By Cara Davis

When planning a wedding there are almost always non-negotiables. The dress. The photographer. The location. The groom (hopefully). But there are plenty of things you can change, compromise or completely do without on your wedding day. Here are a few of them, and how each can help you put your money where the most important things to you are — Maui anyone?

1. Save-the-Dates
Skip the printed postcards announcing your wedding date and use e-vites, Facebook, email and the old-fashioned phone to spread the word to out-of-town guests. If you’re committed to hardcopies, check out TheWeddingChicks.com for free, elegant printables.

2. A professional wedding planner
If you’re fairly well organized, you can get away without the services of a professional, so long as you have some reliable people to delegate to, like your mom and maids. Don’t use this as an excuse to not do your homework and get referrals for the services you do spend your money on, like flowers and catering. For some digital help, check out this article from Mashable on the best wedding-planning apps.

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Perfect Places, as a member of Signature Travel Network, is excited to offer Food Network Travel guided vacations in Italy, France and Northern California, said Rick Haggart, President of Perfect Places Vacation Rental Network.

“Perfect Places’ foodie clients will be able to enjoy customized culinary land vacations, the kind seen regularly on the Food Network,” Haggart said. “Trafalgar will operate the guided vacations, in association with the Signature Travel Network.”

Vacations include a Food Network tour director, first-class hotel accommodations and exclusive ‘By-Invitation-Only’ experiences that only Food Network can offer. Perfect Places’ guests will sample favorite dishes and visit favorite spots of Food Network stars as seen on such shows as Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and Best Thing I Ever Ate. Perfect Places’ guests will visit markets and wineries; meet chefs; and even try their hands in the kitchen in hands-on cooking classes, some using recipes developed by Food Network Kitchens. These unique itineraries will immerse guests in the best of local flavors from the brightest stars of the food world.

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By Anthony Manero

Isabella Rossellini is the essence of European beauty. We have seen her live so many lives, the screen siren, the sultry seductress, the pained and crying eyes that could envelope the embers of history and fan the flames of hope. The ambassador of Lancome, the respected mother for a jewelry brand, the sensual actress, the Mediterranean goddess photographed by people named Helmut and Leibovtiz and draped across the pages of Vogue. We have seen her vulnerability in Blue Velvet. We have seen her immortalized fame rolled out like a red carpet to support network darlings like 30 Rock, Friends and Seinfeld. We have seen her blue label flesh posing for Madonna’s ‘Sex” and ‘Erotica’ and felt so transposed that we dare not ask ourselves if it was indeed as a part of a book or a video.

Rossellini once said that the reason of her life is ‘not to be the most beautiful woman in the world’ as if it is a difficult and daring undertaking that she will take a lifetime to not be able to accomplish.

On the eve of her 66th Birthday, we step back from the woman who cut her teeth in Rome and New York, bearing both Italian and American citizenship and recognize that her legend does not just belong to her and her immense body of work, be it artisan or the philanthropic. The ex-wife of Martin Scorsese and David Lynch has had an even greater director in her life, the father of Neo Realist cinema and the father of one Isabella Rossellini, Roberto Rossellini. The woman who would be such a sentinel for love and sex came from parents who were embroiled in affairs of the heart their whole lives, off screen as much as on. [Read more…]