Manolo for the Brides

From the comments on my recent post, it’s pretty clear that there are still those old fashioned gals who crave an out of this world rock with a price tag that makes their men feel a little uncomfortable. Ask ye shall receive, ladies…but be ready to expect the unexpected. I do indeed have some rings for you.

Out of this world? Check. A tad pricey? Check.

See that gray stuff? It’s straight up meteorite, i.e. those big old hunks of minerals that originate in outer space and survive a fall to earth. I think these are utterly gorgeous.

The ring on the left is a genuine piece of Mars inlaid in 18k gold. The chunk of the red planet was cut from a Mars rock, found in the desert and officially cataloged under the name Dhofar 019. The ring on the right contains a certified piece of the moon inlaid in 18k gold. The moon bit was cut from a larger moon rock cataloged as Dhofar461, which was classified by researchers A. Rubin and Paul Warren from UCLA. They do look kind of cheap (in terms of aesthetics, not the price tag), but might be just the thing for the astronomy buff in your life.

Okay, so it’s not the big bling…but I think there is something cool about the idea of exchanging rings made of stuff that has been outside Earth’s atmosphere in the not so distant past.

I just can’t tell you how many times the topic of gender bending attendants has come up on the bridal forums I frequent. I’m not talking about odd Cousin Eddie who decided to become Edwina, however. That at least would be kind of interesting…there’s so much talk about curvy, voluptuous bridesmaids and perhaps not enough about flat, angular bridesmaids with unexpected bulges. I think I’ll save that discussion for a late date, however.

Whenever I encounter questions about groomsmaids and bridesmen, there are always a few individuals who think that putting a man where maids traditionally stand or inserting a maid among the men is the height of overt and icky unconformity. I’ll say right now that I don’t agree at all. I’m going to venture a guess and say that most of the people reading this do not live in gender segregated societies. In fact, many of those folks who are of a marriageable age grew up with friends of both the Tab A and Slot B varieties, and they may have also hung out with individuals who identified as neither or as something in between.

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Back in the day — by which I mean a period beginning shortly after WWII and ending sometime around the year 2000 when the United Nations General Assembly finally recognized the whole “blood diamond” thing — the recipe for getting engaged read, “Take one diamond valued at roughly two month’s salary plus one knee, and combine. Issue proposal thusly for maximum effect.” Screw you very much, De Beers.

I tend to forget about the whole business of diamonds for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t subscribe to cable or have an antenna, so my exposure to those nerve-gratingly annoying De Beers commercials is kept at a bare minimum. Two, most of my engaged and married peeps received something other than diamonds from their sweeties. And three, as much as I adore all that sparkles, I subscribe to the rather old fashioned notion that big bling looks best on ladies over the age of 50. Perhaps that should even be 60 or 70, considering that 40 is apparently the new 20, which would naturally make 50 the new 30 and so on.

So why am I suddenly concerned with mineralogical numerology? I read something yesterday in the online journal of a friend of a friend.

What is a diamond? It’s a pretty stone, but a really expensive one, and one that only means “I love you” because people think its absence means “I don’t”. With diamonds as the social norm in many countries, marriage is like a game of chicken – neither partner can broach the subject of not getting a diamond ring, because to do so would sound like less than total commitment.

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Whenever sleeves are the topic de jour, there’s always at least one person who suggests that vintage wedding gowns are the way to go. Buying vintage isn’t always easy, however. I’ve yet to find a gorgeous dress from yesteryear that fits my modern contours. Shopping outside of the world of vanity sizing, one discovers that size 12 was once more like a size 4 in terms of relative measurements.

The luckiest vintage obsessed brides-to-be are those with 24″-26″ waists and small everything else, being as those are the sorts of numbers you’ll run across often when exploring the selection of wedding gowns from the first half of the twentieth century. That’s not to say that the rest of us can’t take a nice long look at the vintage gowns that are up for sale on various web sites, which is precisely what I spent my entire morning doing.

Here are some of the gems I found:

From the description: “The designer of this exquisite [1910-ish] wedding gown combines straight-edged tape lace with the rounded shapes of princess lace in a highly textured statement. The torso and sleeves of the gown are completely fashioned from hand-assembled écru cotton lace. The matching cotton tulle skirt is hand appliquéd with scattered lace motifs. The gown is lined with an écru satin slip and closes in back with small hooks.”

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Picture this: Your wedding, as they say, is in the bag. You’ve got your dress… maybe the elegant Casablanca number that C* linked to in the comments of Saturday’s post. Your gals adore the bridesmaid dresses they helped you pick out and have long since placed their orders. Favors? They’re all taken care of. The ceremony site? Reserved. The reception venue? Ditto.

From an outsider’s perspective, nothing should be interfering with your pre-matrimonial bliss, and yet there’s a definite snag in the fabric of your happiness. Second thoughts have reared their ugly heads. More than a moment’s doubt, these thoughts have been messing with your mind, making you question your commitment to your impending, um, commitment. And I don’t mean second thoughts about the dress, the cake, the photog, or the rings.

I’m talking about cold feet to the nth degree — full on “Oh my god am I making the right decision about this man and this marriage” jitters.

It’s more common than you might think. Many if not most brides (and grooms) experience at least one OHCRAPOHCRAPOHCRAP moment wherein they wonder if the secret of permanent happiness truly does lie in the land of the single gal (or guy). Ramen-fueled nights spent posting on Match.com aside, there’s plenty to love about going solo. You can come and go as you please without having to answer to anyone. Your post-tax, post-bill, post-necessities income is yours and yours alone. And you can change your mind a million times without your indecision impacting anyone but you.

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When it comes to wedding favors, there’s one important thing to keep in mind: unless it’s a consumable, most of your guests will either leave them behind or junk them quickly. Over the years I’ve taken home more than my share of plastic doves, personalized wine glasses, tiny implements like flashlights that don’t actually work, and other assorted useless bits of flotsom and jetsam. Most of them got kept for a few puzzled months and then finally tossed in the trash…though I do still have a couple wineglasses with the names of couples I barely know sitting in my cupboard. They don’t get used, but I can’t quite bring myself to simply toss them and nobody wanted them at our last garage sale. No, I wasn’t surprised, but I gave it a shot.

Over and over again, it’s been made clear that if you want your favors to be a hit, then it’s best to give a popular kind of candy like chocolate. I’m all for chocolate, of course. I love it. It’s tasty, it’s sweet, and it’s nearly universally popular. But there are some other options you may wish to consider.

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Dear wedding gown designers,

Can we talk about something that’s been bothering me for years now? It’s a little thing called sleeves. Specifically, it’s about how nearly all of you refuse to design any.

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I just wanted to toss a sweet little story at you guys before jetting off for the weekend. Anna and Boris Kozlov were married in 1946, just before Boris had to report back to his military unit. A mere three days after they said their “I dos,” he was gone.

A short time later, Anna was branded an enemy of the state like her father before her and sent into internal exile in Siberia.

On his return, Boris was distraught. “She was always waiting for me when I came home, but this time there was no sign of her,” he said. “Nobody knew where they were, or what had happened to Anna. That’s how we lost any track of each other”.

Anna was eventually coerced into remarriage by her mother. Boris, thinking Anna lost forever, also remarried. They each, however, outlived their spouses.

More than half a century after they were separated, both Anna and Boris decided to return to their home village. He was visiting the grave of his parents…she had apparently returned to lay eyes on the home they occupied together for the three days of their marriage.

When Anna Kozlov caught sight of the elderly man clambering out of a car in her home village of Borovlyanka in Siberia, she stopped dead in her tracks, convinced her eyes were playing tricks.

There, in front of her, was Boris, the man she had fallen in love with and married 60 years earlier.

“[Boris] ran up to her and said: ‘My darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long. My wife, my life…’

The couple has since remarried, though it took Boris a bit to convince Anna to don a bride’s garb for a third time.

“Since we found each other again, I swear we haven’t had a single quarrel. We’ve been parted for so long and who knows how much is left for us, so we just don’t want to lose time on arguing.”

Isn’t that just the coolest? I hope that both of them live a long, long time so they get to enjoy each other for many years to come.