Thursday, March 27, 2008

Historic Preservation: Portland, Oregon

We usually blog and brag about far flung sand-and-sun destinations around the world, but from time to time, we like to to draw attention to our own hometown city of Portland, Oregon, which, despite its size, gets a lot of compliments from visitors who come here and fierce defensiveness from its inhabitants. The most recent kudos came from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. By way of CNN, I learned that PDX is doing its part to keep up and restore the old architecture. I see this every day - I'm taken aback to learn of homes near the city center that are less than 70 years old and even the building TheBigDay is housed in - called the Studio Building - has neat busts of famous composers on the facade. It's nice to know that we're keeping up our old architectural gems.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Green Bride Guide

The eco trend of reduce, reuse and recycle has entered the famously over-the-top wedding space. One bride, Kate L. Harrison, as incorporated her experiences on planning a green wedding into a book, the Green Bride Guide. It's not due out until the start of the 2008 engagement season - the holidays - but she's blogging with plenty of eco wedding advice. My favorite suggestion of hers so far is the time-consuming but beautiful use of small-increment stamps.

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Friday, March 21, 2008

High Tech Wedding Ceremony Thousands of Miles Apart

Rev. Christopher Tuttle, author of Questions to Ask Your Wedding Officiant on TheBigDay, recently officiated an unusual wedding.

After a sudden deployment, a couple decided to marry each other while thousands of miles away. The bride was home in Oceanside, California while the groom is stationed in Fallujah, Iraq. The high tech wedding was made possible through the Freedom Calls foundation, which offered the use of the satellite phone.

Watch the new report on this high tech wedding.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Locating your resort

Location, location, location - it's one of the most important things when you buy a house and it's one of the most important things when you book your honeymoon. Although the hotel claims to be near the beach, just how close is it? When your resort says it's in the heart of downtown, how big do they consider 'downtown' to be?

Put these worries to rest by checking out the newest section of our resort listings: Location! Although we've had Google Earth links that show the resort position for a long time, not everyone has Google Earth enabled. Now, anyone with an internet connection can view these resort locations with a different Google program, although close up street views are limited with Tahiti resorts and some other overseas destinations.

For comparison, look at Fiji's Likuliku resort in Google Earth and then check it out the Location section of the Likuliku brochure. Let us know what you think!

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Fly Free to Tahiti

When I read the above line in my email last week, I immediately scoffed. Free airfare...all the way to Tahiti? Yeah right, I can't even fly 2,000 miles for under $500 or track down a frequent flier ticket for less than 50K miles.

However, somehow, amazingly, Star Clippers has made it work - and they are extending the special to TheBigDay customers! Right now, when you book select 7, 10 or 11-night sailings aboard the Star Flyer, you can fly free from Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti.

These aren't just off-season dates, either. There are openings for peak season sailings in June, July, August and December! If you're interested, contact the BigDay Tahiti specialists to learn more about this awesome special.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

TheBigDay Mentioned in Elite Wedding Collection Magazine

Because the lead time on magazines is so great, we sometimes talk to reporters and then forget about their stories until we stumble across them a few months later. That's happened recently with a feature on honeymoon destinations in the Portland Monthly Bride and Groom, which included recommendations from both Patti and David. It also happened today with an article on untraditional registries in Beverly Clark's Elite Wedding Collection magazine - an interview that happened way back in July!

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