(Image via Cosmetic Candy, where you can see awesome images of this beautiful wedding put together in just twelve weeks)

So. Moustaches. Mr. Twistie has one, actually. Grew it himself and everything. In fact, in all these years I’ve never seen his upper lip naked. Shocking admission for a married woman, I know, but there it is.

Over the past few years, though, there’s been a trend of people carrying and wearing fake moustaches at weddings. Props for the photo booth or a photo op, favor tins and bags, cookies, napkins,there have even been moustache wedding rings made.

They’ve been sort of everywhere, and I’m not sure where that came from or what it ever had to do with weddings.

So I’m curious. How do you feel about the fake moustache wedding trend? So cute? So over it? So mystifying?

Did you have them at your wedding? Are you going to have them at your wedding? Do you care whether anyone else is still doing it or not?

There have been films about them. There have been etiquette columns written about them. Taylor Swift became famous for being one just last month.

What are they? Wedding crashers.

In Swift’s case, she and current beau Connor Kennedy arrived at a family (his side) wedding where he had been issued an invitation (sans plus one) to which he had failed to RSVP in good time. The pair were asked to leave by the bride’s mother, and the incident was all over the world within hours, between his Kennedy name and her musical fame.

Maybe it’s the sort of weddings I’ve been attending all these years, but in nearly fifty years I have yet to actually experience one arriving at the same wedding I did.

After all, not one of them involved someone famous getting married, many have been held in fairly private places, and the majority of people invited still believe in formally answering formal invitations.

All the same, there are people who crash weddings at large, public venues with easy access, and I’ve been to several of those weddings over the years, too. Nope, still haven’t witnessed a wedding crasher in its natural habitat.

I’m wondering, have any of you ever been to a wedding that got crashed? Did your own get crashed? What happened?

Tell me all about it!

It’s a fact of life: accidents happen.

But you know what? Sometimes that’s a good thing. For instance, check out the happy accident of juxtaposition that led to this great photograph:

Or, for those of us who can appreciate a slightly more juvenile sense of the absurd, this theater marquee:

Weddings, too, can involve great accidents and things gone so wrong they turn out to be absolutely right. I know, because I’ve witnessed a couple of those glorious accidents.

At one, the boom box providing the ceremony music died just as the bride and groom turned to leave the chapel. For a moment, there was dead silence. Then the bride burst out in peals of laughter. Everyone joined in, and the wedding party departed amid the sounds of their and their friends’ joy. It was the single most delightful recessional I’ve ever attended.

The other was one where the wrong cake got delivered to the reception. This could have been really bad, but as it turned out, the cake was large enough to serve all the guests, fit the color scheme of the wedding… and since it was originally meant to feed guests at a fiftieth wedding anniversary party, the bride and groom decided to take it as a good omen.

Twenty-two years and two kids later, they’re still besottedly married to one another. I think that worked out well.

Have you ever been to a wedding where something going wrong turned out to be one of the best things about it? Share with the class!

When you announce your engagement, it’s amazing how many people come out of the woodwork with a sure and certain knowledge of what you should do, how you should do it, and precisely what you want.

From the colors you’re going to choose to the style of your veil (which, of course, you will wear, because that’s what every girl wears, you know), to whether you’re going to have a plated or a buffet meal… chances are someone will come up to you and inform you of what your choice is.

I had more than one person ask me when Mr. Twistie was going to do right by me and get me a diamond. After all, that silver frog prince on my finger clearly wasn’t a ‘real’ engagement ring. A good friend of mine decided to make and wear an elaborate wedding gown and veil at least partly in reaction to the number of people who assumed she was just going to choose a simple off white dress without any bridal trappings whatsoever. I’ve known goth couples whose families assumed they would stop doing things the dark way now that they were getting married.

What about you? What odd assumptions have people made about you and how you’re getting married? What decisions do people insist on telling you how to make? Or are you one of the lucky ones who hasn’t experienced this?

If there’s one bridal accessory that brings out the opinions in people, it seems to be the tiara.

On the one hand, there are those who object to the idea saying that if you’re not a real princess or a beauty contest winner, tiaras aren’t for you.

On the other hand, there are those who say that being a bride is all about being a princess for a day, therefore a tiara is a must.

Weirdly enough, very few people seem to have an opinion that doesn’t involve princesses. Me? I think it’s a matter of personal taste… and my taste didn’t happen to run in that direction. I think it might have been too much at a picnic in the woods wedding, not to mention one more thing to fuss with on my head. For a woman who people can’t recognize when she forgets to put on a hat before going out of doors, I can’t stand fussing with things on my head.

Anyway.

And that brings me to the question: do you consider a bride to be a princess for a day? Is her will law? Does the concept of noblesse oblige enter into things?

Tell me what you think!

As many of you know, I’m a fan of the bridal reality show Four Weddings. And now TLC has added Four Weddings Canada to the mix, too.

Again, I like it. It’s real couples having real weddings, without a lot of the staged nightmares of Bridezillas and similar shows, let alone their histrionics.

But I did have a bit of a thought about the episode aired last night. See the lady second from the right? That’s Jessica. She won the episode. I’m down with that, because I did feel she had the nicest wedding of the lot.

Still, I have this one niggling concern. You see, Jessica is a professional wedding planner. Not only was she allowed to participate in the show, her fellow contestants were not informed of this fact. She only revealed the truth as the winner’s limo was pulling up with her husband in it.

The thing is, I can’t think of another episode of either version of the show that has featured anyone who used a wedding planner, let alone was one. And I know that simply being in a profession isn’t proof positive that someone is good at it. After all, there was at least one professional wedding planner featured on Bridezillas who not only needed subtitles because she mumbled so horribly nobody could understand her, but seemed to have no clue at all how a wedding is organized.

All the same, it could be perceived as an unfair advantage. I kind of perceived it that way, and I know how little it takes to set up shop as a wedding planner.

What do you think? Should Jessica have been allowed to play the game? Should she have had to reveal her professional status before her wedding was rated? Am I being over sensitive about something that’s all in good fun?

Tell me what you think!

When it comes to planning wedding ceremonies, many couples struggle with a Goldilocks kind of question: is it too long, too short, or just right?

Obviously culture and religion play a strong role in finding the right answer. A full Catholic Mass or Orthodox Christian ceremony can take hours. A Hindu wedding where all the traditions are observed lasts for days. A civil ceremony can last less than a minute, if the participants are properly motivated.

I well remember leaving the church with Mr. Twistie after a Catholic wedding ceremony that lasted more than two hours. As we headed to the reception, he leaned over and whispered to me “You’re the only person I would ever do this for.” Long religious ceremonies? Not his thing. Not really mine, either, but the bride was a dear friend, so I was more than willing to sit through it all for her.

On the other hand, there was another wedding I attended where the bride and groom had barely processed to the altar when they were done and turned back around. I swear I blinked and missed everything but the kiss.

When planning my own wedding, I kept both of these weddings in mind. Mr. Twistie and I both have a background in performance, but we’re more interested in a party than giving a show. Neither of us is religious, so we didn’t have any requirements to fulfill beyond the bare bones legal ones. Still, we did want to do something long enough to make it worth everyone’s time to get dressed up and drive all that way. Guests do tend to expect some level of pomp and ceremony if they’re coughing up a place setting and the time and effort to show up. And I know how cheated I felt at the couple that got to the altar, said ‘sure thing’, kissed and headed off to the reception with no further ado.

So we aimed to keep things in the ten to twenty minute range for the ceremony proper. I think once there was a reading and a song and the statement of intent and vows and rings and all… yeah, it came out somewhere around twelve minutes or so. We probably could have added another reading or something, but I have to admit we were eager to get off the stage and on to the party.

What about you? Was there a time frame you tried to keep within? Are you worried about restless guests or underwhelmed ones? Keeping it short so your nerves won’t give out halfway through? Stretching it out to make it last? What’s your ideal length for a wedding ceremony?