shola, Author at Blockbuster Bride

These Unique Wedding Gift Ideas Will Have you Rethinking Your Registry

These days many couples live together well before their wedding dates. For the couple, it makes coming up with a registry list much more intensive and for the wedding guest, this makes buying wedding gifts a little harder – the couple will most likely have all those basic pots and pans that a traditional wedding registry is designed to help provide. That´s why many modern registries act more like a collective envelope where the couple can gather the guests´ monetary “gifts,” rather than physical items. With these types of registries, married-couples-to-be can opt to direct the cash they receive towards things that would be more useful to the couple in this day and age. Sites like Zankyou help these couples find alternative ways to invest the money that their guests give them – think of it like crowd funding tailored to personally fit you. Here are five suggestions that will make you rethink a traditional registry.

1. Dream Honeymoon

Have you been dreaming about some escaping to some exotic locale for your honeymoon, but can´t afford to after all the wedding costs? Well, with cash gift list services like Zankyou, your guests can fund that dream honeymoon! If you feel uncomfortable to put the whole honeymoon on your registry, customize it to include smaller details: a romantic meal in Paris, a visit to Disney World or a snorkeling trip in the Great Barrier Reef. You can also list different stages of a world tour and allow your guests to fund your exploration of Europe, Asia, South America, or Africa. The world is your oyster!

Jorge-Nazareth-of-Gavila-Fotografia.jpg

2. Dream Car

Often the bride and groom exit the church under a shower of rice and petals, lovingly kiss their friends and family farewell and then hop into a beautiful car tagged “Just Married” and drive off with a trail of cans dragging behind. The gorgeous cars are usually rented, but what if you could drive away in your dream set of wheels completely funded by the guests who just showered you with rice and confetti? Beats those monogrammed guest toilette towels, don´t you think?

KT-Merry-Photography.jpg

3. Home Improvements

A home is never finished – there´s always some type of improvement that nags at our conscience. The couch has seen better days, the TV could always be bigger or perhaps you’ve always wanted a home theater, maybe your kitchen needs to be updated, or your house re-painted, the yard would look so much better with a gazebo or just some landscaping – and the list goes on. You may not need an extra Panini grill, but cash contributions from your guests that will allow you to shape up your home exactly as you want are a great modern twist on the traditional wedding registry.

Dottie Photography

4. Future Planning

Is your future burdened by a student loan or a mortgage hanging over your head? It’s hard to look forward when you feel as though you’re already financially chained, but there’s where your guests can help you, too! A cash gift can help relieve some of that burden and get you closer to financial freedom. If you’re looking to the future perhaps you’re hoping to save a little extra money to help with the down payment on a dream home, or to help secure a college fund for your future children. Whatever it may be, we guarantee your guests will feel all the more happy knowing they’ve given you a gift that keeps giving.

5. Give Back

Who doesn´t like receiving gifts? Gifts are awesome. It´s very easy to get carried away with receiving them, especially when you´re getting exactly what you want; however, do you really need them? Opt for another wonderful option and pay it forward and offer guests the option to donate to a charity of your choice and to give to those who are truly in need.

What do you think of these unique ideas from Zankyou for your own registry?

It’s out! Listen to us on Save the Date podcast

So it’s out! If you want to hear a bit more about how we started off at Blockbuster Bride and find out about how to book your wedding music for a day to remember, listen here! The amazing Aleisha McCormack, funny woman, author and wedding podcaster was a delightful interviewer and we were chuffed to be featured earlier on this week.

http://savethedatepodcast.com/2015/03/wedding-music-get-it-right-to-make-your-night/

Interview on Save The Date podcast!

It was so much fun being interviewed on the Save The Date podcast this afternoon by the uber-talented Aleisha McCormack (TV presenter, comedienne, author, podcaster…you name it!) We chatted about wedding entertainment in general and the conversation ranged from how to choose your wedding band all the way to naming a couple of the current wedding floor-filler tracks.

Leish and I met at a wedding industry event earlier this year and ended up becoming networking buddies for the evening. I’ve never been the most skilled networker, I often find it stressful having to meet so many new people in a short space of time, so it was great having her there to touch base with throughout the event.

Hopefully the podcast will be released before the end of the month. We also wrote a jingle for Leish’s podcast and are looking forward to hearing that ‘on air’ too!

Our first giveaway

Wow, really excited to announce our first competition! The prize is a fully bespoke song written especially for YOU. It’s our intention to have a giveaway running once a month to give couples a chance to sample what we do and also to help out those who perhaps are on a tight budget and wouldn’t normally consider a custom song. Also, we’re now working with some new writers, mainly male acoustic guitar singer-songwriters with a folky/indie edge. So depending on what kind of song the winning entrant selects, maybe we’ll soon have a great folk-tinged love song to play on the site.

The competition is really easy to enter. You’ll be asked to fill out a short form so we can learn a bit more about your musical tastes, then just like our Facebook page and you’re done!

We’ll interview the winner on Skype and by email and they can use the song for their photos, video or anything else they can think of!

Afternoon at the Excel Wedding Show

This afternoon I popped over to the Excel Wedding Show with a good friend of mine. Unfortunately the DLR wasn’t working so we had to drive. I’d have tried to get over there earlier but I’d had a gig last night, singing support for platinum selling artist, X-Factor runner up and Eurovision singer Andy Abraham (who was absolutely lovely!) and then was up at bright and early to watch the Australian Open final.

Once we made it to Excel it was a fun afternoon full of conversations with suppliers. Then during the latter part of our day Cris (spelled the Spanish way) and I sat and enjoyed the fashion show. It was quite an eye opener comparing notes on the various dresses. Hmmm, we both liked vintage but not the one with the feathered skirt…the blush coloured gown was a unanimous hit etc etc. Well done to the models for their super-quick changes and to the various wedding dress stores for their striking gowns.

I also got to chat with some great wedding video companies who were keen to speak with us some more about using our bespoke songs for their work. Fabulous!!

Our fabulous intern, Carley

This week we’d like to welcome our intern Carley, who’s travelled all the way from Ithaca, New York, to be with us. Over the next four months Carley will be helping us with our social media, marketing and research. She also has great experience in media and photography. Carley is a very talented young lady and has already made some great contributions to the company so we’re delighted that she chose us for her internship!

Karaoke loving couple – video about to go live!

So we’re about ready to put out our next video. This is a fun one featuring upbeat couple Helen and Graeme who met at karaoke. As a taster, here are the lyrics of the song:

Our wedding day

We met at the local karaoke night

And he said he fancied my blonde mate

But as time went on it felt so right

And one day he asked me on our first date

I couldn’t wait until every Thursday night came

Cos I would see him singing on the karaoke stage

We’d send messages back and forth on Facebook

And very soon I knew that he had got me hooked

Falling in love didn’t take that long

He showed me pictures of his cat, Bob

Dinner at Pitch’s and we knew that was it

It was special, it was fun, it was the perfect fit

It’s time to celebrate our love

Gonna drink, gonna dance, gonna party all the way

Thank you! We love you very much

So glad to have you here on our wedding day!!

So Graeme and Helen say

So glad to have you here on our wedding day

I won’t forget the day that Graeme popped the question

Cos we were sitting in the Druid Arms in Maidstone

He set it up so the band asked him to sing

And then he pulled out my engagement ring!

We bought a house and we were terrified

Cos I’m so messy while he loves neat piles

And though our home is a real do-upper

All my dreams have come true I’ve found the perfect lover

So it’s time to celebrate our love

Gonna drink, gonna dance, gonna party all the way

Thank you! We love you very much

So glad to have you here on our wedding day!!

Prepping the next song – Pilot

I had a great afternoon editing the music for one of our next couples. This one’s a romantic ballad and we hired an awesome pianist called Rodger, based in Nashville, to record the grand piano for us. He has such a wonderful talent for the instrument that you actually forget that it’s just a single piano playing…it sounds like a whole orchestra. In honour of his fantastic musicianship the featured pic is of the Nashville Skyline.

Launch!!!

So here we are a few months later with songs written and produced. A staff writer in place. Session musicians hired and music producers hard at work. An intern flying in from the USA to work with us for the next three months.

Our video editor has pored over images and carefully matched them up with the song lyrics to tell these love stories in the most touching way.

Now we need you, the bridal community, to help us craft Blockbuster Bride into a company that serves you in the best way we can. Over the next month we’ll be reaching out to brides, grooms, bloggers, photographers, wedding planners, and suppliers. We’d love your feedback on the concept and on how we can make it better.

We want you to laugh and cry as you watch your video. It’s your very own blockbuster with you in the starring role. We’d love it to be so compelling that you can’t wait to share it with wedding guests, friends and family.

And if YouTube still exists when you’re old and grey, it would make us *really* happy to hear you were still playing it from time to time. And of course singing along to the chorus with your children and grandchildren.

And if YouTube should go down the tubes? Don’t worry, we give you your very own hard copy too!!

Meeting with Neverland Photography

I also wanted to get a professional photographer on board to help us kick things off and Linda Scuizzato from neverlandphotography.com seemed perfect. Not only are her photos wonderful but she writes a blog on all the couples she works with. She has a very friendly approach and gets to know the couples really well. This meant she had plenty of great information that we could use to write songs to go with her photos.

I’d first met Linda at a business networking meeting and we’d kept in touch. We linked up for a coffee in Notting Hill and a few days after that I popped over to her studio in Southfields.

I was completely spoiled for choice as she had so many amazing sets of photos but I eventually narrowed it down to 4 couples. The visuals gave me some immediate ideas for song titles and I came away really happy.