Manolo for the Brides

While wedding gowns are gradually getting more colorful, stark white is still a popular color for cakes. Which, I think, is a shame considering the absolutely gorgeous cakes one can now procure from cake-makers so skilled their confections look like edible art. A certain Colette Peters of New York’s Colette’s Cakes creates masterworks of cake and frosting that will knock your socks off. And they deliver to “anywhere.”

However, if you’re not willing to drop over $600 (plus delivery) on your cake, you can still delight in the beauty and majesty of Colette’s cakes in her books.

In Colette’s Cakes : The Art of Cake Decorating, Colette presents detailed instructions, accompanied by line drawings and color photographs, of three dozen of her elaborate creations.

Cakes to Dream On : A Master Class in Decorating reveals the secrets to fashioning gorgeous and utterly distinctive cakes for all occasions.

Yummy!

Manolo says, for the many days now the Manolo he has been meaning to mention that the Manolo’s good friends at the Ourday-Online are offering to the readers of the Manolo’s humble Bride Blog the opportunity to receive the free wedding blog!

I guess none of you folks out there got engaged on Valentine’s Day. Well, neither did I. It’s probably more romantic to be proposed to on some random day of the year, like June third or the fifth of September. However, at least one semi-famous couple was married yesterday. Mr. Kanchana Ketkaew, who set a world record by spending thirty-two days in a cage with 3,400 scorpions, and Ms. Bunthawee Siengwong, who set a similar record by cavorting with with 1,000 centipedes, were wed in Thailand. Supposedly, they had plans to consumate their wedding in a coffin. Congrats!

And, since I’m all about the belated Valentine’s Day stuff, I wanted to highlight a sweet little contest hosted by GetVendors.com (now ended), where people were able to post a free Valentine message to their sweeties on a blinking red and white heart gif - rollover the red circles to read the notes. It’s kind of crazy looking, but I like to read the love notes folks left the same way I like to read the ten pages of Valentine’s Day classifieds in the paper every year. Yay Valentine voyeurism!

To all those who receive engagement rings today, I say congratulations! Unfortunately, I do not number among you. Ah, well. I gave The Beard software for Valentine’s Day and he gave me a beautiful flame point Siamese cat named Mannix. Tonight we will dine together - perhaps in, perhaps out, depending on how my workday goes. Of course, we dine together every night and love each other every day, so I can’t complain.

Valentine’s Day makes me think about all of the ways one could incorporate the pinks and reds and candy hearts of this Hallmark holiday into a wedding theme. A white dress with red or pink accents can look divine. Paired it with a romantic old-fashioned cloak because, hey, February can be chilly! Roses (red or pink) for the ladies, of course, and red bow ties for the gents make a classic statement. Soft lighting creates an atmosphere of romance. Keeping the reception music as classicaly romantic as possible can help, too. Give out those chalky Valentine hearts as favors instead of chalky Jordan almonds. Let guests toss (biodegradable) heart shaped confetti instead of birdseed. The possibilities are endless.

Happy Valentine’s Day, all! If you got engaged today, let me know!

Let me tell you a secret. Even though I love thinking about marriage and am crazy about all things pertaining to weddings, I am not one of those people who has to have a man on Valentine’s Day. Likewise, I am not expecting The Beard to present me with a ring tomorrow nor do I anticipate his making a “big deal” out of this Hallmark holiday.

That said, I can definitely understand how many people without singificant others can get a trifle peeved when subjected to the site of hearts, roses, chocolates, and cherubs for the six weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day.

So, for those of you ladies out there who are single and proud, here are some neat gifts you can buy for yourself to celebrate your independence.

Alice Steinbach is definitely an independent woman. In Without Reservations : The Travels of an Independent Woman, a memoir and travelogue, she bounces from city to city throughout Europe, making friends and learning about her inner self. Pair it with A Journey of One’s Own: Uncommon Advice for the Independent Woman Traveler and you’ll be primed and ready for your own journeys.

If you find your folks or your friends give you a hard time come tomorrow, point them to Even God Is Single, So Stop Giving Me A Hard Time by Karen Salmansohn. It’ll shut them up fast.

Forget the wilting lily act and get a double dose of independent womanhood by spending an evening with leggy yet bad-to-the-bone Lara Croft in the first two Tomb Raider flicks.

Finally, as Ben suggests in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, “frost yourself.” There’s no rule saying you have to wait for some man to lay out the bling bling.

Have fun tomorrow!

Since I have (bleah) jury duty today, this post has to be a quick one. I get to wake up at about 5:30 a.m. to make it to the courthouse by eight because of the huge drifts of snow that have blanketed the northeastern part of the United States and the fact that the courthouse does not have parking. I defintely need something to laugh about right now. There is some great wedding humor floating around the internet and I’ve collected some of the best here:

Some signs you are at a bad wedding:

The bride is the stripper that worked your bachelor party. Or, even worse, the bride is the stripper that worked the groom’s bachelor party.

The reception has a cover charge. And a cash bar.

The back of the bride’s gown is emblazoned with a large Penzoil logo. The favors all read “Eat at Denny’s.”

The bridal registry includes a section where guests can use PayPal to chip in for the groom’s parole.

When the pastor says, “If anyone has any reason why these two people should not marry, speak up now or forever hold your peace…” nine-tenths of the guests stand up.

Every dance at the reception is a dollar dance. If you can’t pay, you can’t boogy.

From Forever Wed, Eighteen (sometimes risque) Ways to be Offensive at a Wedding:

1.Show up with a baby and claim he belongs to the newlyweds.

2.Cover yourself with glue to improve your chances of catching the bouquet.

3.Offer to show people pictures of the bride posing in lingerie.

4.Tell people that you knew the bride before the sex change operation.

5.Tell the bride that the only reason you can look at her is that you used to be a proctologist.

6.Instead of a standard gift, give the newlyweds a gift certificate for a drug rehab clinic.

7.As you move down the receiving line, spit on each person.

8.Ask the bride’s mother to give you sexual favors.

9.Offer the bride some Binaca.

10.Propose a toast to the bride’s nose job.

11.Steal the cards from the wedding gifts so no one can tell who they came from.

12.Walk up to various guests and demand to see their invitations.

13.After the bride throws her garter, start people chanting, “Throw your bra, throw your bra…”

14.Tell everyone that the groom had to be given Quaaludes to keep him from backing out.

15.Tell the rabbi that there’s no money to pay him, and ask if he’ll settle for “stupping” the bride.

16.Assure the bride’s mother that the groom is “well endowed.”

17.Return a bra which the bride left in your car.

18.When the bride is coming down the aisle, push the organist out of the way and start playing, “The Lady is a Tramp.”

Need something ultra space-age in which to walk down the aisle? Maybe something you can plug your iPod into? The lovely Shannon from BITTer-GIrL and Xan from Art of Xan have designed just the thing. For Seamless V2, the second annual technology and fashion immersion event in Boston, they created iDo, which sports an iPod Shuffle in the veil and a full-sized iPod in the dress itself. The dress was described thusly by the creators:

…the iDo gown takes the so-called Bridezilla where she seemingly wants to go: her very own solitary walk down the aisle, with full control over music only she can hear accessed using touch-sensitive fabric technology … and a tiara with built-in iPod.

I only wish I was that creative!

In this, the modern age, we pretty much all have to cook unless we have plenty of disposable income for takeout. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a dude or a lady, kitchen skills are mostly indispensable nowadays, even if you can only make a few simple dishes. Most of the folks I know are youngish and single. All of them can cook something and most of them can cook rather well.

Which is why I’m stymied by the Betty Crocker Bridal Edition cookbook. Not that I don’t love Betty. I am particularly fond of her saucy 1986 visage. But to me a bridal cookbook conjures up images of very young brides who are leaving the sanctuary of their parents’ homes to enter into marriage with a man equally young and inexperienced. It just strikes me as odd and anachronistic. If someone gave me this book as a shower gift, it would join the ranks of the many culinary tomes The Beard and I reference when cooking.

Of course, its name does not change the fact that it has more than one thousand tried and tested Betty Crocker recipes and entire sections devoted to kitchen organization and cooking for guests. You can’t beat that!

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I’m pretty jazzed because my aunt is getting married in Florida this month and I’m actually going to be able to attend the wedding. Once flight information was worked out, it was time to start thinking about what I was going to wear. What I was going to carry. And, of course, what I was going to wear on my feet. I’m thinking of wearing a dress I wore when acting as a friend’s maid of honor a few years back. The dress looks very much like the one pictures in this post. Except the dress has skinny straps instead of a halter and is more purple than red.

Anyhow, before I chose a dress, I called my stepmom to inquire as to what time the ceremony was being held and the general level of formality. The answer: Formal to semi-formal. Then I asked about my aunt’s wedding colors. It wouldn’t do to show up in a dress that was too close in color to the wedding party. The answer: Red and yellow. So I’m safe.

Not many people think about proper wedding guest attire. It used to be that the invitation would give some clues as to the nature of the wedding. Nowadays, not so much. As for the wedding I’m attending, I was invited by phone. Tsk tsk. Anyway, About.com has some wonderful guidelines for wedding guests who want to look their best. Here are some highlights:

Start off with the invitation. Is it in flowing engraved black script on a heavy cream paper with formal language? Odds are the wedding will be similarly formal. Does it cheekily ask you to come see them get hitched? Wedding guests should look for a nice casual outfit. And of course, it may tell you directly on the invitation - black tie, casual attire etc.

Don’t wear:
White. (This rule has relaxed some, and you can get away with wearing a printed dress with a white background and some cream colored clothing. Just be careful not to upstage the bride.)
Black to a daytime wedding
Jeans - duh
Anything too sexy or revealing
Anything torn, with holes, stained, too big or too small for you!
Anything sleeveless or strapless to a religious wedding. Bring a wrap to cover your shoulders.

Wedding guest style for her:
Informal Daytime: Short dress or suit (business attire OK for morning weddings)
Informal Evening: Cocktail dress
Semi-Formal Daytime: Short dress or suit
Semi-formal Evening: Cocktail dress
Formal Daytime: Short dress or suit. Hats and gloves optional.
Formal Evening or Black-Tie: Long or dressy short cocktail (beading, glam accessories, wrap)
Ultra-formal or White Tie: Long gown, extra glitz (furs, diamonds, etc.)

I’d add that one should consider the predicted indoor and outdoor temperature, because I’ve frozen my butt off at plenty of weddings. And how long you can really last in those heels. And what sort of people the bride and groom are. Some families won’t mind you showing a little skin. Others will look at an exposed ankle and gasp in horror. My dress is sleeveless, so I may want to invest in a nice wrap for the occassion. Oh, and I’m going to wear sassy heeled boots…because I like to create a stir.