We remember when chocolate fountains first hit the wedding scene a few years ago—what a stir they created!  Luscious chocolate cascading down several pools, filling the halls with their fragrance.  People couldn’t get enough of them—us included!  It wasn’t very long before it seemed like everyone and their brother had fountains to rent, in several sizes, and offering several chocolates (you can dye the white to match your wedding), caramel, even nacho cheese (not just for weddings anymore—think Super Bowl party).  Tiny fountains for your home were all over the place this past Christmas season.

From talking with our fountain friends, chocolate fountains are still a hot item at weddings.  We did see a lot of fountains this past year, and probably will again this year.  The first year or two, with only a few fountains and high demand, it was all our friends could do to keep up, and they were telling a lot of brides they were booked.  The rental business has calmed down a little, in part because so many people offer the rental service (including many reception sites).  Most reception sites aren’t shy about mentioning they have a fountain, but ask if you’re interested in one and don’t see any information.  They can probably point you to people you can trust if their is booked, of it they don’t have one.

Some rental halls do not allow chocolate fountains at all.  Early on, some rental outfits would dump the leftover chocolate down the hall’s sinks.  The chocolate cooled and hardened on its way to the sewer, clogging the lines and causing thousands of dollars in plumbing bills.  Most people have that figured out now, and dispose of the leftover chocolate in buckets or bags and take it with them.  You definatelty need to ask the hall if you can have a fountain at all.

If you’re including a chocolate fountain in your plans, remember to have your hall designate a table for it—its location will factor in to your overall seating arrangement.  Much like your wedding cake, the table should be out of a major traffic area (e.g., keep it away from the dance floor), but should also be very accessible since it will attract a crowd.

Some tips, if you’re planning on renting a fountain:

• Ask who provides the food to be dipped—sometimes you’re responsible
• Ask what your options are, and if you can substitute
• Ask who provides the skewers, plates and napkins (you’ll need both—plates for the dipped foods, and napkins for the dribbles)
• Ask about what types of chocolate are available (milk, dark, white) and what dips the best in each
• Ask who is responsible for setup and cleanup—some lower cost packages are “self service”.  Trust us—we’ve seen this process many times, and pay the extra to have someone else do it for you.  A big white dress and five pounds of melted chocolate are not a good combination.

A lot of the chocolate in these fountains is thinned with vegetable oil (especially peanut oil), but higher grades of chocolate are usually thinned with cocoa butter.  If you have guests with peanut sensitivities, be aware of this (unfortunately, you may not know until a guest has a reaction).  Ask around as to what is added to the chocolate—you may need to base your decision on whom to rent from by the chocolate additives.

If you’re looking for chocolate fountains in your area, one resource you can try is Chocolate Fountain Network (http://www.chocolatefountainnetwork.com/), which is a national listing of chocolate fountain vendors.  If you’re in the North Pittsburgh/Cranberry/Butler area, check out our friends at Chocolate Fountain Enterprises (http://www.chocolatefountainenterprises.com/).  CFE usually uses a higher grade of chocolate that is thinned with cocoa butter, not peanut oil.  Double bonus—this service is run by Arnella’s Bridal Salon (http://www.arnellas.com/), so you can shop for dresses at the same time.

Visit us and 60 other wedding vendors at the Butler Days Inn’s 2006 Winter Bridal Extravaganza.  Fashion show, door prizes, samples of dinners, cookies and cakes, and of course our gorgeous bouquets!  Pre-register to be entered for the honeymoon grand prize, to be announced after the fashion show.  We’ll supply the bouquets for Arnella’s portion of the fashion show, and they’ll all be at our booth before the fashion show.  We’ll also have samples of the latest wedding accessories from Beverly Clark and Cathy’s Concepts, invitations, Warner Press programs, etc.

Registration is free if you pre-register, or $5.00 if you register at the door, and the first 50 to show up are entered for a special drawing of door prizes.

When you vist us, you never know if you’ll be holding the next featured bouquet in The Knot.  They contacted us last summer for permission to use a bouquet we created as a sample for a previous bridal show.  We sent them the original images of the bouquet, and you’ll see it in the 2006 issues of The Knot as part of an upcoming trends article.

More information at http://www.daysinnbutler.com/Default.aspx?tabid=66.  And, Butler Days Inn homepage if you need that.

For the third year in a row, The Bloomery is a Beverly Clark Elite Vendor, a distinction we’ll carry throughout 2006.  A vendor achieves “Elite” status by reaching a certain purchasing level, and we reach this level with great selections, great service, and great prices.  Thanks to all of the brides who helped us reach this level again, and we look forward to working with all the new brides in 2006!

Dear Kathy,

They were absolutely perfect!  More beautiful than we ever imagined!  Thank you for putting the time into doing all the pearls and rhinestones in the stephanotis.  They looked great in all our flowers, and on the cake, too!…Thanks again!

M. & E. A.

Bloomery note: We always use some sort of pearl or rhinestone-headed pin to attach the stephanotis blooms to special stems (called Stemson Stems, after the manufacturer).  Stephanotis blooms grow on a vine, and have stems too short to work with in bouquets, so we attach the blooms to a special device which has a long wire stem and a top made of cotton (so the bloom has water on your wedding day).  The pins help hold the blooms onto the stem.  If you’re one of our brides, and using stephanotis in your florals, you can choose from several different colors of rhinestones to accentuate your bouquet.  All this extra work is one reason why stephanotis is one of the more expensive wedding flowers, despite its tiny size.

Dear Polly & The Bloomery Staff,

Words really can't express how pleased we were with the flowers for our wedding.  They weren't as pretty as I expected them to be--they exceeded my expectations & were much more beautiful than I imagined.  The flowers also lasted for days!

Our biggest compliment is our recommendation of The Bloomery to others, which we will surely do.  Thank you so much!

Ever wonder what makes the difference between beautiful wedding flowers, and a wedding-day embarassment?  Much of what determines the beauty of your wedding flowers happens before they arrive at our shop.  Proper handling, especially temperature and hydration, are essential to flower quality.  We took a field trip to one of our local wholesalers on the Sunday after Thanksgiving to show you some of what steps our wholesalers take to ensure we can deliver high quality flowers to you.  You can visit the photo gallery on our everyday flower blog at http://floristblogs.com/photos/bloomery/category1009.aspx.

BW Wholesale is located in Pittsburgh's famed Strip District, but is open only to retail florists.

In one corner of our shop, we have shelves of wedding accessories, topped with photos of brides holding bouquets.  From time to time, we’re asked if those are real brides.  All eight photos are pictures of actual brides whose weddings we created.  Some of the photos we took, and some were taken by our friend Diane Maxwell at DLM Photography.

For the single guys who don’t catch on real quick—they’re brides; no they’re not single anymore.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an article earlier this week about brides taking their groom's name after they married (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05311/601902.stm).  For a number of years, the percentage of brides changing their name declined, but recently, the trend has reversed.

According to the study conducted in 2004 by Harvard University researchers, the fraction of white, college graduates in Massachusetts who kept their maiden names decreased from 21 percent to 13 percent from 1990 to 2000.

And in a poll last spring from the wedding planning Web site TheKnot.com, 81 percent of those surveyed said they would take their husband's name -- up from 71 percent in 2000.

Granted, The Knot's study is not very scientific, and Harvard's seems pretty limited in scope, but the numbers are probably within acceptable error of one another.  In our case, The Bloomery's owner changed her name after several years of marriage, and only so the last names on their passports matched when travelling internationally.  We're located in her hometown, and many people in the area know her or her family (so many people that her groom, who moved here from another state, used to joke about changing his name instead).

We don't have any advice--it's a personal decision in every case, and each bride has different considerations.  The modern groom should be understanding of his bride's choice, whichever way she chooses, and respect her reasons for doing so.  Which is a great segue into another topic.

Clergy have long felt that it's not the wedding per se that matters, but the marriage.  However, marriage educators have recently begun to feel that the process of planning a wedding is not only good practice for a marriage, but can actually predict the success of the marriage.  Planning a wedding, as you no doubt know, is an invitation to conflict.  The basic indicator for a successful marriage is how the couple interacts with each other, and with each other's family; in short, how those inevitable conflicts are resolved:

Successful couples are those who know how to discuss their differences in ways that actually strengthen their relationship and improve intimacy.  Successful couples don't let their disagreements contaminate the rest of the relationship. (http://www.smartmarriages.com/divorcepredictor.html)

To quote Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!"  For more information along these lines, you can visit Smart Marriages at http://www.smartmarriages.com/.