We are so excited about our upcoming fashion shows and all the great bridal fashion you will see. We’ve got plenty of wedding gowns and even more bridal gowns to show you! We’ve got fabulous bridal up do’s, amazing bridal makeup and lots of bridal bling. You can catch all the bridal gown fashion by picking up a copy of 2012 Bridal Fantasy Magazine on stands or at our shows! Visit our BF TV to catch the latest trends for weddings in 2012!

Bridal Fantasy Calgary - Hotel Arts

Bridal Fantasy Calgary - The Ranche

Bridal Fantasy Edmonton - Wellingtons Garden Centre

Bridal Fantasy Edmonton - Le Belle Arti

If you live in or around Calgary and are looking for a unique and attractive wedding venue, look no further. The Hyatt Regency in Calgary is a stunning hotel that offers extensive wedding planning services and beautiful rooms for receptions.

Whether you are planning a small reception of 35 guests, or a large one of up to 1800 guests, the Hyatt Regency in Calgary has a room to suit your needs. They offer a number of different wedding packages and cover everything from hors d’oeuvres and personalized decorations to a wedding cake and a dance floor. The packages are designed to allow the couple to have exactly what they want. If you need a hand picking a vendor for flowers, music, or photography, just ask. They can even handle the stress for you by making the arrangements themselves. If you have dietary restrictions on your menu or if you even want your guests to each pick their own entrée, no problem.

The hotel boasts modern and elegant decor and architecture, which will be certain to impress you and your guests. If you feel the need to indulge yourself during your stay, try out the Still-water Spa-the only full-service hotel spa in Calgary.

Wedding planning can be stressful, no matter how big of a reception you are looking at. The Hyatt Regency wedding packages are perfect for that couple who is looking for a beautiful reception venue, accommodation for their guests, and minimal stress. Why spend your time over the small stressful details when someone else can do it for you?

Photos Courtesy of Hyatt Regency Calgary

Let them eat cake…

So, you’ve gone through the ceremony - everyone has ooh’d and awe’d at your gorgeous dress and perfectly-fitting flower arrangements. What’s the next thing they look to be wowed by? Your cake!

You have so many amazing options for cakes today. You can go classic with a tiered tower cake, go vogue with some cupcakes, or even go off-the-tracks with alternative ideas.

If you want to go with the traditional tiered beauties, you have a few options. You have the option of white - or vanilla - cake. This is a pretty classic and safe choice; most people enjoy white cake, even if it’s not their favourite. If you want to be a little more daring, chocolate cake is another option you have. It makes a bit of a bolder statement. Red velvet is a very romantic choice. Red, being the colour of love, can be a symbol of your new marriage, as well as accentuate your elegant, yet exciting new chapter of your life together. Marble cakes, as well as carrot cakes are also very common today.
However, it is always classy to have white icing - no matter what kind of cake you have. This way, if you get any on you when you’re smearing it all over your new spouses face, your dress won’t get stained as easily! Plus, colour accents look great on white icing - whether it be flowers or just a neat design, the colour will pop on a white background. Stick with either a buttercream or a sugar-base icing, or cream cheese for carrot cake or even for red velvet.

Cupcakes are very in recently - it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing a cupcake shop somewhere! Cupcakes are a fun option because you can get many different kinds of cakes - white, chocolate, red velvet, marble - and everyone can choose what they like. You can also have different colours of icing on each cupcake, adding a bit of pop to your dessert table.

It’s pretty hard to argue that cake isn’t an integral part of a wedding…but who says you have to have cake? I recently went to a wedding where there was no cake, but Croquembouche. Croquembouche is a French dessert of cream-filled pastries in the form of a cone, drizzled in some kind of topping - usually chocolate or caramel, sometimes even just sugar. It was delicious!

Photo Courtesy of Paul Swanson

Another alternative could be a candy bar. This is growing in popularity, especially for young couples. Having a table set up with your favourite candies can be a lot of fun for your guests. Even adding a cotton candy machine into the mix could give your wedding an edge. Some couples still tend to get a small cake when they have something like this - just for them and the wedding party - just to have those traditional cake photos and moments. But it’s not necessary; it’s up to you!

If you live in the Edmonton area, here are some great places to check out for your wedding cake needs!

Whimsical Cupcakes - Best buttercream icing I’ve ever tasted!

Fuss Cupcakes - They only do cupcakes here, but they’re delicious.

Bee-Bell Bakery - This is a great place to get flourless cakes as well!

I was not one of those little girls who played out her dream wedding with dolls or who knew what kind of dress she wanted since the age of 5. I never really thought about my wedding until I got engaged on December 23, 2008. Then, it hit me: I was going to have a wedding and I was going to have to plan it. Of course, I didn’t start planning it until 8 months ago because I wanted to enjoy being engaged for awhile first.

Planning things is a gift of mine, so I didn’t think it was going to be too difficult. I immediately started making lists and felt that these would keep me in check. They did not. I did not realize that wedding planning takes more than lists and that it encompasses using a vast amount of social etiquette.

This first thing that we decided was the date. Since my fiancé and I met on December 23, 2006, and he proposed 2 years later exactly, we went with December 23, 2011. A date that would eventually cause a number of dramatic issues. We chose this date because it was and is important to us. It will mark our 5 year anniversary together since the cold, snowy, December evening that we met. Simple enough, with a touch of romance and sentiment.

The second thing we discussed was the location. I am a Maritimer, born and raised in a small community in Nova Scotia where most of my family still lives. My fiancé, on the other hand, has lived in Alberta all his life. Now came the question of which family was going to have to fly across the country right before Christmas. Since I am rather frugal, and because I did not want a large wedding, we decided to have the wedding in Alberta to save ourselves the cost of flying and having to put our three pets in a kennel for a week. Besides, after looking into what it would take for me to plan a wedding in Nova Scotia while living in Alberta, I decided that I am rather fond of my sanity.

Then came telling everyone. With such a small wedding, we didn’t do invitations, we just sort of called them and casually mentioned that they were invited to our wedding that was a few months away.

That was an adventure on its own. Not only was I asking my family to fly here, I was asking them to do it just before Christmas. The response to that idea was, “Why so close to Christmas?”, “Won’t it be too cold?”, “Can’t you change the date?”. The date and location have caused a sort of snowball effect in our wedding planning, as you can imagine. But, we stuck to what was important to us. We have made some changes to our initial idea in order to accommodate our guests, but only to a certain extent.

Some people choose their date based on the availability of the venue, some people choose it based on a statutory holiday, some people simply pick a date at random. You have to decide what is important to you and your fiancé and work from there. If the venue is more important than the date you get married on, get it when you can. If you want your guests from out of town to have more travel time, plan it around a holiday. Whatever your reasoning behind the date, make sure that it is your own. You are allowed to be at least a bit selfish when it comes to your wedding, so use that while you can.

It’s hard to realize that chair covers have become a staple for most weddings and the options are endless. The Bridal Fantasy Group has found some of the latest styles inspire to you.

If your venue already has great looking chairs, but you want to glam them up, these two options are for you.

If you love flowers, try something like this. The asymmetrical adds whimsical flare!

A bit of extra shine is great for winter weddings. This cover goes well with a metallic colour scheme.

A bridal gown inspired look. This gorgeous chair cover is perfect for a Cinderella wedding.

This chair cover is classy and elegant. It its especially helpful if the chairs given to you at your venue are unattractive or beaten up. The touch of sparkle at the back makes this simple design more glamorous.

All chair covers and images courtesy of Dress My Day