"Your most common wedding etiquette dilemmas solved!"

As one of the biggest and most potentially stressful events of your life, getting engaged and subsequently planning a wedding brings with it an onslaught of questions. As times change and weddings evolve, traditional rules of etiquette have followed suit, only adding to the confusion.

To gain perspective, first understand that "etiquette" is above all about treating people with courtesy and making them feel comfortable. When an etiquette question arises, consider the feelings of those who will be affected. Let us steer you through the fog of questions with this quick look at the most common wedding etiquette dilemmas, including:

Family Etiquette Invitation Etiquette Gift-giving Etiquette Attire Etiquette The Cash Bar Issue New! Asking for Money; Invited to a Money Shower?"

Find out at Elegala.com-Wedding Planning and Services about all these tips and much more how to plan your wedding.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Definitely we did... it was our 7 month-old Saphira's first Christmas. It was great to open presents with our wide-eyed daughter. The snow was gently falling while christmas songs played in the background. What a heart-warming day! Starting at 2pm, I cooked a turkey feast ... in true Noppe fashion, we didn't eat until 10 pm, though! I'm painfully slow in the kitchen but my wife usually appreciates the outcome...

I almost never use recipes, preferring to let my inspiration come from the fresh shopping experience and any creative juices flowing while I prepare and cook (and maybe drink some red) ;-). I think our turkey stuffing worked out well so I'll try to write it down in hopes that maybe next year someone else can use it as a starting point for their own kitchen adventure. By all means, leave yours to share, too! Measurements will just be a guess, with some unconventional units.... ;-)

I have a big thick plastic sheet that I got at Ming Wo on 4th Ave many years ago; it has an honoured place in my kitchen. Makes it easy to cut a lot of things together. It can be rolled up at the sides to slide all the ingredients into a pan or mixing bowl afterwards...

K, here we go. Whenever possible, I use organic or at least local ingredients.

Brian's Turkey Stuffing 2007

After thoroughly rinsing with water, start soaking one cup of short grain brown rice and a half cup of wild rice for at least 2 hours in water.

Then chop all the following ingredients up into small pieces for easy eating... enough to end up with one handful each of:

fennel, italian parsley, red pepper, celery, carrot, onion, brown (crimini) or portabello mushrooms.

Then chop up 5 cloves of garlic.

Put all of this into a mixing bowl and add:

a few spoons of currants, a handful of hazelnuts, a few sprigs of rosemary, stems removed, a big spoonful each of thyme and sage, two spoons of sea salt, a spoonful of hazelnut or extra virgin olive oil.

Drain the rice and mix it in a bowl with everything else. Stuff the turkey; I used the rosemary stems to skewer the skin flap closed and keep the stuffing in.

Regina, Saphira and I went for a lovely walk. There were a few eagles and I had my camera so I snapped a few pix on the way back....

With Love from Brian

While driving home 2 nights ago after a long day of errands and meetings (and driving Mom and Dad to the airport), it started to snow on the Sea to Sky highway. So beautiful!

Snow always reminds me of being a kid, growing up in a small town in the Ottawa Valley. It will likely be a wet, not white Christmas, but some snow on the ground is great!

Speaking of feeling like a kid...

AH, My Wife. When it comes to gifts, um... she is a kid. 5 years old. Absolutely impossible for her to resist tearing open gifts prematurely!

So, yesterday, Regina just had to have a "little peek" at some presents that my brother Mark and his wife, Debbie had given my parents to leave under our tree. One of them was a gift certificate for a big box store. Sorry, Mark and Deb!

But, the upside... we used the certificate to get our little Saphira her first highchair. Now she can eat at the table in her own chair with mom and dad like a big girl. Saph is only 6 months old and we had decided to wait that long before giving her solid food. She ate mushy organic banana while her mom and dad had rigatoni with sundried tomatoes, green olives, mushrooms and basil. Doesn't sound fair, but one-thing-at-a-time for our little one!

Krista and Dinos' babies

Last week, we got together with this wonderful couple and met their new twins over a delicious dinner cooked by Krista. Thanks, guys! It is especially rewarding to me personally when I see people I really respect and admire blessed with children.

Weddings are such touching events. I'll be making their family portrait next year, too... the cycle of life goes on.

Bearing witness to this fruition of love by creating striking and everlasting images about life, family and love is an astounding and heart-warming part of my career.

It was great to re-live the wedding while going through images to choose for the main album. It will be a handsome and understated modern aluminum book. With 250 pictures, I'm really looking forward to seeing it when it's done!

Got a request from the editors of Perfect Wedding Magazine to submit photos for their upcoming issue. In October, we were part of a select group of vendors invited to participate in the Wedding Show hosted by Brock House Restaurant. This was my second year there. I also photographed the very cool fashion show again this year. Genève and Sarah and the fantastic team at Dreamgroup Event Planners did a great job of planning and organizing a beautiful and informative day for prospective brides and grooms.

If you haven't been to Brock House Restaurant before, I highly recommend going for a romantic dinner there! The food and staff are fantastic. The setting is beautifully elegant and quintessentially Vancouver because of its gorgeous Jericho Beach setting.

Just love it when cool shoots come out of the blue!

I got an email a couple of days ago from Marla Winston asking for some web sized images from a shoot we did in late August. Marla is the publicity director for a country band called Emerson Drive. The assignment was to photograph the tattoos the guys in the band had just done to commemorate their #1 hit country single called, "Moments". The boys had their tats done on the TV show, LA INK and the show's producers needed close-up photographs of their tattoos done for the show, which was airing the following week. So they needed pictures asap, as in now!

Thanks to the concierge at the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver, Marla, called me from her office in Beverly Hills. She had heard I was a good artistic photographer who could get the job done. Thanks, Sutton Place!

I set up my lights and the guys came in one at a time and we had a lot of fun making the pictures. Then we emailed our picks to New York (production for the show is in NY) from my computer right there at the shoot. I had never done things that way before so it was a thrill and a challenge at the same time!

Marla and the guys invited my assistant Janine and me to their gig that night at the PNE, which we totally enjoyed. The bands played their hearts out... such great energy and the fans went wild! We hung out with them for a while backstage and got to know them a little bit more.

Congratulations to the guys in the band and all the people who have worked so hard to help you achieve your success. Keep it up!