Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Spread the Love on Your Wedding Day

I love the idea of celebrating your love by giving back to the community on your wedding day. There are several organizations set up to help you do this. Here are a few:

* idofoundation.org Offers a "charity registry" (you register with charities you'd like your guests to donate to, in lieu of gifts). It also allows you to register with I Do Foundation's partners ( ex. Target). Up to 10% of guests' gift purchases from these partner stores will be donated to your selected charity. These donations are made at no additional cost to you or your guests.

Donate left-over food from your reception to secondharvest.org/foodbanks

Even though you insist that you picked dresses that your bridesmaids can "wear again"--they probably won't. Encourage your friends to donate their dresses to organizations that provide free prom dresses to high school girls that cannot otherwise afford them. Here are 3 such organizations:

* princessproject.org

* safeinsacramento.org - Cinderella's Closet

* glassslipperproject.org

Encore Bridal also donates a portion of our profits from every sale to charities that support cervical cancer research and education.

Now don't you feel good?!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

A Kick *%#@! Exercise Routine

Brides, if you really want to get in shape for your wedding day, I have a recommendation for you. About a year and a half ago my husband decided that he was going to take the summer off of work and spend it getting into shape. He joined a training facility in Hermosa Beach called VERT (Velocity Exercise Resistance Training). Three days a week he'd come back from VERT looking like he just tried to do a marathon in 60min. The entire summer this was all he could talk about. He'd rehash his workouts each day (to my boredom) and then ask me several times.. "can you do this?", "how many can you do of these?". At the time, I'd been running for awhile, just finished 2 triathalons (1 sprint distance and 1 olympic) and thought I was in pretty good shape. So I decided to give this VERT a try. Well, 15min into my trial session I was lying on the floor not sure if I was going to vomit or faint. 20min later I stumbled out the door and went home. My pride hurt, I refused to go back until a few months ago. I started off completing 30min sessions and worked my way up to 60min. It is by far the most challenging work-out I've ever done with the quickest results. I usually leave feeling completely energized by the fact that I was able to get through the hour. So if you live in the westside/southbay and you want to get in the best shape of your life for your wedding day may I suggest http://www.vertfitness.com/.