It’s official. KISS bassist Gene Simmons (62) has married his lady love of twenty-eight years, Shannon Tweed (54) in a star-studded celebration in Beverly Hills.

The wedding was held last night and was attended by such family friends as the rest of KISS, Hugh Hefner, and Bill Maher, as well as the happy couple’s two children, Nick and Sophie.

The tune is may be bit of a wedding cliche at this point, but when the couple had their first dance to At Last by Etta James… I gotta say, it might be the most appropriate use of it ever. Twenty-eight years is a long, long time to be meandering toward the alter, but it seems to have worked for them.

I hope you’ll all join with me in wishing Gene and Shannon every possible joy as they begin a new chapter in their relationship. Mazeltov, you crazy kids!

You know, the groom doesn’t always have to wear pants and the bride doesn’t always have to wear a dress.

Sometimes doing things a little differently works out really well, as in this rather fabulous wedding held in Poland for this lovely couple, Kabinka and Wisnia.As you can see, she’s wearing trousers and a gorgeous frock coat while he’s wearing a long skirt. Both accessorized with joyful smiles.

You can get a better look at both outfits in this photograph:

After the formality of the ceremony, Kabinka removed her coat for the reception and danced the night away looking fresh and comfortable and every inch a bride:

And the lesson we learn here is that unconventional isn’t something to fear. Follow your heart, whether you’re choosing a life partner or what to wear while marrying the person of your dreams. It’s all about staying true to who you are.

(all images by Ania Roth Photography via This Charming Wedding)

You know how every often I put a call out for you darlings to share your wedding photos with me so I can share them with everyone else? Well someone finally took me seriously! And that someone is the lovely La Petite Acadienne, along with her very handsome beau, The Stonecutter. When she emailed me these photos, I thought they were just perfect examples of what I meant when I wrote about just being yourself in your wedding photos. La Petite Acadienne and The Stonecutter look very in love, of course, and gorgeous, but they also look like they’re having plenty of fun!

Lovey-dovey, sure, but I feel like there's some happysilly there, too

Hot stuff!

Laughter on your wedding day, can't beat it!

La Petite Acadienne had this to say about the photos she shared: “Our photographer was Anthony Vazquez. My husband and I went away to New York to get married — just the two of us — and Anthony was one of the very few wedding photographers who was willing to come shoot for just an hour. Most of them had a 6 hour minimum, and what would I need 6 hours of photography for when it was just the two of us? Anyway, we were absolutely thrilled with the photos. There are so many nice ones, I could have sent you an entire album. I’ve selected a few that I adore, though — I think they really speak to who we are as a couple: goofy, passionate, and very much in love.”

Now it’s your turn to gush in the comments about how gorgeous they look – don’t be shy!

As more couples pay for all or part of their own weddings, changes are happening in the way ceremonies and receptions are planned. My favorite change? The emergence of the involved, helpful groom who has an opinion about his upcoming wedding and is exciting to shoulder his share of the wedding planning work. In my dad’s day – as I’ve been led to believe – grooms mainly tried to stay out of the way of brides who had the final say when it came to just about everything. But now that grooms are footing some of the bill? They’re folding invitations that they helped pick out, assembling favors that they actually like, and more.

Let's hear it for those helpful grooms!

Some of these involved grooms-to-be are even blogging, though admittedly they tend to give it up after they tie the knot unlike some people – hello! – who just keep on going on about wedding planning like nothing happened. There are even wedding planning guides for grooms! Unfortunately, some parts of the wedding industry have yet to catch up to the trend of the helpful groom and continue to focus only on brides-to-be and their desires. I’ve even heard stories of wedding vendors who, when meeting hetero couples, talked only to the bride and all but ignored the presence of a groom. Uncool, vendors, uncool. Was The Beard as involved as he could have been? I plead the fifth on that one and state for the record that I can be a a force of nature when it comes to party planning.

How about you? Is your other half – if your other half happens to be a groom – pulling his weight? If not, and you want him to (some brides don’t), then TELL HIM THAT. Don’t just stew in a sauce of resentment until you explode. Your groom, like many, may have been told by a well-meaning male relative that he shouldn’t participate in wedding planning. Inside many an uninvolved groom is a helpful groom waiting to come out.

Image: Peacock Photography

A Jewish wedding tradition with a growing following

Am I the only one who likes seeing wedding traditions from one faith or heritage embraced by people from other backgrounds? I know that there are some people who don’t like the co-opting of wedding traditions by “outsiders” but I my take is that wedding traditions wouldn’t have become traditions if brides and grooms didn’t find value in them. It’s not for me to say that so-and-so can’t do X, Y, and Z because those practices belong to another culture. Take the ketubah, a traditional and beautiful element of the Jewish wedding and marriage. According to a recent New York Times piece, more non-religious and Christian couples are embracing the ketubah in their own weddings.

“We wanted a permanent reminder of the covenant we made with God,” Mrs. Austin said. “We see this document superseding the marriage license of a state or a court.”

Such sentiments have been reshaping the market for ketubot (the plural in Hebrew) in the past decade. Michael Shapiro, an observant Jew from Toronto who sells artistic ketubot through the Web site ketubah.com, said he had seen the non-Jewish share of his customers rise from zero to about 10 percent. He is forming a spinoff site, artvows.com, that concentrates on non-Jewish consumers.

The decade of non-Jews discovering the ketubah coincides with three relevant social trends: the rise of Christian Zionism, the growth of interfaith marriage, and the mainstreaming of the New Age movement with its search for spirituality in multiple faith traditions. As a result, an increasing number of gentiles have taken up Judaic practices: holding a Passover Seder, eating kosher food and studying kabbalah, the Jewish mystical movement.

What began as way to protect the bride’s interests in the event of a divorce and morphed into a beautiful and artful representation of specific contractural provisions for marriage had a resurgence of popularity in the 1960s Jewish counterculture. Suddenly the ketubah was back and once again something to display rather than something to be hidden away. And, like I said, the ketubah is now finding its way into non-Jewish weddings and onto non-Jewish walls. I’m cool with that – in fact, I think it’s very cool, especially for those Christians who want to give a nod to their religion’s Jewish roots.

How does it strike you, this flow of wedding traditions from one faith or background to another? Do you think it’s cool, or kind of weird and inauthentic?

Not too long ago, the awesome Boston wedding photography firm KLC Photography sent me a selection of engagement photos taken in different locations around the city and MA – and I think they constitute a perfect illustration of the fact that there’s no one right or wrong way to do an engagement portrait session. Locations? Be as serious or as silly as you want to! Indoors or outdoors, your choice. Close ups… action shots… it’s all up to you and the photographer you’ve chosen to work with. (Hint: Share your ideas, but don’t be afraid to take your photog’s recommendations!)

Not everyone has engagement photos taken, of course. But if it’s something you’re planning on checking off your pre-wedding to-do list, have some fun with it like these couples did!

Here’s a future bride and groom at deCordova Sculpture Park, posing on some of the art. It would be tons of fun to run around 35 acres with a photographer. Maybe even a great way to relieve some wedding planning stress!

Here’s a couple kissing on the Charles River esplanade – this is my absolutely favorite of the bunch! I’m sure you and your sweetie could think of *plenty* of places to get your smooch on, no?

(more…)

I thought of this edition of LOVE/HATE after reading this post over at Encore Bride – she talks about and includes pictures of getting ready with her groom. Are those gasps, I’m hearing? I know some people will gasp at the notion of a bride and groom (or bride and bride or groom and groom) getting ready for the wedding in the same room. That means no big reveal of the wedding dress or whatever the marrying parties have chosen to wear and no sweet ‘first glimpse’ reaction shots at the beginning of the wedding ceremony. “It’s tradition!” some people will say. But come on… so many of today’s couple’s live together before getting hitched, or at least have intimate knowledge of one another. At this point, so much of tradition is just play acting.

The big reveal? Should be entirely optional. If a couple wants to keep what they’re wearing secret until the wedding ceremony and sleep apart and so on, fab. And if a couple wants to share a bed before the big day and dress in the same space, also fab. I LOVE the idea of a couple who’s comfortable with the idea sharing tie tying and dress zipping duties! Frankly, it sounds like a lot of fun, and maybe even less nerve-wracking than being in a room full of friends with a photographer, not knowing what your other half is up to. What do you think? Would you get dressed with your sweetie on your wedding day?

Image: Cholmondelly