Manolo for the Brides

Ever dreamed of a Hollywood wedding? Ever dreamed of walking the red carpet? Ever dreamed of being married on the red carpet in Hollywood? Well, here’s your chance.

In honor of Patrick Dempsey’s new film Made of Honor in which McDreamy (and I really, really thought that name was made up as a joke on Television Without Pity for a very long time) discovers he’s fallen in love with a longtime platonic female friend just as she’s being swept off her feet by the man of her dreams in Scotland and asks Dempsey to be her MOH, The Knot and Sony Pictures are teaming up to hold a contest. The winning couple will get married on the red carpet at the premiere of Made of Honor. Runners up will win shopping sprees and Made of Honor gift packs (contents unspecified). If you’re interested, you can get the details here.

Other than that, I was giggling at a couple wedding-related articles at The Onion, and thought I’d pass on the links so others can enjoy a laugh.

Mommy’s Wedding More Fun Than Daddy’s

Peasant Wedding Gets Out of Hand

And in conclusion, I give you the Peeps Bachelor Party:

One piece of advice brides hear over and over again is that choosing flowers that are local and in season is a great way to save money on your florist’s bill. That’s very true. Having orchids flown in from halfway across the globe or insisting on the most delicate of summer blooms in the middle of a stormy winter is going to cost you extra.

But what to do if you don’t know what’s in season in your area? Well, a good place to start is right here. This interactive tool allows you to give a very general idea of time of year, region of the US (sorry, non-USian readers, but I’ll be on the lookout for something that covers other parts of the world, too, because it’s fun) where your wedding will be held, or even what color the bridesmaid’s dresses are. It then spits out a list of flowers that match your criteria, with links to pictures of said flowers. As I said, it’s not the be-all and end-all, but it’s a good place to start if you can’t tell a hyacinth from a hydrangea or aren’t certain if iris grows in your area near your wedding date.

Another fabulous way of saving cash on flowers is to do very simple arrangements yourself with a bit of help from handy friends and family members. Real Simple has a great feature showing you how to make beautiful bouquets from grocery store flowers. The one piece of advice I would add to their ideas is that if there’s an open-to-the-public florist’s supply within a reasonable distance, you can get a greater variety of higher-quality flowers without having to pay the middle men. If you need a lot of a particular flower, it also means you’re far more likely to be able to get precisely what you want in the amounts you need.

Still, the tying instructions are clear and simple to follow. Besides, who would ever have thought baby’s breath could look this spectacular?

FYI: Head on over to Handcrafted (one of my favorite blogs) between now and 7 a.m. EST on March 28 to enter to win up to $300 worth of customizable Redot jewelry for you and your wedding party. All you need to do is comment on the contest post with your favorite Redot earring style! How easy is that?

Writing about all things bridal for a living does funny things to your head. For instance, being that my own wedding has come and gone, I’ve taken to rewriting it in my imagination. It’s an unusual day when I don’t accost The Beard the moment he walks through the door to tell him that “if I had to do it all over again, I’d buy/do/wear this!” It’s not that I’m unhappy with the way my own wedding turned out. Rather, it’s that there were simply all these wonderful things I didn’t know about while shopping for it!

My latest “I wish I had some reason to buy it” find is a dress from Eden Bridals, of all places. I tend not to like most of their inventory — what, for example, is up with the gathers on this number? The dress I’m lusting after today, however, is rather different than most of the ones I’ve come across on that web site.

For one thing, this organza and taffeta dress is green. Specifically, it’s a color Eden Bridals likes to call thistle, which is an incredible muted green that reminds me of twilight and old fashioned things. It is also available in all white, all ivory, or all iridescent rose. The rose sounds intriguing, but as it turns out, it’s way too much pink for me.

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All right, so I’m just a little bit proud of myself, which means I do things like tell the mailman that, hey, I wrote a book! Now that the cover image for iDo is basically finalized, I’m pretty sure that my mom has already e-mailed it around to everyone she’s ever known. Moms are like that! But for some reason the cover image hasn’t hit Amazon yet, so I figured I’d give y’all a sneak peak.

I like to read the local paper and not just because I spent too many years of my life –i.e., something like three years– getting paid poo-poo to cover dull as dirt community meetings. One, a good townie rag is a great place to find out about free stuff to do. Two, they’ll profile just about anyone so you get to read the life stories of people like Jim Bob, who won a trophy for his 100 pound pumpkin. And three…wait, there is no three.

Designer Patricia King-Davies apparently live (or used to live) a few towns over from me. I know this because they did a big profile of her in one of the local papers. The article talked about her splendid gowns, so I felt a pressing need to look her up, but the only pictures I could find were from last year’s Nolcha Fashion Week. All I can say is the King-Davies likes the shiny! Her shiny, shiny, shiny World Culture Collection apparently paid tribute to various countries’ styles and attempted to honor their traditions.

Two gowns from the show caught my eye.

Here you have the epic win. I just want to reach out and touch this one because the fabric looks wonderfully delicious and soft. I bet it’s nice to wear, too, with very nothing at all scratchy or poky on the interior of the gown. It looks like King-Davies’ logo is on the midsection, but unlike an LV or a Gucci bit, it’s pretty and subtle. My one criticism is that the model’s boobs need to be hoisted into the designated boob triangles or the triangles need to be brought down a bit.

And here you have the epic fail. Shapeless mass much? Sure, there’s a place for free-flowing fabric…however, all I can see is a sleepy bed-headed woman who was forced to improvise when the doorbell rang too early on a Sunday morning. But if you happen to like it, I’d be happy to travel to your home at your expense and drape high-end bed sheets around you until you’re sufficiently covered up.

The other day, I extolled the virtues of Wilton’s DIY cake guide because it is the most comprehensive free guide I’ve ever come across. Wilton, I thought naively, must rule at all things. It was only much later that I realized that this picture of an utterly horrid cake topper has the Wilton logo splashed in the upper left hand corner.

When I look at this topper, all I can see is a man in drag carrying around one of those o-mouthed blow up dolls. I can’t be the only person who felt they were looking at Mr. Wife and his friend “Rock Hard,” as this particular bride and groom set is nowhere to be found among Wilton’s current offerings.

Not that there’s anything wrong with silly toppers, if that’s your thing. Check out a snapshot of my own less-than-bridey topper under the cut.

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I love French Sole flats, despite the fact that they have no arch support and are in no way designed for serious walking. They’re your classic “get into the car and out of the car and into a chair” kind of shoe. My own wedding shoes came from French Sole, as I’d never seen anything prettier than the gold and deep red satin slim-fitting, low cut ballet flats.

As it turned out, they were comfy enough to wear throughout the wedding, even though I was on my feet for most of the day. That wasn’t the best part, however. No, the best part was the fun splash of color they added to my otherwise gold ensemble.

I’m not saying shoes from French Sole will cradle your feet like a cloud or even wear particularly well, but they did work for me. I needed to wear flats — or chunky heels but I hate chunky heels — as my aisle was sandy and my dance floor was grass. Though I did have a backup pair of gold leather flip flips ::cue the gasps:: I never had cause to put them on.

If your wedding shoes are (or were) hipper or more colorful than the usual white satin or silk pump, let’s hear about them!

A recent article by my most esteemed collegue garnered a lot of anti-veil (or at least veil? meh) comments by our readers. On the other hand, while many seemed more than ready to give up veils, most brides want something to replace them.

So I went looking for the perfect replacements this morning, and lo and behold, I found a positive gold mine.

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