Planning a wedding is arguably one of the most time-consuming responsibilities one can take on. Yes, a wedding is at its heart just a really big party, but most brides- and grooms-to-be have never had to put together an event budget, vet and hire vendors, track down color coordinated party gear, and wrangle party VIPS while also trying to stay on top of work and spend time with friends, family, and their SOs. Now maybe it’s just me, but the thought of adding extra to dos or expenses to the bride’s plate sets my teeth on edge.

What you see above is a bridesmaid letter. This is not to be confused with a heartfelt note asking the special people in your life to stand by your side when you say your wedding vows. Rather, this is an overview of all of your wedding details, from the color of the bridesmaid dresses to a description of the wedding cake. Bridesmaid letters may also include lists of duties the bride would like her bridesmaids to take on or lists of bridesmaid “don’ts.” This particular bridesmaid letter took much more work than sending a card, creating an e-mail list, or setting up a wedding planning blog would have.

I’m not against bridesmaid letters, of course — bridesmaids who are in the know are less stressed out than those who aren’t. I’m likewise not against detailed and extravagant bridesmaid letters. What does drive me nuts, however, is the idea that the bride who does not go above and beyond the call of duty (by, say, designing a fancy bridesmaid letter) is shirking her prenuptial responsibilities. That said, I almost hope that bridesmaid letters like the one above don’t become the next must-have wedding accessory. In much the same way that save-the-date cards with their niche usefulness have become a common piece of stationery, I could see bridesmaid letters going from functional for some to necessary for all.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that brides and grooms shouldn’t feel compelled to spend their time or their money on X, Y, or Z because another couple did or because a particular wedding accessory has become popular. If something matters to YOU — be it creating a beautiful DIY bridesmaid letter or finding the perfect bridal shoes — then put your all into it, but if you catch yourself doing or buying something because the media or someone on a bridal message board says your special day will be less special without it, it’s time to reconsider your priorities.

Kirby sent a link to this video of a very… spirited wedding that is actually a promo for Wild Roses. While this thankfully isn’t a record of some real affair ruined by feuding families, it did get me to thinking. One does hope that most brides and grooms get to enjoy idyllic weddings, but the fact is that some ceremonies and receptions will be marred by squabbles, cattiness, yelling, and the occasional punch in the eye.

Once upon a time I might have asked myself just who uses a wedding as a forum to give new life to old tensions, but that was before I ended up connected via marriage to some people with large chips on their shoulders. The long and the short of it is that weddings can bring out the worst in people — even people who are otherwise sane and balanced. Common offenders include divorced parents, siblings on the outs, former lovers, and anyone who doesn’t quite approve of the union being consecrated.

So how can you prevent a matrimonial meltdown like the one above? The key is to diffuse whatever tensions can be diffused before the big day instead of worrying impotently about what might happen on the big day. Here are just some of the ways you can prevent major big day blowouts:

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It’s a common conception that your wedding day will be the best day of your life. This is your day. This is the one time when you will be utterly in the spotlight on your own terms. This is when you will prove that you truly are Cinderella and you are marrying your Prince Charming. I even have vivid memories of a woman on Bridezillas throwing fits because she decided at the last moment she didn’t like her rehearsal dinner dress as much as she thought she would and carrying on about how ‘this is the one day in my life when I’m supposed to be happy!’ which is taking the theme waaaaaayyyyyy over the top, if you ask me.

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: chances are your wedding day will be a wonderful day that you enjoy a great deal…but there will be other wonderful days and sometime one of them may well be better. It may not, but it could be.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

My wedding day definitely ranks well up among my best days. The weather was gorgeous, Mr. Twistie was handsome, the food and music were getting raves, most of the people we loved were with us, and we had a great time.

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Hello campers!

Last week I inflicted this image on you all:

and you all sent in captions. You did not make this an easy decision. You went and referenced Dickens, Flash Gordon, Barbarella, gnomes, and a host of other things that make me giggle as a general rule. I wish I could declare you all winners on this one.

In the end, though, there can be but one winner. This week, that winner is our own sterlingspider for this particularly shiny gem:

From that day onwards all the girls from Go-Go-A-Go-Go agreed that Patty’s wedding had been the ginchiest.

Little did sterlingspider know that I have been using and enjoying the term ‘ginchy’ since just a few years after this delightful image was snapped. The fact that someone used it to such exquisite effect won my scaly little heart, and probably Patty’s, too.

Congratulations to sterlingspider, and thanks to everyone who played. You’re all the ginchiest!

We’re always looking for holes in content here at Manolo for the Brides, and I just realized today that a search for videography produced zero results. We didn’t even have a category for it until just last weekend! Wedding videography is one of those things that people have strong opinions about, like whether charitable wedding favors are rude or wedding cake is a must-have.

This is due in part to the fact that many people can’t think of wedding videos without thinking of those grainy, badly lit VHS tapes from the 80s. But the fact is that today’s wedding videography can be lots of things, from slickly produced journalism-style wedding documentaries to old school Super 8 films with serious retro flair.

Cake and Lemonade is one of the companies working with Super 8 to produce bright, saturated (and, yes, grainy) videos that are mercifully short and sweet. And silent, though they do set their films to music after editing.

Present day nostalgia doesn’t come cheap, however. Packages start at $3,500 for a video much like the one above.

Recently, a post at Don’t Be That Bride got me to thinking about how brides and grooms express their gratitude toward the people who make a wedding happen, by which I mean the vendors. Unless you are putting together a complete DIY wedding, it’s likely that you’ll be hiring people to work behind the scenes to make your ceremony and reception beautiful and memorable.

You can’t deny that good wedding vendors work hard to ensure that brides and grooms get what they want. Putting aside for a moment the fact that there are some substandard wedding vendors out there, I can’t help but agree with The Wedding Fairy, who asserts that “…brides (and grooms) should take the time to thank–I mean, really thank–any vendor contacts who are at the event… When you are that happy with a vendor, you need to show it! Be over-the-top. It’s OK.”

The Beard and I did just that, as all of our wedding vendors were great about working with us remotely since we were getting married 1000+ miles away from home. We gave tips, wrote thank you cards, and made a point to speak with those wedding vendors who were actually at our wedding venue. It made us feel good to let our vendors know how much we appreciated them, and we hoped that showing our appreciation made our vendors feel just as good.

Now I’d like to know how you plan to (or did) thank those wedding vendors who provide (or provided) exceptional service.

True originality is difficult to achieve when it comes to weddings because if you can think of it, there’s a good chance that ‘it’ has been done before. The best most brides and grooms can hope for is to put their own spin on established nuptial norms. Take bridal portraits, for instance…

Before the wedding ceremony starts, most wedding photographers will take a series of photos of the bride putting on her wedding gown, the bride having her hair done, the bride applying her makeup, and so on. Then there’s the old standard, the bride in front of a mirror, and when I say old, I mean it. Photographers in 1905 were already snapping pics of brides standing in front of their own reflections, and they’re still doing it today!

That said, I would hope that the majority of brides-to-be spend little to no time worrying about whether their weddings will be original. The photo on the right is no less lovely for being partly the product of photographic tradition. While originality is certainly a positive quality, brides and grooms should really focus on planning a wedding they’ll remember forever, even if that means everything down to the last detail has been done before by other brides and grooms. In the end, all that matters is that the two people getting married love the venue, the clothes, the cake, and all the other stuff associated with the modern day Western wedding.

The image on the right comes from Lynn Michelle photography and Unveiled Bridal Designs