I was just told about this website www.wedinator.com. Just when you think you’ve seen it all………

Thursday, July 8th, from 5-8 pm at The Church Landing in Meredith, NH LAKES will hold the third annual LAKEFEST. Participants of the event will enjoy live music from the SPAIN BROTHERS, a live auction and delectable food from an assortment of food vendors. Please visit www.nhlakes.org to purchase tickets to the event. Tickets are $50 each or two for $75.

Don’t be intimidated by terms such as ” off premises caterer” or outside caterer. These terms simply refer to catering companies that operate out of an independent kitchen and travel to different venues to provide their services.

http://mamesrestaurant.com/

http://thecmaninn.com/

Do consider table visits during your reception. It is a grand display of appreciation and respect when the bride and groom spend a few moments visiting their guests at each table.

www.thecinderellaprojectofnh.org

603-210-1415

Need a place for that Bride’s Maids dress you ’swore you would find something to wear it to’ but never have? Look into donating it to this organization that provides (FOR FREE) gently worn dresses for teens who can’t otherwise afford one. How exciting to know you have contributed to ‘the night of their dreams’ and freed up some closet space for you.

How much does a wedding cost these days? When you include the engagement ring, photography, dress, honeymoon and flowers, the total can really add up…fast. On average, couples spend about $22,000 to make their wedding dreams come true.

Of course, you can spend as little or as much as you want—what you’re really looking for is a memorable occasion that will carry you into a happy marriage. Financial planner Jean Chatzky teams up with wedding planners and recent brides to share money-saving secUse a wedding budget calculator (you can find them online) to figure out how much should be spent on each expense. Then, start saving for the big day.

Twelve to 18 months in advance of the wedding day, figure out as accurately as you can what it’s going to cost you. Divide the total by the number of paychecks you’ll get before then and start automatically shuttling that much money into savings. You can even open a separate savings account if it’ll help you keep your fingers off!rets and splurge-worthy purchases.

Celebrity wedding planner David Tutera and Carley Roney, co-founder and editor in chief of online wedding resource The Knot, recommend that every engaged couple overbudget for a wedding.

When you’re allocating the money, make sure to reserve about 10 percent in case you go over—it is very likely that you will.

Don’t blow your budget on custom invitations. Rather than hiring someone to address the envelopes by hand, save a bundle by using computerized calligraphy. Splurge on good paper instead.

Flower costs can add up quickly. Lower your florist bill by opting for low centerpieces, which are half the price as tall flower arrangements. Plus, guests actually prefer this less expensive option! Low centerpieces allow talking across the table with no trouble.

Consider a destination wedding. These are often mistakenly pegged as the more expensive option, says Katie Dunsworth, a recent bride and member of Jean’s Smart Cookies Money Group. The truth is, if you pick an all-inclusive location, as she did, it can actually be cheaper because you save on food and drinks.

Save big on your bar bill by serving signature cocktails rather than offering a full bar. Splurge on keeping the bar open for the whole party.

Bargain, bargain, bargain! You can negotiate for everything…from flowers to the band to the reception venue. Katie says she got a deal on her dress and the bridesmaid dresses by purchasing them from the same shop.

Cut back on things that guests won’t notice. Carley, The Knot’s editor, suggests eliminating a couple of courses from the dinner or only buying flowers that are in season.

Also, don’t be afraid to put on the brakes. If a voice in the back of your head is starting to tell you the spending is getting out of control, listen carefully. You don’t want to end up resenting the money you spend. Nor do you want to overindulge so much that you, the guest of honor, and all the participants forget the real meaning of the milestone you’re celebrating.

Don’t lose sight of the purpose. The wedding is to celebrate your relationship, so focus on creating a memorable time as opposed to simply a lavish one. “If a guest can go to a wedding and walk away knowing more about the bride and groom, that’s what makes a wedding much more unique,” says wedding planner David.

By Kim Barnes

Illustration: Reena de la Rosa

When is a marriage troubled, and when is it fatally flawed? One woman looks back on her husband’s temper—and their journey to a more perfect union.

I was sitting at the wine bar with a friend—I’ll call her Lacey—who was considering divorcing her second husband, having recently discovered his stash of hard-core porn. “I know that no man’s a saint,” she said, “but I can’t live with lechery.”

“That takes care of lust,” I thought, and made a mental note. Although I hadn’t told Lacey, I had a little project going—involving a question I’d been challenging other friends to answer: Given that no person and no marriage is perfect, if you could pick your mate’s flaw—the one flaw you could live with—what would it be? Nothing so slight as socks on the floor or a residual jones for Pac-Man. I meant the things we keep hidden from even our closest confidants, the things that can prove fatal to a marriage: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride. So far, none of my friends had been able to pick a “best” flaw; all they’d managed to do was rule out the worst.

“I’d rather die,” willowy Meg had said, “than be married to a glutton.”

Greed? “Cross it off,” Theresa snapped, then hesitated when I suggested pride. “Pride is why my husband left me,” she said. “I could never admit I was wrong.”

Now, at the wine bar, Lacey sipped and sighed. “I want a husband like yours,” she told me. “Someone who reads me love poems over breakfast.”

I just smiled. After 26 years, Bob and I do still spend summer days as we did the July we got married: camping along Northwest rivers, fly-fishing, drinking Champagne. The demands of our professional lives (both of us are writers and teachers), the rigors of child rearing, the empty nest we are fluffing, cross-country moves, money woes—the pressures that so often destroy a marriage, ours has survived. To Lacey, it seemed a storybook romance. What she didn’t know was how close I had come to leaving the marriage she idealized. I’d never told her the flaw I’d chosen—that Bob was a wrathful man.

When I met Bob, I was 22. He was seven years older, seven inches taller, and I was enthralled by his intellect, his passion, his hair (oh, his hair! dark, thick like an animal’s fur, hanging down in his eyes, curling at his collar…). He’d sung in a rock band, been a conscientious objector during Vietnam, and was now a talented poet and teacher. I watched him weep over the death of John Lennon and rail against wrong-minded politicians. And soon after we moved in together, I got my first glimpse of his rage.

The lawn sprinkler that failed to oscillate? Bob beat it into the ground, gaskets flying. The chain saw that wouldn’t run, he pitched against a tree until it snapped into pieces. I laughed when I recounted these slapstick incidents to friends. Who was he hurting, after all?

I was 25 when Bob asked me to marry him. Moderate in his consumption, balanced in his ambition, kind to my parents, and lustful only for me: If an occasional temper tantrum was his only flaw, I should count myself lucky.

But one afternoon the summer we married, Bob and I were driving back from the store when we found ourselves behind an elderly woman at a traffic light. She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to turn left or right. Bob grimly rode her bumper. “Get off the road, you old bag!” As we roared by, he flipped her off; on her face was a mix of befuddlement and fear.

I sat stunned. Outraged.Speechless. Silently fuming.

“What’s wrong?” Bob asked, truly curious.

It wasn’t right, I said, how he had treated that woman.

“But she couldn’t hear me.”

“But I could.” I held my hand to my heart. “And it hurt.”

Over the next year, Bob’s outbursts became more frequent, until one morning, in the middle of an argument whose subject neither of us remembers, he picked up the wooden table at which we were eating breakfast and brought it down so hard it shattered. I backed to the wall. Mouth twisted, Bob grabbed my arms. “Why are you making me do this?” he said through clenched teeth. I shook my head, unable to make sense of the question, afraid to attempt an answer.

Trying to talk it out only made things worse. Bob insisted that I was the one being unreasonable. I’d never seen anyone so enraged, but now I wondered: Were my expectations unfair? I’d been raised in a family of stoics, after all, and my upbringing was defined by suppressed emotion. But surely I had enough objectivity, enough perspective, to know that busting out a window with your bare knuckles—or kicking a hole in a wall, or denting the car hood with your fist—wasn’t standard behavior. And I was beginning to fear that he might turn his rage on me.

I wanted to tell someone about Bob’s anger, so someone could tell me what I should do. But who could I tell, and how would I? My friends and family loved Bob for the same reasons I did: his wit, his honesty, his compassion, his loyalty. And those same people had an equally firm sense of me: that I was a strong-minded woman who would never allow herself to be intimidated. Safer to remain silent than to risk their judgment and doubt. “It will get better,” I assured myself. What I really meant, though, was “I will get better.” If Bob’s paying the bills incited a loud invective against the obscenity of money, then I would pay the bills. If raising my voice brought out the bully in him, then I would keep my mouth shut.

A few months after our fourth anniversary, our daughter was born; her brother, two years later. Raising children raised the stakes. Waiting in line at a McDonald’s drive-through made Bob furious. His rage was like a sudden squall—I spent my energy keeping his anger from swamping us all. Our children sometimes laughed at his tirades, sometimes cowered, and as they grew into adolescents, they often rolled their eyes—even as I worked to hide my increasing fear that I was staying in a marriage I was simply too proud to leave. Torn between self-doubt and shame, I kept on keeping my secret, though I still longed for someone to tell me: How would I know when it had gone too far?

The answer came one day as Bob and I were driving down the highway to the hardware store. I was fretting, imagining the minor mishap that would turn our little jaunt into hell on wheels (a flat tire, someone’s badly parked car, an inept clerk), and wondering aloud if I should have just stayed home. I had become that little old woman at the light, unsure of which way to turn.

Suddenly Bob hit the brakes, cranked a U-turn, and brought us to a sliding stop, cursing my indecision so cruelly that I sat paralyzed, afraid he might gun the car back onto the highway.

Back home, I gave him an ultimatum: See a counselor, or our marriage was over.

And maybe this is the difference between a flaw and a fatal flaw. Even though it meant exposing his failures, Bob chose to keep our marriage alive. We made appointments separately and together. Talking to the therapist filled me with dread: dread that the problem was not Bob’s temper but my own prideful expectations; dread that I was betraying him; dread that I had allowed myself to be victimized; dread that we were br”You can save this marriage,” the therapist told us, “but you’ve got to understand what’s causing the problem.” She explained that when caught in conflict, the brain releases adrenaline and cortisol, inducing the fight-or-flight response. Never one to turn tail and run, Bob chose to bully the world into submission. But when I was the one who defied him, he felt the conflict as rejection. His terror then led him to rage at the very person he feared losing: me.

It wasn’t easy for Bob to accept that the anger that puffed him with strength was a shield against vulnerability, or that each act of physical and verbal violence was an indirect threat against me.

Along with assigned readings and exercises, the therapist gave Bob a palm-sized thermometer. “When you rage,” she said, “blood is diverted from your extremities to your vital organs, and your fingers turn cold. Count to ten. Focus on calming down, letting your hands warm up by degrees. Make it a habit. Practice.”

It’s been more than a decade since that initial appointment. At first, when his temper flared, Bob would grasp the thermometer, take a deep breath. “I’m getting better, aren’t I?” he’d ask, and he was. He discovered other ways to engage his daily frustrations: taking long walks, imagining that the driver in front of him was someone he loved, remembering that he wanted nothing in the world to frighten me, least of all him.

My change, too, came by degrees, first by revealing Bob’s rages to the therapist and then to a few close friends. “There’s so much good in Bob,” some of them told me. “He wants to do better. That’s what makes the difference.” Another friend said, “I’d have left him years ago.” Later she would confess that she, too, was given to rages, a secret shame that made her sure she could never be wholly loved.

And so, as I sat in the wine bar, listening to Lacey mourn the impending loss of her second marriage, I posed my query, reminding her that she’d already eliminated lust. She twirled the glass in her fingers. “Not pride,” she finally said. “My first husband hid his debt and drove us into bankruptcy. I didn’t know until I got the call from the attorney. We lost everything. I couldn’t live with the betrayal.”

“You never told me that,” I said.

“I never told anyone.”

I’ve come to realize that you never know the secrets of someone else’s marriage—but that when it comes to your own, it’s better to break the silence before the silence breaks you. I couldn’t hear the truth until I gave it voice, and neither could Bob. By reaching out for help, we chose to leave the isolated island of shame and blame and hitch ourselves to something truer than a perfect marriage: a union defined by our desire to grow beyond our flaws. Today Bob’s rages are a thing of the past, the occasional tremors like the fading aftershocks of an earthquake (and my zero-tolerance policy proof of my own shored-up foundation). Still, when Lacey turned the tables on me—”What flaw would you choose?”—I didn’t give it a second thought.

“Anything but wrath.”

And then I told her why. What I saw in her face was disappointment and relief: My marriage wasn’t so perfect after all, yet somehow it had survived. Could she, should she allow her soon-to-be ex a chance to redeem himself?

I didn’t have an answer, only an ear.

Photo: © 2009 Jupiterimages Corporation

If you want to live happily ever after in love, you have to learn how to be good during bad times and not act like a jerk during a fight. Here’s how…

I can sum up in three “acts” the breakdowns and breakups of most relationships since the beginning of time:

Act 1: You hurt me.
Act 2: Because you hurt me, I now hurt you.
Act 3: Because you hurt me, I now hurt you and so you hurt me again and so I hurt you—and downward spiraling we shall go.

John Gottman, the famed founder of The Love Lab (a family research laboratory where where couples are studied), says he can consistently predict how long a relationship will last, not based on how well a couple gets along, but by how well a couple doesn’t get along. A relationship is only as strong as how well the two can deal with their weakest moments and how well they handle conflict.
Gottman’s 3 Conflict Strategies:

5 Ways to Not Be a Jerk during Your Next Fight

If you’ve been fighting with your sweetie lately, here are some “high-integrity” methods for conflict resolution:

1. Pick the right time and the right place. Do you have at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time? Can you talk openly, not self-consciously? In general, the best place to talk is alone in your home, where you can sit facing each other, with good, strong eye contact.

2. Avoid harsh start-ups. Gottman says he can predict 96 percent of the time how a conversation will end based on its first three minutes. Do not start out blaming or calling your partner bad names. Your partner will spend more time defending himself than attending to your needs and feelings. Try beginning with a compliment about what you appreciate about your partner. Also, include a reminder about how you really want to work on your relationship, so it succeeds and you both can grow together. Begin by calmly explaining how the conflict affects you—your feelings, values, dreams and goals. Recognize that eventually most fights do not stay about the fight’s topic, but rather the “way” people choose to fight.

3. Instead of trying to win arguments, try to have a winning relationship! How? Try talking in “I” sentences instead of “you” sentences—speak more about how you feel. (And “I feel you are a jerk!” is not an example of an “I” statement!) Your goal is to get your partner to empathize, so forget about details and facts. Keep staying with your feelings, values, dreams and goals. From this place of empathy, your partner will better hear you and, therefore, want to find a way to take care of your needs and feelings. If the conversation escalates, be sure to tell your partner that you recognize your truth is not necessarily the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Be ready to be convinced out of your anger and misery. As Stephen Covey brilliantly stated in his fabulous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand—then to be understood!”

4. Put in the “virtue of discipline” to calm yourself before you begin talking. Although studies show that yelling is better than stonewalling, yelling has its share of problems. When people yell, they get themselves even angrier. Interesting factoid: If you and/or your partner’s heartbeat gets higher than 100 beats per minute during an argument, you will not be able to fully understand or process what the other person is saying. When you’re angry, your brain’s processing becomes blocked, and it’s literally more difficult to solve problems and express yourself clearly. Plus—duh—you’re more likely to foolishly inflame the situation with insults and petty meanness. As Marcus Aurelius said, “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger, than the causes of it?”

5. Close a difficult conversation by sharing memories of good times and/or your partner’s good qualities. Jump-start loving memories, and defuse bad ones. If it’s been a while since you’ve felt that lusty feeling, you can jump-start this phase anew by going back to those first few romantic courtship places. Chances are you’ll experience déjà romance all over again.

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Seduction tips from famous enchanting woman

(OPRAH.com) — Lust, love and like. A healthful, happy love relationship serves up three out of three. A healthful, happy love relationship is a passionate best friendship.

Modern women could learn a few things about love and seduction from Scheherazade.

Many women think men only care about the lust angle — finding a hot bod for hot sex. Unfortunately, there are many men who do only care about this.

In my book “Prince Harming Syndrome,” I explain how relationships that are too focused on sex wind up being what my favorite philosopher buddy Aristotle called a relationship of pleasure — where you find a sex-mate or a relationship of utility — where you find an ego-mate or wallet-mate.

However, a healthful, happy love relationship is what Aristotle calls a relationship of shared virtue — when you find a soul mate. Where you each get one another at your core, inspire and support each other to grow into your best possible selves. A relationship of shared virtue is where you feel the whole triumvirate: lust, love and like.

Meaning? If you want to fully seduce a man, then you’ve got to know how to grab a man by more than his you-know-what. You must truly turn on a man’s soul! Oprah.com: 5 things that make you sexy

If you sleep with a man before you feel safe knowing you connect on a soul-to-soul level, the relationship might start off hot — but like steam into air, it will rise quickly then — pfffft — vanish into vapor. Or worse, you’ll wind up getting burnt.

This is so important to prioritize, that I’m repeating this reminder in bold italic letters: If you can’t stimulate a man in more areas than from the waist down, you will only be attracting a relationship of pleasure or a relationship of utility. And this man will not remain your man for long.

One of my favorite quotes about love comes from the book “The Little Prince”: “It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly; what’s most important is invisible to the eye.”

I love that the Little Prince recognized that the heart (another metaphysical word for soul) is the best lens for love — making this Little Prince a major Prince Charming.

Seduction Tip 1 (in bold italics so you recognize it is crucial to remember): If you want to be a man’s Princess Charming, you MUST do more than work on tightening your buns or boosting up your boobs! You MUST tap into what I call “The Scheherazade Effect.” Oprah.com: What to do before you can find love

Remember the tale of Scheherazade and her 1,001 nights? Scheherazade was absolutely a Princess Charming who knew how to grab and stimulate her king’s soul. Voilà! The CliffsNotes on Scheherazade:

There once was a king who got very bored with the women in his life very quickly. He would marry a new virgin, “shtup” her, then send her pretty self away pretty much immediately… to be beheaded.

Talk about a bad breakup, huh? And talk about a King Harming, huh?

Anyway, this king killed thousands of women by the time he finally met the enchantingly different Scheherazade. What made Scheherazade enchantingly different? Scheherazade loved to read books and had lots of fascinating ideas and interests to share.

Wisely educated in morality and kindness, she had a passion for poetry, philosophy, sciences and arts. She kept the king on the edge of his bed — not with mere alluring sexual positions — but with alluring stories to be told, each more exciting than the next.

And so the king kept Scheherazade alive — eagerly anticipating each new tale — until, lo and behold, 1,001 adventurous nights passed — along with three sons — and the king not only learned to love Scheherazade, but he made her his queen. Talk about living happily ever after, huh?

The lesson learned? It’s very seductive to a man when you, as a full-bodied and full souled woman, have passions in your life you can share to keep him inspired, titillated, growing and thriving.

Seduction Tip 2 (again in bold italics so you recognize it is crucial to remember): The more passions you have in your life, the more passion your man will have for you! Oprah.com: 4 steps to finding your passion

My friend David told me he fell in love with his wonderful wife of 13 years because he adored her “world lens” — all the interesting perspectives she shared about life, all her passionate insights and enthusiastic talents.

David’s idea of love is being turned on by how his paramour looked at the world, instead of simply focusing on how she looked to the world. Which is why David is a 3-D Prince Charming who’s found his Scheherazade.

Unfortunately, I believe too many women feel that the best way to catch a guy is with the bait of their (to word it politely) “vajayjay.” But if that is the main lure for love, then why aren’t little “vajayjay icons” found on Valentine’s Day cards?

I’m kidding — but I am serious! If you sleep with a man too soon, you risk being dizzied by an “oxytocin high,” and you will not know until you’re already emotionally entrenched if the two of you have a true soul-nurturing connection.

Plus, even in this modern world, you also risk the man respecting you less if you give sex away too quickly. It’s timeless psychology. The harder you are to win, the bigger your estimated prize value. Many men do not want to belong to a club that has touched their members too quickly. It’s the ol’ Dr. Ejaculate/Mr. Hide Syndrome. As soon as the man comes, he’ll want to go.

Seduction Tip 3 (back to bold italics one last time for good measure): If you ever wanna hear “I do,” you have to start off saying a lot of sexual “I don’ts.”

For this reason, I recommend to the women I coach that they do not drink alcohol on dates. Staying alcohol-free will help ensure you clearly “hear” who a guy is, not simply “see” who he is. You don’t want to be hypnotized by superficial qualities, like his looks and wealth. Plus, being alcohol-free will help make sure you don’t move too swiftly forward physically (a.k.a. it will ensure you keep your vajayjay in your skirt!).

Meaning? My overall big seduction tip for luring in healthful, happy relationship is to STOP trying to be seductive! If you focus too much on seducing a man with your body and beauty, you will only be luring in a man with your body and beauty. If you want to wisely be in a lust, love and like relationship of shared virtue, it’s far more important that you excite a man’s soul. Oprah.com: How to get lucky in love and life

An hour without power

People around the world are switching off their lights during Earth Hour 2009 on March 28. The movement hopes to draw attention to global warming.

Could you spend an hour without electricity? What would you do during that time?