Manolo for the Brides

It’s Halloween today! Remember to have a super time planning your wedding:

…and be sure to watch out for zombies:

(dabs at eye with lace hanky)

Oh my dears, how very clever you all are!

Last week I presented you all with this deathless image:

…and you all came right back at me with some of the funniest captions I’ve ever seen in this blog.

You’re all winners in my book, but I declare only one, as you know. This week it’s the ever superfantastic Margo with this glorious tribute to DIY:

“You created a celebrant out of the leftover hen’s night decorations? I love how crafty you are, darling.”

Congratulations, Margo! And thanks to everyone who played.

Oh my, what’s this? An old fashioned bridal kidnapping? A wedding ceremony interrupted by the appearance of guerrilla fighters? Starcrossed lovers escaping from an unwanted wedding? Whatever it is, it sure looks as if the bride is in a perilous position.

But don’t feel too bad for the bride just yet because the photo you see above is actually a wedding portrait taken in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) traditional wedding portraits, the bride and groom opted for a warfare scenario as they are both hardcore military enthusiasts.

Is it a trend? Beats me. I only have one source that states that themed wedding portraits are popular among young brides and grooms in China. And I could only find these two images of anything that might be considered extreme wedding photography. It could be that Chinese newlyweds simply aren’t posting their photos online or are using private galleries. Anyone local to that part of the world want to weigh in?

Oh, Mike’s Amazing Cakes, how I love thee. Unlike other bakers (and florists and caters, etc.) your use of amazing in your moniker is not so much boasting as it is a statement of fact. Want a wedding cake featuring the horrible kraken? No problem. A wedding cake that looks like dirt? Want the Hulk to smash your wedding cake? Or maybe you’re in the market for a steampunk wedding cake. Well your wish is Mike’s Amazing Cakes’ command!

LOVE it! I wouldn’t ever order it for my own wedding, not being a big fan of the whole wood, brass, and gears aesthetic, but I can certainly admire the workmanship and skill that went into this steampunk wedding cake. The only negative comment I could see hearing from people is that wedding cakes like this one take a wedding theme too far, but as we’ve discussed many times here at Manolo for the Brides, if you’re going to design your wedding around a theme, why not go all the way?

What say you?

(via Great White Snark)

We hear so little about the trials and tribulations faced by the tall bride because most of us had to strip fabric from our wedding gown hems instead of adding more. Questions like “I’m short and curvy — what wedding dresses will flatter my figure?” are far more common than “What can a tall bride wear?” But while the 5′4″ bride dominates, the tall bride is nonetheless out there shopping for her gown and her bridal shoes, and perhaps wondering just how she can make herself appear that much more petite in her wedding photographs.

Ages and ages ago, before the advent of the Never teh Bride, a reader wrote to inquire “whatever is a tall bride to do?” and our esteemed head of state, The Manolo, rightly recommended that the tall bride should not attempt to camouflage her height with flats — especially, I might add, considering that her intended probably already knew she was tall when s/he proposed. Though all you tall brides out there may feel like you’re going to end up looking like this as you walk down the aisle…

…I can promise that you won’t. The perpetual middle schooler that lives inside your brain and whispers that you’re still a gawky and ungainly girl is wrong, wrong, wrong. Unlike us shorties, you tall brides can often look effortlessly elegant. Your height gives you a certain presence that has to be faked by the rest of us. You may be willowy and graceful, in which case you can probably wear any wedding dress you like. Or perhaps you are as rubenesque as you are statuesque, in which case you should probably wear any wedding dress you like. Maybe you’re sporty and lean, built like a stringbean, which means you can definitely wear any wedding dress you like because, come on, you’re the closest thing to a runway model on this list!

Above we have a tall bride, who also happens to be a friend of mine. Gawky? Anything but! Ungainly? Certainly not! Still, the tall bride does have to take some things into consideration that other brides can take for granted. Here are just a few:

• Don’t think you HAVE to wear flats or low-heeled shoes on your wedding day, particularly if you usually tower over the world in 5-inch heels. At the same time, don’t wear heels *just because* if you spend your life in flats.
• You may need to order a wedding dress with custom measurements or, if you’re buying online, make sure you specify “long” when placing your order. Don’t forget to consider your heel height and petticoat bulk when ordering.
• Tall brides with tall torsos may need to take that into account, too, when buying a wedding dress. Remember that it’s better to get a gown that’s too long, as too much fabric can be removed easily while too little may mean your full-length dress becomes a tea-length dress by necessity.
• Be bold when choosing your wedding dress, since tall brides can frequently pull off styles that brides of average height cannot. Full skirt? No problem. Lots of embellishments? If anyone can wear it well, you can.
• The same goes for accessories! A larger frame means you can wear larger accessories, whether that means chunkier bridal jewelry or a huge hat or a tremendously long veil. This is one case where more really is more.
• Tall brides are also blessed in that they can carry bigger bouquets if they so choose. Cascading styles and across the arm styles both look great on tall brides. Just remember to scale your bridal bouquet to your frame — too small a bouquet can look odd in pics.
• Finally, stop worrying about looking too tall in photos! If you’d really like a wedding portrait where you and your new spouse are the same height, take one where you’re sitting with your heads together. Otherwise embrace your tallitude since you’ll be wearing it for a very long time!

(Image via Monsters vs. Aliens)

NSFW, that is, if a dude lip synching in his underpants is the kind of thing you really ought not be viewing at your place of employment. You see, a certain Pete Simson proposed to his girlfriend, Hannah McDonagh, by not only making the following video, but also hiring out a movie theatre, convincing said girlfriend that they’d be watching some serious French cinema, and making sure that the other theatre patrons were in on it before playing his proposal on the big screen.

At the end of the video, he got down on one knee and popped the question. I give him an ‘A’ for effort and another ‘A’ for having the cajones to prance around in his Y-fronts in front of West Country landmarks while mouthing the words to the ballad If You’re Not The One by Daniel Bedingfield. McDonagh said yes, which doesn’t surprise me at all because I think that any man who opts for a public underpants proposal probably has a pretty good idea his lady will answer in the affirmative.

My new favorite source for custom wedding stationery? This Paper Ship of Greensboro, North Carolina, where Joel and Ashley Selby design and print totally sweet custom wedding invitations, custom wedding maps, and things like RSVP cards and save-the-dates. Er, they also do all kinds of other stuff like cute cut-outs of people’s cats and fliers for businesses and even custom headers for blogs, but I’m mainly interested in the wedding stuff, duh.

Wood you marry me, heh. I love the envelope color they chose to go with it, too.

The pattern on these invitations (or was it RSVP cards or save-the-dates?) was repeated in other areas of the stationery suite as a monogram.

Did I mention they hand draw their maps? Because they do.

Of course, if you’d rather, they’d be happy to design your wedding stationery using photographs of you and your intended as the starting point.

This Paper Ship will be set up to sell packages through their web site soon, but for now they’re pushing their weddings invitations, etc., in an Etsy shop. You can also find them on Facebook, where they frequently post those cute custom cat cut-outs I mentioned earlier.

I’m not usually one for fairies or frou-frou, but I’m loving this A Midsummer Night’s Dream themed wedding recently featured on Brides.com. The bride, Kristen Gullion, wanted her nuptials to be a modern fantasy fairytale, which was brought to life by event designer Sasha Souza. Here are some highlights:

Can you imagine how delighted most little girls would be to not only be invited to participate in the wedding as flower girls, but also to wear wings and fairy dresses while doing it? I would have been climbing the walls in anticipation of the wedding day as a wee one!

Lavender lighting? Oh, baby. I’m also digging the mismatched table linens, especially here where they tone down the fanciful bunting. I guess it doesn’t hurt that the space is awesome — for those looking for elegant reception venues, barns are not just for country weddings!

The bride and groom, Todd Gullion, took their photo booth to the next level with an interactive family photo wall featuring snapshots of family members and family members’ weddings. Guests could pose in empty frames, becoming, as the bride put it, part of the family history. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this.

Overall, the Gullions’ fairytale affair was totally not my style, but totally awesome nonetheless!