Hey ho, campers!

Some of our more discerning readers may remember that last saturday was the Fourth of July. They may further remember the lovely picture I posted for the occasion. For those who don’t, here it is:

I promised a sort of Saturday Caption Madness result in addition to my regular saturday article, and I got a couple great responses. Of course, on saturday as on sunday, there can be but one winner. Today, that winner is perletwo for this sage warning to all brides who consider dazzling their guests with indoor fireworks:

Bob and Susie’s wedding reception was a real blast!

The repair bills for the reception hall ceiling after one of the Roman candles in the wedding cake went live, however, were not.

Congratulations, perletwo, and thanks to everyone who played!

I don’t often watch Say Yes to the Dress. It’s not out of hatred, either. It’s more that I tend to forget it’s on at all. On it, women shop for wedding gowns at Kleinfeld Bridal in New York.

We watch the process as consultants work with brides – some of whom have flown in from all over the country – to find the right gown for the right woman. In general, it’s actually not bad. Yes, I think it’s a bit much for a woman who lives in Seattle and has just been laid off her job to fly all the way to New York for a wedding gown…but I can’t magically see into her bank account, either. And yes, that actually happened in an episode shown last night.

In fact, the episode was about women who fell in love with gowns well out of their price range. It happens. You see something gorgeous, try it on, fall in love, and then see what it will cost you. OUCH!

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At a wedding I recently attended the clinking of utensils against glasses was repeatedly heard during the reception. In other words, there was a subset of guests who were trying valiantly to induce the bride and groom to kiss on cue. The newlyweds did not, however, give their loved ones the satisfaction, much to my delight. I’ve always rather disliked the tradition of peer pressuring the couple into PDAs for the amusement of those in attendance at the wedding reception. Some people just aren’t that demonstrative (in public or otherwise) when it comes to affection. Others don’t like being the center of attention any more than they have to be.

I know some people actually enjoy being cajoled into kissing and, yes, it’s just a bit of harmless fun. No one was harmed in the making of this liplock! But if you, like me, aren’t a big fan of this tradition, there are plenty of ways to have a little fun with it. The aforementioned couple would pucker up, go in for the kill, then swerve away at the last possible moment. The groom even planted one on the best man at one point. After a while, their guests got the hint and gave up.

On the other hand, maybe you don’t mind kissing on cue, but you want to make your guests work for the privilege of seeing you buss. I came across the following ideas in the comments at Darren Barefoot’s blog:

• my wife attended a wedding once where the centrepieces on each table were fishbowls with several goldfish swmming around in them. To get the couple to kiss you had to actually swallow a goldfish. Full points for originality, but not for taste (aesthetic nor culinary) Once the rowdies got drunk it was a full on bride/groom make out fest.
• I’ve been to 2 weddings where you had to compose and recite a poem – both started out well, but devolved into dirty limericks by the end of the night. Most were pretty funny, though, so the entertainment value is high.
• Most of the weddings I’ve been too lately have had trivia challenges. That is, there’s a list of questions on each table and to get the couple to kiss, you have to answer the question correctly.
• I emcee’d a wedding two weeks ago and with the Bride & Groom’s permission, enacted my own little wedding rule: Want to clink glasses? Then I get to pick the person you get to kiss.
• I believe I witnessed one where you actually had to pay to see the couple kiss (perhaps my inner capitalist may have created this memory for my future wedding). The show wasn’t worth the cash to me, however, and I was content to see six inches between the couple rather than shell out cash on top of a gift.
• The last wedding I went to, if you wanted the bride and groom to kiss, you had to demonstrate a kiss first, and then they would copy it.
• Some young newlyweds-to-be who fancy themselves wine connoisseurs said they were doing the following at their reception: a big container full of corks, some with red wine on the ends (used), some new, one or two marked black. The bucket goes around the room to whomever dares: pick a red cork, bride and groom kiss, pick an unused cork, kiss your own date, get the black cork, EVERYBODY kiss (their date, I hope, but maybe they are more fun than that). The bride and groom could stack the odds as they wish if they are in charge of the corks. Could be pretty funny.

Goldfish? Quiz bowl? I’ll admit I have never been to a wedding where I encountered anything like that… or, I should add, anything as tacky as asking guests to pay to see the newlyweds kiss, which is apparently fairly common in some areas. Have you?

It never occurred to me to carry anything other than my choreography notes at my wedding rehearsal. Yes, I was that bride-to-be, with the list of who was to stand where and enter when, plus who exactly needed to remember what. I’m thorough, or at least I thought I was. Apparently, according to some sources, I ought to have been carrying a rehearsal bouquet made of all the ribbons that graced the gifts I opened at my bridal shower. Oops?

I was fully aware of the bridal shower paper plate hat tradition, even if I ended up with a ribbon-covered sombrero because the Mexican restaurant where my bridal shower was held didn’t have any paper plates. No one offered to whip me up a post-shower bouquet and it never struck me to desire one. In fact, I’d never even seen one at a rehearsal or in rehearsal pictures, so at the time I wasn’t even aware that a bride-to-be might carry bows and ribbons in place of an actual bouquet (or anything at all) at the rehearsal.

But apparently they do, or some do, somewhere. I know from having seen a friend’s sister whip up a ribbon hat that some ladies have the skills to pay the bills where bridal shower novelty headgear is concerned, so I can say that I’m fairly sure one could make a rather nice looking bouquet provided that shower guests did not decorate their gifts with anemic, oddly-colored ribbons. Those brides-to-be who have not yet had their bridal showers AND love the bouquet stand-in idea should point their MOHs toward some of the ribbon bouquet tutorials out there:

• Paper plate style
• Single bow style
• The way too nice style

So ribbon rehearsal bouquets… I don’t love the idea or hate the idea. I guess I feel kind of lukewarm about it. What say you? Do you plan to carry a ribbon bouquet during your rehearsal? Have you even ever heard of this?

Forget the horrible, sexist bride dragging the groom to the altar cake toppers and the raunchy bride with her legs wrapped around the groom cake toppers. If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen so many novelty wedding cake toppers that you desperately long for an alternative. I can dig it. Luckily Bunny With a Toolbelt has got folks like us covered! Her carved wooden bride and groom bunnies, elephants (for the staunchly Republican bride and groom?), gators, birds, giraffes, dachshunds, and more are playfully quirky while still retaining a sense of elegance.

The donkeys, sadly long since sold, are my faves.

Plus the details are way cute. How about those tiny flowers on the bride donkey’s veil? I don’t know about you, but they make me say “Squee!”

Here’s another one for the fun wedding photographs archive: Brides on bikes! This works best if the weather is at least pleasant on your wedding day and you’re open to the idea of spending at least some time out of doors. I’d hasten to add that getting on a bike is easiest in a shorter wedding gown or one with a wider skirt that you can hoist up easily to avoid the ground and . Chain grease does not a nice hem make!

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We get a lot of press releases here at Manolo for the Brides. I mean A LOT of press releases, which is why my inbox is always getting wicked backed up and I am way tardy in answering some reader e-mails. Some of the press releases I receive are appropriately wedding related, while others are kind of pushing the wedding angle just because, hey, weddings are a cash cow.

For example, I just received a release informing me that Microsoft Office Live offers “free online tools that can help a bride get organized and stay connected to family and friends during the planning process.” These include a wedding web site, a place to upload wedding details to share with vendors and venues, and a repository for ideas. That’s useful enough, I guess, but what interested me was the justification for needing to use Microsoft Office Live versus, say, Blogger or one of the upteenbillion other free site hosting services.

A new trend that’s emerging is brides who are sharing their wedding details with their bridal party via social networking sites. Sharon Naylor, wedding expert and author of 35 wedding books, says this is not only inefficient, but it ruins the surprise element for guests who have read endless status updates about the coral dresses, the catering plans, etc.

Now I don’t know about you, but I was eager to share my wedding deets with anyone willing to humor me for five minutes to two hours. My wedding gown? It’s gold! My reception venue? My gram’s backyard in Merritt Island, FL! I’d spill the beans about anything and everything because I was proud of my choices. By the time the wedding rolled around, the only thing that was even remotely a secret was my dress, and it was only a secret from The Beard. It never even struck me to want to spring my wedding color scheme or my wedding shoes on unsuspecting guests.

Am I alone in this? You tell me!

(img via — check it out for a different kind of wedding surprise!)