After great success in the USA, a new saving program has launched in Australia- SmartyPig!

SmartyPig is all about setting saving goals and saving in a fun way. Like setting up a bank account, your SmartyPig account accrues 4.00% interest but goes one step further and calculates your monthly direct debit based on your goal amount and time frame.

I trialled the program last week with a $10 giftcard and after a little initial hiccup verifying my identity (really never a bad thing when dealing with banking!) I was on my way choosing avatars, setting goals and experimenting with the social tools the site provides.

Your account tracks your progress by way of a little pig with percentage- just like a virtual piggy bank!, You can upload your photo as an avatar and share your goal with your friends and family.

As an incentive, upon reaching your target Smartypig also allows you to choose gift cards from retailers such as David Jones, JB Hi Fi, Freedom Furniture, Adairs and Myer.

If you’ve chosen to have a honeymoon fund for your gift registry, the public fund feature on SmartyPig makes it really easy for your guests to contribute in the one spot. Guests can purchase “The Gift of Savings” also known as a SmartyPig gift card which allows you to put it into your fund and if you’re ahead with your goal, reduce your own contributions.

Should you choose to make your goal public, friends can see what percentage you have saved and you’re able to embed a nifty little widget onto your Facebook, Blogger or even IGoogle (over 30 different sites to choose from!). Should your friends sign up for SmartyPig, you can track how they’re doing and help them along the way.

I’m $10 on my way to my new goal and I don’t have to think about it! Find out more about SmartyPig via their website.

SmartyPig have given Polka Dot Bride a $100 Smartypig gift card to give to one lucky reader! All you have to do is let me know in a comment on this entry your ultimate savings goal and you could be $100 closer to it!

Entrants must be residents of Australia aged 18 or older. Competition closes 5pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on the 15th of August 2009.

Parts of Australia are in the middle of the hottest heatwave in 100 years right now so I can’t help thinking of more ideas to keep guests cool at summer weddings. I wrote 10 Tips To Keep Guests Cool in 2007

1. Provide icy cold drinks for guests
2. Give guests a parasol
3. Hire a slushee machine
4. Provide thongs (flip flops)
5. Make fan shaped ceremony programs
6. Serve mini icecreams
7. Create shaded lounge areas
8. Serve seafood on ice
9. Serve ice cold fruit
10. Have a sunset wedding

Here are a few more ideas!

Make icy cold iceblocks out of fruit.

Tropical Ice Blocks

Having a yellow wedding? or perhaps your wedding has cherries everywhere? How about making gourmet ice blocks (popsicles) for guests? Pineapple mixed with coconut juice and lime is delicious.

Sunscreen

Scout around for mini tubes of sunscreen. Some companies even provide personalisation! Place in baskets for guests to use. If you’re the bride don’t forget to put sunscreen on yourself!

Provide shade for guests

Photo from Brides

It sound’s obvious but it so often forgotten. if you’re marrying outdoors and the temperature is set to soar, provide shade for your guests! Use market umbrellas to shelter all of your guests or consider moving the ceremony to underneath a beautiful tree.

Compress The Cool

One of the best ways to cool down is to apply a cold compress to your neck and wrists. Pack eskys full of ice and full of cold compresses for guests to quickly and easily cool down. once they’re done they can place them back to refreeze ready for more guests. Another alternative to this is to provide small towels soaked in herb infused icy water.

Blot Spots

If you’re planning on bathroom baskets, include lots of blotting paper in the restrooms. Guests will want to get rid of their sweaty shine! You could also provide tissue pouches to guests to help them keep dry.

Fan It Away

Fan by Angels Dreaming

I already wrote about making your programs fans to help guests, but if you’d like something gorgeous that would double as a favor, consider beautiful fans made from bamboo, rattan or other materials that are a little more of a keepsake for guests.

Electronically Cool

Although the noise isn’t ideal (nor are they overly attractive!) consider using electric fans and misters if the weather is incredibly warm. The movement of air will help guests maintain a cool temperature. Do ensure your reception venue has working air conditioning too.

How are you keeping cool at your summer wedding?

I spotted this cute idea last month on Earth Friendly Weddings. The bride’s aunt bottled the rain from the couples wedding day into this sweet jar and engraved it with their wedding date.

Which leads me to the fact that rain isn’t so bad on your wedding day!

Here’s why I love a rainy wedding day

-You get to wear gumboots

Photo by Erika Gerdemark Photography

Think you’re limited to black? Why not find some red polka dot gumboots, or bright lime green ones?

Try Rosie Roo Designer Wellies for some extra fun prints

-You can have fun with umbrellas

Photo by Simply Timeless Photography

Black and white umbrellas can make for stunning wedding photos! I love the drama of all black or all white but if you want some fun, pick umbrellas in the same shade as your bridesmaids or a fun print.

-You get the gorgeous moody storm clouds in your photos

Photo by LifeImages

Other fun things about rainy wedding

• No one will be hot and sweaty in a suit
• Reflections in puddles
• Rainbows
• The smell of rain, the clean earth beneath you. The rain washes all the dirt and grime away. Think of it like a fresh start! What could be better on the first day of married life?
• It’s good luck! In italian “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata” or A wet bride is a lucky bride . Superstition? Maybe- but I like it!

Photo by Heather Cole Photography

If it’s going to rain on your wedding day- don’t stress! You can make plans for alternative venues, notifying guest etc. But some of the happiest stories I’ve heard are of couples whose day was filled with rain drops. You know what they realised? That their sunshine comes from within! This is what makes the memories of your wedding day.

The Perfect Table Plan team sent me over a copy of their Perfect Table Plan software to try out- I started on version three and upgraded to version four so I was able to play with the brand new features of Version 4- more table shapes, tableware options, exporting guest lists to PDF and more added features.

I love the notion that seating guests doesn’t have to involve a myriad of sticky notes and paper and that it can all be at my fingertips (seeing as a lot of brides are using spreadsheets nowadays anyway).
The program is based on a five-step task list.
1.    Add Guests
2.    Define Who Should Sit Near Who
3.    Add Tables
4.    Assign Guests To Seats
5.    Output

Perfect Table Plan allows you to import guests from a file- you may already have them in a spreadsheet or if not you can type them in manually. You can add couples and families, ensuring they’re kept together. You can also assign guests to groups i.e university friends).

You can also nominate the relationships between guests- ranging from next to to not near to and options in between. This is a great feature if you don’t want any chance of Great Aunt Ann sitting next to your high school friends.. Coloured smiley faces and dropdown menus make this easy, though it could be time consuming if you need to do it for every single guest.

Onto the reception venue and Perfect Table Plan allows you to create the layout of your reception room down to the last detail. Table sizes and shapes can be customised with the introduction of semi circular and oval tables in version 4.

You can choose to auto assign guests, which can take a few minutes for large weddings but as I was simply using my address book didn’t take long at all.  This makes the process entirely painless and if you’ve nominated your relationships, guests will be happy with who they’re sitting next to.

Perfect Table Plan isn’t only for seating guests, the program allows you to track RSVPS, special dietary needs and meal requirements. Assigning a guest as a VIP allows you to nominate bridal party members.
‘Output’ allows you to print out the guest list and create your own stationery. Whether it’s a guest chart alphabetically or a chart by table you can do this within the program adding fonts and setting for labels for your escort cards.

There’s also a nifty little RSVP feature within the program which will give you statistics on which guests have RSVPd and whether or not you have assigned them, so you can make seating changes right up until the last minute.

The software is linked into a nifty help database. On each section you can click the “How Do I?” button for a dropdown list of common questions.

I am a geek at heart and love software which takes the headache out of a problem such as wedding seating arrangements, Perfect Table Plan is fun to use and keeps everything in one place- making it easy to track guests and all the other oddities that go along with them.

You can download a free trial or buy Perfect Table Plan through their website here.

Polka Dot Bride has three license keys to Perfect Table Plan Version 4 (worth $AU39.95 each) to give away! To win simply finish this story in fifty words or less

“My bright idea of sitting Uncle Arthur next to mum’s eldest sister, who is a spinster, at the wedding, was on reflection a bad idea. It all started when…..”

This competition is open worldwide! Entrants must be aged 18 or over and entry closes 5pm AEST Monday 13th October (1am EDT 13th October)