We’ve posted about Legos within the context of marriage (sort of) here on the blog, but we’ve never given much space to Legos as they relate to weddings. There are, of course, Lego wedding cake toppers andLego wedding cakes made entirely of actual Legos, but Lego wedding cakes that are actually edible are few and far between. Here are two of the nicest I could find:

Photo by Norma Tub

If the construction theme isn’t for you, but you still want to incorporate Lego into your wedding cake, you could always do a stacked cake of different sizes and colors of Lego blocks or go entirely nuts and create a cake that is two three-foot-tall Lego people!

Today I went looking for wedding-specific comics, and I found two from Married to the Sea that tickled my fancy.

Mine, mine, mine, and don’t you forget it, right? Oh, bridezilla, how I love thee!

True story: I once accidentally caught the bride’s bouquet at a wedding I attended, then quickly tossed it to a fellow guest who I knew actually wanted the thing. I was just way too attached to my insane, screeching manner, I suppose.

A year or so ago, ABC News aired a What Would You Do segment called A Wedding to Remember: Shopping for the ‘Perfect’ Dress. In it, brides-to-be took their loved ones wedding gown shopping and pretended that they had fallen in love with dresses that, shall we say, fall outside the current bridal norm. The objective was to find out whether honesty is the best policy when a bride-to-be has found “The One,” even when it’s completely wrong for her.

In reading the summary of the segment, what I found particularly interesting were the different reactions the brides-to-be who participated received from relatives and friends.

As the scenario played out, the [companions of the bride] teetered on just how serious Andrea was about the fuchsia dress. Ultimately, however, Andrea was overruled by her dutiful friends and bridesmaids.

“I don’t approve,” Katie said. “I’m sorry.”

“I won’t let you,” said bridesmaid Maria Cacucciolo. “It’s… it’s a nightmare … I’m gonna be honest with you. It’s all wrong. Absolutely not!”

Now I’m sure that Katie and Maria had the best of intentions. They merely wanted to protect someone they cared about from making what to them must have seemed like a monumental mistake. That said, the fact remains that a dress is just a dress, even when it is a wedding gown, and a tacky, ugly, weird, silly, or just-not-to-your-tastes dress (one that covers everything needing covering, anyway) is never truly a ‘monumental mistake.’ What if the bride-to-be had really adored the fuchsia wedding gown? I somehow doubt that she would have thanked her friends for caring enough not to let her wear her perfect gown!

I much preferred this response:

Rebekah [the sister of another bride-to-be] told us why she supported her sister’s decision.

“There comes a point when it’s your integrity versus … what you think you should say,” she explained. And when it came to her sister, she had to ask herself, “Where’s that line drawn with white lies? Who is it hurting versus who would it help? And so in this case, I think it’s really about supporting her.”

Even though the whole thing was a set-up, that’s more like it. The perfect wedding gown only has to be perfect to the person who is going to wear it, so why browbeat someone you care about into wearing a gown other than the one she really loves? If I knew in my heart of hearts that I’d shamed my sister or my friend into wearing a second-choice gown or, worse, a gown that *I* liked, I would feel terribly guilty. Maybe I’m too sentimental about these things, but it seems to me that if you can’t say anything nice about your loved one’s wedding gown, you should say something benign like “It really is your style” or “Wow, that’s colorful!” No lies, no nastiness, and no one gets hurt.

The adorable Audrey recently e-mailed me to ask if I’d seen Nintendo’s Imagine Wedding Designer. I hadn’t, not having a DS or all that much free time to devote to playing wedding games these days. Wedding games have always struck me as a bit odd… planning a wedding is a lot of work!

Here are just some of the things players of Imagine Wedding Designer can do:

• Design the weddings of six different brides, each with their own personality and specific tastes.
• Create the wedding invitations, choose the dress, veil, and bouquet and outfit the entire wedding party.
• Decide on the location, music, venue, decorations, and more!
• Live the big day and use your camera to capture all the perfect moments for the wedding.

I say meh. I don’t love the idea behind this game, but I certainly don’t care enough about it to hate it. What say you? Wedding games, are they fun or overdone?

We love vintage wedding gowns and vintage-look wedding gowns here at Manolo for the Brides, but what’s the bride who loves retro styles and modern frocks to do? To her I say that it wasn’t all that long ago that brides changed out of their wedding dresses and into something easier to travel in before stepping into their getaway cars and heading off to their honeymoons.

It’s not a practice one sees much these days, of course. I’ve only ever attended one wedding reception during which the bride changed out of her dress before making her exit. In that case, she put aside her bulky gown in favor of a white leather vest and white spandex leggings… if you couldn’t guess, she was a motorcycle mama and was preparing to ride away on her man’s hog. Good times. But if this vintage tradition appeals to you, why not wear a fun and flirty vintage-look dress from Whirling Turban?

Whirling Turban does have some wedding specific designs, though both of these dresses come from their regular stock. The first is made of hand-woven cotton ikat fabric subtly mixed with metallic silver fibers and a sweeping full skirt wrapped around a narrow pencil type skirt that peeps out when you walk. The second is made of the same unique fabric and features a petal bodice with pink contrast and a flattering wrap-n-tie sarong skirt. I like both… too bad I have no reason to buy either!

The WE channel comes up quite a lot here at Manolo for the Brides. How can it not, when it sometimes feels like the entire network has been forcefully stuffed into a too-small wedding gown for our amusement? The point is, shows like Rich Bride Poor Bride and Bridezillas wouldn’t exist if no one was watching them.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the appeal for me has always been something akin to nuptial schadenfreude. I can look at the screaming brides and pat myself on the back because, hey, I’m not them! And I wasn’t them! And I’ll never be them, whew.

Sarah Haskins created a Target: Women that addresses this issue so much better than I ever could… you know, because I don’t have a video camera and an editing team backing me up. Bridezilla versus Momm-Ra? “Yeah, wide load, you better get it through your obese head that you’re too fat to get married.”

I recommend watching all the way through because the ending is the best part. Enjoy!

If you have already bought your wedding gown aaaaaand you live near Panama City, FL, you’re going to be so sad you didn’t go to Yvette’s Bridal while it still existed.

Why choose Yvette’s for your wedding gown, bridesmaids dress, and tuxedo needs? The web site says it all. Specifically, it says “Yvette’s is OPEN SUNDAYS !!!! Yvette’s will be open all holidays !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay !! Judy !!” and “why do we have hair in our armpits??…………what possible idiosyncrasy could posses a deity to create something with hair in its armpits??…………….I seriously want to know why we have hair in our armpits??”

That is some seriously persuasive sales copy, am I right? But for reals, I don’t know why this site cracks me up so much, especially seeing as that the real Yvette’s web site likely died some time in 2006. It was a legit bridal shop once upon a time, but who knows what happened to it in the interim. Kudos to whoever took it over, as the site offers a few minutes of amusement for those super sick of looking at badly-designed bridal salon web sites that are supposed to be elegant (instead of painfully ironic).

Before you actually visit the chaos that is Yvette’s, please heed these warnings:

Warning I: Music will play. Loudly. On the front page, a piece commemorating the Battle of Flodden Field plays. Different music plays on every single page.

Warning II: Looking at Yvette’s site too long may cause blindness and/or deafness. Possibly also insanity.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, have a look at the map, the poetry, the artwork, and the bizarre ramblings of what must be a junior grade conspiracy theorist. Oh, and this… Popeye and peeping? Wind me up!