Manolo for the Brides

Deciding who will be invited to your wedding can be an endeavor fraught with peril and hurt feelings. To wit, The Beard and I originally intended to have a much smaller reception, with something like twenty-five people in attendance. The problem was that including only my immediate family already used up thirteen of the available slots. The Beard’s family is much smaller than mine, so he wanted to invite his boyhood friends to make up the difference…and if we were inviting his friends, we couldn’t exactly exclude our mutual friends.

The whole twenty-five people rule was eventually scrapped when my grandmother — whose property we were using for the ceremony and reception — handed me a list of the names and addresses of ALL my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

So how can you trim a guest list that is growing out of control? It isn’t always easy to be firm when your mom, dad, step parents, and grandparents are pleading with you to include so-and-so and his wife, even though you’ve never even met them. It’s even more difficult when one or more of these parties is footing the bill! Personally, I’d recommend sitting down with family members to explain that your budget doesn’t allow for unexpected additions to the guest list. Audrey Irvine of CNN came up with another solution…one that involves using a list of ten questions to disqualify potential attendees.

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As far as I’m concerned, Memorytube is a neat idea with a pisspoor name. I know tubes are in…we have YouTube and snarky references to the “Intertubes” (Thanks Senator Stevens!) and the extremely NSFW RedTube…but Memorytube?

The people behind the company want brides and grooms to ditch the guestbooks, photobooths, and videographers in favor of five foot tall kiosks that empower attendees to make multimedia memories that will later be stamped in a DVD for the newlywed couple. So what does it actually do?

• A built-in cam takes guests’ pictures or films their well-wishes
• Camera-shy guests can type their salutations in an electronic guestbook
• Card readers of all sizes and Bluetooth tech allow guests to upload their snapshots and videos before going home

Hiring out a Memorytube kiosk costs about £299 — oh, right, it’s currently only available to our friends in the UK.

Now I could see this being a big hit at a reception populated by tech-savvy guests, though if yours is a big wedding you may have to cope with watching your guests queuing up to see what all the fuss is about. I can’t say that I particularly love or hate the idea.

On one hand, it’s neat…sort of the upscale version of the brides and grooms who set up a laptop at the reception so guests can upload their photos before the last dance. On the other hand, people tend to be a touch more thoughtful when they’re leaving their mark in a proper book. I can just imagine the sorts of things all the kids at my wedding would have been saying into the poor kiosk’s cam!

What do you think? Is it a fantastic idea…or a gimmicky one?

I like creative place cards because the plain foldover variety tends to be so dull, which means anything flashier adds an unexpected bit of zing to the reception tablescapes.

Take, for example, these “Parisian Chic” tags from Fabulous Finds Boutique. I will admit that I’ve kept place cards from weddings of people I truly care about because I’m a sucker for any and all mementos. However, all of them ended up in the recycling bin sooner or later because there’s a limit to how long I’ll keep a simple piece of cardstock with my name printed on it.

Yes, the tags pictured above are also cardstock, gussied up with a grommet and a bit of ribbon, but how lovely would one look stuck to a tackboard or propped up on one’s desk at work? If nothing else, I’d wager than guests will hold onto these far longer than they’ll deign to keep the ceramic baskets of Jelly Belly beans you’re giving out at the reception.

When our own delightful and wise NtB posted on the question of children at weddings the other day, it got a lot of response. Some people were pro-kids-at-weddings-no-matter-what. Some came across as definitely not caring for kiddies at the shindig. Most seemed firmly agreed (as are NtB and I) that it’s entirely up to the happy couple to make that decision based on their preferences and circumstances.

But as NtB pointed out in her article, part of the decision should be based on how kid-friendly a wedding you plan on having. There may, indeed, be those paragons of childish virtue who can sit still through a twelve-course formal dinner happily chowing down on fois gras and fanciful eggplant dishes while wearing perfectly unwrinkled tafetta gowns directly after a full nuptual mass and three hours of formal photographs…but let’s not kid ourselves that this is standard. I was a remarkably patient little one with an adventurous palate and a real fascination with weddings blessed with parents who would punish the hell out of me without hesitation if I misbehaved badly in public, and I couldn’t have done anything like that. Heck, it would still take some serious mental preparation for that and I haven’t been a child in a painfully long time.

If you do plan on inviting the little ones, you need to keep their needs in mind. Here are a couple thoughts on how to do that:

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While I solemnly believe that children should be allowed to share in life’s joys, there’s nothing wrong with having an adults-only ceremony and/o reception. I understand that this is currently a controversial and somewhat unpopular opinion.

A BBC News article about a couple in Staffordshire, England that’s PO’ed because their disruptive toddler was ushered out of a ceremony by a frustrated vicar contains some choice quotes from commenters who feel slighted by adults-only weddings. Quotes like:

“Some people” have lost all sense of common sense in this country… banning children from weddings… as if they were some sort of nuisance? And what next? Well maybe if the kids of “Some people” were better brought up and looked after in this country, maybe they would behave better. What a selfish attitude!

“Speaking as one who is often reminded that he crawled through the vicar’s legs at one ceremony, kids make the do. Those who ban them are missing out, and missing the point.”

However, I’d like to drag out that tired old line, “Won’t someone PLEASE think of the children?” I’m well aware that some moms and dads are the proud parents of little angels rather than little hellions, but I’m inclined to think of them as the exception to the rule.

Many people feel that a marriage ceremony is a solemn, thoughtful event that should not be punctuated by crying, parental shushing, and outbursts of “You said there was cake! When can I have cake! CAKE CAKE CAKE!” So let’s muse a little on why there’s crying, why parents must shush-shush-shush, and why all this yelling about dessert.

What do I mean by ‘thinking of the children?’

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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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All right, I’ll admit it. I love saying “Swati Argade.” While I have no idea how one ought to say it, I’ve certainly enjoyed trying out different permutations of the Indian-American clothing designer and entrepreneur’s name.

Let me preface this edition of LOVE/HATE by saying that these designs are something like two years old. I can’t be sure they’re still out there. Basically, I enjoy saying (and reading) the names “Swati” and “Argade” so much that I found myself compelled to ignore the age of these designs.

Besides, it’s wedding season, and those people who have been invited to attend said weddings are frequently looking for a little inspiration. I know this because these lucky — depending on how you look at it — individuals often reach out to me to ask what they should wear to a wedding taking place in such-and-such a location at such-and-such a time.

I’ll spare you any further blathering on my part and simply say that I LOVE these two exteremely versatile outfits. Were I to see them on a duo of fellow guests at a wedding I was enjoying, I’d have to corner the chicks in the ladies room to ask where they purchased their clothes. In fact, considering what I do for a living, I’d probably gush so long and so hard that they’d begin to fear for their personal safety.

This, on the other hand…well, it…how about I just point out that every designer will have her hits and have her misses? It’s HATE all the way.

Honestly, I cannot even begin to describe what is going on here. It’s like someone tookthree or four unrelated pieces of clothes and, much like Dr. Frankenstein, used some form of unholy science to merge them into one schizophrenic outfit.

What say you?

Recently, one of my favorite online comics has included wedding planning in one of its many story arcs, and I thought I’d share some of the nuptial nuttiness with you. Here is some schooling on how to have a wedding, the Achewood way:

“any cake is a wedding cake if you call it that”

“Oh how genius to have the invitation and the program all in one man I TOTALLY saved cash. I am the graphic designer of the AGE.”

“Men in neckties do not wish to be hugged. Men in turtlenecks expect hugs at each encounter, no matter how trivial. Men in fezzes are unpredictable, and may be at your wedding for reasons that are unclear to you.”