The other day I was watching an episode of Say Yes to the Dress. It’s not a show I go to for a lot of pithy observations, but something struck me in one appointment profiled on the show.

The bride in question was insecure in her own tastes, and made the mistake of bringing along some six people to her appointment, all of whom had strong opinions that varied hugely, none of whom seemed to believe that the bride could have an opinion that differed from theirs.

Every time she came out of the dressing room, half a dozen naysayers started nitpicking like crazy. The first couple of times, the bride was wearing something she hadn’t much liked to begin with, so it didn’t seem to bother her much. On the third try, though, as soon as the gown went on, the bride lit up. She clearly loved the gown.

Then she sashayed happily out only to have her mother, her sisters, and her best friends start telling her everything they hated about the dress. Her face fell about twelve stories. At that point, her mother said the bride obviously didn’t like the dress either because she didn’t look happy. The bride trudged back to the dressing room convinced that she had no taste.

She tried a couple more gowns on, but the spark had gone out of the experience for her.

Result? One bride who left without a dress.

So how could things have gone better? Well, for one thing the bride could have chosen better companions for the trip. What she needed wasn’t a horde of people, but one or two. What she needed wasn’t opinionated, domineering people, but someone who would help her have confidence in her own opinion. What she needed was a good ally.

When you go to pick your wedding gown, it’s important to have someone in your corner, especially if you are shy or not well-versed in bridal fashion. You don’t want to find yourself bullied into wearing someone else’s dream gown.

So how to know who is the perfect person to take with you to the bridal salon?
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Alternative bridal bouquets… sometimes sweet, sometimes tacky, but always fun to post about! In the past I’ve featured bouquets made of feathers and ribbons (which are beautiful and old fashioned), balloons (which are rather terrible), Claycraft (which can look a lot like the real thing if done right), maple leaves (which resemble… maple leaves), wire (très moderne!), and lots of other interesting and unexpected things.

Now there’s a whole new option created by Amanda Heer of Fantasy Floral Designs: the vintage brooch bridal bouquet!

Isn’t that just gorgeous? I love how colorful and cheerful it is, not to mention how it incorporates every color of the rainbow without looking at all garish or clashy. I probably say this all the time about so many things, but Heer’s brooch bridal bouquets make me want to get married all over again!

The base price for one of these sweet bouquets is $300, keeping in mind that this is one would hope a bouquet one kept for a long, long time. Especially considering that the bride can have Heer choose each vintage brooch or provide them herself, perhaps after on gram’s jewelry box.

(spied on Junebug Weddings; photos via Alice Hu Photography; Studio del Fiore is another source for brooch bridal bouquets)

Background: Macramé is a form of textile-making that uses knotting instead of weaving or knitting to make… stuff. In the 1970s, people were making decorative macramé owls, macramé toilet paper cozies, and even stuff like this. Yes, yes, I know macrame lace is a different animal, not at all like your gram’s owl with the knobby wooden eyeballs and the rough branch for a perch. But still. Shall we call this 1970s chic, perhaps?

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About as different from your standard Kate Spades as you can get, vintage bridal shoes are getting popular enough that shops like Kindred Sole are starting to carry them as part of their regular inventory.

Brides who are committed to employing vintage bridal shoes as their “Something Old” may still have a hunt in front of them, however. With vintage, what you see is what you get, and that includes size. Better to have a pair of vintage style bridal shoes made for you by a shoemaker, I think, as these could still serve as your “Something New” and if made beautifully, will fit your feet like a dream.

Which brings me to another way to do bridal shoes, namely the humble bridal slipper meant to be stored in the wedding day emergency kit until the bride’s poor dogs are barking. Fit in Clouds sells slipper-like shoes that fold flat and fit into a pouch for portability, cost about twenty bucks, and have a ballet shoe-esque split sole.

For those brides and bridesmaids happiest walking barefoot, I can see a pair of slippers from Fit in Clouds being the perfect solution to tired tosies. However, brides and bridesmaids who require some degree of support to feel comfortable on their feet might want to just stick to the well-made shoe.

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While I personally am an avid reader, I understand that not everyone is, and thus there will be brides and grooms without bookshelves upon which to store a wedding guestbook when it comes to pass that the wedding photo album and the guestbook no longer feel fresh enough to deserve a spot on the coffee table.

Guestbooks that aren’t so much books as they are addresses (and of course good wishes) masquerading as recipes are cute — as are things like this — but where exactly does it live a few years post-wedding? The answer to the question “What to do with our wedding guestbook?” might just lie in ditching the “book” part. While we’re at it, wedding keepsakes could get a bit less cutesy.

Right now I’m loving the stuff at I Do Engravables. When your wedding guestbook is something a tad more practical, you don’t have to figure out where you’re going to put it once you’re too busy living life to keep reminiscing about your ceremony every hour on the hour.

If you’re the sort of bride (or groom) who likes to display things on other things, consider opting for one of I Do Engravable’s engravable platters instead of a guestbook. The special engraving pen that comes with every order works just like a ballpoint (though you may have to have some instructions handy so your wedding guests know that pretty pewter plate they see is actually your guestbook).

Not a fan of plates? No worries! Brides and grooms who just aren’t platter people aren’t left out of the etching funtimes, since I Do Engravables also carries engravable picture frame matting that’s made out of highly polished metal (instead of wussy poster board and fading ink).

Worried that your wedding photographer will miss one or more of those precious wedding day moments? That’s what the must-have shot list is for! Now the easiest way to end up with perfect wedding photographs is to choose a wedding photographer with a beautiful portfolio and the references to back it up, but that amazing photog who just happened to have a cancellation making her available on your wedding day may not realize how important it is to you to get at least one photo of you with your 99-year-old great grandma or the dream photo of you and your divorced parents, each with their own families, in a single picture.

That, brides and grooms, is why you need a list. Unless you’re working with a novice wedding photographer who has offered you a great deal (or even free pics), you shouldn’t need to micro-manage your photog. But checking out a must-have wedding photo list can help you figure out what your must-haves are. Maybe you’ve never thought about posing with your mascara in a mirror, but you loved that shot in your sister’s wedding album. Or it would never occur to you to have your photographer snap photos of your something old, something blue, something borrowed, and something blue until you see it on a list. But FYI, the must-have wedding photo list is there to inspire, and is not something you ought to thrust into the hands of your photog.

(As Toni says in the comments, “I can pretty much guarantee that any wedding photographer seeing this post is groaning and putting their heads in their hands.“)

I do think the best wedding photos are the candid shots that just kind of happen, i.e., the ones you’d never in a million years think to stage. But I also like (and know others like) some of the more traditional photos that are in more than a few wedding albums, so it can’t hurt to glance at a must-have list of wedding photos at some point before the big day to be sure your wedding photographer doesn’t miss a thing. In other words, the list below may inspire you, but remember to chill out and let photo opportunities unfold naturally!

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Whether you prefer chocolate bunnies, Peeps, or jelly beans, we wish you as many as you would enjoy… and a few to share with someone you love.