A wedding is a special event, not just for the bride and groom, but also for the people attending the wedding. An invitation to a wedding can be a symbol that the bride and groom consider you to be close friends of the family. There are important rules of etiquette that apply to the wedding, from ways to respond to the invitation to guidelines for purchasing wedding gifts.
Although the emphasis on the wedding is the love and commitment the new couple shows, it is important to follow wedding gift guidelines so that you are not perceived as being rude.
One of the key things with wedding gift guidelines is to know when it is appropriate to give a gift and when it is not. If you receive an invitation to the wedding, you should absolutely purchase a gift if you attend. Often it is also a good idea to send a gift even if you cannot attend the wedding. The only situation where it is polite to not send a gift is if you have been out of touch with the couple for several years.
There are events related to the wedding that have gift guidelines as well. For instance, if you receive an announcement of the wedding after the fact, you should not feel obligated to send a gift. A congratulatory card will suffice in this case.
If you are invited to the engagement party, you should not feel obligated to bring a gift then, since there will be a time at the wedding for giving gifts. However, if you are invited to the wedding shower, it is polite to bring a gift. However, in this case if you do not attend, you do not have to purchase a gift.
A tricky area in wedding gift guidelines is knowing what you should purchase for the new couple. Though some will try to convince you that there are formulas to follow, there are no real formulas. The only thing that should determine the gift that you give the new couple is how close you feel to them, as well as your own budget. Of course, with the advent of wedding registries, it’s easy to pick out a gift, but if you are more comfortable picking out a gift without consulting the bridal registry, feel free to do so.
If you do purchase a gift, the final lesson in wedding gift guidelines is when and where to give the gift.
Wedding gifts may be given as soon as the marriage is announced. You can send the gifts to the bride’s home if you send it prior to the wedding itself.
It is also be permissible, and probably most customary, to bring the gift to the reception.
If you give your gift after the wedding, the custom is to send it to the new couple’s home.
Beyond this, there are no hard and fast rules with wedding gift guidelines. Don’t let the responsibility of purchasing a wedding gift detract from the true purpose of the day, which is celebrating the love that the new couple have each other.
Wedding Gift Guidelines To Consider
June 18th, 2011Wedding Jewelry: Saving Time And Money
May 8th, 2011According to history, wedding jewelry had its origins during ancient civilization. It is said that the Egyptians initiated the concept of wearing wedding rings as a symbol of marriage. While the earliest wedding rings were constructed of leather, ivory, and grass, today’s wedding jewelry market has far exceeded the Egyptians’ expectations. Each year, thousands of dollars are spent by couples on engagement rings and wedding bands. The following are a few useful tips that will help you to purchase wedding jewelry without breaking the bank.Start Early
The most stressful way to shop for wedding jewelry is at the last minute. In fact, last-minute shoppers usually pay more for their merchandise. With this said, starting early will give you the upper hand on the best deals out there. Consumers that begin shopping early, have the advantage of doing a cost-comparison analysis. Cost-comparison shopping is a definite way to ensure that a consumer will get the best deal. Some brides begin shopping for their bridesmaids gifts as much as 18 months in advance!Research
In order to begin the cost-comparison process, you must first conduct a little research. Because there is thousands of wedding jewelry dealers in industry, you must narrow your search down to a few options. It’s impossible to compare prices at every jewelry store. Try to narrow your choices to a few types of jewelry such as pearl bridal jewelry or perhaps Swarovski crystal jewelry. Some online stores will let you order several items to select from and let you return the rest.Holiday Specials
Most wedding jewelry dealers offer special discounts during Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and other love-inspired holidays. Even if you are not planning to get engaged during one of these occasions, it is a good idea to take advantage of the special discounts offered during these special holidays. A companion idea is to bookmark some of your favorite stores and look for sales or specials on the type of jewelry that you are interested in.Shop Online
In today’s society, a large portion of the population conducts most of their shopping online. In fact, shopping online entitles consumers to take advantage of the best deals. Buying wedding jewelry online is a great way to cut down on cost and to get a better idea of what’s available under a broader microscope. It helps to find a store that answers the telephone with someone that will spend time discussing ideas with you.Buy Wholesale
In America, buying wholesale is one of the most efficient ways to save money. Many wedding jewelry dealers are able to lower their prices when they purchase wholesale merchandise. When conducting your research, search for wholesale jewelry dealers.Be Careful!- You will need to investigate and compare quality and price when dealing with someone who claims to be selling wholesale. Most wholesalers do not sell direct to the public.Budget Wisely
Although wedding jewelry is meant to last a lifetime, no one wants to spend a lifetime paying for it. As a word of caution, try to avoid purchasing wedding jewelry through financing. Using some of the ides listed above, you should be able to find easily affordable jewelry. Bridal jewelry is meant to symbolize the love shared between two people. Its symbolism shouldn’t be hindered by an outstanding credit balance attached to an astronomical interest rate. In this case, it’s best to wait and save up for the wedding jewelry of your dreams.
Wholesale gold jewelry trading guide for entrepreneurs
April 17th, 2011For those of you who are thinking about selling gold jewelry, it is crucial that you understand fully how to determine the price for gold jewelry. Not only this can help you to tell a good deal from a bad one, it also helps to analyze your competitors and understand the market better before you make any investment.
Gold price
The most important part of wholesale gold jewelry trading is to understand the breakdown of the cost of a piece of gold jewelry. Let‘s say the current good price is $500 per ounce. To calculate the cost of gold for a piece of 14 karat gold jewelry that weighs 3 gram without any stones, we first divide the price per ounce by 31.5, to get the price per gram, which is $15.87. This is the price of pure gold. To convert this to 14K gold, knowing that there are 24 karats in pure gold, we divide $15.87 by 24 and multiply the result by 14. The price per gram for 14k gold is roughly $9.26. Therefore, the total cost of the gold for a 3 gram ring would be $27.78.
Labor Cost
Another major part of the cost for a piece of gold jewelry is the cost for labor, especially for pieces set with precious stones. Gold jewelry generally requires some filing and polishing after it is cast out of the mold. The labor cost can sometime be as high as $2 per gram, depending on the origin of the jewelry and the style. In addition, the cost of setting any stones on a gold jewelry can be over one dollar per stone. Certain advanced setting such as channel set and invisible set cost even more because of the high level of craftsmanship required.
Markup of Competitors
A good way to analyze if a certain style of gold jewelry is profitable and beneficial for a business is to understand your competitors’ prices. Since you already know how to calculate roughly the cost of a piece of jewelry, and therefore the price that you can get it, buy looking at the markups of your competitors, you may get an idea of how severe the competition is. For instance, if the competitors are marking up the jewelry three times of the cost, the competitiveness of that style is not really that high. On the other, if everyone has the same pricing and the markup is 50% above the cost, the style might have already saturated the market.
Volume trading
Another angle of looking at the pricing issue is that when the competitors are marking up at a low margin, the item is probably accepted by a lot of consumers. The justification behind it is that when the profit per piece is low, and people are trading them actively, there probably is a high demand for it. On short, the higher the profit margin, the low the volume of sales and the low the profit margin, the higher could be the volume of sales. Another point that is worth noting is that the volume theory also applies to jewelry vendors. If you buy in large quantity, pricing should go down automatically. Therefore, running a successfully business involves getting the balance between all the factors within the resources and infrastructure you have such as employees and capital.
Closeout Jewelry
Since jewelry business is highly time-sensitive, styles that were once popular several months ago may not sell at all couple months later. Therefore, when buying gold jewelry wholesale, you should estimate the monthly sales and stock according to the sale volume. For example, you may want to stock a certain style for two months worth of stock and restock it when it runs out in order to minimize the closeout items in the inventory, which is sometimes referred to as inventory shrinkage.
By understanding the market and your competitors before buy wholesale gold jewelry, you can reduce the mistakes during your entrepreneurial endeavor, thus increase the chance of succeeding tremendously.