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?

Bad luck to show up to a wedding wearing white? Hardly, if you’re a bridesmaid in certain weddings! Are you a true traditionalist? Then you could say that choosing white bridesmaids dresses in keeping with tradition — old tradition, that is, what with the bride’s attendants dressing just like her to confuse all those demons and evil spirits that were always causing trouble way back in the day. In this very pretty picture of a real wedding taken by the talented Agaton Strom, we see four women in white and not one of them is the bride. Based on this pic, I am loving white bridesmaids dresses. They’re fresh and pretty and summery and romantic, and if the bride wants her ‘maids to dress in white, who are we to tell her they shouldn’t?

What say you?

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)

You know, I would love to live in a world where this issue only comes up on Bridezillas. After all, the entire point of the show is to make the subjects look as crazed, confused, and deranged as possible. Alas, this is something that gets mention in a lot of other fora, and made its way into a live chat with advice columnist Carolyn Hax on friday. Here’s what the question looked like:

Bridezilla: So I just learned today that my college friend, A, disinvited another college friend, B, to be in her wedding in two months because B is fat (she’s about 5′3″, 200lbs) and would ruin the pictures and how everyone looks at her on her big day. She did tell me that if B lost some weight, she’d let her back in the wedding party. I can’t communicate in polite enough terms how offended and appalled and disgusted I am by A’s behavior. Her rationale is that B promised to lose the weight by the wedding but didn’t, and that whenever there is a big bridesmaid everyone is looking at her and not the bride. I am so angry about her nastyness that I can’t even think straight. Is it kosher for me to drop out in solidarity with B (with whom I am actually not that close)? What is the best way for me to communicate back to A that she is a gigantic -glass bowl-? I am stunned. I don’t know if I even want to be friends anymore. FWIW, B hosted a bridal shower, has come to all the food tasting/clothes fittings/other assorted crap. She’s a good egg – we don’t click personally, but I am really at a loss for how someone does this. I heard from mutual friend C that B spent the morning crying her eyes out. I would too! What can I say to B that will help her?

Take a moment to soak the thought in: after throwing the shower and being involved in every decision making field trip, a bridesmaid was removed from the wedding party for being the shape she’d apparently been when she was asked in the first place. She’s done the work, supported the bride, and given a party, but she doesn’t get to take her place at the bride’s side on the wedding day because apparently one fat bridesmaid means nobody will even notice the woman in the big white dress with all the lines.

Want to know what Carolyn replied? Here it is:

Carolyn Hax: Everything you hope to accomplish, you can accomplish in one move: End your friendship with A (which obviously includes dropping out of the wedding). When A asks, tell her exactly why. B doesn’t even need to hear it from you; it’ll make its way around. I hope C follows your lead.

Kudos, Carolyn.

When choosing a wedding party, there are things far more important to consider than whether your wedding album looks like a pile of stock photos for a wedding magazine. Choose people you love, choose clothes for them that make them look and feel their best, thank them for any help they give, and I guarantee that your pictures will look fabulous because they’re filled with people you love.

Remember dyeable shoes for bridesmaids? I can recall taking white ballet flats from somewhere like Payless to a shoe shop to have them dyed to match exactly the color of my junior bridesmaid dress, way back when in the 80s. Now that was a look. Today the rules are more lax when it comes to the feet of the bridesmaid. Some brides want their bridesmaids’ shoes to match (not the dresses, just each other) while others are happy if their bridesmaids’ shoes are appropriate to the event, color and style be damned.

Me? I just wanted my bridesmaids to show up with shoes, which shouldn’t seem at all odd when you consider how much trouble I had getting them to buy their dresses. Shoes? Please just wear them and we’ll call it even.

Personally, I like matching bridesmaids’ shoes and mismatched bridesmaids’ shoes. It all depends on the dresses and the whims of the bride. What you don’t want is one bridesmaid wearing chunky black platform heels and another bridesmaid in bright yellow ballet flats, with a third bridesmaid sporting bridesmaid sneakers that have been bedazzled all the hell. You wouldn’t want that last one regardless, I’m sure.

Coordination is good when it comes to mismatched bridesmaids’ shoes, so let your gals know they should all be on the same page if you’ve decided to let them do their own thing where footwear is concerned. Perhaps go one step further and dictate a kind of shoe, like ’strappy sandals’ or ‘peep-toe pumps,’ or a color or color family. To conclude, almost anything goes, but a little coordination goes a long way.

What do you think?

Lucky me, I have recently come into possession of not one, but two $25 Kohl’s gift cards! Instead of spending them on myself like a selfish witch, I’ve decided to give them away to two lucky readers who can spend them any way they want. My contests always get a little theme-y and this one’s no different. The theme this go around? It’s trashy, skanky, or otherwise extremely fugly wedding dresses or bridal accessories.

To enter to win one of the two $25 Kohl’s gift cards, leave a comment on this post describing the trashiest wedding dress or bridal accessory you’ve seen. Better yet, include a link to the offending gown or shoe or jewelry. Comments will be closed at noon on Friday, November 27, and the contest winners (chosen by our friend the Random Number Generator) will be announced shortly thereafter.

I can’t enter myself, of course, but to get you into the spirit of things, here are two pairs of bridal sneakers that you will not find at Kohl’s:

Yes, that’s a bridal sneaker with a four inch heel and a bridal sneaker wedge with a three-and-a-half inch heel, both of which feature a plasticized finish for durability. According to the Lovely Bride web site, these bridal sneakers are meant for the reception… so I suppose if the bride was wearing high heels, she could change into sneakers without stepping all over her hem? Personally, I think that if you’re going to change into sneakers, you could at least make them cute sneakers instead of shiny bedazzled monstrosities.

(via the lovely Lise who sent me a link to Tackyweddings.com)

I personally am not an advocate of cowboy boots for everyday wear — unless one earns one’s bread ropin’ and ridin’ — but I have to admit that they do look rather cute on bridesmaids all lined up in a row. Finding shoes for the bridesmaid isn’t easy since you’re already asking three or ten or fourteen chicks to buy matching dresses and now you’re going to request they find matching shoes, too? Even shopping for shoes as a bridesmaid kind of sucks unless the bride specifically wants dyed strappy sandals or, better yet, doesn’t care what shoes you wear.

The only real issue with asking your bridesmaids to wear cowboy boots is that nice ones can be ridiculously expensive and some people simply cannot stand them at all ever. Of course, you could say that about pretty much everything even remotely associated with weddings.

So, cowboy boots for the bridesmaid… First off, cowboy boots do not have to superrustic. For real, they don’t.

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Much like the gray and yellow wedding palette, the red and gray wedding palette is sophisticated and elegant. But the red (unlike the yellow) adds something of a maturity. I’d choose gray and yellow for an afternoon wedding, especially one taking place out of doors, while I’d choose red and gray for an evening wedding, one that might be a little more upscale.

I like this color combo more than I like red and black, because red and black can be a little jarring if too much is used alongside white. The gray tones the whole thing down a bit without sacrificing any of the visual interest or drama. Particularly if you’ve chosen a deeper shade of gray.

These beautiful red and gray wedding invitations from Peculiar Pair Press were inspired by the copper facade of the new DeYoung museum in San Francisco, which is where (I think) the reception might have been taking place. It’s a creative idea — if you’re having custom invitations designed, why not incorporate some element of your wedding venue into the final product?

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