When the first chill of the autumn season sets in, provided your geographical location supports such a thing, it may seem like the time for thinking about beach weddings is over. But since most weddings are planned months, if not years in advance, that is when I begin to have golden dreams about the ultimate seaside wedding.

In many cases, the seaside wedding is treated as a casual affair or a free-for-all of sandy shoes, nowhere to sit down, and gritty cake. But inside every girl is a prima donna of planning! Deep down in the heart of every lady beats the drum of a matrimonial general, ready to position her troops effectively on any terrain!

Taryn Bussewitz of UltimateWedding.com reminds us future brides that it pays to think about tents, tides, tables, and even toilets when we’re thinking about our big day. Give people a place to put their shoes and handbags. And for goodness sake, somewhere to sit.

Not to mention, of course, everyone’s favorite part: the dress. Keeping in mind that there will be great quantities of sand involved, consider a shorter, simpler dress. You wouldn’t believe how much sand can get stuck in layers of lace and you don’t want to bring the beach home with you after the reception. To see a few gowns that would look great on any tropical isle, take a gander at JCREW for the brides.

Without a little effort, hopeful beach brides can make sure their wedding snapshots will look like this:

Instead of this:

Manolo says, don’t be the Bridezilla!

Manolo says, here you see the Rene Zellweger in the beautiful-if-perhaps- inappropriate- for-the-beach-wedding Carolina Herrera wedding gown with her new husband the Kenny Chesney.

The Manolo he is hoping that the hunky country doofus husband, he wore to the ceremony something the little more formal than the untucked white shirt and the grey pants.

Still, the Manolo he could not be happier for the loopy Rene Zellweger and her ersatz cowboy with the hat too big for his head. And, likewise he can only approve of the intimate, romantic nature of the ceremony and the way the Rene she managed to keep the loathesome papparazzi at the great distance.

May they long be happy.

Manolo says, so the crazy Georgia bride she just up and ran away before the wedding.

A Georgia bride-to-be who vanished just days before her wedding turned up in New Mexico and fabricated a tale of abduction before admitting Saturday that she got cold feet and “needed some time alone,” police said.

Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, was in police custody more than 1,420 miles from her home on what was supposed to be her wedding day Saturday.

“It turns out that Miss Wilbanks basically felt the pressure of this large wedding and could not handle it,” said Randy Belcher, the police chief in Duluth, Ga., the Atlanta suburb where Wilbanks lives with her fiance. He said there would be no criminal charges.

Far be it from the Manolo to be the person to cast the stone at this poor woman, and her crazy fleeing ways, however, this detail it caught the eye of the Manolo.

The wedding was going to be a huge bash. The couple had mailed 600 invitations, and the ceremony was to feature 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.

Fourteen maids of the bride! This it is madness!

By the comparison, the Princess Diana she only had five maids of the bride. The Jackie O. when she was the Jackie B. and married the JFK, she had only ten of the maids of the bride.

Manolo says, although the Manolo he is usually in favor of the opulence and the luxury, it is nonetheless the rule of the Manolo that if the girl she feels the need to have more than ten maids of the bride–more than the Jackie O. (nee B.) needed to marry the JFK–she should not be getting married.

Perhaps this rule it sounds too harsh, but it has been the experience of the Manolo that for the girls who demand the most super gigantic of the fairytale weddings, the wedding itself frequently becomes more important than the marriage.

This it is not to say that the big wedding it is in itself bad, but rather it is to say that for the bride who demands the perfect day of the wedding, to the point of either inciting the hatred of those around them, or to the point of wanting to runaway and leave the poor parents thinking she has been murdered, something it is wrong.

The wedding day it is to be the day of joy, and its approach should be greeted with the gladness and the earnest longing for its arrival. If the planning of the wedding has become the ordeal to be endured one must step back and reconsider the necessity of the fourteen maids of the brides.

Manolo says, now that the poor Prince Rainier is on the verge of leaving this life, we begin to see the pictures of his wedding to the late Grace Kelly appear in the press. This it is only natural, as the marriage it was the event that made him more famous than his position as the hereditary ruler of the minor principality would have ordinarly justified.

The Grace Kelly and the Prince Rainier they were married in April 19, 1956, in the traditional Catholic ceremony. As you can see, the Grace Kelly she was perhaps the most beautiful bride–wearing perhaps the most beautiful gown–to ever marry a prince.

For the Manolo it is actually, literally, stunning to see how beautiful she was in this photo. The Rainier, he is not the bad-looking man, just average with his little belly, receeding hairline, and jowls, but the juxtaposition with this ethereal beauty, it is not flattering to him.

This dress it was made for the Grace Kelly by the Helen Rose, the chief designer of the costumes for the MGM studios, the same woman who had designed the costumes for the Grace Kelly’s last movie, the High Society.

As the website of the British Film Institute says,

So enchanted was Kelly with the wedding dress Helen Rose designed for her in High Society that she asked Rose to design the dress for her wedding to the Prince. Helen Rose designed a gown which was fashioned out of 98 yards of tulle, 25 yards of silk taffeta and an incredible 300 yards of lace. Kelly’s veil was covered in a web of thousands of seed pearls with a motif of lovebirds appliquéd in lace. As Kelly’s seven-year contract with MGM had yet to be completed, she negotiated her release by allowing her wedding to be filmed and shown in movie theatres. MGM gave Kelly the dress, which is now on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Manolo says, it is indeed one of the greatest wedding gowns of all time, beautiful, opulent, and yet supremely tasteful.

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