Manolo for the Brides

Again, you guys amaze and amuse me greatly. I hit you with this pic:

and you gave me five terrific choices of caption. You all came up with great lines, but there can be only one winner, and this week that has to be trish for bringing an aspect of the photo I hadn’t even noticed before to my full and now slightly obssessive attention:

The child wondered how the woman had mastered standing oh-so-straight with only one leg, and then realized that the hefty flowers and veil actually helped her to keep her balance as a one-legged bride.

Congratulations, trish! And thanks to everyone who played.

Back in the day (where the day in question is high school) I used to love those huge angle wings made of real feathers. A few people I knew had them and wore them every Halloween. Too bad the most creative costumes they could come up with were “naughty little angel” and “saucy succubus,” which reminds me of a quote from Mean Girls: Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

This post isn’t about skimpy costumes, however; it’s about wings. Specifically, it’s about colorful, gauzy, glittery fairy wings. One day I was looking for pictures of purple wedding gowns and I happened upon this picture:

I don’t know anything about the wedding, the happy couple, or the bridal party, but I do know that the bride sourced her fairy wings from On Gossamer Wings, purveyor of fine wings and (coming soon!) tutus. She is certainly rocking those wings, though I’ll admit that I didn’t even notice them at first because I was so besotted with her gown and her new hubby’s kilt. How can you not love a man in a kilt?

Back to the wings…my mantra is and has always been “Do your own thing, honey!” I will argue to the death (or to the boredom, whichever comes first) a bride’s right to wear fairy wings on her wedding day, but goodness gracious I would not wear ‘em myself.

If someone were to write to me to ask whether baking and decorating one’s own cake is a doable project, I’d suggest going against the grain and serving something other than a troublesome tiered cake. Anything easily made ahead is going to save this hypothetical bride- or groom-to-be the heartache of mucking about with buttercream when they ought to be getting ready.

Sure, DIY wedding cake sounds wonderful in principle. The problem is that all cakes are not created equal — some can’t stand up to the weight of other tiers even with a complex system of dowls in place. Some icings won’t stand up and wander, glacier-like, down tier after tier, obscuring all decorations.

Should you decide that the benefits outweigh the risks –whatever benefits those may be — except your wedding cake to look like this one created by Superspark rather than something from Mike’s Amazing Cakes. You’ll want to consult the Wilton guides, which include a ‘how much cake’ calculator; recipes; leveling, filling, and torting instructions; and step-by-step directions related to putting all the pieces together.

I recommend a full-scale trial run…especially if you happen to be a friend of mine, as I do love gifts of excess cake. A blogger I occasionally check in on did a trial run before baking a loved one’s wedding cake and discovered that her chosen medium slumped under its own weight. Her final project was successful, i.e., tasty and beautiful, but it would have been a disaster had she opted not to test the hardiness of the cake and icing she initially chose.

But what if the real McCoy turns out just as wonky as the trial run confection? You’ll need to quickly put together an emergency wedding cake like the one outlined here. Good luck!

A major news outlet is looking for a bride-to-be (preferably one living on the east coast) who would be willing to share the stresses of her planning experience on-camera. It’s not some cheesy bridezilla segment, just a report on the stress triggers future brides face in the course of planning. The caveat is that the deadline for the segment is noon tomorrow, so they pretty much need to hear from you by tonight.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, shoot me an email at Never.teh.Bride@gmail.com and I’ll forward your e-mail onto my contact. No guarantees they’ll bite, but it’s always fun being on the news!

A now seemingly defunct user-contributed creative writing site called Not Attending asked people to decline a wedding invitation from Kate and Haje. There were no rules…writers could say “thanks, but no thanks” as politely or rudely as they pleased. Here’s one of my favorites:

Most support of the loss of dear Kate in the Haje-machine from us. To be unlifed is very hard when young, especially for the old. Who are left.

The project ended in February of 2007, but just for fun I created a login and a saved post–which you can still do–to see if the site’s admins ever monitor activity on the site.

Now on to item deux! In the legalese chapter of iDo, I briefly mention Montana’s unique double-proxy wedding law, a subject explored in more depth in a recent NY Times piece by Dan Barry. In that state, neither the bride nor the groom need be present at a civil wedding provided at least one of them is a Montana resident or on active duty in the military.

It seems the law had been on Montana’s books for at least several decades, perhaps to accommodate soldiers during World War II…The cost to the real bride and groom: $900, $50 apiece to the proxies, $100 to the judge, $150 to the lawyer (and witness); $53 for court fees; $14 for two certified copies of the marriage certificate; and the rest to a Pennsylvania couple who run a business facilitating proxy marriages.

As they say on the site, proxy marriages are their specialty.

And onto item trois: Long ago, a certain Ellie brought LifeGem to my attention. You may remember them as the company that would create a manufactured gemstone from the ashes of a deceased loved one. Now the company can whip you up a stone using only a thickish lock of hair, which means that you can wear a bit of your intended if you’re so inclined.

Finally, for the men in the audience, I’m happy to share the newly revamped Groom Groove video section. According to Groom Groove promoter Aubree, there’s all sorts of new content scattered throughout the site. Here’s a taste:

I was browsing Manolo for the Big Girl just the other day when I came across this comment posted by one prowlcat:

ah yes! the poor taste in wearing bare-shouldered, backless, plunging-neckline wedding dresses in religious ceremonies. vera wang what have you wrought? also brides with crowns or tiaras. brides rejecting the veil, but keeping everything else. its all symbolism; borat will not put you in a sack and carry you away if you wear a veil. its traditional. dyed to match shoes, however, are not. and no flip flops at weddings, even in the jungle!

Now I do detest dyed-to-match shoes — though I’ll admit to fancying them when I was eight or so — and wedding flip flops, particularly the ones embellished with all manner of lace and rhinestones are indeed an abomination. But I can’t say I harbor any vitriol toward brides who choose to walk bareheadedly toward matrimonial bliss.

It was Vera Wang who said, “Other than the wedding ring, [the veil] is the most symbolic accessory a woman will ever wear.” I believe it was Never teh Bride (hey, that’s me!) who said, “Tradition be damned — honey, you’ll be just as married if you say ‘I do’ while wearing jeans and a bad case of bed head.”

There are as many reasons to ditch the headgear as there are to wear it proudly. I, for example, can’t stand having stuff in front of my face or flipping about my head, and thus find anything remotely veil-like entirely uncomfortable. Some brides don’t care for the potentially patriarchal origins of the veil tradition, whether or not it actually has its origins in bride-nappers tossing blankets over the heads of their prey or fathers tricking gullible young men into marrying the wrong sister. And I’m sure there are brides out there who think veils are just plain unattractive.

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Yes, my friends, it’s time once again to play Twistie’s Sunday Caption Madness! Today’s image is taken from the mists of bridal parties well past. You all know the rules by now. Take a gander at this photo, post your snarkiest captions, and I’ll announce the winner next saturday.

Ready…set…snark!

There are always plenty of concerns when choosing a wedding gown. How does it fit? Does it flatter? Will you be able to dance in it? But when you choose to get married on a beach, there are a couple extra things to keep in mind. So what makes a gown perfect for the beach?

Keep it simple: A hoop skirt and long train may look magnificent in a grand church or hotel ballroom, but they look stiff and out of place on a beach. Heavy fabrics and lots of beading can also seem funny in such an informal setting. Consider something with little trim and simple details like this Dessy Group chiffon gown that relies on draping rather than additions for its beauty.

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Loyal reader Melissa B. writes:

I’ve recently come across a wedding etiquette issue that I didn’t even know was an issue, and I’d be curious to know your opinion(s) if you have an empty column slot.

Do you think it’s OK to extend a wedding invitation to someone and not invite their SO? Some call this the “no ring, no bring” policy — engaged and married couples (and committed same-sex couples) are automatically invited together, but everyone else is invited solo.

On a bridal message board I’ve been frequenting recently, I’ve read several posts from people who insist that inviting a friend without also inviting his/her significant other –- even if the bride and groom have never met the SO –- is incredibly rude. Others say you should allow all singles to bring a guest of their choice, be it a serious boyfriend, a new girlfriend, a platonic roommate, or someone they met at the hotel bar last night. One poster said she’d rather not be invited at all than be invited solo since that was clearly a “second-class” invitation. But other brides say that they’ve used “no ring, no bring” to shorten their guest list and think it’s a perfectly acceptable policy.

I had no idea this was so controversial! Although my boyfriend and I have been together two years and have lived together for the past six months, I’ve been invited to two weddings in the past year where the invitation was addressed just to “Melissa B.,” not to “Melissa B. & Boyfriend” or “Melissa B. & Guest.” I went to both weddings, shared a hotel room with my college girlfriends, and had a great time.

It honestly never occurred to me to be mad that my boyfriend hadn’t been invited too — he’d never met either couple, and he probably wouldn’t have gone if he had been invited (airfare is expensive and we’re both on pretty tight budgets). But now I’m realizing that there are a lot of folks who think that inviting someone alone, especially if they have a known SO, is incredibly offensive.

What’s your take? Should the boyfriends/girlfriends of guests automatically be invited, whether or not the bridal couple knows them? Should all single guests be allowed to bring a date of their choice? Or is “no ring, no bring” an OK rule of thumb if you need to keep your guest list in line?

Twistie: What we have here is a failure across several different groups to understand the concept of the Social Unit. Basically, any couple that is married, engaged, or cohabiting (gay or not) is a Social Unit. That means that, yes, your live-in boyfriend should have been invited to the weddings. How long you have lived together and whether or not the happy couple had met him make no difference.

Never teh Bride: Hell, I have friends who’ve been with their SOs forever and are staunchly opposed to the notion of cohabitation (not the mention matrimony, oddly) and I still sent all parties involved invitations. It just seemed like the nice thing to do…besides, I don’t know anyone who likes to sit alone at a wedding! But I’m also lucky in that I happen to know my friends’ SOs and their names.

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