New England photographer Anne Ruthmann specializes in emotional and artistic photojournalism, and she’s good. Really good. Plus, the inspiration boards she creates from the weddings she has shot are none too shabby!

I have fallen way in love with this yellow, green, and teal wedding palette Ruthmann put together. This is a great color scheme for a summertime wedding, for those of you reading who are a year away from saying your vows, because it pairs so well with lush greenery and pretty whites. But it would also work well in springtime when all the wonderful tiny yellow flowers appear everywhere as if by magic. If you’re worried about overdoing it, don’t be. The green is a great foil for the teal, which otherwise might be a tad overwhelming, no matter what the season.

In all the years I’ve lived in Massachusetts, winter has transitioned almost directly into summer with a few days of pleasant weather in between. Two days ago my mother was asking me for a sweatshirt to borrow, and now the humidity is making me feel all sticky and gross. What, I wonder, ever happened to that glorious season known as Spring. I remember it fondly — it was neither too hot, nor too cold. The birds were in full-on performance mode but the garden was still bare.

Spring was the perfect weather for weddings. The bride would be comfortable in her gown, the groom would be comfortable in his tux, and the guests. Well, they’ll be comfortable in whatever. Maybe, unlike moi, you live in a locale that still has Spring. Or not. Either way, that most lovely of seasons makes for a great wedding theme, what with the bright blossoming flowers and the delightful singing birds and the baby vegetables and Easter candy and and and…

And here’s the perfect wedding cake for that Spring wedding, created by Natasha Collins of Neviepiecakes. Ms. Collins has a real knack for hand-painting cakes and cookies, as you can see in her gallery here. Like what you see? Even if you’re not sure your cake designer does this sort of thing, it never hurts to ask if they or someone they know can whip up a little artwork directly on your wedding cake. Anything goes, from flora and fauna to inscriptions to scenes from famous artwork or literature, though keep in mind that the more elaborately painted your wedding cake is, the more it’s going to cost.

It strikes me that there are a lot of people out there who are missing the overall point of those two little words, “I do.” Sure, weddings are fun. We LOVE weddings here at Manolo for the Brides, obviously. We look at wedding dress after wedding dress. We watch the wedding shows. We debate the merits of wedding favors. In short, there can be no doubt that Twistie and I are gaga over weddings.

But as nutty as we are for nuptials, I think both of us (and all of you) realize that the wedding is just one day out of your life. It doesn’t matter if your wedding budget is $100 or $100,000… once the reception is over, you have a whole lifetime of marriage to attend to. Unfortunately, not everyone can be as smart as us! For example, a couple living in Germany recently decided to end their marriage on the same day they tied the knot. That’s right, the same day!

“He said he never wanted to see her again and wanted an immediate annulment, and she said the same thing,” a spokesman for police in the northern city of Hanover said Thursday.

And it’s not as if the newlyweds simply decided amicably to part ways. Of course not. Almost immediately after they said their “I dos,” the bride and groom began fighting, and the fight culminated in the groom trying to slice off the bride’s hair with a kitchen knife. To make a long story short, the police were called, a restraining order was filed, and only then did the couple say their goodbyes.

Yeesh! I tell you what — as much as I like weddings, I’d take a good, happy marriage over a perfect wedding any day of the week. I’d rather be like Philipose Thomas, 100, and Sosamma, 99, of Kerala, India. If both of them are still alive, they’ve been married for a cool 91 years. (I say “if” because the last report I could find said 87 years in 2005.)

That’s awesome, no? One interviewer asked the couple if they ever quarreled. “Never,” said Mr. Thomas. “A lot,” said Sosamma. The Beard and I would probably give the very same answers.

At a wedding I recently attended the clinking of utensils against glasses was repeatedly heard during the reception. In other words, there was a subset of guests who were trying valiantly to induce the bride and groom to kiss on cue. The newlyweds did not, however, give their loved ones the satisfaction, much to my delight. I’ve always rather disliked the tradition of peer pressuring the couple into PDAs for the amusement of those in attendance at the wedding reception. Some people just aren’t that demonstrative (in public or otherwise) when it comes to affection. Others don’t like being the center of attention any more than they have to be.

I know some people actually enjoy being cajoled into kissing and, yes, it’s just a bit of harmless fun. No one was harmed in the making of this liplock! But if you, like me, aren’t a big fan of this tradition, there are plenty of ways to have a little fun with it. The aforementioned couple would pucker up, go in for the kill, then swerve away at the last possible moment. The groom even planted one on the best man at one point. After a while, their guests got the hint and gave up.

On the other hand, maybe you don’t mind kissing on cue, but you want to make your guests work for the privilege of seeing you buss. I came across the following ideas in the comments at Darren Barefoot’s blog:

• my wife attended a wedding once where the centrepieces on each table were fishbowls with several goldfish swmming around in them. To get the couple to kiss you had to actually swallow a goldfish. Full points for originality, but not for taste (aesthetic nor culinary) Once the rowdies got drunk it was a full on bride/groom make out fest.
• I’ve been to 2 weddings where you had to compose and recite a poem – both started out well, but devolved into dirty limericks by the end of the night. Most were pretty funny, though, so the entertainment value is high.
• Most of the weddings I’ve been too lately have had trivia challenges. That is, there’s a list of questions on each table and to get the couple to kiss, you have to answer the question correctly.
• I emcee’d a wedding two weeks ago and with the Bride & Groom’s permission, enacted my own little wedding rule: Want to clink glasses? Then I get to pick the person you get to kiss.
• I believe I witnessed one where you actually had to pay to see the couple kiss (perhaps my inner capitalist may have created this memory for my future wedding). The show wasn’t worth the cash to me, however, and I was content to see six inches between the couple rather than shell out cash on top of a gift.
• The last wedding I went to, if you wanted the bride and groom to kiss, you had to demonstrate a kiss first, and then they would copy it.
• Some young newlyweds-to-be who fancy themselves wine connoisseurs said they were doing the following at their reception: a big container full of corks, some with red wine on the ends (used), some new, one or two marked black. The bucket goes around the room to whomever dares: pick a red cork, bride and groom kiss, pick an unused cork, kiss your own date, get the black cork, EVERYBODY kiss (their date, I hope, but maybe they are more fun than that). The bride and groom could stack the odds as they wish if they are in charge of the corks. Could be pretty funny.

Goldfish? Quiz bowl? I’ll admit I have never been to a wedding where I encountered anything like that… or, I should add, anything as tacky as asking guests to pay to see the newlyweds kiss, which is apparently fairly common in some areas. Have you?

We get a lot of press releases here at Manolo for the Brides. I mean A LOT of press releases, which is why my inbox is always getting wicked backed up and I am way tardy in answering some reader e-mails. Some of the press releases I receive are appropriately wedding related, while others are kind of pushing the wedding angle just because, hey, weddings are a cash cow.

For example, I just received a release informing me that Microsoft Office Live offers “free online tools that can help a bride get organized and stay connected to family and friends during the planning process.” These include a wedding web site, a place to upload wedding details to share with vendors and venues, and a repository for ideas. That’s useful enough, I guess, but what interested me was the justification for needing to use Microsoft Office Live versus, say, Blogger or one of the upteenbillion other free site hosting services.

A new trend that’s emerging is brides who are sharing their wedding details with their bridal party via social networking sites. Sharon Naylor, wedding expert and author of 35 wedding books, says this is not only inefficient, but it ruins the surprise element for guests who have read endless status updates about the coral dresses, the catering plans, etc.

Now I don’t know about you, but I was eager to share my wedding deets with anyone willing to humor me for five minutes to two hours. My wedding gown? It’s gold! My reception venue? My gram’s backyard in Merritt Island, FL! I’d spill the beans about anything and everything because I was proud of my choices. By the time the wedding rolled around, the only thing that was even remotely a secret was my dress, and it was only a secret from The Beard. It never even struck me to want to spring my wedding color scheme or my wedding shoes on unsuspecting guests.

Am I alone in this? You tell me!

(img via — check it out for a different kind of wedding surprise!)

You have to love a groom who can banish General Zod from the reception!

I think you also have to love a bride and groom who have a sense of humor. As much as I love a good solemn wedding ceremony, I believe wholeheartedly that there is plenty of room for horseplay and general merriment at wedding receptions… and even in ceremonies. I cracked up during mine, for example, because I couldn’t read part of the wedding vows I’d so carefully written down. Oops! When I paused and squinted at my sheet of college ruled, you could hear guests shifting uncomfortably in their seats. But when I lost my you-know-what, everyone else had a good laugh, too. My advice to brides and grooms everywhere? Don’t be afraid to have fun!

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!

(more…)