Flowers And Weddings

It is an unwritten law that you cannot get married without flowers. Flowers are the essence of a beautiful wedding day celebration. Flowers are a three dimensional element of your decorating strategy. Because they are beautiful, elegant, and provide a wonderful scent, flowers satisfy all senses.

 The flowers you select should compliment everything else in your wedding. Its colors should complement not just your dress. The colors of your flowers work with the colors of the décor of your reception site and the ceremony location.

Unless you are lucky enough to be a florist, you’ll need to hire one. The florist should be experienced with wedding arrangements, and you’ll be hard pressed to find one that isn’t. Make sure your florist is able to deliver, install, and remove the arrangements at the end of your event.

Even though many reception halls can recommend a florist to you, you should do your homework. Ask for references, and be sure to follow up. It may be tempting to hire a florist without check references, but it could also be irresponsible.

Your wedding flowers should complement the season, your wedding dress, and your color scheme. Your wedding flowers should also complement your attendants' attire, and the style of your wedding. Before you talk to your florist, prepare a list of wedding flowers you'll need. It will help focus your discussions, and help you stay within your wedding budget.

When you plan the flower arrangements with your florist, she should be able to recommend arrangements based on the size and location of your wedding. Ask to see photos of previous wedding arrangements - Don’t accept generic photos of flower arrangements, insist on seeing the work of the florist.-, which will give you a feel for their creative qualities and what you can expect to see on your wedding day.

It is even better if you arrive prepared with some pictures and magazine cut outs with your ideas. You don’t have to take the florist’s advice on everything, be part of the decision making process. If you feel strongly about a certain flower or color, it should worth fighting for it. It is your wedding, and you are the customer. You have to feel good about your flower arrangements. Your day is about you.

Marriage: Learning to Love

My daughter was recently in her school's performance of Fiddler On The Roof. She was one of the daughters. If you don't know the story, it focuses on the changing culture of marriage, from one where the marriage is arrainged by family and community to one based on mutual attraction.

In one of the songs, the main character asks his wife if she loves him. She replies that for 25 years, she has shared his bed, made his meals, tended his house, raised his children -- so what kind of question is that? The point is that in their relationship, love wasn't even a question or consideration. But after some back-and-forth, they decide that, indeed, they love each other.

This led me to think about what I know about marriage. And here is what I think about the question of love and marriage: we fall in love to get together, then spend the rest of our lives learning to love the other.

You see, the initial attraction is really about "I."  "I" feel a certain way, so I know I am "in love." But that part of the relationship is driven by my need to feel that way, my need to be with the other person, my need to have my needs met.  My needs are fueled by my desire to feel the intense emotion of "being in love."

But in reality, love is a verb, something I do for the other. So, it takes the rest of my life to learn how to attend to my spouse's needs. From my desire to be with my spouse comes my desire to meet my spouse's love needs.

We are "fooled" into commitment by the overwhelming feeling of attraction, and then we have to put forth effort to create a sustained relationship. I say "fooled" because our culture has us believing that this love is the foundation of a relationship. It is not. It is merely a temporary starting point.  It is not the destination.  It is just a part of the journey to a lifetime relationship.

Those intense feelings will calm over time. The overwhelming need to be with someone that marks the infatuation portion of a relationship is not sustainable on its own. It's like placing a flame in a bottle. Eventually, the flame will burn all the oxygen in the bottle and be extinguished.

So, there has to be some "fueling of the fire." This is "love," the verb. When I act in loving ways, I fuel the fire and keep it burning. If I stop tending to the other's needs because I don't feel that infatuation, the relationship will slowly (or not so slowly) die away.

When we continue to believe that "love" (infatuation) is the heart of a relationship, when that feeling is gone, we believe we are no longer in love. That is not the case; we have just failed to fuel the fire.

Reality TV has proven that any two people, given the right circumstances and settings, can fall into love (chemistry of infatuation). But story after story shows that it is harder to make the switch to "true love" that comes from action. Choose action, and don't be fooled by chemistry.

By acting on love, by making love a verb and not an emotion, we keep the emotional fire stoked.  And that is the great irony:  if we depend on the feeling of being in love to keep us together, it will fail.  But if we set that aside and focus on being loving, the feeling of being in love is sustained.  Mature love is a verb, not an emotion.

Are You a Jealous Lover?

What do you do when that little, green eyed monster, as it's so often called, jealousy bites you? It can happen to the best of couples, no matter what stage your relationship is in. Sometimes, it feels like there is no defense against this ridge building phenomenon. Most people are not jealous by nature but jealousy is usually put into action by some event, situation or another person.

 If you are insecure about your relationship and very dependent on your lover you are likely to be jealous. After jealousy creeps in we begin to spy on our lover, worrying about the situation and reviewing the evidence. Suspicion is a strong emotion here.

 If we decide there is a threat to our love, we can have a very wide range of responses like clinging dependency, violent rage at the competitor or the partner, self-criticism, and depression with suicidal thoughts.

But is there any way to conquer this feeling and overcome jealousy?

  Here are some ways you can handle jealousy

 1. Isolate the cause of jealousy. You may think that jealousy is caused by your partner looking sexy or by a certain person at work. But that isn't the real cause. That is just a symptom. Try to understand what the real cause is, so that you can then work on finding a solution.

2. Focus on eliminating one jealousy trigger. You also need to realise that jealousy can be overcome easily. So start out by focusing on an activity where you work through one of the main triggers for your jealousy and try to find the cause.

3. Build up your self-esteem. Most of the jealousy situations are caused by the jealous lovers feeling that they are not good enough for their partners. They feel inadequate and they feel that their partner would leave them for someone else, if given half a chance. So one key thing to work on is to build up your self-esteem.

Do You Miss Your Missing Teeth ?

"It is not uncommon for someone to lose at least once in their life and for many it could be significantly more. Tooth loss also becomes more of a problem with age," says Dr. Rene Piedra . "

This is definitely something that we have been seeing with baby boomers who are now starting to come into the age range where this is now becoming an issue." A dental implant takes the place of the missing tooth's root and can help prevent additional health and cosmetic issues.



Known as the "people dentist" in Coral Gables, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami Beach and surrounding areas, Dr. Rene Piedra and his team keep themselves abreast of current technologies and practices that help them to bring the best of dental care to their patients.

The fact fewer people these days lack the teeth of previous generations, is largely due to advances in modern dentistry. With current dentistry techniques, "people can have now have a natural-looking, beautiful smile regardless of what life has dealt them."

Missing teeth are usually the result of accidents, gum disease or poor dental health. According to Rene Piedra, DMD, "In almost all cases, gum disease and poor dental health is simply due to lack of education or proper dental care." Proper dental care includes not only brushing and flossing your teeth on a regular basis but also encompasses, proper nutrition and other issues.

Leaving the missing tooth space empty may not sound too serious, but the consequences of not filling in the space from the missing tooth can include:

    * The teeth adjacent to your missing tooth can change position to fill the gap resultiing in a improper bite which can lead to other health issues
    * The loss of your missing tooth's root can cause your jawbone to shrink, making your face appear prematurely older; and,
    * A missing tooth in the front of your mouth can affect your smile and your self-confidence.

In many situations, a dental implant is the most pleasingly esthetic solution for replacing missing teeth. A dental crown or dental bridge, secured to a dental implant, can provide a complete and beautiful solution for improving your smile.

"New advances in dental implants are one of the most important developments in modern dentistry and Rene Piedra, DMD and Associates is proud to be able to help bring this advancement in dentistry to our patients" say Dr. Rene Piedra. Because of advances in dentistry, in materials, instruments, techniques and chairside manners it is more than ever, less challenging to have dental treatment completed. "Many of our patients are afraid of the dentist but have come in due to pain or because of a friend or family member.