerpieces. You could make a pumpkin bride and groom. Different women’s magazine out this fall showed pumpkins on stake decorated to look like people. You could make one a bride and one a groom. Pumpkins carved out with your initials or in elaborate designs are also popular. You could also use hollowed out pumpkins to hold a vase filled with fall flowers. Or, for a more elegant look, choose a candelabra centerpiece with flowers. A centerpiece could include dry ice. Orange or green glow sticks or accent bracelets might be a fun touch for guests.

Table Names – Each table could have names like The Jersey Devil, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, etc. Perhaps blow up some old movie posters of Bela Legosi, Lon Chaney to decorate your buffet tables.

Favors: Just a few ideas include trick or treat bags filled Candy Corn, pumpkin shaped cookies or candy or caramel apples.

Clothes: Guests can come in costume or request everyone wear black and/or orange. Bridesmaid’s could wear black gowns with orange or blood red accents. Groomsmen black tuxes with matching accents.

Wedding Cake: Use fall colors or orange flowers to accent your cake.

Disc Jockey suggestions: Some disc jockeys have fog machines that would be perfect for an eerie effect. Include songs such as Monster Mash and Thriller.

Start off your married life with the luck of the Irish! An Irish themed wedding can be fun and, I personally think, there is something quite magical about all things Irish. You may not choose to be married on St. Patty’s Day but there are lots of small things you can do to add an Irish element to your wedding including many elegant touches vs. a Lucky Charms elf look.

Ceremony Music: Harp – I can’t think of a more elegant Celtic tradition. Bagpipes and flute are also excellent choices and anything Enya-ish.

Dress: You can choose kelly green or gold dresses for your bridesmaids or opt for kelly green accents in your bridal party. Some bridal gowns include Celtic embroidery or you could choose a renaissance style gown with long flared sleeves.

Decorations: Chair covers could be accented with kelly green or gold bows.

Invitations and Calligraphy – For an Irish wedding, an Irish style of Calligraphy would be a great accent for your invitations. Invitations could include a Celtic design border. Book of Kells fonts or Oxford are just a few ideas for addressing your envelopes.

Favors: Irish Tea, chocolate shamrocks in kelly green foil or shamrock favor bags filled with mints are just a few ideas. Clover Garden Sprinkles was another interesting favor we ran across on the internet, however, many people think of it as a weed.

Irish Blessing Sign in Board: You could have a sign-in board with your names done in Calligraphy and an Irish Blessing printed under your names. Guests could sign the mat board if you wish.

A Renaissance Style Wedding can incorporate many elements of an Irish or Celtic wedding.  For a more medieval feel, keep the flute and harp music but add different touches to your decorations. Another musical suggestion would be to have bridal party entrances announced by a trumpeter. 

One couple hired Finishing Touch Designs to help them put together a knights in shining armor theme. While we only keep our spotlights for 2 years on the site, we’ve brought this one back out for this article because it was so unusual.

Believe…it or not – Christmas weddings are also becoming more popular. For starters, you can take advantage of the elaborate decorations that churches and reception sites already have in place for the holidays. Poinsettias, elaborately decorated Christmas trees, twinkling white lights make everything more festive.  You could also incorporate holiday decorations from other faiths and cultures from Hanukah to Kwanzaa.

Dress: A white wedding gown with fur lined sleeves or a bridal party all in red or gold is just one idea. One bride featured in a past wedding spotlight chose a red gown with fur lined sleeves.

Decorations: Chair covers could be accented with your favorite holiday colors, perhaps tied with holly and berries. Mistletoe, a must have, somewhere! White tablecloths with gold accents or accessories would look elegant. For a bolder statement – red tablecloths with white gold edged plates would look excellent as well.

Wedding Cake: A wedding cake can easily be made to look festive with holiday accents or snowflakes.

Centerpieces: Flowers in red and white, poinsettias, sleigh centerpieces with flowers or large hurricane style lanterns filled with ornaments and a center candle, a silver candelabra with red candles, pine and berry accents, red rose petals…the ideas are endless. Holiday issues of popular women’s magazines are also a great place to find ideas. Everyone’s looking for a special holiday centerpiece so don’t limit yourself to bridal magazines and websites for ideas!

Invitations and Calligraphy – Christmas invitations abound and hand or computer calligraphy are the perfect touch to make it appear that your invites came from St. Nick!

Favors: Christmas ornaments are one of the more meaningful favors you can choose. However, keep in mind your guests, most likely, will be a melting pot of faith and not everyone celebrates Christmas. Other fun ideas include anything edible from chocolates to Gingerbread Men.

Music: Throw in some holiday music for added fun and perhaps give thought to a favorite carol you may share as a couple.

Also check out: Christmas Themed Wedding Spotlight

Love it or hate it – Mickey’s big, Disney’s big and so are Disney weddings and honeymoons! In fact, Disney recently launched it’s own line of wedding dresses fashioned after their fairy tale icon Cinderella. And face it, who wouldn’t want to be treated like a Princess? And not just for your wedding day but for the rest of your life as well! Well, if you’ve found Prince Charming you’re almost there. Here are a few more ideas to transform your wedding into a fairytale ala Disney!

Music: "When You Wish Upon a Star…" corny but fun.  A trumpeter or the king's brass would be a great accent for the ceremony music and to announce the bridal party entrances!

Dress: Cinderella style gowns can be found without going through Disney. Most bridal stores do carry gowns that have that ballroom, Cinderella style. Bring photos of styles that appeal. For more on the official Disney gowns …here’s the site: www.disneybridal.com

Decorations: Chair covers could be accented with kelly green or gold bows.

Wedding Cake: For a wedding cake you could have a Cinderella Coach or a Cinderella Castle. Some bakers do unique designs. With a more traditional cake top it with Mickey and Minnie or Cinderella and Prince Charming bride and grooms.

Invitations, Calligraphy and Programs: Disney wedding invitation designs abound so finding the perfect invite should be a cinch. For calligraphy or programs you could use a font called Mickey or maybe an Art Deco such as Century Gothic. Note there are also fan programs in the shape of Mickey’s ears!

Favors: Cinderella Coach favors are a popular favorite for Disney Other ideas include…..

Place card Holders: Cinderella Coach placecard holders, Disney frame holders, mini-castles, magic wands, think about Disney and the ideas will keep popping.

Tables: Table names could be the names of favorite Disney Characters – Cinderella, Pinocchio, Pluto and Mickey. You could also choose resort names or ride names – Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Space Mountain or Soarin.

Transportation – You can rent a Cinderella carriage to take you to the church. Quite pricey since we don’t know of any local companies that offer this service. Some brides have hired companies out of New York City.

Honeymoon: Round out your Disney-fairytale-inspired wedding with a trip to Disney World for your Honeymoon!