Manolo for the Brides

Item one is a snapshot (from Slate’s Today’s Pictures feature) of a French bride-to-be making her way to the town hall in 1975. Typically, I’m not a fan of gowns embellished with lots of furry ball things, but somehow I can’t help thinking that this dress was impossibly gorgeous. Maybe it’s the wind and maybe it’s thoughts of romance, but I desperately want to see the same picture as taken from the front.

Item two is the story of Britain’s oldest bride, 94-year-old Bess Atkins. She and 86-year-old Winston Barraclough first met while he was volunteering as a driver for a hospital. During that first fateful drive, he actually stopped to buy her a box of chocolates! I hope that someone’s buying me chocolates when I’m almost halfway through my nineties.

Atkins said Barraclough proposed in January on New Year’s Day.

“I thought it was some medical problem and feared the worst,” she said. “He said: ‘Will you be my wife please. I would love to marry you.’ I was totally shocked but I said yes, that would be lovely.”

The pair married at St. Nicholas Church, the same ceremony venue at which Atkins married her first husband in 1939. She said marrying in the same church was lovely and brought back “a lot of happy memories.”

Wonderful, no?

What happens when there’s less wedding bliss and more WWF? Newlyweds land in jail, natch. I don’t know why stories of brawling brides and bridegrooms tickle me so, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s the pure unexpectedness of the whole fracas.

Just yesterday The Beard sent me a link to an article about Christa Vattimo and her husband David W. Wielechowksi. Freshly returned from an official wedding ceremony that took place in the Bahamas, the couple was ready to renew their vows in front of 150 friends and relatives.

But something must have gone sour after I do number two, because Dennis, according to the criminal complaint, “used a karate-style kick with his leg to kick Christa, knocking her to the floor” as they were making their way into their hotel room…presumably for some post-post-marital you-know-what.

Two guests of another wedding heard the bride’s screams and rushed over to help her. But when they restrained Wielechowksi, his bride began attacking her rescuers, police said.

The fight traveled from a hallway to an elevator then into the hotel lobby where, police said, the couple threw metal planters containing live plants into an elevator at the men who tried to break up the fight.

Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the floor of the lobby and his bride “yelling loudly” and “apparently highly intoxicated,” according to the complaint.

Highly intoxicated, you say? SURPRISE SURPRISE! I kid…what’s really surprising is Christa’s claim that her husband didn’t start any fights with her or anyone else. Why do I doubt that other hotel guests conspired to get the couple thrown into the pokey?

My friend Chris, who is a librarian by trade, sent me a link to one of the most clever invitations I’ve ever seen.

Diana and Scott, also librarians, obviously went all out when designing and crafting their wedding stationery with an in-your-face library theme. I wouldn’t have thought it so, but book borrowing and nuptials have a lot in common. Due dates, reservations, and forms all come to mind.

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Back in the day (where the day in question is high school) I used to love those huge angle wings made of real feathers. A few people I knew had them and wore them every Halloween. Too bad the most creative costumes they could come up with were “naughty little angel” and “saucy succubus,” which reminds me of a quote from Mean Girls: Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

This post isn’t about skimpy costumes, however; it’s about wings. Specifically, it’s about colorful, gauzy, glittery fairy wings. One day I was looking for pictures of purple wedding gowns and I happened upon this picture:

I don’t know anything about the wedding, the happy couple, or the bridal party, but I do know that the bride sourced her fairy wings from On Gossamer Wings, purveyor of fine wings and (coming soon!) tutus. She is certainly rocking those wings, though I’ll admit that I didn’t even notice them at first because I was so besotted with her gown and her new hubby’s kilt. How can you not love a man in a kilt?

Back to the wings…my mantra is and has always been “Do your own thing, honey!” I will argue to the death (or to the boredom, whichever comes first) a bride’s right to wear fairy wings on her wedding day, but goodness gracious I would not wear ‘em myself.

A now seemingly defunct user-contributed creative writing site called Not Attending asked people to decline a wedding invitation from Kate and Haje. There were no rules…writers could say “thanks, but no thanks” as politely or rudely as they pleased. Here’s one of my favorites:

Most support of the loss of dear Kate in the Haje-machine from us. To be unlifed is very hard when young, especially for the old. Who are left.

The project ended in February of 2007, but just for fun I created a login and a saved post–which you can still do–to see if the site’s admins ever monitor activity on the site.

Now on to item deux! In the legalese chapter of iDo, I briefly mention Montana’s unique double-proxy wedding law, a subject explored in more depth in a recent NY Times piece by Dan Barry. In that state, neither the bride nor the groom need be present at a civil wedding provided at least one of them is a Montana resident or on active duty in the military.

It seems the law had been on Montana’s books for at least several decades, perhaps to accommodate soldiers during World War II…The cost to the real bride and groom: $900, $50 apiece to the proxies, $100 to the judge, $150 to the lawyer (and witness); $53 for court fees; $14 for two certified copies of the marriage certificate; and the rest to a Pennsylvania couple who run a business facilitating proxy marriages.

As they say on the site, proxy marriages are their specialty.

And onto item trois: Long ago, a certain Ellie brought LifeGem to my attention. You may remember them as the company that would create a manufactured gemstone from the ashes of a deceased loved one. Now the company can whip you up a stone using only a thickish lock of hair, which means that you can wear a bit of your intended if you’re so inclined.

Finally, for the men in the audience, I’m happy to share the newly revamped Groom Groove video section. According to Groom Groove promoter Aubree, there’s all sorts of new content scattered throughout the site. Here’s a taste:

At my wedding reception, we had all manner of fancy beers and good champagne in addition to pop, juice, coffee, and water. We also had lots and lots and lots of alcoholic leftovers that we had to find some way to distribute. My conclusion? More people went for the dry drinks than the boozaholic ones.

In my lengthy career as a wedding attendee, I’ve been to receptions with top shelf open bars; receptions where a limited selection of beer, wine, and cocktails was served;receptions with cash bars; and receptions at which each table had been stocked with a few bottles of wine for guests to enjoy. But I have never once attended an alcohol-free reception!

If the first question that popped into your head when reading the previous sentence was “Why would you nix the booze?” consider these points. People tend to drive to and from weddings, and it’s easy to overindulge when there’s a stocked open bar staring you down. At the same time, alcohol is expensive, especially when it’s free and flowing freely. Finally, a lot of people have one or more relatives who tend to end up three sheets to the wind any time there is free firewater on tap.

So, yes, there are reasons to keep your post-nuptial celebration on the dry side, but know that popular opinion really isn’t in your court. People dig the open bar scene, and there are a lot of folks out there who can’t fathom having fun without a little social lube. On a well-known forum, a number of posters responded thusly to a bride-to-be who was considering a virgin reception:

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When The Beard and I were engaged, no less than three people felt the need to chime in regarding marriage ceremonies they’d recently attended. They gravely implored us in all seriousness not to incorporate an interpretive dancer into our ceremony. We thought they were kidding, but no.

That’s right – real life brides and grooms with whom they were acquainted had brought in someone proficient in the art of modern dance to interpret their spoken vows in motion. It’s not that I’m dissing the dancer so much as that I’m surprised the couples in question didn’t host any cultural performances either before the wedding to amuse guests during the tedious pre-nuptial waiting period or afterward, as a lark during the reception.

It is your wedding, after all, and if interpretive dance is your thing, then by all means forge ahead. If it’s not your thing, perhaps you and your intended are proficient in the art of fisticuffs?

One Russian couple made up of two pro boxers tied the knot in a boxing ring, exchanging professional-grade punches during the ceremony. A punch, I think, is probably one of oddest ceremonial supplementations you’ll encounter.

If you’re a lover, not a fighter, there’s always the matrimonial Jell-O bath, as one justice of the peace was surprised to find out:

Getting off the elevator, I could smell the scent of candy or some reasonable facsimile. When I knocked on the door, both voices said “Come right in, it’s open.” I walked in and to my astonishment they were in a whirlpool bath filled with orange Jell-O. I said, “What’s going on in here?” They said that they were executives for the Jell-O Corporation and it was their fantasy to get married in it. They had talked about it throughout their courtship and decided that this was how they would exchange their vows. I said, “Do I have to get in with you?” NO. “Do you at least have bathing suits on?” Just for the ceremony, they said.

Different strokes for different folks, right? Or not — plenty of commenters have weighed in over the life of this blog to say that they feel that matrimonial oddities do little more than make guests exceedingly uncomfortable and thus represent quite a severe breach of good and proper etiquette.

I am unapologetic about the fact that my opinion tends to err in the opposite direction. I say, don’t let popular opinion stop you from saying weird vows, busting a slick groove, playing weird music, being escorted down the aisle by your schnauzer, or exchanging body jewelry instead of wedding bands.

But, lest we forget that there may be certain conservative folks on your guest list, don’t think you have a total free pass to do what you will, sans consequences. Maverick brides and grooms may find that some guests simply can’t help but gasp or snicker right then and there, and that furthermore they’re the talk of the entire family (or even of the entire town) for many years to come!

From faithful reader mkb comes this little gem about a bride and a groom who tied the ol’ knot sans costume.

These unusual nuptials came about because Melbourne, Australia’s FOX 109.1 radio station wanted to set up a publicity stunt in cooperation with the Australian Diamond Company. The station chose Shelley and Josh over a number of other couples to get hitched in the buff…by which they really meant the pseudo-buff.

What do I mean by pseudo-buff?

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The question of whether one can have too many moms is a complex one. Some people are of the opinion that one is far more than any single person ought to need while others welcome the presence of matriarchal influences in all facets of their lives. It is an intensely personal conundrum that demands a great deal of introspective thought.

The question of whether one can have too many moms at a wedding…now that really depends on the moms. Gone are the days where we can assume that the bride has one mom and the groom has one mom. Perhaps the bride-to-be’s father has remarried, bringing a step-mother into the mix. Her mom has come out as a lesbian and has also taken a wife. The bride herself is close to each of the three moms and has dreams of including them all in her nuptials.

Then there’s the groom-to-be. His father, surprisingly, has come out as a homosexual, but his mate is currently living as a woman for whatever reasons. His mother has never remarried (though she kept her married name) and she lives right down the block from the marriage venue and has become very, very involved in the proceedings. Like his intended, the groom is close to all of these individuals. In fact, the whole family is quite tight!

Holy moly, that’s a lot of moms, all of whom may want to emulate the MOG by helping the bride-to-be choose her dress, criticizing the groom-to-be’s musical tastes, participating in the ceremony, making a speech at the reception, wearing a corsage, walking in the pre-processional, recessing, doing a reading, and so on. Yipes!

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