Manolo for the Brides

How cute are these itty-bitty bottles of soda with custom labels? Mike 78 recently posted an easy-peasy DIY pop bottle tutorial – with pics! – over at 100 Layer Cake. She suggests using them as reception seating cards, but brides and grooms could bottle just about anything (juice, cider, champagne, local water, etc.), slap labels on them per her instructions, and give them away as wedding favors. Maybe not for a chilly wintertime wedding, but imagine how grateful your guests would be to find themselves in possession of an ice cold drink custom made by you at your outdoor summer wedding or unseasonably warm springtime affair!

It’s time to play a game, my friends. It’s a game about dreams. After all, a little dreaming is a wonderful thing. So I’m going to ask you a few questions about your ultimate wedding desires. There are no right or wrong answers. This is about what you would love if budget, time, and pretty much every other practicality didn’t need to be considered. This is about what you would do if you didn’t have to think about your mother-in-law’s feelings, your MOH’s allergies, how much money you have in the bank, or your DIY disasters past.

Just fill in the blanks with whatever flight of fancy appeals to you.

If I could get married anywhere in the world, I would choose ____
If I could wear anything I want to get married in, I would choose____
If I could have any sort of music I like at my wedding, I would choose____
If I could have any kind of decoration I want at my wedding, I would choose ____
If I could serve any sort of meal I like at my reception, I would choose ____
If I could have/do one special thing on my wedding day, I would choose ____
If I could go anywhere in the world for my honeymoon, I would choose ____

So what would you choose?

Edible wedding invitations are something that has before now never crossed my desk, but I’ll admit to having entertained the idea. Now I’ve seen everything, as Wonderful Graffiti sells huge 6″ lollipops printed with a monogram on one side and your wedding invitation on the other. Well, sort of. The monogram is printed with edible ink while the invitation itself is printed on glossy cardstock and affixed to the wrapper. The hang tag is the RSVP card, while the envelope for the RSVP card is hidden beneath the lollipop in the box.

Quite nice looking, but none too cheap. Postage alone will cost you $6 per lolly, which I suppose doesn’t seem like much when you’re paying $1,750 for 50 edible wedding invitations.

On hand, I’m a huge fan of anything edible… edible wedding favors, edible cake toppers, you name it. We all know that 99% of wedding guests are just going to throw out those keepsakes after enough time goes by. Sending out edible wedding invitations in the form of sweets pretty much guarantees that your wedding invitation isn’t going to end up in the trash bin, particularly if you are sending enough of them to families with children.

On the other hand, what to do if members of your family surreptitiously eat the invitation and toss the wrapper with all the deets? And some brides and grooms send out their invitations well in advance of the wedding. Those who are short on notepads and like to keep the original wedding invitation just in case may not feel much like eating a three month old lolly if the cardstock won’t come loose.

I love the idea, but I’m a little put off by the price… it seems like brides and grooms with access to good printers and specialty paper might be able to DIY this invitation with monogrammed lollipops or cookies or some other sweet. What say you?

Oh my, what’s this? An old fashioned bridal kidnapping? A wedding ceremony interrupted by the appearance of guerrilla fighters? Starcrossed lovers escaping from an unwanted wedding? Whatever it is, it sure looks as if the bride is in a perilous position.

But don’t feel too bad for the bride just yet because the photo you see above is actually a wedding portrait taken in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) traditional wedding portraits, the bride and groom opted for a warfare scenario as they are both hardcore military enthusiasts.

Is it a trend? Beats me. I only have one source that states that themed wedding portraits are popular among young brides and grooms in China. And I could only find these two images of anything that might be considered extreme wedding photography. It could be that Chinese newlyweds simply aren’t posting their photos online or are using private galleries. Anyone local to that part of the world want to weigh in?

I’m all for a wee bit of good-natured roasting of brides and grooms at bachelorette parties and bachelor parties if the guest of honor is the sort of person who appreciates that sort of thing. One may even find that guests poke fun at the bride-to-be at her bridal shower, though the jabs are usually quite gentle and of the we-know-you’re-going-to-have-sex-tee-hee variety. I cannot, however, get behind a tradition I only recently learned of, namely the extremely hands-on Scottish blackening.

There seems to be some confusion over whether this is a properly Scottish tradition or something primarily done in Aberdeenshire, so I’d appreciate it if our Scottish readers or readers who are Scotland enthusiasts would weigh in to clarify matters. In any case, the blackening ritual involves the bride- or groom-to-be being first captured and abducted by his or her friends and then covered in various unpleasant substances such as golden syrup or molasses, mud, flour or flour paste, feathers, or soot. Finally, the victim may be tied to a tree or lamppost or paraded noisily around the local pubs, much to the delight of the evening’s patrons, no doubt.

Here’s a Scottish blackening in action:

Obviously it’s all done in fun, and after watching a number of blackening videos on YouTube I can conclude that the bride and/or groom never make much of an effort to run from those wielding the treacle. Still, can you imagine having to wash all that off after your own pre-wedding blackening? Yikes! I personally have never been one to enjoy the sort of humiliation that some people are made by loved ones to endure prior to some momentous event in their lives, but I suppose one might see it quite differently if they’ve grown up expecting to be (and watching others get) tarred and feathered as a lead up to the wedding day. Still, I think I’d spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder…

When it comes to bouquets, brides and bridesmaids have plenty of options. There are the traditional fresh flower bouquets, in styles like hand-tied, the Biedermeier, ballerina bouquets, and the dramatic but rare scepter. Then there are wilder styles of fresh flowers. Faux blooms remain popular in bouquets (and centerpieces), though some brides opt to forget the flowers altogether and carry wire bouquets, porcelain bouquets, leaf bouquets, and plenty more.

With all the variety, there has to be room for deflated balloon bouquets, right? Bouquets from Fantasy Flowers are crafted from “uninflated balloons, are biodegradable, and can last from 4 months to 4 years. Making these designs a desirable ‘green’ addition to any event.” Huh. They’re not bad looking, exactly, but in the few photos posted on the company’s web site, Fantasy Flowers look more like something you’d send a sick friend to cheer him or her up. They don’t look like the kind of bouquet you’d carry down the aisle on your wedding day. My verdict is HATE.

What say you?

A lot of the pre-wedding jitters experienced by brides and grooms revolve around the wedding vows. And is it any wonder? For those ladies and lads not particularly used to public speaking or performing or giving presentations to groups, getting up in front of a mass of people to speak can be a harrowing experience. Personally, I liked it, but I am somewhat of a ham and absolutely love commanding the attention of a group. At the same time, I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I can totally understand the anxiety of wanting to say one’s wedding vows perfectly.

Unfortunately, I didn’t say them perfectly. I was doing all right until I got to a word on my wedding vow crib sheet that I couldn’t read. My usually neat handwriting had devolved into something terrible when I was jotting my notes down the night before. Oops. I stopped mid-sentence. Squinted at my paper. I could sense guests shifting in their seats. But if there was one rule from the theatre that I’ve internalized it would be Roll with your mistakes. So instead of just stammering and moving on, I finished my sentence by saying “…and I can’t read whatever this is supposed to say.” Then I cracked up, giving everyone else permission to laugh at me or with me. Whichever they preferred.

So what happens when you flub your wedding vows? Absolutely nothing if you don’t make a big deal about it. A little slip of the tongue can even make for a more enjoyable wedding ceremony if you let it. For example, here’s a couple whose vows didn’t go exactly as planned, but they had fun with it:

What can brides and grooms learn from my experience and the experience of Mr. Waffle Wedded Wife? How about that it’s okay to experience some wedding vow related anxiety, but that there’s no reason to get overly stressed out about it. Stress, I think, will more often than not contribute to slips of the tongue. In other words, worry too much about saying waffle instead of lawful, and you up your chances of doing just that. Even if you’re planning on a really solemn wedding ceremony, give yourself the freedom to laugh at yourself or your spouse-to-be or the officiant or the bridesmaid who drops her bouquet or the groomsman who trips down the aisle. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did!

We’re having flooring put down today, which means that the baby and I are effectively trapped in the family room for the morning. Rather than wait to post, I thought I’d give you some eye candy… fun and inspiring eye candy, I hope. I’m a huge fan of fun wedding photos and funny wedding photos, especially the really creative ones. Here’s a sampling of images I’ve only just come across. I love the first one to pieces, as does The Beard.

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Big thanks to xkcd for reminding all of us what a slippery slope marriage really is.