There is something mysterious and romantic about Asia, and when it comes to weddings, the rich diversity of Asian cultures, customs and religions makes for colourful and fascinating wedding traditions.
Japan
In Japan, many brides wear elaborately embroidered silk kimonos covered in purple flowers – purple is considered to be the colour of love in Japan. Weddings are traditionally either Shinto, when natural spirits are called upon to bless the couple, or Buddhist, during which two strings of beads are interwoven, symbolizing the joining of two families into one.
China
The traditional wedding gown in China is red, symbolizing luck for the bride and groom. Chinese bridal gowns are often decorated with golden phoenixes, chrysanthemums and peonies, which are symbols of wealth and good fortune in China. The groom traditionally wears a black silk coat over a robe embroidered with a dragon, and you would need to watch out for loud firecrackers at a Chinese wedding – these are thought to scare off evil spirits.
Korea
In Korea it is traditional for a fortune-teller (a kung-hap), to look at the bride and groom’s future before they get married to see if it will be harmonious. Koreans go in for very expensive wedding and engagement gifts – an average engagement ring costs in excess of 40,000 dollars – and personalised wedding presents are key. This might be one reason why they are so keen to check if the bride and groom are compatible first!
India
In India and other Hindu countries, it is considered bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other for several days before the wedding – not just the night before! As part of the wedding ceremony, the bride’s parents wash the bride and groom’s feet with milk and water – this symbolises purifying them for their new life together. During the wedding, the bride and groom hold rice, oats and green leaves in their hands, to signify wealth, health and happiness.
Asian cultures, although very different in many ways, unite together in their wedding traditions which focus on the uniting of families and couples, and on looking forward to a harmonious life together. Families often invest a lot of time and money into personalised wedding presents, and the success rate of many Asian marriages is very high compared with Western marriages.
Help your loved ones celebrate their wedding with an engraved gift. Personalised photo frames are a great way to capture a memory of a wedding day so why not get an engraved frame and put a picture of the happy couple inside the frame.
Two men taking a photo - Everyone's a photographer
Since I was a kid I have loved photography. There was a time when I wanted to be a photographer… I’m very artistic in nature and somehow that line of work seemed very appealing to me. Alas… I never went into that field. However even today I’m still very interested in taking photographs and capturing the moment and it has become something that is very easy…. cameras whether they are throwaway, digital or SLR; they are readily available. I recently purchased an SLR camera and though I’m still learning the ins and outs of using it, that camera has already taken hundreds of photos. It’s very easy now to become a photographer and take nice pictures. So in some respects when people say “everyone’s a photographer” then it is very true.
But why are photographs loved so much? Why do we enjoy looking at them and flicking through albums?
For me I adore the idea that I can capture a moment and in years to come I can look back at that photo and be reminded of that time. It’s a way to capture the past (I realise that some people want to forget the past), but for me the memories and moments of our past help shape us today, so it’s nice to have something to jog my memory…. some photos like photos from a 21st Birthday party showing the birthday girl opening all her 21st Birthday gifts can show her excitement at receiving her 21st Birthday gifts, you’d be able to see some of the feelings she had, her facial expressions and possibly you’d be able to work out gifts that she didn’t like! Photos are a way of seeing the celebration, remembering it and then transporting yourself back there. How many times have you looked back on a bunch of photos and sat reminiscing about that particular event. I know I have. I love getting the photo album out and telling people the stories behind the pictures!
If you think about a wedding… it’s standard to have a wedding photographer. That photographer is there to capture all your best (and worst) moments, he/she builds a portfolio of pictures that make up pretty much all the main moments of your wedding. When you look back on them you can see how your day unfolded and the exciting things that happened. It’s also very often that you’ll probably pick the best photo you and your love and you’ll put that in a photo frame, perhaps a wedding photo gift that was given to you by someone who attended your wedding? I once attended a wedding and I decided that I wanted ‘my’ gift to house that prized wedding photo, so I decided to get the couple a personalised photo frame, I went for an engraved photo frame because I know that they would have loved that kind of gift. They are both pretty soppy and so they would loved to be able to see a photo of themselves on their wedding day in a frame with their names and the date of their wedding engraved on to it. A hit all round I’d say.
We all love to be behind the camera, taking that magic shot. But sometimes it’s nice to see that perfect photo sat on the mantle piece in a beautiful photo frame.
Here is a great video to help you take better photos:
We all have hundreds of photos dotted about our homes, whether they are in albums, in frames, still in the processing packet or even in our phones. Photos are something that are a part of life. Social networking sites such as facebook promote the use of photos in a huge way. They let you make albums that you can share with friends, upload photos from your phone. A photo is the thing that tells a thousand words… or in the case of photos on facebook; a photo can get a thousand comments. All I know, is that photos are important. They are the way to capture a memory and make sure you never forget it. There are plenty of times I have gone through my photo albums and forgotten about some of the things that I’m looking at it. It’s weird, you can experience so many things but with you mind constantly thinking and remembering new and interesting information you can sometimes forget the old stuff that means a lot to you. Photos and taking snaps of the most irrelevant stuff makes sure you don’t.
I’ll do a bit of selling now, if you are thinking of getting someone a gift and you want to make it special and something that they are going to want to keep forever (and also something that they would actually appreciate), then seriously consider a personalised photo frame. I’ll explain why. How many times have you bought a gift for someone and you’ve looked at their facial expression and known that really when they say they “like it”, they are just being nice. You know it and so does everyone else. I hate that feeling. I’m one of these people that loves to buy gifts for people, I take my time and try and choose something that I know they will like. But sometimes you get it wrong. With a personalised gift I don’t think you can. Whether it is a set of engraved champagne flutes with a unique message on it, or a bottle of personalised champagne where you’ve designed a champagne label yourself. Those are all gifts that mean something. Engraving turns any old standard gift into something luxury – it adds value to a gift that probably had very little before. It’s also something that lasts, whether you get a piece of jewellery or a set of champagne flutes engraved either way, unless they get broken – they gift will last. With a personalised champagne gift where you can design your own label, you are taking the time to create something from scratch. Fair enough you haven’t bottled the champagne yourself (it’s not like everyone owns a vineyard in the Champagne region of France), but the fact you’ve taken the time to choose the photo and construct the message and then put it all together – it can often show how much you care about a person when they see the time and effort you’ve gone to to make a gift for someone. I like the personalised photo frame a lot though, mainly because I enjoy looking at photos – whether they are mine or another persons. If you choose a unique photo of a memory that you know means a lot to the both of you, you can create a fantastic gift and something that no one else has in the world. With an engraved message you just add that extra touch.
Stack of old black and white photos
Now back to our discussion of what makes a photo…. I’ve noticed recently that a lot of people have started to take photos in black and white. I think this is something that has either come back into fashion, or it’s a great way to hide skin blemishes. I’ve been trying it out as well and I really like it. It gives photos a really “old” and “retro” feel to them and it really works. So maybe that is what makes a photo – the colour of it. Whether colour has been used or whether they are black and white. When photographing people you can get away with black and white and often they look amazing. There are loads that I’ve seen where I find myself staring at them for ages. Black and white photos are something that bring out a person’s eyes. A good photo can capture the sparkle in the eye. BUT what about a beautiful garden scene, or a day out at the beach? Will that look right without being able to see the colour, will you be able to appreciate the scene fully without being able to see the colours? I don’t think so. I think at times the colour is needed so you can fully enjoy what you are looking at.
So yes, the memory of a photo and the feeling you get when you look at it (whether it is in black and white or in colour) is what makes a photo.
This is a good video explaining how to use a digital camera to take black and white photos:
I love birthdays! And when I say ‘love’… I mean I LOVE birthdays. They are the one day of the year that is all yours and for that it should be truly celebrated!! There is no one like you and the world is lucky to have you! But… is there one particular birthday that you could possibly want to go back to if you had the chance?? Mine would be my 18th Birthday. It was a fantastic day… I had a huge ‘surprise’ birthday party. It was awesome. I love dancing so my family had organized for some dancers to put on a performance and my dad even learned to dance for me and we had a “father-daughter” dance. It was a special day to say the least. All the people I loved were there and we had such a laugh. I got some fantastic 18th birthday gifts as well. One of the gifts that I thought was brilliant was the birthday photo frame that I was given. It was an engraved photo frame, that was made specifically for my 18th Birthday. They’d had the date and my name engraved onto the blank panel and they had put a photo of me from my first birthday into the frame. It was such a thoughtful 18th birthday gift, I’d have to say perhaps one of my favourite gifts. I have it in my room on my dressing table and every time I look at it, it reminds me of what a great day I had with all my friends and family. And let’s be honest isn’t that what birthdays are about? Enjoying your special day with the people that you love, whether its your boyfriend or husband, friends and family… you want to share it with them – or at least I do. Or maybe that is because I like being centre of attention.
I definitely think the type of gift that is bought should also reflect this sentiment. You want it to remind it of that special day so when you look at it you think to yourself that you go it for your birthday… whether its your 18th, 21st, 30th or 70th birthday. I think my 18th birthday gifts were very representative of the age of ’18′ – in the UK, the legal drinking age is 18 and for some reason people seem to want to get all alcohol related gifts when you hit that particular age. Come to think of it though when I turned 21 I received a stack load of champagne gifts. I don’t think you can really complain about that though. But back to my 18th… Engraved gifts seem to the rage then because as well as an engraved photo frame, I got an engraved champagne gift. I tell you something that was a special gift and a really shocker as well! I was so happy when I received it that I almost dropped it! But it was just so pretty. Those gifts are two of my most favourite gifts and I still have them today.
Although nowadays gifts like an engraved photo frame and an engraved champagne gift have become more common. I still think they are a luxury gift. It takes time and effort to find the right frame and to have it engraved means that a lot of thought has gone in to it. How can that then be anything less than a luxury gift?
Father’s Day will soon be here. My dad is one of these people who are really hard to buy for. He doesn’t need anything and if he does then he will go and get it himself. He is MASSIVE Star Trek fan…. I had planned to get the DVD of the latest film for him as a gift, but just as I had thought about it – he had gone and bought it himself! In some ways that is good, it saves me a lot of cash. However in other ways it’s rather annoying because when it comes to buying him birthday gifts and Father’s Day gifts then I have no idea what to get him.
My dad is a big family man, he always gets a bit sad and blue when he doesn’t see his kids, parents or cousins very often. Being brought up in a large family means he enjoys seeing the people that mean the most to him regularly…. knowing this it got me thinking. Sometimes we can’t make it home at the weekends or life takes over and you end up missing opportunities to catch up with loved ones. But it doesn’t mean that you aren’t thinking of them and they aren’t thinking of you. Father’s Day is one such holiday. This year I am going to be away in Australia… much to my dad’s dismay. I know he’ll be a bit sad that all his kids aren’t around him but what can you do…. like I said your “own” life takes over. BUT… I didn’t want him to think I had forgotten him. So as a Father’s Day gift I wanted to get him something really special, that would make him think I was there in spirit. Something unique to him and something that was personal from me…. and what could be better than a personalised gift? I’ve actually got him a mixture of things (I hope he doesn’t read this you know else this is going to ruin the surprise, there is still a month to go!!!)… first off I got him a personalised photo frame, I ordered it as an engraved photo frame so that I could put my own personal message on it – I’m not going to tell you what I wrote because that is private but I will say that it’s a message that would mean a lot to him! So anyway I’ve gone for the engraved photo frame with the personalised message, this gift is perfect because I’ve put a photo of the whole family in it. It’s a photo from when we were younger and when we went to Blackpool and we bought him a helicopter ride for his birthday! Though it’s an old photo it’s a great memory.
Now along with the personalised photo frame, I’ve also got him a bottle of personalised champagne and a set of engraved champagne flutes. The champagne bottle has a label which I have designed for him, again I used the Blackpool photo because of it’s sentimental value. Also I want to create a bit of a champagne gift set and it seemed better to make it so that all the gifts matched. I had the flutes engraved with the same message that I put on the photo frame and on the champagne label, I tried to make that like the greetings card… telling him that I was “Sorry I couldn’t be there for Father’s Day” – I do hope this gift will do enough to remind him, that though I’m not there for Father’s Day, I’ll still be there in spirit and obviously could never forget him!
Below is a great way to make a personalised greetings card this Father’s Day:
Gifts and the idea of buying them becomes more and more daunting. For our loved ones it is typical for us to buy a gift at Christmas, for their birthday and perhaps just because we haven’t seen our relatives for a while. Yet the more gifts you buy for someone the harder it becomes to shop for them. Do you not think? I start to run out of ideas very quickly, usually because i’ve spent time finding out their likes and dislikes and tried to get them gifts that they would like based on my research….. but I tell you something if your boyfriend is into music, there are only so many things music related that you can get them before it gets a tad difficult and a bit boring. My last gift was a set of wire things that would enable him to attach his computer and speakers to some big boom box thing (you can tell I’m all knowledgeable when it comes to musical terms!!). The point is, is that sometimes you need to think outside the box and go for something a bit different otherwise the gifts that you get become pointless and will seem almost obligatory.
A personalised photo gift is a great idea when you are thinking about a unique and memorable gift. Why? Well think about it, if you’ve been getting someone “wires” as a birthday present then anything is going to be better!! In all seriousness… and again sticking with the musical theme. You could get an engraved frame and personalise it with a special message and then put inside the frame a picture of a gig that you and your loved one went to or him/her playing in their band or on stage at their own gig. It is a thoughtful gift firstly because it is personalised. It means that you have taken the time to think about what to write on the gift and taken the trouble to get it made. Secondly if you put in a special photo then the gift becomes sentimental The personalised photo frame encompasses all the elements that a gift should have…. 1) you’ve bought them a gift 2) it is unique and thus they’ll appreciate because no one will have anything similar 3) you’ve thought about the gift 4) it’s not a generic gift….so there are loads of reasons why that kind of gift would be a hit.
But you don’t just have to go for a personalised photo gift in the form of a photo frame there are plenty of other gifts that you could try. For example personalised champagne, personalised wine, personalised mugs – the design your own aspect of all of these gifts makes them really unique and you can literally make them look exactly how you want to!
I’m on those snap happy people. I take pictures of everything, I always have my camera on me and I doubt there is a
Digital Cameras - the new age of photo technology
time when I don’t whip it out to capture something funny, pretty, amusing or just something I want to remember. With digital camera’s becoming so cheap nowadays there’s not many people without a camera… and thus the popularity of personalised photo gifts has grown. It’s so easy now to take a photo and upload it onto your computer to manipulate as you need it. Everyone must have been into Boots at some point and seen the Kodak Kiosks where you can print off your photos within seconds or create a photo book.
Photos, and all things personalizable by photos have become very popular. The internet too is all about personalisation… as they say “web 2.0 was all about social networking, web 3.0 is all about personalisation”. But where has this personalised photo gifts phenomenon come from. Why are we no longer happy to just take our photos and then pop them into an album? The simple answer to this is that technology has enabled us to do more with our photos and so we want to do more. Years ago it wasn’t possible to create personalised champagne where you could design a label with a photo of your choice and add unique text. It was just something that you couldn’t do… but now it is so easy. So instead of giving the traditional champagne gift people like the idea of the uniqueness of a personalised champagne gift, where they have gone to the effort of creating the design from scratch. I mean think in terms of a wedding; everyone is going to be getting the bride and groom something but you would want your gift to stand out right, be something that is remembered? How will a bottle of Moet et Chandon stand out from a personalised wedding photo gift? It wouldn’t – the personalised photo gift would outshine it by far. That’s not to say a non-personalised gift is not as good as a personalised gift… they are different, as are the sentiments. But personalization stands out. It is memorable.
If someone got me a personalised photo gift then this is exactly what I would want: a personalised photo frame gift… why? Because if the person buying it for me had chosen an engraved frame, then I would have the personalised aspect of the gift because they would be able to put a personalised message onto the frame and it would be something that would be unique to me. But also I could then chose the photo that went into the frame which would make it even more special…. say the gift was for my birthday, I could make sure I had a photo taken with that person on my birthday and then I could put it into the engraved photo frame, the gift would be a great reminder of a great birthday and something that I would most likely display in a prominent position. Personalised photo frames have become very popular in recent times for that very reason.
So that’s probably the reason why photo gifts have become so popular. Digital cameras and technology have enable the time it takes to create something with photos so that it is a lot shorter… and isn’t that what all of us need when life is so very busy anyway – a quick and easy way to make something special?
The use of the word “photograph” was establish in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek φῶς (phos) “light” and γραφή (graphê) “representation by means of lines” or “drawing”, together meaning “drawing with light”. Isn’t that what a photograph is, a moment captured or drawn in the light?
Most of us nowadays have a camera, whether it’s an old fashioned one where you have to get the photo film developed or a snazzy new digital camera with all the mod cons. We all take photos of the things that matter to us. I’m one of these people that loves taking pictures (otherwise referred to as snap happy!), I always have my camera with me, always fully charged and I never want to miss an opportunity to use it. My reason being, that though my memory is pretty good… it’s the little things that you can sometimes forget – like when someone does something outrageously funny that you never expected! Photographs help “make a memory”. You’ll look back in a couple of years at a photo and think to yourself… “wow, when did that happen?” “Did we really do that?” or “I remember that!”… or at least something along those lines. That’s why I take photos anyway, so I don’t forget. Life gets so hectic at times, that you don’t remember the good memories because you just don’t have the time; seeing a photo frame with a special photo in or flicking through a photo album of happy days from years before reminds us to take a break and remember the things that matter.
So that’s why I think photo “gifts” are such wonderful presents. I once received a personalised photo frame from my mum and dad. It had my name on it and inside was my favourite family photo. We’d been out for a meal on my birthday and it is such a nice photo. All aspects of that photo frame made it really special, not only was it from my parents, and not only did it have a great photo in it, but it was personalised. So it was something I would keep forever. No one else would have on like it. I think that is what stood out when I received this gift; it was unique to me. Personalized photo gifts express your love or friendship like no other gifts. They are often more memorable, longer-lasting, considered more thoughtful, and frequently more economical to give than traditional store-bought gifts.
I mentioned in an earlier post this week about personalised champagne gifts “Stuck on what to buy? – why go for Personalised?” I said how I liked the idea of a bottle of personalised champagne with a label that had been designed especially for me. Design Your Own Champagne is the way forward, like I said it’s a photo frame in the shape of a bottle. The idea of being able to upload an image and add your own text to create a really original gift is something really special. But why would that kind of gift appeal to someone? The fact that it is has a photo on it. Photo gifts are some of the most popular gifts around. Why? For the simple reason that people love seeing their memories in front of them.
But there are loads of other gifts that you can personalize if you don’t have the budget for champagne or if the person you are buying for, prefers a different kind of beverage, such as; personalised wine, personalised vodka, personalised whisky and personalised port. All of these use the same principle of uploading a photo to create a unique gift.
Photo gifts are really easy to create nowadays as well, it’s quick and simple to take a shot of something cool and then download it onto your computer before creating your own unique gift! Technology has made these kinds of gifts more accessible.
I feel really like I’m selling in this post. That’s not my intention… but I wanted to make the point that photo gifts do make really good gifts… why because we all love looking at photos. And if you are going to go for a gift that involves photos, why not make it a bit unique!
But… is there one particular birthday that you could possibly want to go back to if you had the chance?? Mine would be my 18th Birthday. It was a fantastic day… I had a huge ‘surprise’ birthday party. It was awesome. I love dancing so my family had organized for some dancers to put on a performance and my dad even learned to dance for me and we had a “father-daughter” dance. It was a special day to say the least. All the people I loved were there and we had such a laugh. I got some fantastic 
but I will say that it’s a message that would mean a lot to him! So anyway I’ve gone for the engraved photo frame with the personalised message, this gift is perfect because I’ve put a photo of the whole family in it. It’s a photo from when we were younger and when we went to Blackpool and we bought him a helicopter ride for his birthday! Though it’s an old photo it’s a great memory.
The 
