Manolo for the Brides

At some point late last year, someone in the know predicted that yellow and silver (not together) would be hot in 2008. Whoever that was has apparently been proven right, because I’ve seen the number of silver frocks out there skyrocket!

I tend to think of silver as an accent color — for white or maybe black — but it really stands out on its own. There are more and more silver wedding gowns hitting the market, but if you’re set on wearing white, why not dress your ‘maids in silver?

I’ve seen plenty of silver in bridal salons, though (if your ‘maids occupy a narrow size range) you could always go the Bluefly route and order something along the lines these dresses. Going clockwise from the top left, there’s a silver jersey beaded strap evening dress from A.B.S., a Chaiken silver sequined shift dress, a silver sateen jeweled halter dress from A.B.S., and a Tart silver stretch evening dress

If, on the other hand, you do want to go the traditional route, I think these silk shantung frocks from Jenny Yoo are absolutely delish:

*Think nothing rhymes with silver? Actually chilver rhymes with silver — a chilver is a ewe-sheep!

Picture from British Cosmo Bride/Photo by Nick Scott

Unless you’re going to city hall to tie the knot, your wedding will probably be anything but simple. Hosting a party for 50 or 100 or 500 people is always going to be somewhat complicated. Your favorite venue may not be available exactly when you want it. The caterer you adore may not normally offer the vegan options that will placate your mother’s side of the family. And it can sometimes feel like everyone from your bridesmaids to your FFIL can’t make a single decision without consulting you!

AAAARGH!

The good news is that while weddings are almost always chaotic, you can take steps to make yours a little less so. Here are a few tips that may help you stay sane as you walk boldly toward wifehood (or husbandhood, for that matter).

Pay your own way
Taking gifts of matrimonial money from loved ones often means taking their input under consideration as well. Just like too many cooks ruin the soup, too many meddling relatives can ruin a wedding. Footing the bill yourself means that you can do your own thing without feeling an ounce of guilt. Of course, you should say no nicely, but by all means feel free to say no!

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I know — because some of you have come right out and said it — that there are brides out there who simply do not feel compelled to dress their ‘maids in matching frocks. In fact, many could not care less what the attendants they have chosen wear to the wedding! It is an unusual choice, but by no means an outlandish one.

What immediately comes to mind when I think of mismatched bridesmaids is a gaggle of gals wearing a selection of pastels with matching sashes…or perhaps matching pastels with a selection of mismatched sashes. But that’s not the only way to grant your bridesmaids their autonomy! Here are five ways you can avoid seeing triple, quadruple, or whatever:

Tropical:

Photo by Minarae

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Months and months ago, I wrote about a Guardian article that referenced a Newsweek article that referenced a bridal body image survey for You & Your Wedding magazine. The problem with the story, the way I saw it, was that the various articles and surveys focused on brides who were purging or using laxatives to lose weight, getting pre-nuptial breast augmentation surgeries, and having their teeth straightened. Botox-laden brides and bridesmaids were not stepping forward to tell their stories.

Thank goodness for the New York Times, right? The Gray Lady has ensured that brides-to-be who want to be on the forefront of all emerging trends will feel comfortable asking their moms and attendants to get a chemical peel, some dermal filler injections, or a touch of Botox.

“Most women, when they come in here, they want it,” said Camille Meyer, the owner of TriBeCa MedSpa. “They know they’re aging*.”

For Karen Hohenstein, who held her [Botox] party at the Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa in Chicago, convincing her friends was as smooth as a Botoxed forehead. “It wasn’t me saying, ‘Hey, we all could use a little something,’” she said. “It was, ‘I want to do this,’ and a couple of people said, ‘I do, too.’”

A certain Stacey Berlin even said these words to her future mother-in-law: “I’m serious. [Botox is] exactly what you need to freshen up.” Way to foster good relations with your future family!

Not that I have anything against cosmetic procedures, mind you, but if I was a bridesmaid and the bride-to-be suggested I get microdermabrasion sanding session or plumped up with Restylane, I’d sock her one just before bowing out of the wedding party. I’ll decide when I’m looking old and haggard, thank you very much, and I’ll decide what I’m going to do about it, if anything. Manicures and margaritas? YES, PLEASE. Botox and Bahama Mamas? Screw that.

*omg omg omg not aaaaaging! kill me now before i can get any older!

I was going to dig into my archives today today to finally feature some of those previously answered reader questions that are waiting for their 15 minutes, but I received a query yesterday afternoon that was too intriguing to put off. The question was simply this:

Have you heard of cellophane parties? Apparently, this is a “new tradition” in bridal showers where guests are asked to wrap their shower gifts in cellophane. Gifts are then displayed on a table for other guests to see, but the bride never unwraps them all, presumably “saving” everyone from a tedious, lengthy gift-unwrapping session. Are these as tacky as they sound?

Color me out of the loop, for I have never, ever heard of a cellophane party. The term itself conjures up images of wild fêtes of yesteryear best forgotten, but brings to mind nothing even remotely resembling an event that typically includes grandmas and great aunts. For the person who posed the query, I did a Google image query with SafeSearch off and still found naught but cellophane and boobies of the usual mammarical variety.

As for cellophane showers, I could not, in all my searches, find a single mention of this supposed new tradition. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of watching people open gifts because it seems so third grade, but that’s pretty much what a shower is all about. Like you said, without the unwrapping, the oohs and ahhs, and the making of the silly hat, it starts to seem like a gift grab. “Here’s a bacon-wrapped scallop and a glass of champagne, now hand over the loot!”

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As a guest, I tend to tune out wedding speeches unless I’m familiar with both the object of the speech (i.e., the bride or groom) and the speech giver. Listening to 45 minutes of daddy waxing on misty-eyed about his little girl’s swimming trophies for 45 minutes a la Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason tends to put me into a fugue state wherein I eat far too much cake and the champagne in my glass keeps disappearing mysteriously.

The bride and groom, however, are typically quite interested in what everyone has to say because they are the ones being talked about! I know that I was particularly looking forward to the best man’s speech at my own wedding because he’s such a tremendously sweet fellow and I was hoping he’d say something nice about me or us. Let it be known that he did not disappoint, and the air was full of Awwws and little sniffs the whole time he had the mic.

Of course, he wasn’t the only one to take a stab at wowing the crowd, but he was indeed a tough act to follow. The Beard’s mother told a story about car thievery, and an uncle of mine saw fit to remind everyone that he’d changed my diapers when I was but a wee lass. I even vaguely remember one of my brothers getting on the mic to tell assembled loved ones that he’d met The Beard in Nam and that we’re both “slick ballers.”

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A good friend recently forwarded a Newsweek article to me about extravagant - excuse me, extreme - wedding trends. Number two on the list was the dreaded Bridesmaid Pre-Nuptual Agreement, or bridesmaid contract.

While the brides interviewed for this part of the article a) refused to give their names and b) were not directly quoted, the article assures us that lots of brides are doing this in order to make sure they have perfect wedding days. After all, if a bridesmaid neglects her skin for a few weeks and winds up with a zit that morning, or she dares to wear her eyebrow ring, we all know the entire wedding will be ruined! Let us not even whisper of the vileness of a bridesmaid who gets pregnant before Myyyyy Daaaayyyyyyy!

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Like pretty much everyone who’s ever weighed in on the subject of flower girls here at Manolo for the Brides, I believe in dressing little girls like little girls. They’ll have almost an entire decade to wear pants with posteriors emblazoned with words like Hottie — I mean, of course, the ten years between “totally inappropriate” and “Oh my gawd, dress your age” — so why parade them around in miniature bridal gowns?

The trend toward mature flower girl garb gets even more disturbing when the tiny models are done up to look like lot lizards and made to give bedroom eyes to the camera. If you don’t think it’s more than a tad creepy, I expect I’ll be seeing your mug on To Catch a Predator some time in the near future.

Here’s the thing: When I was but a tiny tot, I would have killed for a miniaturized grown-up dress and some Tammy Fae makeup, but I had this annoying personage in my life colloquially known as “mom.” Boy did that chick ever cramp my style! There I was, wanting nothing more than to dress like a twenty-five year old, with a legal guardian who kept me in OshKosh B’Gosh. I could have used a few more dresses, but that’s neither here nor there.

So what should a bride and her littlest attendant’s momma do when confronted with all of the oddly tight ‘n’ slinky flower girl dresses out there? They should keep their eyes open for quality alternatives, of course! Here are four gorgeous girl-sized frocks to get you started:

Traveling clockwise from the top right, you see a silk dupioni dress with a square neck bodice and short princess sleeves from Petite Parfait, a luminescent taffeta sleeveless knee-length dress with flowers at neckline and hem from WaWa, an iridescent long dress with sash and flower accents from Winnie Couture, and a tulle and midori silk shantung sleeveless knee-length dress, also from WaWa.

Last I checked, flower girls serve no other purpose than to lend their cute-itude to the nuptial proceedings. Why age them prematurely? It pays to outfit them as beautifully and sweetly and innocently as possible. After all, when they look good, you look good, too.

Unless this is your first time reading MftB — in which case, welcome! — you know that I’m a HUGE advocate of exploring alternative wardrobing options. As tempting as it is to head straight to David’s (if you’re on a budget) or a fancypants upscale bridal salon (if you’re not), why limit yourself? There are great wedding-y dresses at tons of shops, online and off!

Ideally, the guys in your life should also take my advice to heart. While I am a big fan of Men’s Wearhouse because their service tends to be uniformly excellent, their tuxes tend to leave me cold. When it came time to help The Beard pick out duds for the dudes, I decided to start my search anywhere but on the mainstream menswear sites. The end result? We found these great striped suits for about a hundred bucks each. Just shy of zoot suits, they added a touch of…something to the wedding lineup.

The lovely Toni recently e-mailed to share some snapshots of a wedding she attended and dish about the menswear. The guys sourced their tuxes from Volcom, of all places. If you don’t already know, Volcom is a clothing company/entertainment site/surf, skate, and board collective whose tagline is “youth against establishment.”

It’s also definitely not the first place I’d look when choosing wedding-y menswear, but after seeing the photos Toni linked to I wouldn’t knock it. You also can’t beat the price — I found the tux pants for $60 and the tux jacket for $77 $110. The fit is modern (i.e., slim and kind of slouchy) so it won’t appeal to everyone, but if your guy is hoping to find NOTHISDADSTUXPLZ it may be just what he’s looking for.

The point is that the alternatives aren’t always what you’d expect or where you’d expect them to be, but they’re out there, nonetheless! Searching for them is particularly worth it when you’re on a budget, you know you definitely want something that’s a little out there, or you’re just not feeling the stuff you saw in the shops. Like I say in iDo: If you can imagine it, chances are good that someone, somewhere is selling it.