Manolo for the Brides

In honor of the now entirely official divorce of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and the entirely official marriage of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, I’d like to point you toward some advice that will help you avoid looking like the wrong kind of celebrity on your wedding day. You the ones I mean…the ones who set up more matrimonial pomp than the British monarchy. The ones that get married after knowing one another for four days or less. And the ones who stage elaborate weddings for their same-sex dogs.

Jenny Colgan has written up a list of 10 celebrity no-no’s at iVillage, including:

5. Don’t have a golden, Egyptian theme and get carried in on a table by gilded slaves, especially if you’re the size of Celine Dion’s husband, Rene.
6. Don’t ask a bunch of people you’ve just met to be your bridesmaids, dress them all in black, then spend the entire ceremony giving your new plastic-faced husband graphic tongue sandwiches, Liza.

If I were to write such a list, I would have to add that one should not get married to one’s waiter or waitress after a short period of engagement. Nor should one get married at 2:30 a.m. in an all-night wedding chapel in Vegas while falling down drunk. If you must tie the knot in the grand celebrity style, don’t have your prize purebred act as ring bearer if he’s a biter and don’t fail to invite your friends in favor of saturating your ceremony with picturesque A-listers. Don’t use your wedding as a soapbox to express your hardcore political views and for goodness sake don’t get married wearing a t-shirt covered in your beloved’s blood.

Finally, try not to get divorced an hour later. That’s just plain scary.

To quote The Manolo, AYYYYYYYY!

I have this image in my mind of a crowded space full of guests. The organist begins playing the bridal march and a hush falls over the crowd. The bride slowly makes her way onto the aisle. Before the guests ever see her, however, they hear her…FWAP! FWAP! FWAP! go her dainty feet as she makes her way toward marital bliss. Does the groom run like hell? Do the older ladies cluck their tongues? Maybe. Maybe not. But what bride wants to run that risk?

Being that I like to believe that we are becoming a more thrifty and ecologically minded people, I also like to believe that the large number of used and new wedding gowns for consignment are the result of generous souls rather than divorced or cold footed ones.

Craiglist, EBAY, Freecycle, and other sites of that ilk have become a goldmine for enterprising and frugal brides, young and old alike, to find everything from shoes to dresses to favors to funny shirts for the bridesmaids. And I applaud that.

The thing that sticks out in my mind, however, is the rather large numbers of wedding dresses being sold by owners who say the dress has never been worn. The typical reason involves the blushing future bride finding a dress she liked better. While a few of the dresses in question leave no question as to why she would want to change her dress selection, such as this one, which from the back looks like an overdecorated meringue tart:

Most of them look rather stunning, like this Casablanca Bridal number:

I just don’t understand it!

There is just something about the weddings that sends some girls reaching for the fifteen nearest bridal magazines and other girls reaching deep into their imaginations for the ideas that say, “I am here to have a good time and to show my guests a good time, and I’m going to think out of the box and create something that screams ‘ME’.”

A friend of mine falls squarely in the latter catagory. The day before her wedding, she and her handsome future groom took the guests to an old fashioned roller rink for a skate party. She had another friend of ours perform the nuptuals. And this was her wedding cake:

Though they are too small to see properly in the photo, a mini King Kong carried a even smaller Fay Wray up the side of the sweet, delicious Empire State Building. It was magnifique!

After seeing Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons inkjet-printed silk gown with giant velvet bow and cake-shaped headpiece modeled by Katie Holmes in W Magazine, I am almost glad to see that Holmes and her shortstack beau have decided to postpone their nuptuals in favor of creating mini scientologists.

It’s always an interesting occassion in my house when I hear that yet two more of my friends has been invited to step out on the road to marital bliss. First, I plaster on my most sincere smile. Then, I bake something The Beard really likes. After I’ve got him wondering just why I’m so dang happy and why I’m suddenly June Cleaver, I spring it on him. “Guess what, honey,” I gush. “So and so are engaged!”

And then I wait. Strategy is nothing without patience and a man whose woman just baked him his favorite pie is in no mind to do battle. Every once in a while I like to remind The Beard what he’s got just to see him squirm a little.

The friends in question are handsome future groom and handsome future groom, which causes me to ponder what is the appropos gift. Many wedding gifts focus on the realms traditionally overseen by the woman: the lacy doily type things and the cupcake pans and silver pizza cutters festooned with ribbons. Lucky for me, the Rainbow Wedding Network and many other absolutely fabulous sites list giftmakers that want to give everyone the choice to get married, to get divorced, and to get married again, ad nauseum!

I think this cake topper is fantastic for the hombre y hombre weddings:

When the first chill of the autumn season sets in, provided your geographical location supports such a thing, it may seem like the time for thinking about beach weddings is over. But since most weddings are planned months, if not years in advance, that is when I begin to have golden dreams about the ultimate seaside wedding.

In many cases, the seaside wedding is treated as a casual affair or a free-for-all of sandy shoes, nowhere to sit down, and gritty cake. But inside every girl is a prima donna of planning! Deep down in the heart of every lady beats the drum of a matrimonial general, ready to position her troops effectively on any terrain!

Taryn Bussewitz of UltimateWedding.com reminds us future brides that it pays to think about tents, tides, tables, and even toilets when we’re thinking about our big day. Give people a place to put their shoes and handbags. And for goodness sake, somewhere to sit.

Not to mention, of course, everyone’s favorite part: the dress. Keeping in mind that there will be great quantities of sand involved, consider a shorter, simpler dress. You wouldn’t believe how much sand can get stuck in layers of lace and you don’t want to bring the beach home with you after the reception. To see a few gowns that would look great on any tropical isle, take a gander at JCREW for the brides.

Without a little effort, hopeful beach brides can make sure their wedding snapshots will look like this:

Instead of this:

For hundreds of years, women have feared being called upon for bridesmaid duty for one terrifying reason: The tendency of bride’s to want to outfit their best friends and confidants in frumpy, poofy, outstandingly gaudy wedding gear. I’ve long wondered why we ladies are subjected to hot pink empire waist, many flowered monstrosities or dresses that flatter only .5% of the population. My theory? A wedding is the bride’s day to shine and she’s going to shine, darn it, no matter what.

But take a tip from Joanna Saltz, of The Knot, who says that the new rules say bridesmaid dresses should be comfy and re-usable, and don’t need to be clones of one another!

The best wedding I have ever been a part of saw me wearing a dress very much like this one from Eden Bridals:

My fellow bridesmaids wore similarly-colored, similarly styles dresses. The bride let us know ahead of time the basic color she wanted, but let us choose the styles that most flattered our bodies.

Since the wedding, I’ve worn the dress time and again, but no, I didn’t outshine the bride.

Manolo says, Hello to the many internet friends of the Manolo!

Welcome to the all remodeled and mostly new Manolo for the Brides Blog!

This blog it has the new website address (http://manolobrides.com), the new look, and now, the brand new editor and blogger, the Never teh Bride.

But, do not worry, the Manolo he would not put you into the hands of the inexperienced person. Indeed, the Never teh Bride she is the excellent and most amusing blogger.

In the fact, to the mind of the Manolo, she is one of the best unknown bloggers the Manolo has seen, someone who deserves the wider audience and more of the readers.

What convinced the Manolo to ask her to join him in the blogging for the brides was her own blog, the eponymous, Never teh Bride. It is hilarious, and yet, it is also filled with the sound advice on fashion, manners, and relationships. This combination, it is exactly what the Manolo wants at the blogs of the Manolo, and so he knows that she is right for the important task of helping the Manolo with the bride blogging.

Trust the Manolo, once you have read the Never teh Bride blogging about the brides, and the dresses, and the cakes, and the Beard, you will want to return here again and again to read more of this talented person’s writings.