Manolo for the Brides

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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Unless the point of the show is to instruct prospective brides in the finer points of carrying out DIY doings, such projects are usually presented on television as a silly idea doomed to failure from the outset because you should leave that sort of thing to the professionals, you silly, incompetent bride-person, you. If they work out, someone carefully points out that if it had gone wrong, clearly the wedding would have been ruined. If the bride, her mother, or her friend is unsuccessful, droll or doleful music is played and the scenes are cut to make it clear that there was never any chance of anything short of disaster.

But is disaster so inevitable? Not necessarily. In fact, if approached thoughtfully and planned intelligently, DIY projects can add tremendously to the intimacy and charm of a wedding without causing undo fuss behind the scenes. Let’s deconstruct a DIY disaster on a recent episode of Bridezillas and see how it might have been done more successfully.

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(It appears that entire posts and a good chunk of recent comments have vanished into thin air — for that I humbly apologize! Presumably this has something to do with the recent image uploading issues that are no doubt being fixed as I write this)

It’s a good thing my bridesmaids weren’t being judged by the wedding establishment — they would most certainly have been deemed unfit. Luckily, they were being judged by easygoing little ol’ me who didn’t care whether or not they lifted a finger to help. Unfortunately, those stationary fingers couldn’t even be arsed to, say, order gowns in a timely fashion, meaning that both of my attendants ended up wearing frocks I didn’t quite care for. C’est la vie!

Still, my duo of bridesmaids showed up wearing appropriate wedding wear and were generally pleasant before, during, and after my wedding. Thank goodness for small favors…I chose family over friends, you see, and that in and of itself can be a recipe for calamity.

According to a Telegraph article sent to me by the absolutely fab Nicole (and a Daily Mail piece), the newest “American style” trend being adopted by British brides is the bridesmaid contract. First things first: I’d love to send off a letter to journalist Aislinn Simpson to make sure she wasn’t simply duped into thinking a one-time, overblown spoof event is the nuptial norm here in the States.

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A Curious Bridesmaid asks:

There was a… let’s say awkward situation I encountered during one of my many stints as a bridesmaid. The maid of honor at this particular wedding was really excited about throwing a bachelorette party, and invited us all to her family’s beach house for a weekend. We were all able to drive to this location — except for the bride. We considered other locations, but the bride said she was excited about going to the beach and booked a plane ticket. We threw her a great bachelorette weekend and everyone had a wonderful time.

A week later we received an e-mail from the bride asking us to please remember to send her checks to cover the cost of her plane ticket. We were all really startled by this development — while we of course paid for the bride’s drinks, meals, and other expenses during the weekend, none of us had any idea that she thought we were paying for the plane ticket, too.

The maid of honor quickly managed to strike a compromise bargain where the bride paid for part of the ticket and we chipped in for the rest, but now I wonder if we missed out on some crucial point of bridesmaid etiquette. Is it generally expected that the bridal party pays for the bride’s travel to the bachelorette party? Were we bridesmaids cluelessly rude and behind the times? Or is this just a case of poor communication?

TWISTIE: My gut reaction? What the hell was the bride smoking?

NEVER TEH BRIDE: And where can we get some? Miscommunication… more like Miss Entitlement! Most bridesmaids end up laying out a phat wad of cash for showers and hen parties before the engagement period is up, and that’s before they start shopping for a wedding gift.

TWISTIE: A plane ticket to a party? Waaay too much to expect without prior agreement. This is one bride who needs to brush up on her basic etiquette. Emily Post, Peggy Post, Miss Manners, Letitia Baldridge… any reputable etiquette expert you care to consult will tell you that bachelorette parties and showers are optional events held at the discretion and according to the means of the MOH.

NEVER TEH BRIDE: The key word being optional. I opted not to have a bachelorette party, much to the disappointment of my stepmother and her relatives. I tried to opt out of my shower, too, but no one would let me. A bridal party is an all volunteer army! You can’t demand that they do anything!

TWISTIE: The bride knew she was going to have to travel well out of her way to get there. She chose to buy that plane ticket when she said yes to a faraway beach house bash. She didn’t mention anything about being reimbursed until she started demanding payment.

NEVER TEH BRIDE: The fact that the bridal party even had to come to a compromise demonstrates that the bridesmaids involved had a remarkable amount of tact and patience and the bride was, in fact, the clueless one. Now if you please, Twistie, lay it on the line for us.

TWISTIE: The bottomest of bottom lines? The guest of honor pays for her own transportation to the party, unless specific arrangements have been clearly made in advance.

NEVER TEH BRIDE: Which they clearly weren’t. I’d demand a refund.

We all want what we want when we want it, but I think there should be limits. For example, ask yourself what the appropriate level of financial compensation would be if your florist gave you pastel flowers rather than darker colored flowers. If you said $400,000, you have a friend in lawyer Elana Glatt. She’s suing the proverbial pants off of Posy Floral Design in Manhattan, according to the NYT, alleging that her $60,000 wedding was ruined when the florist substituted pastel pink and green hydrangeas for dark rust and green hydrangeas in the centerpieces.

[The florist] said that he and his wife had done their best to match the color of the hydrangeas with a picture Ms. Glatt had given them, but explained to her that because of the vagaries of nature and the lighting at the reception, the colors might not look exactly the same.

Glatt also alleges that the hydrangeas were wilted, brown, and displayed in dusty vases. Well, all right, wilted flowers don’t make for pretty centerpieces, but is that worth $400,000 in damages? The orchids and roses provided by the florist apparently looked cheap, leading to distress and embarrassment. And let’s not forget those irksome pastels!

“The use of predominantly pastel centerpieces had a significant impact on the look of the room and was entirely inconsistent with the vision the plaintiffs had bargained for,” Ms. Glatt, a lawyer who practices under the name Elana Elbogen, said in the lawsuit, which she filed on behalf of herself, her husband and her mother-in-law, Tobi Glatt, who paid for the flowers.

Glatt did request a $4,000 refund to recoup some of the $27,435.14 her MIL spent on the flowers, but the florist, incensed by the request, ignored it.

Your thoughts?

Never let it be said that I will not take a bullet for the readers of this fine blog.

What bullet might that be, you may ask?

A solid week of watching reality shows about weddings, that’s the answer. I’ll have some observations about the lessons I learned from these shows tomorrow. For now I just have one question:

Why do women sign up to be featured on Bridezillas?

I know they get something, because as my brain screamed at the end of every episode I saw I knew it was drowning out the sound of the announcer telling us what resort or hotel the couple got to stay at for three days in return for having their reputations trashed on national television over the course of two episodes. But is that really all they get? Is it really worth it? Some shows I can understand being willing to be on them for the sake of a couple nights at a nice hotel, but this one?

Also I had to wonder at some of the choices of brides. While most of the women I saw profiled on the show were definitely doing everything in their power to live down to the Bridezilla label, there was at least one who I felt was not only not Bridezilla, but was more of a pathetic sad sack who couldn’t get anyone to help her with anything. She had no organizational skills and her friends and family spent most of their time ignoring her or laughing at her for wanting a nice wedding. Okay, her waterworks got to be a bit much, but I would have cried, too, if I’d been stuck cleaning up my own reception in my wedding gown with only one or two people half-heartedly helping out - none of whom even seemed to be the groom. By what stretch of the imagination is this Bridezilla behavior?

Could it be that there weren’t enough actual Bridezillas out there volunteering for the show?

But my question remains: why would anyone go out of their way to don the mantle of Bridezilla?

I just don’t get it.

If you wake up each morning and sigh about the lack of bridezillas in your life, have I got the game for you. My Bridezilla by AMA, created by Longtail Studios, is the first interactive wedding game for mobile phones. You play Michelle, sister and MOH to Lizzy, who is poised to come down with a serious case of bridezillaitis.

It’s your job to fulfill every last one of her wedding desires while keeping her secret (DUN DUN DUNNNNN), dealing with bossy bridesmaids and PO’ed parents, and coping with the nuptial chaos. The more stressed Lizzy feels, the closer she comes to transforming into a full fledged bridezilla. But if that gets to be too much for you, you can always take a time out and play some of the cakey, dressy mini-games.

Right now, My Bridezilla by AMA can be played on compatible Verizon phones, but the game will apparently be launching on other carriers quite soon. To check it out, follow these instructions:

• Open Get it Now
• Select the Get It Now shopping cart
• Select Get Fun & Games
• Select Strategy Games
• Find and select My Bridezilla by AMA

I only just came across this item from the “if it’s a joke, let people know it’s a joke…quickly” department. Katie Masters sent her attendants a document asking bridesmaids to legally agree they won’t gain weight, conceive, or get a haircut without the bride’s consent, but failed to append it with an easy to spot JK. Some bridesmaids didn’t see the humor in the contract and griped about it to others, who then forwarded it ad nauseam. The end result? Masters received massive amounts of hate mail, and people were calling her vendors under assumed names to cancel her contracts. The funniest part of the whole fiasco is that the guidelines were something she’d copied off of The Knot.

At the 99¢ Only Store in Lewisville, Texas, your dollar will get you more than a tube of toothpaste. To highlight the oftentimes overwhelming extravagance of today’s weddings, bargain shopping guru Sue Goldstein decided to hold a no-frills wedding event at the discount shop. Dressed-to-thrill couples with license in hand could take advantage of the services of ordained minister Melanie Hart, former assistant to Tammy Faye Bakker. Yes, that Tammy Faye Bakker. But even those to whom legal marriage is closed (folks already married, gays and lesbians, and, um, pets) were welcome at the all inclusive event.

And finally, a recent post over at Offbeat Bride featured a neat (and budget friendly) wedding cake idea found buried in a wedding-related thread over at the Lifehacker forums.

We told all the guests to bring a cake if they wanted to eat a cake, and we’d award prizes. We had 15 entries, some very simple, some really complex and amazing. A ton of fun, really interesting additional wedding-day activity (the contest), more food, more involvement.

I’m so competitive…my cake would have been out of control.

Marriage is hot in the media today, as I learned from Kirk this morning. He sent me a heads-up about Slate’s wedding issue, which sent me on a wild chase for more, more, more matrimonial news. Could it be that I’m pining for the days of my own wedding planning adventure? No way, Jose. If anything, reading about the bridezillas of the world reminds me how pleased I am to be happily married. But speaking of that mythical beast known as the bridezilla, the image above shows the newest Bridezilla contestants crossing Broadway in New York’s Times Square on their way to film the first episode of the fourth season of the WE hit.

So where did my adventures in matrimonial media lead me? Here’s an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune that celebrates sister-wives a la HBO’s Big Love…sort of.

We found ourselves confessing that plural marriage didn’t look so terrible, even in a drama filled with suffering and intrigue. It was kind of like the Waltons, what with the big family and the red-state setting. One always had company. There was help with the children. And though the three or more women married to one man didn’t seem so great, it seemed a small point.

Ever heard of Tom Thumb Weddings? Me neither. I should thank the Herald & Review for cluing me into this weird ritual. And here The Beard was thinking I’m weird for joking that I made the cats get married!

Another child, Christopher Butler, who played the minister, asked the bride and groom to place candy rings on each other’s fingers. The groom had to restrain himself after having eaten several of the rings during rehearsal on Saturday.

If you’ve served on the nuptial front lines as a bridesmaid under a domineering bride, you’ll smirk at Prudie’s tips on taming brides from hell.

The bride insisted this bridesmaid leave her glasses at home because “glasses are an inappropriate accessory for women’s formalwear, and the bridal magazines have convinced her that there can be no exceptions to the no-glasses rule.” It makes me hope that as the groom tries to explain this to his friend, he’ll find himself looking deep into her Coke-bottle lenses, suddenly declare, “Why, Miss Keeler, you’re beautiful!” and run away with her.

Read anything both intriguing and wedding-related in the news lately? Share it in the comments!