Manolo for the Brides

A. wrote in to ask this titillating question:

I want to have a “Boudoir Bridal Shower,” where my close friends and family shower me with lovely lingerie. I’d like to register for the items that I know will fit and flatter–what’s with all the alliteration–but none of the online department store registries will let me! Once I sign into my registry, all it lets me search for and add are the home items like towels, forks, oven mitts and the like. What is a girl to do? Do you know of any stores that let one register for lingerie? Will it make a difference if I go to the store in person?

At my bridal shower, one of my friends told me that when she was in her 20s, almost every bride would be given a hideously ugly peignoir set by her mother or grandmother. The assumption was that these brides would wear them on their wedding nights, but my friend maintains that most of them ended up stowed away in attics and in basements in their original, unopened packaging. People are so into vintage nowadays…makes me wonder how much you could get for one of those sets on eBay.

Anyhow, I don’t think I’d have the constitution necessary to survive a lingerie shower without dying from embarrassment. I can just imagine the sorts of silly things my friends and relations would pick out for me…especially the more, er, open minded ones. Could I wear something sexy my grannie bought with any degree of seriousness? Would the influx of undies weird The Beard out? I think it would weird me out.

But lingerie showers are growing in popularity as people awaken to the notion that pretty underthings don’t necessarily have to be uncomfortable. To register for lingerie, go to an actual lingerie shop instead of trying to get around outdated department store regulations. Secrets in Lace has a gift registry, though their selection is relatively limited. Victoria’s Secret lets you make a wish list you can share. Then, of course, there is Frederick’s, if you’re looking for something saucier.

All you really need to do is search for “lingerie registry” using Google, as that will help you find scads of online shops that will hook you up. Or you could use an online registry like Felicite, which lets you register for almost anything.

EDIT: Some folks have commented that A. shouldn’t be dictating her own shower’s theme, and these folks are absolutely correct. The individual or individuals hosting the shower should always be in charge of the details…not the bride-to-be herself. However, I opted not to bring that up in my original answer because I simply don’t know if A. is trying to inappropriately take the reigns. Perhaps A.’s MOH asked her directly what sort of shower she’d like to have, which happens more often than you’d think.

Most people consider divorce one of the most solemn and serious rites of passage. It’s a new beginning that is tainted by a traumatic ending. I say “most people” because I just know that someone is out there right now ordering a tiny coffin for their now defunct wedding band. Personally, I don’t think divorce itself is particularly humorous, though I will occasionally chuckle at impulsive Hollywood weddings followed by speedy Hollywood divorces.

I honestly would not be surprised if this sort of thing starts to catch on. As The Boomer Blog so aptly put it, “For marketers this serves as a revelation: the wedding industry is a gloriously profitable one. Why not create a divorce industry—tailored to boomers who are going through the difficult but ultimately freeing divorce passageway and might appreciate a little levity.”

Last year, someone named Shanna Moakler got in on the action. Her claim to fame was apparently being married to Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. Like that cake? It’s the divorce cake she chopped into delicious edible bits at her divorce party as a means of finding closure. Back in my day–I’m 28, can I have a day?–closure was the product of a lot of crying, a lot of money, a lot of paperwork, and a few tubs of very expensive ice cream.

So what’s going to be the next hot item in the novelty divorce market? Perhaps the ex-husband voodoo doll? Humorous sweatshirts? Cheeky breakup care packages? Only time will tell…

Every now and again, I get a book to review. It’s one of the perks of this gig–no one is sending me free designer wedding dresses to review, so I have to content myself with books about weddings. Sometimes those books are fiction, which is great because I love a good story. Once in a great blue while, I’m actually surprised by what I get.

So what was so surprising about Janice Thompson’s Gone With the Groom? It’s a Christian wedding mystery. Somewhere along the PR line, I either failed to notice that the book is from a Christian imprint (Barbour Publishing) or the public relations jockeys failed to tell me. Not that it matters much to me whether a book is Christian, Islamic, or pro-FSM–I’ll read just about anything.

If you like a really lighthearted mystery novel with lots of references to the big G, you’ll probably get a kick out of this book. If, however, you’d prefer something a little darker and more realistic, I’d advise you to look elsewhere. This book has got plenty of sugar and you may just get a cavity if you’re not used to the brand of storytelling where everyone loves each other and proclaims it loudly and proudly, all the flippin’ time.

The big problem with the story is that it’s convoluted. The titular groom disappears two weeks before the wedding, and no one who knows him can believe that it’s just cold feet. Enter Annie, MOB and crack amateur detective…for some reason, everyone in town spills their guts when she comes a’callin with her notepad. She has her theories about who’s to blame for the groom’s absence: the big pharma company, the groom’s own deadbeat dad, the shifty local photog, and the MOG’s “political enemies.”

Why the scare quotes? Well, I’m hard pressed to believe that a local paper from one of Atlanta, GA’s suburbs is going to send a reporter all the way up to the snowy north to tail a woman running for town council. I’ve been a local paper reporter…they won’t even give us overtime to cover the city council elections, much less chase candidates up and down the coast.

It’s pretty obvious from the start who the culprit is…just look for the most stereotypically suspicious character and you can’t help but guess right. You’ll have to suspend your disbelief with a system of complex pulleys if you intended to sit down and enjoy this book. I’ll state for the record that I’m no big mystery fan, but I’m plenty able to identify the plot holes a’plenty in Gone With the Groom. I won’t say don’t buy it–it’s a fun little story. It just could have been a lot better.

According to a news story on KPHO in Phoenix, AZ, a man was arrested on November 7 for stealing two thousand wedding gowns at an estimated value of some three million dollars from Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation, a charity which grants wishes to women dying of breast cancer much the way the Make A Wish Foundation grants wishes to terminally ill children.

The gowns disappeared from a hotel parking lot in Scottsdale, AZ on November 5, 2006. They were discovered on April 5 of this year, when a commercial driver was turned back from the Mexican border after Mexican authorities refused him entry to the country with his load of wedding gowns. Driver Ivan Mesa-Esparza claimed that he had no idea the gowns were stolen. He says he was hired by Alejandro Parra-Ruiz, a Mexican living legally in the US, to haul the gowns and had no reason to suspect there was any problem. Parra-Ruiz was arrested at his home in Laveen, Az last week, seven months after the gowns were recovered.

As for Parra-Ruiz, he claims he bought two thousand wedding gowns at a local swap meet, and also had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Nor did he think to ask for a receipt.

If convicted, Parra-Ruiz faces ten years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.

I think the lesson here is clear: if you’re buying two thousand wedding gowns at a swap meet, be sure to ask for a proper receipt.

I love how creative our readers are here at Manolo for the Brides. I offer up this image:

and you gave me fifteen funny captions to choose from.

In the end, though, there can be only one winner…except this time when I found I honestly couldn’t choose between two brilliant and imaginative entries. Gemdiva and Lynn, congratulations. Let’s look at the winning entries:

from gemdiva:

Their pre-nup said that if he didn’t show up for the wedding Charlene got to keep Billy Bob’s bass boat. She figured she was a winner either way.

from Lynn

As her new husband told her their honeymoon would include fishing, Amy smiled, not because she loved fishing, but because she knew no jury would ever convict her for killing this man with the fishing rod he had given her as a wedding gift.

Congratulations to both the winners…and may they not fall for fishing men.

Why am I already seeing Christmas stuff in shops? Last I checked, that stuff wasn’t supposed to come out of the warehouses until the day after the U.S.’s version of Thanksgiving. Apparently, store managers have now decided the Christmas stuff needs to be on the shelves sometime shortly after Canada’s Thanksgiving. Huh.

The five tier cupcake tree looks suspiciously like a Christmas tree when festooned with 100 appropriately colored cupcakes. That, I suppose, is why I immediately thought about how much I loathe Christmas muzak as soon as I cast eyes on it. I don’t, however, hate cupcakes or cupcake stands, so bring ‘em on. In fact, I’m almost tempted to make a cupcake Christmas tree…but I’m not even going to think about it until December 1 as a protest against this year’s retail horrors.

See what the stand looks like au naturale under the break.

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I happened upon an older post on the Shoe Blog today, and it caught my eye. In it, the Manolo linked to “the wedding shoes of ugliness at the high prices,” so I had to go take a look.

Oh, Peter Fox, you kooky guy. I like a little embroidery as much as the next gal, but this is just too much of a good thing. As in, so much of a good thing that the thing itself has become bad. Very, very bad. I look at this shoe and all I can think of is MRSA, that new drug-resistant staph strain that’s all over the news.

That is not a good association. All in all, I much prefer footwear that isn’t exhibiting outward signs of infection, like so:

I was lucky in that a friend with mad sewing skillz offered to make my wedding garter. She did, as I knew she would, an amazing job. I am fairly anti-toss when it comes to bouquets and undergarments, but I wouldn’t have tossed my garter even if I was a fan of the practice. Why wear one if you aren’t going to toss it? I personally liked having a little something colorful under my gown. I guess it could have been my saucy little secret, but I ended up showing it off to about half of my guests.

I would have shown these garters I found on Etsy off, too.

This piece was created from salvaged materials by Bayou Bijoux. It’s listed as a headband, but she suggests that many of her customers were them as garters.

Piperwan created this garter from a handmade purple and periwinkle ribbon rose. Her ribbon roses rock!

And Mia Von Mink makes all manner of garters, including custom pieces, from vintage trim, antique lace, and real pearls.

When you’re planning to wear a garter somewhere under your skirts, it may as well be a special one. You can always get a toss garter from an Amazon seller if you’re dead set on having your new spouse stick his hands up your dress in front of your whole family. Just kidding…sort of. I’ve been at weddings where teeth were used for things other than chewing cake.

If you wore a garter, did it get tossed into a crowd of unmarried menfolk? Did your new hubby remove it with his teeth?

The legality of counterfeit (or so-called designer inspired) dresses is confusing to many people. No one wants to pay full price for what they believe is a designer dress and then discover that it’s a knock-off. But some brides-to-be and their maids, in the interest of saving money, gladly patronize eBay sellers and online shops that blatantly advertise from scratch copies of high-end wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses.

Counterfeit Chic has a straightforward explanation of how laws and lace intersect:

Like other items of clothing, wedding dress designs are not protected by intellectual property law. One designer did manage to find a loophole, however. In Eve of Milady v. Impression Bridal, 957 F.Supp. 484 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), Judge Shira Scheindlin granted a prliminary injunction against an alleged copyist of the distinctive lace designs on certain bridal dresses. The reason? While clothes are not subject to copyright, fabric designs are considered protectable forms of writing, and the court found lace patterns to be a form of fabric design.

So where does that leave sites like Designer Duplicates and The Bridal Chalet? Here’s a bit of copy from the latter’s web site:

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