Manolo for the Brides

Aren’t these just too pretty? LaVieja Tun Tun’s bridal necklaces, hair clips, hair pins, and other bridal accessories are feminine, romantic, and perfect perhaps for the bride who wants a striking piece of jewelry to complement her classic, Hollywood, or vintage wedding day look.

Hand formed soft fabric roses are paired with glass pearls, Czech beads, semi-precious stones, and brass links to make all manner of bridal jewelry (that is also nice for the bridesmaid or even the non-bride). Apparently, LaVieja Tun Tun will happily custom make a necklace or other piece using your wedding colors, but I’m having a hard time confirming that. I’m envisioning the brighter counterparts of the accessories above on brides who want to add a little more color and flair in their bridal ensemble.

What do you think? LaVieja Tun Tun’s designs are quite chunky and can dominate. Too much? Just enough?

Somewhere close to half of all the people getting married at any one time are men. There are women marrying other women (so no dudes in those weddings) but there are also guys marrying other guys, which means it may more or less even out along straight and gay lines.

And yet, weddings are very often uber feminine affairs. There are big bunches of flowers, sometimes oodles and oodles of them. Wedding color palettes are trending toward gender-neutral hues, but there are still plenty of weddings with color schemes dominated by pinks and purples and pastels. Plus, so much of the wedding hype actively focuses on the bride — her experience, her wedding dress, the engagement ring, etc. — that the groom can seem like just another minor detail.

My take on it is that society frames weddings as being for women. Dads tell their sons and future sons-in-law to “stand back and shut up” while the wife-to-be goes on a tulle-fueled buying binge. Advertisers address the bride-to-be’s experience. Have you ever seen a commercial or print ad that featured a groom-to-be waxing poetic about wedding planning? I haven’t. We grow up thinking of the guys as secondary players in the wedding, so maybe it’s easy for some people to forget that the guy standing in the corner holding the Tiffany & Co. box might have some opinions about what his wedding ought to look like. At best, grooms-to-be are given one area to oversee… they handle the music or the menswear, while the bride-to-be has the final say over everything else.

I realize, of course, that there are some men who honestly do not care about their own weddings. They’re more than pleased to be tasked with showing up at the ceremony wearing whatever their sweethearts have picked out. And there have got to be grooms who think a feminine wedding is the only kind of wedding! But I also wonder how many guys are “standing back and shutting up” because that’s what they’ve been taught to do, just as us ladies have been subtly trained to do it all. Maybe the groom-to-be secretly hates the pink wedding invitations or the wedding cake that looks like a castle or the elaborate floral arrangements, but is hesitant to say anything because he thinks he shouldn’t care or that caring will seem unmanly or some such thing.

To brides (or grooms) who are dismayed, offended, or irritated by their groom’s lack of interest in the wedding, I say give him another chance. Before you put down a deposit on a venue or vendor, ask his opinion. Try once more to include him when you’re shopping around. Give him something to do, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all your wedding planning to-dos. The flip side is, of course, that once you include him, you have to respect his opinions and choices just like you expect him to respect yours. Compromise will no doubt be necessary. But won’t it be awesome to have a wedding that you created together and that reflects aspects of both of your personalities?

(Images via)

I am loving *LOVING!* this bride photographed by Marie Labbancz of Art of Love Photography. She could have let circumstances get her down, but she didn’t. Sure, having your foot in a cast on your wedding day is going to suck a little, but what’s a little plaster compared with the awesomeness of saying yes to forever with the person you love?

Maybe you spent your girlhood and even your adulthood of being that perfect princess of a bride the bridal magazines slyly suggest you can be, but fate may just have something to say about that. Could be a broken ankle or a black eye, or worse, a round of chemo that makes your hair fall out or a life-saving operation that leaves you with a big ol’ scar. These things happen, but they don’t mean you’re not going to be eye-poppingly beautiful in your wedding dress, dig?

To the brides-to-be worrying about some minor or major physical imperfection, I want to say that no one worth their wedding invitation ever thinks the bride looks anything other than amazing. It’s your wedding day; you’re going to have that glow. How could you not be gorgeous? So quit worrying about how you’ll look and start worrying about the reception menu and the floral arrangements. Kidding! Don’t worry about anything, just enjoy planning your wedding!

A friend sent me a link to a doubleX feature entitled The Humiliation of the Bouquet Toss. Clicking it, I found myself hoping for a deep discussion about the implications inherent in lining up the single women so they can lunge at a tossed flower arrangement in the hopes of being the next to marry. Instead I found myself reading a debate about weddings and the pull of traditions.

Ah, well. The bouquet toss remains something I’m curious about. At most of the weddings I’ve attended in the past few years, no bouquet was tossed. At the weddings where the bouquet toss did happen, it felt like most of the participants were on the parquet reluctantly and retreaded when the bride let fly, though I did go to one wedding where the bouquet toss was greeted enthusiastically *and* the groom removed the garter with his teeth! When I was kid, however, all of the weddings I attended included a bouquet toss and a garter toss.

Now, a quick search tells me that there’s no shortage of toss garters out there, which means that someone, somewhere is tossing bouquets and garters at their wedding receptions. But they’re sure not doing it in my social circle. I made a toss bouquet, just in case, but never really intended to use it. What I’m curious about is whether the bouquet toss has just become a relic among today’s brides or whether my not encountering them has more to do with my location (the northeastern U.S.), my culture (recent European descent on mom’s side, daughters of the Revolution on my dad’s side) or my age group (late 20s to early 30s). Maybe Hispanic gals in their early 20s in the Midwest are flinging bouquets with impunity?

I’m not suggesting you have the answer — though if you do, spill! — but I would like it if you’d be so kind as to participate in a little poll and then explain yourself, if you wish, in the comments!

After reading my wonderful colleague’s post about the acquaintance of the poor chick who was branded “too fat to be a bridesmaid” by what I can only say is a very rude bride, I started thinking about choosing bridesmaids. As I suggest in the title of this post, choosing bridesmaids can be more difficult than choosing a wedding color scheme, if only because human beings have emotions. Cornflower doesn’t care if you nix it from your wedding, but your sister may be pretty pissed to find that you’re not planning to ask her to be your MOH.

Me? I chose the oldest of my younger sisters to be my MOH and The Beard’s sister as a bridesmaid, then washed my hands of the whole business of choosing bridesmaids. There were certainly friends that I could have chosen, but we were getting married out-of-state and I wasn’t sure that friends would be able to make the trip. As it was, weather turned into canceled flights, and at least three invitees were prevented by circumstance from attending. In that sense, I chose wisely, but I still wonder if my bridesmaid experience would have been less fraught with stress if I’d asked friends to be bridesmaids.

With that in my mind, I thought it was high time for a poll so readers could see how other readers chose their bridesmaids. I set it up so multiple selections are allowed, because there’s a good chance you didn’t (or won’t) choose bridesmaids based on a single criterion. So give us your answer(s) and, if you’re so inclined, tell us in the comments how your choice worked (or is working) out.

(Photo via)

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE! Would *I* wear it if I were getting married all over again? Maybe not — or maybe yesyesyes — but I think that this real bride is too adorable in her itty-bitty blue and pink ruffled wedding dress. What say you?

(Photos by Mike_fleming)

What’s the best piece of advice I ever received when I was a bride-to-be? That’s easy. I can’t remember who it was that shared it with me, but I can say that theirs was a wedding tip that should be passed around with greater frequency. Briefly, the advice they shared was “Enjoy the wedding.” Simple as that. I think brides-to-be too often hear advice that boils down to “Enjoy your wedding by including X in your ceremony and doing Y at your reception” and “You’ll never enjoy your wedding if you can’t Z!” Humph.

On this rather dreary Monday, I’d like to remind all the brides-to-be out there not to be afraid of doing whatever it takes to enjoy the wedding. Want a bounce house? Rent one. Think pinball machines would entertain your guests? You can probably rent those, too. You want to change into a white wetsuit and have a first heat instead of a first dance? Do it. You say you need inspiration? The six brides below obviously had a great time at their weddings, and their guests probably did, too.

This bride and her groom both took a turn in the horseshoe pit at their outdoor reception. It was a bit muddy, but so what? (via)

Giant Jenga? Awesome. While looking for pictures for this post, I also came across snaps of a bride playing giant chess. Think big! (via)

Football fans have it easy when it comes to enjoying the wedding. Just mix one open space with one football and a matched set of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Sneakers optional, but probably a good idea. (via)

Brides and grooms who play an instrument or two can get up and jam with the band, though I don’t recommend spending the entire time on stage, as tempting as that might be. (via)

Playgrounds make for great post-ceremony photo opportunities, but they’re also a lot of fun to romp around in… especially after a solemn wedding! It’s even more fun with the bridal party, if they’re game. (via)

Shooting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if it’s yours, why not have a skeet break between the ceremony and reception? It could be a great way to blow off some wedding day steam. (via)

How sweet is this silver wedding dress hanger from Lila Frances? If it was terribly expensive as so many things associated with weddings are, I might turn up my nose at it for being silly, but at $20, it’s a cute little keepsake that you’ll see every day when you’re rummaging in your closet.

While I’ll admit that a personalized wedding dress hanger isn’t the most practical sort of pre-wedding gift for the bride-to-be (or from the bride-to-be to herself), these hangers do look quite nice in those iconic ‘wedding dress waiting for the bride’ photos.

One word of caution: Don’t leave a heavy wedding gown hanging from it for any length of time, lest it warp the lettering.

What do you think of when you think of Queen Victoria? I’m betting you don’t think of recycling, or of frugality. The truth is, though, that she hated waste, wasn’t huge on pomp and circumstance where it could be helped, and was tremendously sentimental. These three facts combined to make sure she reused her wedding lace for the rest of her life.
This is what the scene looked like on February 10, 1840, when young Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert at the Chapel Royal, St. James.

Compared to other royal brides of the period, Victoria dressed simply. She kept the jewels to a minimum and had her wedding clothes made of English products, including her lace. In fact, it’s widely believed that she ordered the Honiton lace ensemble of wide skirt flounce, narrow sleeve flounces, veil, and a fichu before she even proposed to Albert. Whether or not that’s true, she certainly did have the lace made in the village of Beer under the direction of one Miss Jane Bidney. It took some two hundred lacemakers to create the set. When the lace was completed, she ordered the patterns destroyed so that it could not be replicated.

But that’s not the end of the story.
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