According to an article at The Wedding Report, there are two words that top the list when people describe what they want their weddings to be like. Those two words? ‘Romantic’ (45% polled use this word) and ‘simple’ (42%). ‘Traditional’ came in third at 35%.

How would I describe the wedding Mr. Twistie and I had? Probably as ‘fun’(29%) ‘rustic’(9%) and ‘DIY’(19%).

What three words would best sum up your wedding style?

Life is full of surprises. Wedding planning is, too.

Sometimes the surprise is discovering that what you thought was a perfectly simple concept makes no sense to anyone who is not you. Sometimes it’s that everyone else so blandly accepts an idea that strikes you as clearly and profoundly deranged. Sometimes it’s the fact that you don’t react to something the way you thought you would. It might even be how someone other than you reacts.

I think for me the single biggest surprise in the wedding planning/getting married process was how calm I was when the moment came. I was happy, I was excited, but I wasn’t nervous at all. I had no urge to laugh or cry without provocation. I’d always assumed that when the big moment came, I would need that hankie I’d so cunningly slipped up my sleeve… but it turned out I didn’t. Aplomb was my middle name, and that is something that happens about once every three blue moons.

What’s been your biggest surprise? Tell us all about it!

Image via Heirloom Radio.com, where you can learn a little more about this 14-piece one-man band and many other fascinating inventions that didn’t quite work out)

If you’ve been to more than one wedding in your life, chances are you’ve heard some really bad music. It’s one of those eternal verities along with rubber chicken at conventions and the embarrassing drunk person at the office holiday party.

If you’ve been to as many weddings as I have – and that’s a lot! – you’ve heard some really great music… and some truly, epically awful stuff.

For me, the absolute worst wedding music I’ve ever heard was a church organist who played show tunes at a funereal pace. Never before has People Will Say We’re In Love sounded so like the couple fears blackmail. As for Shall We Dance… you couldn’t do a polka at that lack of pace, that’s for sure!

But the cherry on top that made me have to work extra hard to cover my laughter with a cough was the moment when the groom and his attendants arrived at the altar to the most hauntingly dismal rendition of Here Come the Clowns it has ever been my misfortune to hear. Triple phail!

So what about you? Have you ever heard wedding music that bad? Maybe even worse? Just plain inappropriate?

Tell us all about it!

I’m guessing it’s not every bridal blog where you would expect to see a picture of Edgar Allan Poe looking all creepy at you.

The funny thing is, if I could have invited any famous person – dead or alive – to my wedding, Mr. Poe would definitely have made the short list, along with Oscar Wilde and Vincent Price. Mr. Twistie probably would have voted for Eddie Cantor.

Why these men? Because, in a word, they all knew how to have a good time. Oh, and Vincent Price was also known for his fabulous cooking. Had his arm been properly twisted, he might have brought along something tempting to eat.

Hmmm… maybe Vincent should win, after all.

What about you? If you could invite any famous person from any point in history to your wedding, who would it be? Why?

(Illustration from Epicurious where you can find instructions on baking, building, and decorating this charming lemon raspberry wedding cake)

With prices of most wedding aspects climbing and disposable income of the average couple plummeting, and with the increased expectation that couples will do something to really imprint their weddings with their own personalities, DIY is on the rise as a wedding trend.

Some do it to save money, others to make their day clearly their own… some for a combination of the two. I know that both reasons heavily influenced my choice to be a complete bridal DIY diva! With a lack of money but all kinds of resources and creativity, well, it was an obvious choice.

It’s also a choice more and more couples are making right now.

I made the lace, designed the gown which was made for me by one of my amazing bridesmaids, did my own flowers, handed the bridesmaids fabric and patterns to make their own bridesmaid outfits and trim them as they pleased, made my own favors, and helped my father make the food. Oh, and wrote the ceremony. The officiant asked our permission to included it with his other sample ceremonies for other couples. We said sure.

So what about you? Are you choosing to DIY? Did you? If so what is/was your project? More than one?

Sorry about the lack of posts this week. The illustration above is not an actual one of my computer, but my trusty, rusty eMac did have to spend a couple days in the sick computer hospital being seen to and overhauled and… maybe I should have just gotten a new computer but, well… anyway. Suffice it to say that when things go wrong at Casa Twistie, they have a way of going really wrong.

And that makes me think about other things going wrong, specifically at weddings. See? How clever was that? We’re back on topic with weddings with a smooth move that would be the envy of many a smooth mover.

But I honestly have seen a couple things go really wrong at weddings over the years. No, there haven’t been any fist fights, and all the couples did wind up actually tying the knot, but there have been snags along the way.

Probably the worst one was the one where there was to be a butterfly release at the end of the ceremony. We were all handed little boxes with butterflies in them and told to open them when the happy couple were pronounced legally joined.

It’s a pretty idea, the butterfly release. Everyone imagines it as a moment when hundreds of beautiful butterflies rise up and fly in a breathtaking exhibit of nature’s majesty.

But that wasn’t what happened. No, a plethora of stunned, confused butterflies tumbled out of their boxes. A few flew off in random directions, buzzing the higher hairdos in the process, a few just flopped out of the boxes and clearly were never going to fly again, and most of the rest staggered in a daze around the aisle with no clue what to do or where to go.

Not exactly breathtaking watching the bride and groom pick their way back up the aisle like the family escaping the house at the end of The Birds.

What about you? Have you ever seen something go seriously wrong at a wedding?

There are times when planning a wedding can make you feel like this:

… or like this:

… or even like this:

Even some relatively placid brides who experienced a low level of interference and unwelcome meddling – like yours truly – still wind up having a moment or two in the process when we could easily commit violence.

After all, things happen. Orders get lost, deliveries go awry, invitations get misprinted, people develop bizarre objections to perfectly reasonable plans, paperwork gets hung up… and if it all happens at once, it’s easy to blow your stack.

So when those moments come, what do you do?

Me? I only had a couple of those moments. I dealt with it by slamming the door and going for a walk while muttering to myself. The urge to do physical harm was there, but even at my worst moments I knew better than to give in. After a good walk, the urge for violence had passed, and I could handle the frustration, whatever it happened to be, in a less socially unacceptable way.

What about all of you? Have you gotten to the point where pasting someone seemed like a great idea? If so, how did you manage it?