Manolo for the Brides

When I was but a wee lass — this was in the 80s — Barbie wore clothing that looked nothing like the clothing I saw on your average adult. Heck, her clothes were brighter, quirkier, and more frilly than anything I ever saw on a model, rock star, or cartoon character. I don’t think I have to tell you how badly I wanted kid-sized versions of Barbie’s wardrobe.

I guess my tastes haven’t changed all that much, because I think this might be my new favorite wedding dress:

The bride is one Princess Lasertron, aka Megan, aka the maker of fine felt flowers and other cool stuff. Her fabulous custom dress was created by Joi Mahon of Dress Forms Design, a private design studio in Sioux City, Iowa. And the photographs (see more here) were taken by the talented Becky Novacek.

While this dress isn’t exactly wedding-y, I think it’s divine!

Oh, one more unrelated thing! Go have a look at the WaPo article that Jennie linked to in the comments of this post. How do you pull of a sane, stuff-free wedding on public property where weddings are verboten? Read the article to find out!

The lovely Leah writes:

My friend is getting married in September. She has the lovely and classy wedding dress in ivory and champagne (see link). The length of the dress has been measured for a 2 1/2″ heel. She would love to find a beautiful and classy shoe to wear with this wedding dress. In red. Oh, and no wedges, please. While I find them comfortable, my friend has a dislike for the wedge style which I don’t quite understand but have given up trying to overcome.

Her wedding dress can be seen here. Please ignore the fact that the model is doing her best Kim Cattral ala Mannequin impression, and also disregard the Spanish bolero in the final picture as it won’t be worn in this ceremony. My friend looks devastatingly beautiful in this dress, possibly due to the glow on her face when she wears it. Awwwww….

I have tried to use the resources available to me in the links of the Manolosphere, however my amateur self has been overwhelmed in my red shoe search by the silly, funky, daring, whimsical, exotic, and just plain tacky offerings. I turn to you, the professionals, to help me pull the beautiful and classy from the piles of other. Can you help? I know at the very least you can inspire.

I, like the Manolo, love the shoes, even if I do spend most of the year puttering around the house barefoot. While I don’t spend a lot of time shoe shopping, I do spend a lot of time looking! That’s why, out of all of the problems I figured I might have fulfilling Leah’s request, I never imagined that it would be heel height of all things that tripped me up.

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I’m not one to cry at weddings, and I’m especially not one to cry at the mere mention of a wedding, but I’ll tell you truly that I did tear up just a little when I saw this photograph.

Forget the fact that it’s such a damn fine photo — lucky celebrities, looking gorgeous 95% of the time — and think about how far things had to advance for us to even be seeing it. Yes, we still have a quite ways to go before gay couples can enjoy all of the advantages of legal matrimony, but pics like this are a testament to the fact that things are moving forward.

Now, for the deets. The 20- person affair took place on the grounds of de Rossi and DeGeneres’ Beverly Hills home. Both brides wore designs by Zac Posen…de Rossi in a beautiful cream and pink halterneck gown, and DeGeneres in a cream ensemble of vest, shirt, and pants. The happy couple sat on pillows while exchanging rings created by Neil Lane before they sat down to an all-vegan meal followed by a vegan red velvet cake.

I wish both of them all of the happiness the world has to offer!

I love that inspiration can come from anywhere, anything, or anyone. Just yesterday, The Beard and I were at one of our local beaches, swimming, soaking up the sun, and looking for beach glass. Amid the sea junk, The Beard found a mussel shell that was a vivid blue outside and a beautiful silver on the inside. After inspecting it for a bit, he said — and I was so damn proud at that moment — “Wouldn’t these make great wedding colors?”

To The Beard I say, “Here you are, my dear.”

Moving clockwise-ish from the top left, there is a Nicole Miller stretch taffeta dress, the Amaya pump from LAUREN by Ralph Lauren, a blue chalcedony sterling silver ring from Overstock.com, an invitation from Leigh’s Wishing Well, a JS Boutique cutaway shoulder gown, a hydrangea centerpiece, a deep blue aisle runner, and a hydrangea bouquet.

A lovely combo, yes?

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!

…two gowns, two bouquets, two pretty hairstyles, and two pairs of awesome shoes. It makes me feel just a tad envious of all of the girly lesbian brides out there who are marrying other girly lesbian brides and can ooh and ahh over nuptial frippery with a spouse-to-be who actually gives a damn.

Just look at this stunningly gorgeous photo taken by my friend Oolong (who coincidentally made our kitty cake toppers) at a wedding at Saint Anthony’s Chapel in Holyrood Park. The two brides, Lizzie and Ari, look absolutely smashing, and I can just imagine them having a grand old time picking out dresses and invitations and ribbons for their stem wraps.

Of course, that’s just my brain telling me that the grass simply must be greener on the other side of the nuptial fence, by which I mean the side where there are no FOBs telling future husbands that they should just shut up and get out of the way. I’m sure that the everyday reality is likely far more mundane, with one half of the couple caring more about color schemes than the other on any given day. Then again a study of married gay folks from Vermont revealed that they were generally more satisfied in their relationships than straight folks. Go figure!

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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…it was her dress.

The Telegraph tells of a bride who inadvertently mooned her guests on her big day when her designer gown came apart at the seams.

The woman is claiming damages of £20,000 from the designer, who was not named but is based at Rapallo, twenty miles from Chiavari.

Everyone has a bad day — even clothing designers — but that’s no excuse when the gown in question cost £2,000. In a day and age where one can buy a $125 wedding day frock, you shouldn’t have to do a pre-wedding safety tug on the stitching holding together a four-thousand dollar dress!

What kind of recourse do you have if you suffer a similar fate? Demanding your money back is a must. If you’re looking for retribution, a lawsuit is pretty much the only option available to you unless you have five burly brothers who are scheduled to be re-admitted to prison so what’s one more offense? You could also ask the designer for some freebies…but you may not want to wear said clothing for fear it will once again leave you exposed.

Those are, of course, your long term options. In the short term, I’d recommend stopping the ceremony — which it appears the bride in question chose not to do — to fix things up as best you can. Sewing kits are an integral part of almost every wedding day emergency kit, which means you can ask someone handy with a needle and thread to sew you in. If necessary, make a joke about “wardrobe malfunctions” to let everyone know you’re not dying inside. Before the ceremony, make a mad dash to your house or the nearest department store to find a suitable something.

It’s not an optimal solution set, but it will keep you from baring your bottom to the world!