 Marriage Meander |
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PAMPER PARTIES - An excerpt from Ring Bound Weddings Whether you choose to call the celebration held in honour of the Bride before her wedding a Pamper Party, Bridal Shower, Hen’s Party or Bachelorette Party, the tradition of hosting this party is of Dutch origin. If a father did not approve of his daughter’s choice of husband and refused a dowry, friends would get together to shower the Bride with all that she would need for her married life. Now friends assist the Bride by bringing small gifts and advice to furnish each area of her married life – favourite recipes with ingredients and utensils for the kitchen, seeds, plants and gardening implements for the garden, lingerie, beauty products and fragrances for the bedroom. Today many Brides don’t marry until their late twenties of early thirties. As such there is more disposable income for elaborate get togethers with girlfriends and because the bride is more mature, the days of her wearing tampons on her ears and been sent to beg at the street corner are very last decade! The best parties can just be a night in with a DVD and her best friends. Here are a few ideas: Mendhi Ritual: Hire a henna artist to decorate everyone’s hands and feet with beautiful henna artwork. While waiting for the colour to dry sit, chat, enjoy snacks and your choice of beverages! The longer you keep still, the darker the colour, the darker the colour, the more loving the husband! The Bride’s hands and feet are to be the most beautifully adorned! Creative Crockery: Hold a party at a ceramic studio, decorate a set of special plates with dates and hearts to mark the occasion. Angel Reading: Have an Angel Card reader to join you for an evening of love divination and discovery. Spa Day: Lie back and be pampered. Many Spas run bride-to-be packages for brides and their retinues. These are fabulously decadent days where you will be able to enjoy a tailor made package to include your favorite Spa treatments. Pampering Pedicures: Book a team of Manicurists and Pedicurists to come in and do Manicures and Pedicures on everyone. Alternately purchase the products and do Manicures and Pedicures on one another! Pyjama Party: Bring teddy bears and pyjamas, tell ghost stories, have pillow fights and a midnight feast! Pluck one another’s eyebrows, paint your nails, have curlers in your hair and apply face masks!! Stay up until dawn and watch girly movies: • Grease Sensual Goddess: The is more and more of a trend of hiring a professional lap dancer or pole dancer to attend the Pamper Party and to teach the girls a few moves guaranteed to delight their partner! These women are well trained and know just how to put everyone at ease, ensuring that the evening is lots of fun and that everyone learns a new skill! By learning to lap dance or pole dance women learn to celebrate their sexuality and sensuality. Belly Dancing: Belly Dancing is also a fabulous way of celebrating the female form and what’s more it is great exercise! A Belly Dancing instructor will bring fabulous, decadent veils in beautiful colours, with varying textures and colours, including coins and beads to shimmy while you shake! It is such fun to adorn yourself in these traditional garments and what’s better is that belly dancing celebrates the voluptuous figure!! For a more traditional Pamper Party where everyone is invited including moms, aunts, grans and cousins, here are a few ideas for themed Pamper Parties: • Picnic: Pack a picnic basket and enjoy an afternoon out at a park or lake, bring gifts such as Tupperware, Leisure Items – beach towels, outdoor cushions, bamboo garden lights, beach radio, and picnic blankets. THE BACHELOR PARTY Undoubtedly one of the most notorious, controversial issues around the build up to the wedding. The Bachelor Party often leaves the Groom feeling green at the gills with amnesia (alcohol induced or by choice) and the Bride in fits of tears (present company included – I went so far as to uninvite guests) or in a jealous rage. Urban legends tell tales of Grooms being chained naked to robots on busy intersections, being put onto trains wearing little more than underwear and with nothing else than a phone card to phone home, night before parties where the Groom – in his drunken, amnesia induced state, has his arm set in a cast at a right angle – recorded forever in the wedding photos, only to be told afterwards that his arm isn’t broken and it was all just Bachelor Party antics! These are not ideas!!!! What you need to take from this is to schedule the Bachelor Party at least two weeks ahead of the Wedding so that the Groom looks and feels his best and that time has lapsed for a “cooling off or forgiveness” period – after all time heals! The Bachelor Party is going to go ahead, it is an integral part of the pre wedding process. There is most certainly going to be alcohol, ensure that the Best Man organizing the Bachelor Party first and foremost pays special attention to the issues around drinking and driving. There are many novel, fun and safe ways of getting around this. You can hire a Limo, Luxury Chauffeured Vehicles, Party Busses or hire in professionals and take advantage of their organizational skills. There are companies that will arrange for transport, entrance to a club on their books (a night club or adult club), seating in the VIP area, snacks, drinks and entertainment. They also offer themed options such as whiskey tasting and cigar presentation etiquette. Alternately there is always the boys weekend away! The boys pack their fishing gear and head off for the nearest dam or river. How much fishing actually gets done is questionable!
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