Manolo for the Brides

Choosing not to listen to lyrics when choosing wedding reception music is a dangerous game in this humble blogger’s opinion. And it seems a lot of folks agree with me. All Things Considered recently asked its listeners and commenters to send in stories about the worst choices for wedding songs they’ve ever encountered and then chose the worst five. The least appropriate wedding songs were:

Send in the Clowns (as sung by Judy Collins) is a ballad from Act II of A Little Night Music. In it, the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Uplifting!

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(Note: this was meant to go up on saturday, but clearly I am made of fail and hit the wrong button, because I found it this morning lurking in the depths of the saved drafts. Sorry.)

So.

We’re two weeks into a new series of Bridezillas over on WETV. So far the horror entertainment has included a bride choosing to believe that the groom’s concerns about people not wanting to wander from table to table searching for clues in the reception game of Clue meant that his family was far to stupid to follow the directions; a bride who demanded that all her bridesmaids weigh a minimum of 200 pounds in hopes that this would make her (the bride) the only pretty woman in the wedding party (no hope there, because mean is the ugliest thing on any person); and a psychobunny from the depths of perdition who crashed the bachelor party, socked a woman outside the club in the head because she just felt like hitting someone, is willing to change lanes into one going the wrong direction in order to avoid a) traffic and b) a bridesmaid trying to have a serious conversation with her, and will tomorrow night throw a hissey fit about chocolate cake that may put last season’s veil-ripping drama junkie to shame. Seriously, she’s going into her third week on the show while the other brides profiled thus far have only lasted one ep each. The standard is two episodes. I’m beginning to think Valerie may wind up being in every episode this season.

These people are making my hair itch.

There is, however, one WETV wedding-related show that I’m seriously enjoying. Amazing Wedding Cakes is a fun look behind the scenes at several different wedding cake designers/bakers across the US. Each week the viewer gets taken through the steps from initial client consultation to delivery of the finished product.

The fun is what happens in between. You get to see how the design is developed, how many hands get involved in creating each cake masterpiece, and sometimes even the fun of getting a multi-tier cake to the venue on time in a taxicab.

As a longtime cake junkie who makes ‘em tasty, but not that pretty, I’m fascinated by this show. I love watching the cakes come together, the in-jokes, the meltdowns in both buttercream and emotion, the pride taken in a job well done, and the frustrations when things don’t work out as planned.

Also, seriously, if you’ve hired someone to make an elaborate wedding cake for you, don’t try to change the design a couple days before the event. One bride called the bakery two days before her wedding just as the head designer was smoothing that gorgeous terra cotta colored fondant over the second tier of her cake to say she’d decided she wanted white instead.

Don’t do that to your baker. It’s Just Not Nice.

If you haven’t watched Amazing Wedding Cakes, be sure to check it out. It’s a lot of fun! (WETV Sunday, 10pm/9 Central). As they say: No guts, no ganache!

The other day, my good friend and compatriot, Fabrisse, brought something hideous to my attention. It’s an upcoming reality show on the CW charmingly entitled ‘Hitched or Ditched.’

Yes, it’s more or less what you would expect: a couple is ‘nominated’ by a fiend…er, friend or relative. Said Nosy Parker has decided that the couple in question is taking too long to march to the altar and needs to be hurried up. The show then badgers the couple, I mean offers them an ultimatum: plan and carry out your dreams for a wedding in one week while subjecting yourself to a series of (most likely extremely humiliating) public personalized tests designed to ‘help’ the couple decide whether they are truly ready to marry. At the end of the week, in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance of their dream wedding, they must decide at the altar whether to marry in that instant, or go their separate ways forever.

Yeah. No pressure there.

Okay, I could barely tolerate this concept in theory if the demand for instant lifelong commitment came from one member of the couple. I would still consider the whole thing manipulative and skeevy in the extreme, but at least I could see some small excuse.

My biggest problem is with the fact that the couple is nominated (read: publicly shamed) into this circus by someone who isn’t one of them. There may be an issue involved that a third party isn’t aware of. After all, pretty much nobody around me and Mr. Twistie had any idea why we waited seven years to get married. There were reasons, and they were good ones, but we didn’t feel like sharing them with the world. I’ve even known couples who adore one another but have realized that sharing a roof and a checking account and a kitchen just isn’t for them.

The fact is, each couple is different. They have to take their relationship at the pace their priorities, circumstances, and needs dictate. It wasn’t anyone else’s decision when it was right for me and Mr. Twistie to marry; it was ours. We made that decision when we were good and ready. You should do the same.

Remember, you and your significant other are the ones having the relationship. You need to tailor it to you. And yes, that includes deciding for yourselves when (or whether) you’re ready to get married.

Kirby sent a link to this video of a very… spirited wedding that is actually a promo for Wild Roses. While this thankfully isn’t a record of some real affair ruined by feuding families, it did get me to thinking. One does hope that most brides and grooms get to enjoy idyllic weddings, but the fact is that some ceremonies and receptions will be marred by squabbles, cattiness, yelling, and the occasional punch in the eye.

Once upon a time I might have asked myself just who uses a wedding as a forum to give new life to old tensions, but that was before I ended up connected via marriage to some people with large chips on their shoulders. The long and the short of it is that weddings can bring out the worst in people — even people who are otherwise sane and balanced. Common offenders include divorced parents, siblings on the outs, former lovers, and anyone who doesn’t quite approve of the union being consecrated.

So how can you prevent a matrimonial meltdown like the one above? The key is to diffuse whatever tensions can be diffused before the big day instead of worrying impotently about what might happen on the big day. Here are just some of the ways you can prevent major big day blowouts:

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Weddings… they sure do make chicks crazy, amirite? I’m kidding, of course, but you might assume I wasn’t if you’ve spent any time watching shows like Bridezillas and all the other wacky wedding shows that likely make WE Channel executives oodles of money. The stereotype of the shrilly screaming bride-to-be who needs everyone to know it’s ‘her daaaayyyyyy’ isn’t just a staple of reality TV and Target: Women. Nope, you can find it in fiction, too.

Right now I’m thinking of Bride Wars, which was met with largely negative reviews from critics. As it should have been. You’d think that a chick flick about two friends who are both getting married would feature strong women expressing their feelings and learning about themselves and kicking ass with girl power. Instead, you get a no holds barred chick vs. chick bitchlympics. Granted, the main characters do make up at the end, but they spend a good deal of the movie acting like spoiled bridezillas whose supposedly strong friendship is all but fractured by a clerical error.

Movies like Bride Wars aren’t meant to depict reality, I know, but the whole premise implies that caring independent women are just one wedding mishap away from turning into screaming banshees who will sacrifice their most precious relationships to ensure their ’special daaaayyyyyy’ stays special. It ticks me off and bums me out at the same time, since I know that 99.9999% of the time, brides-to-be are calm, partial to compromise, and willing to roll with the punches… especially when the people important to them are involved.

So did any of you see Bride Wars? What did YOU think?

Want to join the navy, by which I mean the bevy of brides choosing this elegant wedding color over robin’s egg and Tiffany and baby blues.

How about navy blue engagement announcements from My Good Greetings… a chunky cocktail ring from Rumour makes a great bridesmaid gift… and for the groomsmen, navy monogram cufflinks from Eternally Linked… navy blue monogrammed postage from Zazzle is one way to personalize mass market wedding stationery… you can save money on your bridal shoes with feminine flats from Old Navy (of all places)… navy blue bridesmaids’ dresses complement an Oscar de la Renta grosgrain gown in navy and white, while deep blue florals and an almost nautical reception table tie it all together.

Where do I sign up?

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!

We sometimes speak (okay, write) here at Manolo for the Brides about wedding professionals. We discuss what to look for, how to know this is or isn’t the professional for you, and how to negotiate getting what you really want. We almost never cover the question from the other side. What is it like to work weddings professionally? How do vendors help steer the clueless and those with unrealistic expectations toward a plan that makes better sense? What do they do when their best efforts in that regard don’t work? And what makes doing what they do worth all the hassle?

It is the tension between expectation and reality that keeps the work interesting. It is also what occasionally - when I come home very late from a particularly horrible event - makes me want to bury my head under my pillow and wake up in a world where weddings no longer exist. But by the next weekend I’m out there again. The truth is I like what I do. And maybe twenty years from now my clients will look at the photographs I took and remember how they felt, not just what things looked like. They might even know by then that the feelings were what mattered. Or maybe they will see where it all went wrong later was foreshadowed in those moments caught on film, when no one was trying to keep up appearances. I’m not a glamor photographer. I’m not a fashion photographer. I’m a storyteller, and the story I tell is the one I see.

Thus ends the introduction of Claire Lewis’ book Exposed: Confessions of a Wedding photographer.

Lewis is - in case you couldn’t tell from that snippet or the title of her book - a professional wedding photographer. She also happens to live and work in my neck of the woods, the San Francisco Bay Area. We’ve never met. I doubt that I’ve been to a wedding she shot. On the other hand, by the end of the book I wanted to invite her over for scones and wedding gossip.

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I’ve only seen two episodes of WETV’s My Fair Wedding with David Tutera. I don’t think I’ll be watching more. Here’s the description on the official website:

Our all-new original series, My Fair Wedding, brings in a dream team, led by celebrity party planner David Tutera, on behalf of beleaguered friends and family members, to transform what could be a disaster wedding into a platinum style affair.

In other words, this party planner and his team swoop down at the last minute to inform brides that their plans make less sense than Ozzie Osborne attempting to read James Joyce aloud to a roomful of otters on speed, changes everything about the wedding (gown, cake, bridesmaid’s dresses, flowers, catering menu, music, yes, even the location) to make it more tasteful. Possibilities are dangled before the bride, but on her wedding day she wakes up not even knowing where she’s getting married, let alone any of the other minor details. You know, like whether David picked the gown she really loved or one that she didn’t particularly like.

And in the tradition of makeover shows that seriously steam my corn, it appears to be the case that it’s a friend or family member who has ratted out the tasteless bride. I’m fine with shows like Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style where the makeover-ee has personally requested the help and is given tools that will aid her in making more flattering style choices that fit her life and personal tastes. My fury knows no bounds over shows like What Not to Wear and How Do I Look? wherein the person being made over is hijacked into the experience, given little - if any - control over the process, and then released into the wild knowing mostly that she needs to pay more attention to someone else’s sense of style than her own.

Guess which sort of show I think My Fair Wedding more closely resembles?

The thing I think I hate most, though, isn’t the hijacking, the lack of control, or even the ritual humiliation of the silly bride who thinks that it’s possible to plan a wedding by herself because she’s laboring under the sad delusion that women do this every day and hey, it’s not exactly rocket science. Don’t get me wrong. I detest all these things with the flaming fury of a thousand avenging vengeance weasels.

So what annoys me most about My Fair Wedding? You’ll have to follow the cut to find out.

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