Manolo for the Brides

I was recently sent two freebies to review, both of which sprang from the minds of event designers. It’s a common phenomenon — when you live in the world of weddings, it’s not that difficult to envision yourself creating a product that will bring joy to brides-to-be. (Note to companies looking for new product lines: I’m available. Really available.)

First Impressions
The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day is indeed BIG. With it’s sweet two-column, multi-color design, it rather reminds me of the many home hack books I was given when I first moved out of my mother’s house. Not a page goes by where some tip of Weiss’ is highlighted in cream or taupe — overall, it’s very dignified. Information is easy to find, and there’s plenty of it!

Deeper Deets
I’ll admit that I had high expectations for this book, because Mindy Weiss is a highly sought-after event planner and “lifestyle expert.” It’s the little details she slips in, like three ways to fold a handkerchief, sample reception menus (Weiss admits that Thousand Island is her favorite dressing), an illustrated gown guide, and multiple wedding timetables make this book stand out among its peers. For those brides who like to jot things down, there are plenty of fill-in tables and blank note pages in the back of the book.

The Verdict
Other than iDo (which still has no reviews on Amazon, hint hint), this is probably my favorite book dealing with mainstream modern-traditional weddings.

First Impressions
I really like the box that envelops the Zinke Design Going to the Chapel gift set because it’s substantial and complicated. You really have to work to get the garter, ring bag, and handkerchief out of that box — I was almost afraid I was going to rip something, but Arin Robinson’s products are auspiciously sturdy. The trio of accessories matches The Wedding Book, which is a little weird in light of this review!

Deeper Deets
The set is made of satin, linen, lace, and the garter is lovely. It combines a ribbon with elastic, which means I can make it as small as my wrist or wide enough to fit over my head. I’m actually wearing it on my head right now. The hanky and the ring bag unfortunately gain nothing from being made out of linen. Both are pretty, but the handkerchief would do little to dry a tearful eye and I don’t know that putting one’s rings in a bag is the best of ideas. This leads me to believe that these items are meant just for show, and I’m a stickler for design that’s lovely AND functional.

The Verdict
I personally would not buy this $92 set for a bride-to-be, but I could see an older female relative doing so. When, exactly, do the rings go in the bag, anyway? Is it meant to be used before the wedding or as an alternative to the ring bearer’s pillow? I’d much prefer to give my hypothetical engaged friend or sister a vintage hanky embroidered with her initials or a handmade ring pillow I sewed myself.

So you opened your mail one day recently and found a shimmery pale pink envelope (or a lush, chocolate one, or an austerly elegant ivory-colored one, or one you could barely read through the bright purple printing on cherry red paper) containing a wedding invitation. Perhaps it was one you’d been expecting for weeks. Perhaps it was one you had no clue was coming. Perhaps you are so close to the couple you took part in the invitation addressing party. Perhaps you have to desperately scan your every childhood memory to even figure out who the happy couple might be and why they sent you an invitation to witness their marriage.

Whatever the case, there are things you can do to make sure that you’re the sort of guest people want to invite to other events after this one is over and done with.

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Over and over again on bridal fora, wedding reality shows, and in private conversation with soon-to-be-brides I’ve heard women talk about how they won’t be ‘doing all that etiquette stuff’ or they won’t allow etiquette to force them into doing things that make them uncomfortable. What boggles my mind most of the time is that the things they’re talking about aren’t in any way required by etiquette. In fact, they are often the antithesis of proper etiquette.

In a recent article at MSN.com discussing weddings, Judith Martin (aka: Miss Manners) had this to say about the subject:

I did a wedding book some years ago and I am revising it because there have been all kinds of horrible new ideas that have sprung up since I first wrote it. And people have come to believe a lot of misinformation that they are getting from those who have a financial interest in the situation, to the point where they’re pressured to do things that are, again, vulgar and greedy.

Miss Manners, I look forward to seeing your new volume on the subject. In the meantime, here are a few pernicious wedding ‘etiquette’ myths along with the real skinny.

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Fish as gift? Yes, when it’s culturally relevent. No, when it involves dumping a slimy, stinky flounder wrapped in newspaper on my previously clean kitchen table. Personally, I’d be delighted to receive Yuinou if I was the mother of a newly engaged lady.

You’re looking at Yuinou, gifts that traditionally mark an agreed upon engagement in Japan. I first saw them at Wedded Bliss, The Marriage of Art and Ceremony, a traveling exhibit currently at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Yuinou is exchanged for the various purposes. First of all, people can confirm that the engagement is concluded. At the same time, they pray for the conclusion of marriage by doing the ceremony. The engagement will be official through Yuinou. Secondly, a bridegroom side does it to express their gratitude to a bride side, because a bride is considered to be a member of bridegroom side after a marriage. The gratitude is against marrying a girl whom their parents have brought up with tender care.

The contents of Yuinou are important in their ceremonial significance — cuttlefish signifies happiness, seaweed signifies fertility, a fan signifies good fortune, and animal art signifying all sorts of nice things — but the appeal in my eyes is the beautiful packaging.

The examples I saw at the PEM were gorgeous, made as they were of vividly hued bamboo, balsa wood, foil, glass, and braided paper cord. The packaging is so artistically rendered that some newlyweds display the Yuinou in their homes after the wedding.

However, the once widespread and varied Yuino ceremony is being toned down by couples who would rather their parents spent the money they might spend on Yuinou on monetary gifts or contributions to the price of the wedding. That makes a lot of sense to me, but I do hope that the practice sticks around. It seems like such a nice way to bring families together and commemorate the blending of two families.

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CONGRATS, JSTAR! Jstar, who suggested that I call my next book iDon’t: the 12,000,000 most common wedding planning mistakes has won a free autographed copy of iDo. Keep your eyes open for future minicontents because I plan to give away at least one copy of the book each month for a year!

You know how sometimes your inbox gets so full that you’re tempted to just delete it all and start afresh? That happens to me all the time, but I just can’t do it because half of the stuff I’m sitting on came to my attention because you were nice enough to e-mail me about it. The other half is stuff I stumbled upon on my own and bookmarked while researching things like unusual guestbooks, wicked cool tuxes, and barbecuing brides.

This explains, in a nuptial nutshell, why I’ll occasionally sit down and compose a post made up mainly of links like those outlined below.

• Fairytale wedding? No thanks! Plenty of modern brides are marrying their Prince Charmings but staying true to their Cinderella roots, according to the Post and Courier. But don’t expect to stop hearing about the proverbial $30,000 just yet — the average cost of a wedding has only gone down by $28. That’s what, one less boutonnière?
• If we’re going to have a serious discussion about scaling back, how about we start with the dress? Usually I hit up Nordstrom when I want to spend a lot (not a little) on a dress, but now I know, thanks to Dream Wedding on a Budget, that brides can do it the other way around. Introducing the $98 wedding gown!
• “Makes The Perfect Wedding Present!” No, oh goodness, no. It most certainly does not.
• Thank goodness we have MSN to remind all the single ladies not to become raging witches when their friends tie the knot, am I right? (PLEASE NOTE THAT WAS SOME SERIOUS SARCASM!) The article’s author experienced a mix of jealousy, loneliness, anxiety, depression, confusion, and even terror when her best gal pal got engaged. She claims that the majority of XX-carrying humans feel the same, but I have my doubts. Care to weigh in?
• The Wedding Report says that California same-sex marriages could generate $1 billion the first year. I’m going to guess that the sound I’m hearing is the thunderous footsteps of a raging stampede of vendors desperately rushing to target an untapped demographic.
• And finally, a drawing that I believe originally appeared in Indexed by Jessica Hagy:
  

I tend to think of the items on the common wedding registry as being fairly unisex. Everyone…okay, almost everyone…uses things like plates and glasses, deli slicers, and toolboxes. Then again, plenty of wedding registries I’ve seen have included stuff like iron sconces and votive holders. If you think decorative items are intrinsically feminine, then I suppose plenty of registries do err on the side of girly.

But is the answer a wedding registry designed specifically for dudes? The Man Registry claims to be the worlds first registry that puts the Reggie back into registries. (Hey, you try making a good registry pun!)

TheManRegistry.com is the world’s first wedding gift registry for grooms. We offer hundreds of products geared specifically toward men. The days of men being content with dishes, hand towels, and linens as wedding gifts are over. With The Man Registry, grooms everywhere can pick out the barbecue grills, tools, bar glasses, and electronics they’ll need to start their new marriage.

Three brothers started TheManRegistry.com in 2007 when they noticed that many of their close friends and family were getting married, but too often were registered for gifts that were strictly geared toward the kitchen. Where were the gifts that the groom could get excited about? It was clear that creating a wedding registry tailored to grooms was necessary.

Some of the products listed in their Top Ten include the Black & Decker Cordless Screwdriver and the Pharos Science 3.5 GPS Navigator. Now, correct me if I’m way off base here, but I would say that nearly every single female I know has both a screwdriver set and a GPS. I can’t say I like the fact that The Man Registry is pushing these things as toys for boys and spreading the myth that chicks all lust after hand towels.

I guess I am just not seeing why an entirely separate man-oriented registry is necessary when many department stores have both linens and power tools. Why are grooms-to-be who want to set up a killer bar not simply adding shot glasses and cocktail shakers to their registries? Have their brides truly taken complete control over all gift options, or are they just looking for something to whine about? I feel like the guys who created the Man Registry said, “I know, let’s create a fake problem so we can make money by providing a solution!”

On a scale of one to ten, I would skip the numerical system altogether and rate this site as pretty pointless.

I love anything one can buy without having to schlep one’s tush to the store. In fact, while planning my wedding, I looked for any and every opportunity to shop from the confines of my office…then I wrote a book about it! I do understand that there are some folks who get a real kick out of going to the mall or exchanging pleasant banter with shopkeeps, but I’m guessing that for every one of them there’s someone like me who’d rather not spend their Saturdays braving the retail gauntlet.

Some things are just designed for online shopping–faux flowers, dresses, paper goods, and favors come to mind. Other things don’t fare so well when squeezed into a cramped mail truck. Thus far, all of my efforts to find fancy iced wedding and shower appropriate cake were for naught. Sure, you can buy cheesecakes and petit fours and rum cake, but the rigors of shipping heretofore demanded some degree of cakey stability, ruling out varieties commonly associated with nuptials.

Until now, that is…

Fat Daddy Bake Shop takes cupcakes to the next level, packaging them in little canning jars for easy delivery via airmail. At $65 for ten 1/2 pint cupcakes–or should I call them jarcakes–it’s unlikely you’ll be sending your wedding guests home with sweets ensconced in glass. That price point does, however, lend itself to serving them to bridal shower and bachelorette party attendees or giving them to attendants as part of gift baskets.

And, happily, the flavor selection lends itself to NOM NOM NOMing. Were I to choose five, I’d pick the butter cake filled with coconut and layered with cream cheese frosting; banana cake with butterscotch chips and golden butterscotch frosting; brown sugar butter cake blended with toffee bits and topped with chocolate buttercream; vanilla cake with coffee, chocolate chips and layered with vanilla buttercream, and dark chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, caramel and walnuts, topped with caramel buttercream and nuts. Then I’d lapse straight into a sugar-induced coma because I have absolutely no willpower to speak of.

I’m a huge fan of stepping away from the bridal salons when it comes time to choose dresses for your bridesmaids. For one thing, your gals can take all of the money they would have spent on “something they could wear again but won’t” and spend it on a dress that doesn’t scream bridesmaid. Of course, hitting up Bluefly instead of Eden Bridals is no guarantee that you’ll find something great.

Remember the bubble boob bow number I wrote about a few months back? As it turns out, that frock did not represent an isolated case of boobowocity. While trolling for potential bridesmaids’ dresses I came across more boob bows, which I have arranged here from the most minuscule to the most tuggable.

But why stop there? If you really want to drive home the point — Bows! You love ‘em! You’ve got ‘em! BOWS BOWS BOWS! — you can gift your gals with one of these Franchi clutches to thank them for dutifully encasing their bosoms in gigantic bows without complaint.

I’m not sure if I think this is a neat idea or a bizarre idea. I suppose it all depends how much your wedding memories are worth to you. For example, some people think nothing of devoting a huge chunk of their budget to professional photography while others are content to leave disposable cameras on each reception table.

The skinny is that ceramicist and Richmond-native Emily Hunter Taylor will hand-sculpt and hand-paint a five-inch tall porcelain recreation of your wedding cake. She scales down the original measurements of your cake to ensure everything is to scale and the icing is made using liquid clay to ensure a nice finish.

So…Neat? Bizarre? What I do know is that it’s an expensive idea. Custom cake replicas start at $500, which means that you could very well be paying as much for an inedible porcelain cake as you did for the great big tasty cake that delighted your guests. Whether or not you think it’s a good deal will likely depend on how emotionally attached you were to your wedding cake.

If it’s simply too rich for your blood, but you are desperate to keep your cake, try sourcing one from Fun Cake Rental. For less money than you’d spend on a ceramic repro, Kimberly Aya will whip you up a pretty faux full-size cake that will keep forever with a little care. The concept is simple — serve your guests similarly colored sheet cake, and they’ll be none the wiser.

Or will they? I’ve never attended a wedding with a fake cake…that I know of. It wouldn’t bother me if I found out the cake on my plate wasn’t the cake on display. It also wouldn’t bother me if bride and groom fed me pie or cookies or brownies. Have you ever been to a reception where it was painfully obvious that the cake was a sham?

*Alternate headline: Fake-a-cake?