Wedding and family

A wedding is the symbol of the creation of a new family. It's a celebration of the love that two people have for each other, their common goals and happiness. A wedding is a new beginning, the beginning of two people joining their lives together to share all what is to come.

Photo from www,brides.com

Naturally, the wedding is all about the couple that is getting married. Still, that does not mean, that your family, especially your parents, don't wish to get involved in your special day. It is really nice to have your mother, the original wedding planner, to help you organize your wedding, but the generation gap can make this task a bit difficult at times, and stressful. Still, there are ways to make your parents and siblings feel involved in the wedding planning process, without any unnecessary disagreements.

Family traditions:

When it comes to weddings, every family has its own traditions. It can be wearing the same wedding dress your mother, grand-mother, grand-grand-mother etc., wore on their wedding day, or putting on a piece of jewelry or charm, which has been passed from generation to generation, or even the choice of the entrance song when walking down the aisle. Take some time to speak with your parents, and your future spouse's parents, to learn about the interesting traditions that have been in the family. Your parents will love it, and will feel like they offered something to the wedding.

Wedding attire shopping:

Photo from bridalmusings.com

A wedding requires a wedding dress and a wedding suit, meaning that you will have to look for one. When starting to look for your wedding attire, ask your mother, and if you feel comfortable, your future mother-in-law's opinion, on the wedding dresses that you like. Even better, take your mother and mother-in-law with you, when you go wedding dress shopping! Not only you will make your mothers feel part of your wedding, but you will also give them a chance to bond.

The same goes for the groom. Arrange a day with your father and future father-in-law, during which you will go looking for your wedding suit. Combine that with a lunch or a beer, and you will get a great, meaningful day with your parents.

Speeches:

Speeches are the ultimate way to make you family be part of the wedding. Ask the fathers to prepare a speech for the wedding. They will love to talk about their lovely children, tell some funny stories, and share a word of wisdom for your freshly beginning life together, as husband and wife.

Mother-Son and Father-Daughter dance:

Every couple has its first dance. Such a lovely moment to witness! Want to make it an even more special moment? Have a mother-son and father-daughter dance, before your first dance. The mother-son and father-daughter dance, can represent how your beloved parents are giving you away to your future life-partner, by having one last dance with you. To make it even more touching, have the father-daughter/mother-son dances together, at the same time, and then let your parents give you to your spouse for the first dance.

Photo from weddingbee.com

Old Photos:

Photos are a great way to memorize our life moments. By looking at older photographs, we dive into our past, our happy moments. Your parents probably tried to capture a lot of your childhood moments, so they could always remember the days of your youth. Create a "memory table", full with pictures of you with your family. Everyone will love seeing your childhood adventures, and your parents will be moved that you chose to include your family moments to your wedding. To make it even more special for your parents, include a picture from their wedding to the table, as without their wedding, you wouldn’t be having yours!

Thank them!

Of course, the best way to make your parents feel a great part of your wedding day is to thank them properly for everything they have done for you so far. They've supporter you all your life, transferred their life wisdom to you, were next to you at your worst and best moments. Also, they probably helped you have the wedding of your dreams. So, don't forget to dedicate a minute to thanking them during the speeches. They will appreciate it!

Thank you very much for reading! I wish you a lovely day!

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Random Saturday #15: Let's talk about horses!

Hello my dear Readers,

Welcome ones again to my Random Saturday. Hope you have all been well this week and I'm glad to see you again, and if you're visiting Random Saturdays for the first time, nice to meet you.

This R.S. I would like to talk about an animal that I love and admire with all my heart and soul - horses! I've started working full time at the Santo Horse Riding ranch, and as a result I've been meeting more and more people, who either wish to go to a trail ride, take a picture on a horse, or impress their friends or girlfriend with how good riders they are.

Worth noting, that two out of two persons, who came to us just o impress their friends/girlfriend, did not know a thing about horses, and wouldn't listen to me, when I tried to tell them that they cannot just take a horse and run, without first learning how sit straight on a walking horse! Thankfully, we didn't have any bad incidents.

So, let's talk about horses.

The first and most important thing to remember about horses, is that they are live animals, they have their own brains, which means they have their own thoughts. Each horse has its own character, and just like you and me, they have their bad days and good days (yes, it's true!). Treat horses with respect, especially if you don't want to get hurt by them!

A lot of people think that riding a horse is the easiest activity in the world. Yes, it is not really hard when you are just going for a walk, on a well trained horse, that has been desensitized to everything that can scare it, accompanied by an experiences rider. But if you want to run on a horse, and you've never done it before, don't just assume that you will do fantastically great! If you really want to run on a beautiful white horse on a beach, invest time (and money) into horse riding lessons!

Don't use the horse, as a way to impress your friends and boyfriend/girlfriend… unless of course you are a great rider and can do amazing things on and with the horse. Don't just go to ranch, asking for the wildest horse there is, to ride it freely in an open field!! Do you even realize what will happen to the owner of the ranch if you fall down and get hit real bad? And I'm not talking about a broken hand… Just… don't do it…

You should also know, that the horse does not really care how cool you believe you are. If you cannot control the horse, if you hurt the horse too much, and if you don't do what your instructor is telling you do, you will most probably, like 70-90%, fall of the horse. Wanting to impress someone by riding a wild horse without having any riding experience in the past, is like wanting to impress someone by break-dancing without knowing how to do it! In both cases, you'll just end up making a fool of yourself…

Want to impress your girlfriend or boyfriend, with something that has to do with horses? Ask him or her to start horseback riding lessons together! After all, it is not bad admitting that you don't know how to do something…

I guess that has been bottling up…

Never go behind the horses hind legs, especially if you don't know the horse. All horses kick, some of them on purpose, because they don't trust people, some of them because a nasty fly has been bugging them, and you were standing too close to the back leg that was trying to get rid of the fly at the wrong moment.

Horses used for tourist rides, don't mind being pet… they might not enjoy it as much as we (want to) believe, but they don't mind it. Don't start pulling on the horses ears, nose, main though…. they will mind and will show it in a painful way.

Horses love treats, so if you plan visiting a ranch or horse riding center, you can bring an apple or a carrot with you. Before giving the horse a treat thought, ask its owner if he/she doesn't mind you doing so.

Horses feel everything!! I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Sometimes they know better what you feel, that yourself! I don't mean feelings like love, passion, hunger, but feelings that fear, insecurity, anger. You might be able to hide your panic from your trainer, but you will never hide it from the horse you are riding. Better inform you trainer that you don't feel really comfortable on the horse, so he or she could help you overcome that fear, before the horse bucks you of.

Horses are amazing, smart and beautiful animals. Be gentle with a horse, and it will reward you with all its trust. J

That's I felt I wanted to share with you about horses!

As always, thank you very much for reading! I wish you all the best!

And the song of the week will be:

Random Saturday #14