Manolo for the Brides

I spent this morning watching my mother shimmy in and out of potential MOB dresses. Now, my wedding colors are pale gold and chocolate…yes, I know it’s a summertime wedding. The first words out of my father’s mouth were, “She’s going with an autumn theme?” This is why I’m steering very clear of anything even remotely orange or yellow or red. Let’s just get past that, shall we?

So to ensure that the photos look good — because I’m a sucker for a good photo — I asked my mom and her girlfriend and The Beard’s mom to wear something brownish, if they didn’t mind. The last bit is in there because I thought everyone would have more fun if they wore whatever made them comfortable. Instead of surprising me, however, everyone under the sun is asking me what I think they ought to wear…and “Whatever you want” is apparently not an option.

Here are some examples of suggestions I made:

I should note that my mom is kind of a ‘young mom,’ and is thus comfortable wearing dresses of this sort. YMMMV*. What sort of dresses are they, you ask? Going clockwise, we have a Twelfth St. By Cynthia Vincent brown semi-sheer wool-blend v-neck dress, a Nicole Miller light brown stretch silk slit back dress, an Acrobat brown linen crochet v-neck dress, and an Alexia Admor brown shimmer lace v-neck dress. All lovely choices for an afternoon garden party wedding where browns are an option.

*Your mom’s mileage may vary.

Water is currently sloshing downward from the roof, through the upstairs neighbor’s stairwell, through one of the walls of my kitchen, and down into the kitchen of the neighbor below. Time for my landlord to mobilize his ragtag crew of maintenance men? Maybe. Paint is actually bubbling and when you poke the bubbles, water comes streaming out. This is not a good way to start a long day.

I have but mere seconds to spare, as I must go bail out my hallway. So here, for your enjoyment, is a picture of a bias cut silk gown by Natalia Misslin:

You surely already know that I am no fan of the ubiquitous Jordan almond. Sometimes, however, presentation is everything. A trio of rock hard candy-coated almonds in a scrap of tulle? No thanks. Rock hard candy-coated almonds sewn into a flower made of ribbon and lace and other dainty things? Well…alright. Confetti Flowers takes its name from the word “confection” and features a goodly selection of fanciful ways to present guests with tooth-bustin’ almonds.

Be warned, however, that some of these faux blooms do not come pre-packaged. While most are assembled as shown by a “bomboniere specialist,” others require a certain amount of cutting, stuffing, sewing, and embellishing.

I think, were I a sweet-toothed guest receiving such an intricate favor, I’d feel rather guilty about tearing it open to get at the candy within!

So I have my dress (a discontinued number from the Bonny Essence collection) and I’ve ordered my cake (a three-tiered monstrosity of pecan torte with caramel, spice cake with peaches and cream, and white cake with lime curd from Teresa Palko Weddings). Guess which was more expensive…

If you guessed the dress, you’re right. But if you guessed the cake, you wouldn’t be too far off. Only a handful of Benjamins separate the two where price points are concerned. For some reason, this simple fact is a never-ending source of delight for me. Talking it over with The Beard last night, we decided that I’m so tickled by the cost differential because there are so few times in one’s life when one can justify spending hundreds of dollars on dessert.

And, boy howdy, do I love a good dessert, especially if it’s pretty. Like these from Piece of Cake Desserts in Mesa, AZ:

I should add that while weddings should be a once-in-a-lifetime event, many wedding cake designers also create elaborate and wonderful anniversary cakes. Once I’ve enjoyed ten or twenty years with The Beard, I plan to drop mad cash on a second utterly luxurious cake, even if it means that we (and our future children) will be eating cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a month!

Not so keen on a metal ring? You’re not alone. Some people don’t care for gold or silver or platinum. Others have pesky metal sensitivities that can cause icky rashes. Still others are looking for something exists outside the norms of typical commitment jewelry, but is still recognizable as such.

Woodworking artisan Gustav Reyes saw a niche and decided to fill it. After deciding that the initial monetary outlay required to create fine cabinetry and other furniture was just too high, he began to search for an alternative way to employ his skills. Rings, he noticed, were small enough to be crafted from found and salvaged wood and thus Simply Wood Rings was born.

Reyes’ rings are beautiful and they are inexpensive, but what appeals to me most is that they can be made from a variety of wood sources. In fact, he’ll make customized rings using almost any piece of 12″x1″x1″ piece of timber, and the technique he uses to shape the ring ensures its lasting structural integrity.

Wedding rings are the most common request but, Reyes caters to all sorts of ideas such as a mother who can’t part with her grown son’s baseball bat from his Little League days. Reyes even made a ring from ancient bog oak, a white oak tree that has been preserved in the bogs of Europe, carbon dated at 4,500 to 5,000 years old.

How cool is that?

I briefly mentioned Hawaiian weddings a while back to illustrate the principles that cause even the most budget-conscious brides to examine the world of outrageously-priced weddings. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course–I do it all the time when researching goodies for the blog. But what if you are getting hitched in Hawaii and you want to plan the whole production on the cheap? Jade Fashion has a line of pretty cotton wedding dresses that pair more traditional silhouettes with subtle island elements.

Each Jade dress is made to order and the most expensive of the lot–the one of the train–is a mere $245! If you want to go all out, they also feature a range of brilliantly colored dresses that would stand in perfectly for the usual blah bridesmaids dress.

Manolo says, Ayyyyyyyyyy! While attempting to fight the comment spam, the Manolo has just accidently erased the last three days worth of the comments on this blog.

Many and profuse apologies to the Never teh Bride and to our internet friends who participate in the spirited conversation here. It was entirely the Manolo’s own fault.

I don’t usually wax poetic about gadgets. Weddings, as a rule, tend to be low-tech affairs, and I’m not a big tech head. But I am a photographoholic, and I recently received one of those spiffy Philips digital photo frames. It’s just about the coolest thing on my desk, and I think it has a lot of potential as both a wedding gift and a piece of supplementary wedding décor.

Now, I like framed photos as much as the next gushy girly-girl, but getting the orientation right and coping serenely with matting issues has never been my strong suit. That’s probably why I like the darn thing so much — loading photos into a sleek plastic frame via a USB cable is something I feel comfortable doing. I’m also a fan of good design, and this frame fits the bill. It’s sleek and simple, and isn’t cluttered up with buttons and switches. The in-frame interface is even fairly intuitive. Plus, the default options seem to be a creamy sort of white or a metallic silver, making it a perfect compliment to most wedding stuff.

First let me suggest you ignore the image quality of the picture above. I don’t know why it came out all skuzzy like that, but trust me when I say that these digital frames really make pics pop with a print-quality LCD display. While you can store photos in the frame itself (how many you can load depends on the resolution of your pics), the frame features a built-in memory card reader that supports a number of data storage formats. This means you can scroll through as many photos as your memory card will hold – which, in my case, is a lot. Then you can either set up the frame in a landscape or portrait orientation to display one pic ad nauseum, scroll through your photos at will, or check them all out slideshow style.

This is where the options come in. Say you want to roll through your pics using the slideshow feature. You can set the frame to change photos randomly or sequentially every five, ten, or thirty seconds; every one, five, or thirty minutes; one, four, or twelve hours; or once per day. I recommend using a longer transition time…seeing a new photo come into view every five seconds really messed with my mind. And if the thought of the current picture simply being replaced by the next bores you, there are fourteen transition effects to choose from, including resolving pixels and a sweep. Want to see them all? Choose the random transition feature and watch your photos get rolled up and peeled back as new pics come into view.

You can also use the frame to modify your photos using a small palette of effects. Morphing a pic from color to b&w or sepia is as easy as pushing a button…because that’s all you have to do. There are a few funny outline type effects that will enclose your photo’s subject in a word bubble, a heart, and things like that. You can crop and rotate. While the modification features don’t exactly add up to Photoshop, they are plenty fun and functional, and generally good for those people who want to play with their images but don’t feel up to learning the ins and outs of design software.

So what makes this a great gift? Imagining buying one for a new bride and groom…but rather than present it to the couple before their nuptials, you wait until after they’re legally wed so that you can load a memory card filled with the photos you took at their ceremony and reception into the frame. They not only receive a pretty cool piece of gear, they can also get a slick preview of their wedding photos before their professional prints come in. And this is a particularly thoughtful gift for those whose photogs have flaked out — it doesn’t happen often, but it happens.

Or consider picking one up before or after the wedding for the husband-and-wife-to-be or a family member. There probably isn’t a loving parent or grandparent in the world that wouldn’t like a digital frame pre-loaded with a memory card worth of photos from their child’s or grandchild’s wedding. And I know my mother is planning a post-wedding brunch with a slide show — a few of these frames set up on tables around the venue would make a great alternative to a projection screen or TV.

Used to be that gay folks looking to get hitched could rent out rooms at Disney resorts and use them for their ceremonies, but if they wanted the full in-the-house-of-the-mouse brouhaha, they were out of luck. Locations at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World set aside specifically for Disney-fied weddings were earmarked “STRAIGHTS ONLY” due to a rule that stated that only those who could obtain valid state marriage licenses were eligible to reserve those spaces.

But times, they are a’ changin’.

“We are updating our Fairy Tale Wedding guidelines to include commitment ceremonies,” Disney Parks and Resorts spokesman Donn Walker said. “This is consistent with our policy of creating a welcoming, respectful and inclusive environment for all of our guests.”

This means that brides and grooms of all ilks can purchase Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding and Honeymoon packages. Good on Disney — it’s about dang time.