You know, sometimes just plain weird stuff happens in the wonderful world of weddings. I’m not talking about Uncle Ralph getting blitzed and deciding the DJ is providing karaoke services or Cousin Vi insisting on bringing her Peke along as her ‘and guest.’ No, I’m talking about the deeply unexpected, just plain head-scratching weird stuff that you don’t even think to pray won’t happen to you because you’d never in a million years imagine it possible.

As luck would have it, I happen to have run across three such stories in the last week. Here’s the weird I’m talking about:

At a wedding in a park in Suverito, Italy, a bride and groom hired a microlight plane to fly past their reception. The idea was that as pilot Luciano Nannelli buzzed the crowd, passenger Isidoro Pensieri would toss the bouquet to the single ladies in attendance. Kind of a fun idea, except that it didn’t work. When Pensieri tossed the flowers, they got sucked into the engine of the plane, causing some unexpected fireworks as the plane caught fire, exploded, and plunged into a hostel.

Mr. Pensieri suffered multiple fractures and a head injury, but the pilot and the fifty people in the hostel all appear to have escaped unscathed.

I’m sure you’ll all join with me in wishing Mr. Pensieri a speedy recovery…and in taking note that sometimes the spectacular is just a tidge too risky to make it worth attempting around a crowd.

In other news, NBA player Richard Jefferson and his fiancee, former New Jersey Nets dancer Kesha Ni’Cole Nichols, decided to call it quits several days before they were scheduled to say ‘I do.’ What’s so strange about that? That’s not the strange part. Even with lead time and all the resources at their disposal, it seems that a large proportion of the guests were not notified that there was no reason to come to the Mandarin Oriental in New York City, where the wedding had been expected to take place.

At least Jefferson sent a friend with his black AMEX card and instructions to make sure the people who showed up for a wedding at least got a party.

Still, I do have to wonder why so many people weren’t contacted. With a reported budget of two million bucks, you’d think that would include the means to start a phone, email, or blackberry tree to let people know there’s no longer a reason to get dressed up.

And last, though I’m not certain it’s least, comes a story of an elaborate proposal. She thought they were going to the movies for her birthday. He’d hired a cinema, hired a crowd of extras to be an ‘audience,’ had tickets printed, and made a film of himself lip-synching Daniel Beddingfield’s If You’re Not the One…in his underwear. In fact, there are multiple changes of underwear through the song.

Why did he choose to do it this way? Because he said he knew this would happen only once and he wanted to make it special.

The lady must have agreed. She said yes.

In all the years I’ve lived in Massachusetts, winter has transitioned almost directly into summer with a few days of pleasant weather in between. Two days ago my mother was asking me for a sweatshirt to borrow, and now the humidity is making me feel all sticky and gross. What, I wonder, ever happened to that glorious season known as Spring. I remember it fondly — it was neither too hot, nor too cold. The birds were in full-on performance mode but the garden was still bare.

Spring was the perfect weather for weddings. The bride would be comfortable in her gown, the groom would be comfortable in his tux, and the guests. Well, they’ll be comfortable in whatever. Maybe, unlike moi, you live in a locale that still has Spring. Or not. Either way, that most lovely of seasons makes for a great wedding theme, what with the bright blossoming flowers and the delightful singing birds and the baby vegetables and Easter candy and and and…

And here’s the perfect wedding cake for that Spring wedding, created by Natasha Collins of Neviepiecakes. Ms. Collins has a real knack for hand-painting cakes and cookies, as you can see in her gallery here. Like what you see? Even if you’re not sure your cake designer does this sort of thing, it never hurts to ask if they or someone they know can whip up a little artwork directly on your wedding cake. Anything goes, from flora and fauna to inscriptions to scenes from famous artwork or literature, though keep in mind that the more elaborately painted your wedding cake is, the more it’s going to cost.

Most brides, when choosing their wedding colors, go in for two, three, or sometimes four colors, with some variations on the theme for a little extra pizazz. Rainbow isn’t a popular wedding color scheme, though some brides do choose it and when they know what they’re doing, damn, does it look good! Even fewer go in for a psychedelic rainbow color scheme, though I’ve found the perfect wedding flowers for those who do.

My first thought upon seeing a snapshot of Happy Roses somewhere was “Shopped!” But no, these petals are on the level — what you see is pretty much exactly what you get, thanks to a special watering technique. Remember coloring carnations or celery stalks with food color infused agua in grade school? It’s kind of like that.

The Happy Roses are placed in special water. Different substances are dissolved in this water. The rose branch absorbs this water as part of a natural process. This is what changes the colour of the petals. What makes Happy Roses unique is that the inventor has managed to colour a few petals, for example, yellow, whilst at the same time other petals colour differently, for example, blue, orange or lilac. It even proved possible to achieve a range of different colourings in the flower, which as it were fan around one another. This resulted in these unique, colourful and cheerful roses.

So love? Hate? I vote LOVE, just because the bouquet and the centerpieces are so wonderfully eye-catching. As La BellaDonna likes to remind me, “More is more,” and these definitely fall into the more category. What say you?

Paying more for a wedding dress will sometimes guarantee you a better finished product. I say sometimes because in some cases the bride is paying not for luxe fabrics or nice tight stitching but rather for a designer label or a rush order or some other thing. And while a designer label is usually a sign of quality, there are some extremely well-made and beautiful non-designer wedding dresses out there, as well as some rather pricey gowns that aren’t all that. In short, you can’t go wrong buying the best and most beautiful gown that fits into your wedding budget, whether that budget is $250 or $2,500 or more.

Looks are, of course, subjective, and when it comes down to it, it’s not always easy to tell how much a wedding dress cost when your only view of it is a far off one. Close up, quality can be a giveaway, though some brides may not want you scrutinizing their hemlines or beading. But if you’re sitting in a pew, you’re usually seeing the forest, not the trees. Or not. Maybe your wedding dress fu is so strong that you can estimate the cost of a wedding dress with no more than a glance.

So test yourself, why don’t you? Here are three wedding gowns — one that is fairly low in price as wedding gowns go, one that falls into what I’d call mid-range (again, as wedding gowns go), and one that is, in my opinion, very expensive, even for a wedding gown. I’d like to see your guesses as to which is which and as to how much each gown costs or should cost. Leave your guesses in the comments! Answers are under the cut.

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Sometimes the public relations e-mails I get really raise my hackles, particularly when the companies advertising therein are trying to convince me (and thereby you) that their product or service is necessary to matrimonial or marital happiness. For example, I recently received an e-mail with this subject line: Is the recession costing women carats? Here is the FiLife poll doing the asking, where the actual question is “How many weeks’ salary is appropriate to spend on an engagement ring?”:

The more traditional seven to nine weeks is winning out over three to five weeks, but just barely. Personally, I think the appropriate number of weeks’ salary is however many weeks the giver can afford and is comfortable with. For some, that might be half a weeks’ salary. For others, it might be ninety-nine weeks’ salary. Twistie has her silver frog. I have two engagement rings, both of which sport semi-precious stones and were purchased via eBay. Most of my momfriends have these ginormous diamond engagement rings that kind of make my eyes glaze over. Different strokes for different folks, right?

But I guess not, since us ladies are apparently losing out on precious carats now that there’s a recession on. Poll comments like “I want a real ring to go along with my real marriage…If you are cheap don’t take champange (sic) to the beer store.” appear to confirm it. You know us women, all thinking math is hard and drooling slack-jawed over shiny bits of carbon. Seriously though, diamonds are definitely pretty, but precious carats? Precious carats? Goodness forbid we have to go through life without enough carats in our engagement rings!

My only consolation is that if the recession gets bad enough, we’ll all be too busy worrying about acquiring, ahem, precious carrots to give a thought to precious carats.

It strikes me that there are a lot of people out there who are missing the overall point of those two little words, “I do.” Sure, weddings are fun. We LOVE weddings here at Manolo for the Brides, obviously. We look at wedding dress after wedding dress. We watch the wedding shows. We debate the merits of wedding favors. In short, there can be no doubt that Twistie and I are gaga over weddings.

But as nutty as we are for nuptials, I think both of us (and all of you) realize that the wedding is just one day out of your life. It doesn’t matter if your wedding budget is $100 or $100,000… once the reception is over, you have a whole lifetime of marriage to attend to. Unfortunately, not everyone can be as smart as us! For example, a couple living in Germany recently decided to end their marriage on the same day they tied the knot. That’s right, the same day!

“He said he never wanted to see her again and wanted an immediate annulment, and she said the same thing,” a spokesman for police in the northern city of Hanover said Thursday.

And it’s not as if the newlyweds simply decided amicably to part ways. Of course not. Almost immediately after they said their “I dos,” the bride and groom began fighting, and the fight culminated in the groom trying to slice off the bride’s hair with a kitchen knife. To make a long story short, the police were called, a restraining order was filed, and only then did the couple say their goodbyes.

Yeesh! I tell you what — as much as I like weddings, I’d take a good, happy marriage over a perfect wedding any day of the week. I’d rather be like Philipose Thomas, 100, and Sosamma, 99, of Kerala, India. If both of them are still alive, they’ve been married for a cool 91 years. (I say “if” because the last report I could find said 87 years in 2005.)

That’s awesome, no? One interviewer asked the couple if they ever quarreled. “Never,” said Mr. Thomas. “A lot,” said Sosamma. The Beard and I would probably give the very same answers.

Bridezilla is a term that’s always annoyed me, not so much because it exists, but because it gets used as a bludgeon against women who don’t necessarily fit the definition at all. It gets pulled out to shame women who just want people to show up on time, and it gets used to trivialize truly reprehensible behavior.

There’s one thing, however, that’s clear about the term: bridezilla is an attitude of entitlement. Period. That’s what it’s about.

And so I have to kind of wonder at this article by Lauren Beckham Falcone for the Boston Herald. Her claim is that falling budgets for weddings equal an end to bridezilla.

Really?

Look, I know that we here at Manolo for the Brides are all about keeping to budgets and keeping the wedding day in perspective. We remind people often that there are alternatives to nearly everything expected in a wedding, that just because it’s expected doesn’t obligate you to have most wedding items, and that a little imagination can work wonders on the smallest budget. We’re fond of reminding you that things like ice luges, reception gowns, and live orchestras are not necessary for a nice wedding.

But there’s one thing we’ve never done, and that’s conflate a large budget with bad behavior.

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