Follow These Steps For A Successful Wedding

You are finally coming down off of the euphoria of the engagement. You sit staring at the ring on your finger and wondering what to do next. Friends tell you to hire a wedding planner but you just cannot see that expense in your meager budget. You have been to some of the hastily planned weddings of friends that were total disasters and these are the things you are having nightmares about.

For most people the thought of actually planning a wedding is like asking them to build a rocket to the moon. They think that they are not qualified and this may well be the truth. With the number of wedding planning websites and wedding planner apps for mobile devices a lot of the guess work is done for you. A great wedding is a highly organized event. There are a lot of details to take care of and this is what scares most impending brides, they worry that they will forget something important and that their event will be the laughing stock of the family for years to come.

If this is where you are we can guarantee that it will not happen to you if you only follow these steps for a successful wedding.

1. Setting the date – no matter how anxious you are to start your new life with your mate you have to be realistic about the wedding date. Allow at east 3 months for planning and for guests to make arrangements to attend. Anything less than 3 months will feel like an imposition to potential guest and you may end up with more empty seats than you would like.

2. Plan your guest lists with your fiance. This can be done even if the two of you are very busy with your careers. You do a list and he does a list then get together to compare them and narrow it down to the ones you truly want to have in attendance. This will give you a general idea of the number of guests there will be when considering wedding venues, wedding invitations, wedding cakes and many other items. Wedding planner iPad apps have these lists and many more as part of their basic functionality.

3. Choose the colors – now this is where you have to really be careful. The choosing of the wedding colors can be made easier with wedding planner apps for iPhone and iPad. They include a matching chart and also will have pictures that show you how these two colors will actually look when paired. A wedding should not have more than three colors max including the white of the wedding dress. You also must consider the color scheme as it relates to the season that you are getting married in.

4. One of the most important aspects of the wedding planning is location. If you do not have access to a church you are looking at a lot of cold calling or you can use the internet and the wedding planner apps to find venues and dates.

These are just a few of the things you can do early on to guarantee that you have a successful wedding. For more tips, hints, ideas and wedding planner apps for iPad, iPhone and android wedding app visit the http://www.iwedplanner.com website today.

Selling to Ourselves via 20 20 clubs

To be honest I don’t buy a lot now for the business, but if I did I think I would try to buy as much as possible from people who I am acquainted with online.

For instance, if I needed hosting it would probably be via 1 of at least 3 hosts who I know about via forums, if I wanted any Web development done it would be people via forums, if I wanted something from the garden it would be via  acquaintances on a business park I visit, if I wanted an electician it would be a guy from the rugby club, if I wanted a plumber it would be a neigbour, if I wanted some printing doing it would be one of the printers I’ve helped out with a directory listing, etc., etc., etc.

This got be thinking, if I’m like this why isn’t everyone else, especially the dozen or so people who I need stuff off.

What everyone should be doing is having little 20-20 clubs in their own areas, if you need anything you use one of the suppliers in your 20 20 club, if they want something they do the same and in effect you build up a little network small businesses effectively networking together, working together and selling to each other.

This article has received 3 Ducks – Gerald Duck

Personal Development Plans Do they work?

Most of us have personal development plans regarding our careers, relationships and self improvement but many of us lose sight of our aspirations as a result of us getting caught up in the daily trappings of everyday life.

We all have infinite potential but few of us make the most of what we have got. We are given a formal education at school that equips us with all that we need to get a job, but it is what we learn after school that determines whether our personal development plans will come into fruition.

Many people are stuck in a rut, working in a job that they hate and living a life that is far from the one that they dreamed of. However, sadly most will continue to stay in the rat race, too afraid to be bold and make the changes that they need to create a better life for themselves. One thing is certain, things can only change for you when YOU want to change, but where do you start?

Mindset

Mindset plays a huge part in changing your life for the better. Most of us have been programmed for failure, either from our school days or from wrongly believing that success is only for a certain type of person. However any person can be successful if they adopt a positive mindset and believe in themselves.
The first step is to write down your goals. Once you have written them down the brain is then more aware of them and you will then actively do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. Make a list of short term goals and long time goals and you will be amazed how great it will feel when you eventually fulfil your dreams and goals.

Build Good Relationships

In order to be successful with your personal development plan it is important to surround yourself with good, influential people…People who are successful and have a positive attitude to life. You will then learn valuable advice from them as to how to succeed in life. You can then share this knowledge with others.

Be careful to also invest time and effort into these relationships as it is all too easy to keep focusing on the urgent things (namely making money) rather than the important things (family, friends and your own well being).

Self Education

In order to improve your life it is crucial to self educate. This can be achieved by reading self development books, learning from other successful individuals and also by learning from mistakes that you have made along the way.

There are numerous self development courses available too that can teach you how to create a better lifestyle.

After all formal education teaches what you need to get a job but self education is what will help to you to make you a fortune. Self education is paramount to your personal growth.

Create financial independence

The only way that you will create financial independence is by working for yourself.
If you work for others you will only ever earn a wage and that wage will always be capped to what an employer thinks that you are worth. Whereas if you work for yourself, you will reap the profits for yourself and not your employer. You will also create a better life for yourself in the process.

All in all we all have the ability to design our own lives rather than allowing others to design our lives for us .All that is needed is a good self development plan consisting of adopting the right mindset, investing in good relationships, stepping out of our comfort zones and educating ourselves on the best ways to make money and keep the profits for ourselves rather than others. To be successful in your quest you will need to have strong self motivation and to be able to find the best opportunity to start your own business and build up your own empire.

After all we only live once so why not make the most of our abilities rather than having the pain of regret on our deathbeds for what might have been. However you will need to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

As Jim Rohn once said:

“You cannot change your destination overnight but you can change your direction overnight”.

Should Teaching Your Child Involve Longer School Days?

There has been much debate recently as to whether schooldays should be longer. Many feel that school days should be between 9 am and 5pm but would this really be beneficial?

There would certainly be some advantages to lengthening the school day.

For example with there being more working moms now than previously, having children in school for longer hours would certainly help to create a better work life balance for those mums. No more expensive childcare and the peace of mind of knowing that your child is safe and not roaming the streets in gangs.

Many also argue that having longer school hours would help to prepare children for when they have to work long hours in their working career.

One example of a country that has longer school hours, often up to twelve hours a day, is China. They have a compulsory 9 year schooling during which most children often spend more hours at school than their parents do at work. Many would also argue that the strict emphasis that both parents and the government place on educating children in China is the reason that their economy is so strong.

Having longer school days could also provide more time to allocate to non academic activities such as school choirs, orchestras and sports teams. Indeed many school s who do actually offer after school education, often excel in these activities.

However whilst longer school days would certainly help working mums, is it really fair that children’s education should consists of having to stay in school for more hours?

Already most school offer extracurricular activities for after school including sports activities that can help working parents but would having after school education involving more educational activities for children offer any real benefits?

Would it really equip children better for the outside working world? Let’s be honest people have always managed to adapt to working life without any problems in the past.

Another downside of staying in school for a longer day is that when the children finally have time to play after finishing their homework, they will either be too tired to play or there will no one to play with as all the other children will still be completing their homework too. Therefore their social life could suffer which could also affect their social skills and confidence in the future.

Also teaching your children for longer hours could result in many children becoming tired, especially when they become hungry and therefore lacking concentration to take in further knowledge.

All in all, in my opinion it that it is far better to keep the school day to its current hours. As previously mentioned there are currently many extra curriculum activities offered by most schools which can be taken advantage of by working moms or dads.

Also with working from home
now being so popular and with many employers also now offering working parents more flexible working hours, it is becoming easier than ever to work around your children’s school hours.
It would be therefore be much better to ensure that the education programs for children instead, concentrate on equipping children with the knowledge that they need to know after they leave school. This should include financial advice such as how to manage their money including advice on mortgages, loans and pensions and also how to start a business, for those future budding entrepreneurs. After all many leading entrepreneurs did not perform very well academically and would therefore would certainly not have benefitted from longer school days but have nevertheless gone on to become extremely successful within business.

Top 10 Questions About Stress

Stress.  What is it really?  What do we mean when we say “I can’t take the pressure?”  Or “I’m stressed out?”  Am I really?  Is it a bad thing?  Or do I actually need stress to get me going?  A lot can be involved when we start a discussion about stress.  And it’s important to understand a problem before we can begin to find solutions for it.

Let’s tackle the basics here with 7 top questions about stress:

1.  What is stress? 

When we talk about stress, we really should be talking about the “stress reaction.”  Okay, so what is the stress reaction?  In short, it is an evolved survival  mechanism.  Our senses transmit information about a situation and our mind has to make its mind up;  Am I safe or under threat?  If the decision is ‘under threat,’ the mind activates the ‘fight or flight’ response.  This then equips the body to proceed with that course of action.  It can occur in an instant, often before you are even consciously aware that there is a threat present.  It’s about gearing you up to deal with the threat in order to survive, and then restoring you to your former (unstressed) state, once the threat has abated.

2.  Is there a difference between pressure and stress?

The problem today with these words is that they have become so commonly used and now carry a host of meanings.  Let’s keep it simple.   Let’s think of ‘pressure’ (sometimes referred to as a stressor) as the thing that is applied to us and ‘stress,’ or more accurately, our ‘stress response’ as the response to that pressure.  An example;  your boss drops a big pile of paperwork on your desk requiring it to be completed by the end of the day (that’s the pressure being applied), You, upon seeing this, then stand up, scream and run out of the office (that’s your stress response).

 3.  What is acute stress? 

Some dangers and threats are immediate. Back in the day, when we were living in caves, hunting and foraging for food to live, our bodies evolved to handle the various threats we encountered. Upon realizing that we were in the presence of a dangerous predator, say a sabre-toothed tiger, the stress response was immediate and all-consuming.  Our breathing and heart rates soared, our adrenaline pumped, and all our energies focused on our immediate survival.  This exemplifies acute stress.  It demands a big response from your body, and hopefully it won’t need to be maintained for to long.

4.  What is chronic stress?

Some dangers and threats last over a longer term.  Back to the caveman.  In addition to sabre-toothed tigers, there were other threats to survival.  There were periods of hunger, competition for scarce resources, hostile environments, and a host of other daily physical challenges.  Our bodies also used the stress response to adapt to these long-term threats.  When food was scarce, our metabolisms and other bodily functions would slow down so our continued survival required less food.  When bountiful times returned, so would our daily food requirements.  This exemplifies chronic stress.  It is our body’s way of surviving those longer term threats or challenges.

5.  There’s no sabre-toothed tigers today, why should stress affect me now?

Whilst the stress response itself has not greatly changed, what we deem a threat has.  Thanks to our mind’s ability to recall past events and think about future possibilities, we are capable of activating our stress response when simply imagining a threatening situation.  So, unlike the Zebra who is only able to focus on the immediate threats, we can worry about a threat that might occur tomorrow, next week or next month, and subsequently activate our stress response.  And the situation need not be life-threatening for our mind to perceive a threat and thus activate the stress response.

6.  Do we all get stressed out by the same things? 

The short answer is no.  Take the example of Christmas.  To some, it is a wonderful time for celebration, relaxation and reflection.  To others, it is an incredibly stressful time that begins with the annual ritual of untangling the tree lights and ends only after the last straggling relative has gone home for another year. How can this be?  Christmas is Christmas.  This is true.  The day itself, the 25th of December, is the same for everyone.  But the values, customs, social beliefs, and past experiences that we bring to a situation determine its effect on us.  Thus to some, Christmas is a source of great joy while to others, it can be a significant stressor.

7.  Does my own mindset affect how stressed I get?

Absolutely yes, and in a number of ways.  One of the things that determines how we will respond to something stressful is our perception of our ability to cope.  Do we have the capacity (physically, psychologically and emotionally) to handle the threat or challenge that we are facing?  What it boils down to is whether or not we believe we have control of the situation.  If we believe that we do not, we may experience an increased stress reaction, maybe even to the point of panic mode.  If that happens, we may become unable to decide upon a course of action, and indeed, lose control of the situation.

8.  How does stress affect me?

There are three key ways in which stress affects us.

  • Physically:  Some of the ways that stress can manifest itself in your body are sleep disruption, tiredness, muscle tension, lack of energy, headaches and viral infections.
  • Psychologically:  These may be a little harder to spot and include lower motivation, negative thoughts, the inability to switch off, negative self-talk and anxiousness.
  • Behaviourally:  There are some behavioural changes caused by stress that you might want be on the lookout for, like working through breaks, craving energy boosters, changes in appetite, teeth grinding and taking work home, becoming irritable, withdrawing.

While any of these warning signs may also point to other issues besides stress, and therefore consider seeking professional medical advice, do consider whether stress is a contributing factor.

 9.  Is stress all bad? 

There is actually a positive purpose for stress, when used and managed properly.  The stress response is activated as a result of our brain perceiving a need for action.  The stress response engages our body, and we get moving.  When the alarm goes off in the morning, it is the stress response that tells our brain that we need to get out of bed. The brain then tells the body, and alas, we get out of bed.

10.  What could happen if I don’t manage my stress?

The stress response evolved to help us out of sticky situations, but it was meant to be turned on for short periods of time when needed, then turned off.  However, if the stress response turns into chronic stress, it can contribute to the development of serious physical conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, stomach problems and even cancer.  It can also lead to psychological issues such as clinical depression, anxiety and panic disorders.

To sum it up, the stress response is our body’s way of reacting to a threat.  We respond to the situation at hand and return to our normal state when the threat has been resolved.  It evolved to deal with short and even long term physical threats, so problems arise when we can endure long term psychological stress response activation.  Over time, this kind of chronic stress can lead to real physical, psychological and emotional problems.  Understanding how the stress response works, and applying stress management strategies to your life will go a long way toward preventing these kinds of problems in your life.

 

Hi, I’m Dave Algeo, the Stress(ed) Guru.  I am all about making stress manageable and improving performance and wellbeing.

Through learning, humour and interaction, the message is loud and clear….

‘Stress can be managed to improve motivation, health and vitality leading to greater personal and professional success and life satisfaction.’

With a policing background spanning 19 years, over 13 of which as an operational Sergeant, I have witnessed, experienced and worked with stress in its many forms.  From the traumatic to the trying, i know the mechanics of stress and the impact it can have on people and performance. Whilst stress can be perceived as a negative force, it can be managed effectively using proven techniques and an individual approach.

I have delivered stress programmes to a range of organisations including, Northumberland County Council and Durham University.

Visit my website at http://www.stressedguru.co.uk or Contact me  on 0800 380 0609 to discuss your requirements or click on the following for more information.

5 Tips To Working Off Calories At Home

It’s the dreaded New Year again with yet more new year’s resolutions made to shed the excess pounds gained over the festive period.

However if you haven’t got time to go to the gym or to take the more traditional forms of exercising, here are some easy, everyday ways that you can burn off calories.

1. Spend some time in the garden. 1 hour’s gardening burns off an amazing 230 calories and you’ll also benefit greatly from the fresh air.

2. Ironing…Most of us dislike this task but amazingly 1 hour’s ironing actually burns off 203 calories…That’s the equivalent of a sausage roll.

3. Many of us walk our dog but few of us realise that we are actually burning off calories at the same time. Walking the dog for an hour and a quarter burns off 260 calories. So the more you walk, the more you lose!

4. Most of us put it off, but vacuum cleaning our house for 45 minutes can actually burn off the equivalent of a glass of wine, that’s 130 calories. What better way could there be to remove any guilt that we feel about the calories that we have taken in with our favourite glass of wine, than by burning it off cleaning the house. No excess calories gained and a clean house in the process…Result!

5. The best news of all is that our favourite pastime of all, namely shopping, can also burn off calories. A mere 51 minutes of shopping burns off 177 calories. What better way is there to justify our love of shopping and to allow ourselves the pleasure of shopping even longer.

So there you have it. You do not need to spend hours sweating it out in the gym to lose weight. There are many different ways of working off calories from home.

If you want to create more time to carry out all your household tasks and to burn off calories to meet your own demands, there are many genuine money making ideas that will allow you to earn extra income from the comfort of your own home. These work from home opportunities will create more time for you to be able to exercise more often and to stay healthy in the process.

How To Earn More Money To Retire Early

When you think of your retirement what do visualise? Travelling the world visiting exotic countries, spending time chilling out playing golf or merely having more quality time to spend with your family.

Many of us dream of being able to do the things that we don’t have time to do when we are working but sadly the reality, for many, will be very different.
The real prospects will be having to work longer (which will involve covering for less productive colleagues for even longer) and having less pension than would have originally been predicted.

Not quite the rosy picture that we have in our dreams of retirement.
Is there any way that we can achieve our real retirement goals,namely to retire earlier and to be able to pursue our interests and ambitions?
Fortunately there are ways that we can achieve early retirement but they will all involve finding ways to earn more money to supplement our pensions.

Start Paying A Pension Early
In order to be able to retire early it is crucial that you start paying a pension as soon as possible as the younger you start paying a pension the sooner you will have sufficient funds to retire early. If possible try to enrol in a company pension but if that is not possible then make sure that you pay a private pension to a company that invests wisely to ensure that you achieve maximum returns for your contributions.
Also, try to ensure that you increase your pension contributions every year as this will make a big difference to the amount that you will eventually receive on retirement. It is surprising how much extra money you can create towards this even by reducing on little things like having takeaway meals.

Live Below Your Means
Write down a list of your current expenditures and cross out any that are work related e.g. travelling costs or business lunches.
The general rule of thumb is that if you want to continue to live your current lifestyle after you retire then you will need to have funds in the region of approximately 80% of what you are currently spending as work expenses equate to 20% of your expenditure.
Therefore if you want to achieve this goal you will need to live quite frugally to save adequate funds for your retirement. You could also consider ways of reducing some costs when you retire such as owning one car rather than two.

You will need to secure as high a paid job as possible and live BELOW your means rather than to your means. This will often include forgoing expensive houses, holidays, cars and designer clothes.

You will need to take into account any expenditure in order to stay focused in achieving your goals. Even Rockefeller carried a little red book with him to record everything that he spent his money on!

This may sound harsh but achieving your dreams doesn’t come cheap and will require some sacrifices along the way if your dreams are to become a reality.

Invest In Property
Another easy way to earn money towards your retirement is to buy and rent out properties. With house prices and interest rates so low there has never been a better time to invest in property. Eventually demand for housing will become so great that house prices are bound to increase again which will provide a nice nest egg fund for your retirement.

Create A Passive Income
What is a passive income you might ask? Passive income is an income created by assets namely things that put money in your pockets whether you work or not.
One great way of creating a recurring income is by starting a business working from home. There are many money making ideas to choose from to make money from home including starting an online business. Once you have successfully made the first sale you will create a passive income by continuing to make more sales especially when you gain the trust of your customers and they start subscribing to your products which results in consistent income going into your bank account every month whether you work or not.

This passive income will then help to supplement your pension when you retire allowing you to live the life that you want both when you are still working and after you retire.
Working from home will give you more freedom of time to spend with friends and family or to pursue your interests. This will be great preparation ready for when you will be able to do this full time after retiring.

To close, if you want retire early to avoid being stuck on overcrowded trains or queuing in endless traffic jams on your commute to work, then you will need to take drastic action sooner rather than later. To achieve the retirement you dream of rather than the retirement you dread, you will need to find ways to earn more money and to save hard for as long as possible.

Saving for retirement is paramount to achieving your dream of being able to finish working younger. With the average person living much longer now you will need to be very disciplined and save very hard if you want to retire early as if you retire at 55 for example then you could need enough money to live on for another 30 years.
However, as well as preparing yourself financially for your retirement you will also need to make sure that also have enough interests to keep you occupied, or you could end up being very bored when you actually give up work. Therefore make sure that you plan wisely in every way for your retirement.

7 Tips On Finding Graduate Employment

The much awaited time has arrived. After what would seem like endless years of studying you have finally graduated. Everything should be plain sailing now. You find a well paid job; pay off your students’ loan and all the studying has finally paid off. Sadly though that is often not how things turn out… Unlike the sixties when only approximately 6% of the population went to university to study for a degree, today more and more young people are going on to higher education in the hope of achieving a better lifestyle . Therefore you are now one of many highly qualified people who are job hunting. So how can you market yourself to beat the giant competion?
Here are some top tips on how to stay ahead of the competition.
1. Make A Lasting Impression
If you have been fortunate enough to have gained some work experience or had an internship whilst studying for your degree, make sure that you make a good impression during this time as this could ultimately lead to them offering you a higher position within the company after you graduate. It is a fact that students who have worked in industry during their degree course have the edge over others when looking for work after qualifying.
2. Stand Out From The Crowd…Make Yourself More Marketable To Employers
It is important to remember that you are not unique having a degree therefore you need to get noticed and stand out from the crowd.
Do not follow the typical advice offered by recruitment and human resources or you will be like everyone else and won’t stand out from the crowd. You will need to concentrate on your presentation skills to promote yourself in order to show prospective employers why they should employ you.
It is also important to ensure that you have a good CV as this is what will ultimately determine whether you get an interview or not. Ideally your CV should fill two pages. If you can only fill one page it would be better to gain some experience such as doing some voluntary work. Although this option will not reward you financially it will help to display that you are willing to learn new skills and will show that you’re interested in working in the industry that you want to get into.
3. Apply For The Appropriate Job
You need to acknowledge that you will not be able to go straight into a managing director or top management jobs. It will take time and experience to reach the higher managerial positions.
When applying for a job make sure that you take into account your strengths and weaknesses. If you are a shy person then avoid careers such as acting or if you are an outward going person who finds it hard to sit still, then a boring desk job is not going to be for you either.
Sadly one of the most difficult hurdles that you will face when searching for jobs for graduates is lack of experience. Therefore if you are finding it hard to find work it is worth considering taking a lower paid job to gain the necessary work experience as a temporary measure before trying to get a better job more suited to your qualifications.

4. Enroll With A Recruitment Agency
Recruitment agencies can prove useful in finding employment. However before taking this route it is important to remember that they are not” talent spotters but are merely matching people for jobs that they have available. This avenue can still be useful though to provide a temporary solution to gaining the much needed work experience.
5. Take A Direct Approach
In addition to applying for positions that are advertised you could also take a more direct approach and send your CV (ensuring to provide a good biographic account of yourself) to lots of different companies in the hope that they will consider you for any future positions. You could even try E- mailing your details to various companies, or the more confident individuals among you could even promote yourself using video marketing. That way the prospective employer can actually put a face to the name and connect with you more.
6. Get Networking
The saying “It’s not what you know but who you know “is very true. With this in mind gather up your contacts to help you promote yourself. It is surprising how many contacts we all have access to that may be able to help us in our search for work. They can range from family, friends, neighbours or even university lecturers who often have contact with various industries. Don’t be afraid to approach them.
You could also join professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn that can help you to find the right contacts.
7. BeYour Own Boss
If you do not want to join big corporate organisations and become a small cog in a big machine or you fail to find work in your given career then another option is to consider starting your own business working from home. There are many working from home ideas and most don’t require huge investments of capital. They just require time, commitment and educating yourself with new information, all of which you will have already programmed yourself to do whilst at university. Often in university you will have been taught marketing and presentation skills so you will already be qualified in many aspects of operating an online business. The main difference being that there is a potential to earn large sums of money for your effort from selling on line which can be hugely advantageous to help to pay off student loans quicker. Online businesses also are recession proof and actually thrive during economic downturns as you will be offering customers solutions to their problems and being paid for it.
You will also have the freedom to work your own hours and set your own goals, both personal and financial and the only traffic you will encounter on your way to your office is your partner on the stairs!
Working from home offers the advantages of not having a boss, being able to live anywhere that you choose without having any geographical disadvantage, no massive overheads and actually being able to earn what you are worth.
To close, jobs for graduates
are becoming harder and harder to find. In order to avoid the dreaded transition from degree to dole queue you will often need to be prepared to diversify a little in order to eventually find the graduate opportunities that you seek especially if you have a degree in degrees termed as “managerial subjects” as often these degrees focus on being too analytical and do not offer what businesses want when trading gets tough i.e. “doers” rather than” thinkers”.
However do not despair as it is still a fact that graduates still earn significantly more than non graduates over the course of their careers. Making the right choice of degree and university along with gaining valuable work experience along the way, can greatly improve your job chances as can changing your career path if needed.

Top 10 Christmas Adverts 2011

For the past couple of years I have been writing blog posts about Christmas Adverts where I embed the video, post my opinion and allow people to submit their own comments.

This year I decided to add another post to tie them all together and also created a list of my My Top 10 Christmas Adverts of 2011

My Top 10 Christmas Adverts of 2011

  1. John Lewis Christmas Advert 2011 – John Lewis do it again, give us a nice sentimental Christmas Advert that ticks all the boxes.
  2. Coca-Cola Snow Globe Christmas Advert 2011 – It really was touch and go between the Coca-Cola Christmas Advert and the John Lewis Christmas Advert as to which I listed as number 1 in my top 10. Had it been about style and feel good factor Coca-Cola would have topped it for me (the fathers little wink nearly did it for me), but after having another look at the John Lewis advert for comparison purposes, the fact it still almost bought a tear to my eye after multiple viewings just edged it for me. Call me an old sentimentalist but at Christmas time sentiment just about wins over feel good.
  3. Matalan Christmas Advert 2011 – Big surprise this one for me, I haven’t seen a Matalan Christmas advert before, no disrespect intended but I would have associated Matalan with the Iittlewoods, Argos, Iceland style of ads, this one is more John Lewis, M&S style.
  4. Halfords Christmas Advert 2011 – Another surprise, not a lot of Christmas in the Halfords ad, but there is just something about it that hits the spot.
  5. Sainsbury’s Christmas Advert 2011 – Not quite what I expected, with it beeing Jamie Olivers last Christmas Advert for Sainsbury’s I was expecting something a bit more sentimental. Sainsbury’s obviously opted for jovial instead and pull it of nicely.
  6. Marks and Spencer Christmas Advert 2011 – Nice song, nice little Christmas clips, but do we really need the clips of the X Factor finalists? Please tell us the story with more Christmas visuals as well as the music.
  7. Waitrose Christmas Advert 2011 – Looks great, has a Christmas feel, sounds OK’ish, but just has something missing.
  8. Morrisons Christmas advert 2011 – Are they using Freddie Flintoff just for the sake of it, not really someone I associate with Christmas. A bit samesy as previous Morrison Christmas ads and for me has lost some of the glitter. (quick update: rumour has it that Morrisons have signed up Jamie Oliver for 2012)
  9. Boots Christmas Advert 2011 – As with the Morrisons add a bit samesy and to me the Girl Power / Charlies Angels empasis is wearing a bit thin. Rescued at the end by the bit of humour.
  10. Toys R Us Christmas Advert 2011 – To be honest I’m probably too old to judge this one, but looks poor quality, no memorably tune and no catchy phrase, pull your socks up Geoffrey
  11. Sky Movies Christmas Advert 2011 – Subscribe to Sky Movies, Subscribe to Sky Movies, Subscribe to Sky Movies, oh and here’s a bit of Christmas at the end.
  12. Littlewoods Christmas Advert 2011 – Sorry, I don’t go any lower than 12, so will have to put the Littlewoods Christmas Advert in the number 12 spot. (I dare say if this was a list of top 20 Christmas Adverts of 2011, this would end up being number 20)

OK, OK, I know there is 12 not 10, I didn’t realise there were that many brands putting the effort in to big Christmas adverts, we still have Iceland to come yet as well.

Easy To Use Wedding Planning App

Wedding planning is not an easy process, it requires months of preparations, decision making and organization. Every couples like to celebrate their wedding as a biggest party and want to make it extra special. But when it comes to action, there are lots of difficulties in organizing the entire wedding celebration. So with this in mind here comes the usage of wedding planning tools and wedding planning apps to help make your wedding planning as easy as possible and successful as per the planning.

Check out these 5 essential wedding planning tools provided by the wedding planning apps which might be very much useful in organizing the wedding.

  1. To-do List: These lists are the most useful tool you can have in your wedding planning arsenal. Essentially they will provide you with an easy to view list of everything that needs to be done and in a time ordered fashion according to when your wedding day is. Make a note on the Reminder for important task that need to be done on time. This keeps the wedding plan goes as per the plan.
  2. Budget Planner: Budget will govern everything you want and everything you can afford to have! So you will need to itemize everything to do with your wedding and apply a cost to it, this is where a budget planner comes in. When you begin planning your wedding filling out a budget planner will be one of your first tasks and will show you how much your dream wedding will cost.
  3. RSVP: Using such tools online for planning your wedding can also be helpful in the line of tracking and updating RSVPs and other attendance stats. Once the guests receive their invitations, they can then go right online to your personal wedding website or iPhone or Android app and click their RSVPs into the sites data stream as it tracks and logs them all for you to view, and even print it all out if you so desire. Additional information like their food habits, drink habits, number of adults and children will also be asked in order to make the seating process easier and comfortable to the guests.
  4. Seating Arrangements: Seating arrangements can be efficiently planned with the information from the RSVP response.
  5. Resources: These include vendor lists from various categories like dresses, caterers, photographers, videographers etc, information on discounts and deals you would never have known about. And in addition these resources can save you more money than you spend on them and also saves time.
    You miss out nothing and manage the entire event in a well organized way. This is why wedding planning tools can come in so handy.“iWedPlanner” is a useful wedding planner app to make your wedding successfully. This app is avilable for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android. The wedding planner iPhone app and the wedding planner Android app has similar features and are designed to organize the wedding.

    Download app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iwedplanner-the-wedding-planner/id408373537?mt=8

    Download app for Android

    https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sentientit.newiwedplanner&feature=search_result