So I watched an episode.

The Santinis had been married for eighteen years (hey! that’s how long Mr. Twistie and I have been married!) but never got over the horror of their wedding day. You see, they hired someone to make the bridesmaids dresses who didn’t get them done in time. She had promised delivery on the day of the wedding to the church… and apparently nobody thought that plan to be potentially fraught with disaster.

The big day arrived, but the bridesmaids dresses didn’t, much to the consternation of all aware of the situation. For some reason passing all understanding, when the bride’s grandmother began foaming at the mouth about having the bridesmaids wear the groomsmen’s shirts, nobody pressed a cold compress to her forehead or called the paramedics. Instead, they listened to her.

And so it was that the bridesmaids marched up the aisle wearing the now bare-chested groomsmen’s shirts and matching high heels. One bridesmaid was tall enough that the shirt tails didn’t entirely cover her underpants.

Mrs. Santini left the church howling ‘I need a drink!’ and has been distraught over her wedding photos and video ever since.

Then Diann Valentine swooped in and fixed everything… eighteen years later.

I had some hope for this show, based on the fever dream that it might not wind up a painful hybrid of My Fair Wedding and Queen for a Day.

Also? While I detest My Fair Wedding with a passion beyond description, I do have to admit that when David Tutera gets done planning a wedding, it’s usually a pretty nice wedding. It may be provided with scads of eye-rolling and paternalistic weasel crap, but it’s a pretty event in the end. As much of a complete set of tools as Mr. Tutera comes off, he would never allow a groom to arrive at his wedding wearing a hat that was obviously too large for his head. Ms. Valentine picked that hat. Then she showed up wearing a gown that looked like something I saw Morticia Addams donating to Good Will recently.

And of course this show – like so many other wedding reality shows – wants you to swallow a huge dose of ‘see? it’s impossible to do this without a professional planner because you’re really just a gibbering idiot’ without even noticing you’re doing it. Valentine has said in press releases that if only these couples had had a real event planner on hand, these disasters would never have happened.

Okay, I can see how a planner might have helped in the case of the missing bridesmaid’s dresses. She could have counseled the couple to buy from a shop, or not give over the work to someone who didn’t intend to deliver before the actual wedding day. If the dresses didn’t turn up, she could have come up with a much better plan B than turning a church wedding into some sort of intramural strip club theme… but then again, so could one single random person with their head screwed on straight.

All it would have taken would be one person telling all the bridesmaids to run home, get their nicest dress in roughly the same length as the original dresses (or a similar color, or whatever was going to pull them together visually at the altar), and hurry back dressed in those. Would it have been utter perfection? No, of course not. You can’t guarantee that any five random women – even in 1992 – would all have tea length teal dresses in their closets. But would it have been a bazillion times better than what granny came up with? You bet your sweet bippy, it would!

So, yeah, not really absolutely necessary to have a wedding planner to come up with a solution. And I can’t think that having an event planner running the show would have helped in particular with the groom with a heart condition who flatlined during the vows. I’m thinking the paramedic best man at that wedding was a lot more useful. He got the groom’s ticker back on track with CPR.

So with all of this leaving a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, I have to say I love the story I ran across this morning about Mike and Nancy Rogers. The happy couple hails from Nova Scotia and this is a real photo of their wedding day:

See that burning building behind the beaming couple? Yeah, that was to have been their wedding venue, otherwise known as the late White Point resort.

The eighty-three year old mostly wooden building caught fire while Nancy and Mike were getting ready for their big moment in two of the outlying cabins on the property. The couple still wanted to get married that day, no matter where they had to do it. The quick-thinking staff moved the event to another outlying building that was in no immediate danger, and the ceremony went on as planned… or at least as close to as planned as possible.

This is the second marriage for both Mike and Nancy, and that might have made them just a bit more philosophical about the whole incident:

“Our last weddings were picture-perfect; nothing went wrong. But the marriages didn’t work out,” she says. “Rocky wedding, fantastic marriage is the way we see it.”

The general manager of the resort is also confident that they can rebuild and reopen. I wish them every luck with that plan!

As for Mike and Nancy, I think they’re creating their own luck. But I wish them well, too.

Somehow I don’t think they feel the need to call anyone in to fix what happened to them.

Ah, but then zombie queen Thea Munster (in untattered wedding white, carrying a bouquet that featured miniature skulls) and her unlife partner Adam Invader tied the knot before a delighted audience of their fellow undead.

The bride and groom arrived via coffin carried by a party of pallbearers in Victorian mourning And departed the plane of their wedding altar in a classic car with a ‘just buried’ sign on the back.

Adam and Thea, may you spend many delightful eons together, and may you never find yourself running low on Brains Helper! Congratulations, you crazy zombies, you!

Pop-up weddings, a celebration of FINALLY getting there!

For those who happen to be in New York City tomorrow and want a first-hand look at the happiness marriage equality can bring should head over to Merchant’s Gate in Central Park between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.. There you’ll find the Pop Up Chapel, which will host 24 elegant and customized weddings with help from the wedding experts at The Knot. What’s the Pop Up Chapel all about? According to the website:

“Our goal was to provide beautiful weddings that reflect the importance of the commitment our couples are making while providing a symbol of marriage equality for the entire city to celebrate.”

The Pop Up Chapel – two chapels, in fact – is providing a legal officiant, wedding photographer, ceremony decorations, and refreshments for the 24 lucky couples who reserved spots early (and their allotted 12 wedding guests), while the event itself will benefit charities that support LGBTQI youth. How did it all come together so fast? Volunteers, donations, planning experts, and a contest that asked architects to submit design entries for the 8 feet by 8 feet mini-altars that the winner will get funds to build. That’s how.

“This is basically wedding planning on steroids,” Carley Roney, Pop Up Chapel organizer, told the Times.

As for how you can get a look at this fun, spontaneous, and joyful nuptial event, the answer is respectfully. Spectators are welcome, the organizers of the Pop Up Chapel ask that they stick to designated areas. These are people’s weddings, after all!

The best part is that this particular video made the rounds a few years back and inspired other couples to either having the same thing done by video experts or, if they were a bit technical and musical themselves, to DIY it. I am wholly impressed by what some couples are able to do and the services they are able to find.

Would you do something like this or hire a service to create a wedding lip sync video for you? I think if you limited participation to the couple and the bridesmaids and groomsmen, it wouldn’t necessarily be that difficult to do on your own. It would only get really complicated when you started asking your wedding guests and in-laws to participate in what is essentially a wedding day side project. Not everyone, I’d imagine, would fancy the notion of playing a part in your wedding music video! (Though I certainly would, so do feel free to invite me to your reception.)

Hey, psst. Guys out there. Well, and gals, too. Anybody who’s having a couple cold feet before the wedding, I’m talking to you. There’s no really good way or time to break things off, but there are times and places that are worse than others.

Wang Lu of Changchun, China chose his time poorly. He waited until the wedding day after the bride was dressed in her finery 80 feet off the ground.

The distraught bride, one Li Wan climbed out on the window ledge in despair and jumped. Luckily, rescue worker Guo Zhongfan was on the spot and managed to grab Li by the neck. Someone in the window below grabbed Li’s feet, and she was saved.

For more dramatic photos of the rescue, follow this link.

On the lighter side of marriage in China this week, two couples married in a cemetery to give extra oomph to the promise to be parted only by death. All four work in the Yong’an Cemetery in Tianjin.

The wedding procession comprised twenty-six cemetery carts specially decorated for the occasion. After the ceremony, the couples planted saplings to represent their hopes for long, happy marriages. As groom Wu Di explained:

“It’s a natural choice for us, as we work here and love this place. All the ancestors lying underneath are our wedding witnesses.”

May the ancestors bless the happy pairs, and may their trees flourish for many, many years.

Would you do a plaid wedding? I would never in a million zillion years have seriously thought about anything other than a solid color or maybe a polka dot wedding theme because I guess I’m just a wee bit timid in the pattern department. Too bad, though, since just look at how gorgeous a plaid wedding can be!

Especially when we’re talking about plaid bridesmaids dresses, oooh. Seriously, ooh!

What do you think of this seriously fun and original look?

What could be worse, I wonder, than finding out that your nuptials will probably be snowed in? For this couple, it turns out, a lot of things! From a New York Daily News article written by Ronnie Polaneczky:

“We got desperate calls from a number of our vendors, asking if we were still going forward with the wedding,” says Stephanie, 35, a conference planner who grew up in Royersford. “We said, ‘Yes! Yes! People have come from all over the world for us!’”

“He told me, ‘I am going to marry you at 1 p.m. today,’” recalls Stephanie. “He said, ‘Even if there’s no one there but us. I can’t wait to see you walk down the aisle. That’s what this is all about. We’re getting married.’”

Isn’t that just fantastic? And that’s just what happened – thanks in part to the kindness of Ritz-Carlton concierge James Portner and other Ritz-Carlton staffers who went above and beyond the call of duty to put their wedding back together.

Now, granted, in the event that your wedding gets snowed in or rained out or a rock slide demolishes your reception venue and half your wedding vendors come down with food poisoning, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have the lovely people at the Ritz-Carlton at your disposal.

But no matter what unexpected tragedy befalls your wedding, there will almost always be some way to make things right. No canceling the wedding. No sending everyone home. You may not end up with exactly the wedding you were picturing in your head, but you’ll have one hell of a memory to compensate!

A lot of brides-to-be – and probably some grooms-to-be, too – get overwhelmed by wedding planning stress because they can’t stop thinking about all the ‘what ifs’. I’m guessing Stephanie Sudzina and Anthony Campanale were not that kind of bride and groom. My take is this: In the end, the more unpredictable ‘what ifs’ are going to happen no matter what you do, so quit your worrying.

If you’re currently planning a wedding, what is the ‘what if’ that scares you the most? And if you’re already married, did any of your ‘what ifs’ actually come to pass?

The first slightly wacky royal wedding tie-in that hit my radar was the announcement regarding the commemorative Fairy Liquid bottle to mark the big event. Procter & Gamble obtained royal approval to produce a limited edition bottle redesign to mark the big event.

But, hey, at least Fairy Liquid has royal approval to create wedding-inspired packaging. I’m pretty sure that Crown Jewels Condoms – combining the strength of a Prince with the yielding sensitivity of a Princess-to-be! – does not, especially considering that these are novelty rubbers, not intended to prevent contraception or the sharing of STDs. That’s a bit more wacky, no?

And on the less weird side you have scads and scads of commemorative china like this Loving Mug from Aynsley China. Which is not a part of the official Royal wedding memorabilia china set – embellished with several layers of burnished gold and platinum before a final layer of gilding in 22-carat gold is applied by hand ooh la la – which consists of a plate, a mug… and a pill box.

Because that’s what it takes to boost a country’s economy by £620 million! Soap, tea towels, novelty condoms, pies named in honor of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and pill boxes. Will you be springing for a little something commemorative this spring?

P.S. – I have to add a Royal Wedding sick bag and Kiss Me Kate beer!

Last month, I asked y’all to tell me what you thought of a photo of a rainbow wedding I found on the Tacky Weddings blog, and you mostly agreed with me that there was just too much going on. What, with the rainbowed-out groomsmen and the rainbow dress on the bride. Looking at that, you might think all rainbow weddings look like a bag of Skittles mated with a wedding planner.

But just look at these highlights from a pretty rainbow wedding from Hungary featured on Love & Lavender:

Much nicer, no? And absolutely nothing like the one from last month. (I am especially loving the rainbow wedding cake since I am planning to make La Paloma her very own special rainbow cake like that one for her upcoming birthday!)

CMT gives a whole new meaning to for better or for worse. After scouring the country to find the most down-home country couples, CMT documents their journey down the aisle, as outrageous and over the top as it might be. Each episode, hosted by Tom Arnold, will feature a different redneck wedding, each with its own rustic eccentricities, whether it is a four-legged best man, a romantic beer can canopy, a celebratory shotgun salute or a reception filled with mattress surfing and mud wrestling.

The couple shown above, Chris and Jennifer Rodriguez, chose the Redneck Yacht Club for their venue, sent out beer bottle invitations, and were married (well, they’d actually already had a civil wedding beforehand) under an arch of mufflers. The bride and groom both wore camouflage, and their ring bearer was a remote-controlled Chevy truck.

Hey, whatever floats their boats, right? That’s what we say here at Manolo for the Brides. We believe in freedom of expression and defining fun for yourselves, after all.

There is, however, one thing that gives me pause about the experience the Rodriguez’s had. Here’s the thing as reported in the Herald Tribune:

Once they were chosen for “Redneck Wedding,” they began making arrangements with a reality show producer. Things did not go smoothly.

“We kept butting heads,” Jennifer says.

Negotiations continued right up to New Year’s Day with a new producer.

“They started to get you drunk before I even got there,” Chris says. “And when I got there, they gave me a bottle of Hennessy.”

Seriously, folks, if you have to get your reality show participants drunk to get them to agree to your plans, chances are you’re exploiting them rather than making their dreams come true.

That said, as much as I’m not a redneck kind of gal at all… I have to admit the idea of playing horseshoes with toilet seats is oddly appealing to me.

I just hope that other couples don’t need to be sloshed to find the producers’ ideas happy-making.