All right, my lovelies, I cannot even begin to describe how fantastic this is. When a friend first passed it on to me, I assumed it was just a video made to look like a wedding. But no, as it turns out, there is – or was, since the video isn’t new – a company called LOCKDOWN that billed itself as specializing in wedding lip sync videos featuring brides and grooms and wedding parties and guests all participating. Have a look:

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.)

via Daily Intel

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.

This wedding photographed by Sarah Maren Photography and featured on Elizabeth Anne Designs is just fantastic. I mean, come on, plaid? Plaid! PLAAIIIID!

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?

In light of the continuing cold weather and the hugeslightly smaller drifts of ice and snow that are still packed in everywhere in my neighborhood, I wanted to share this photo from a 2009 winter wedding in Philadelphia. The bride and groom, Stephanie Sudzina and Anthony Campanale, woke up to a wedding day blizzard, but they didn’t let that stop them from saying their vows.

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?

There’s a long tradition of Britain’s royal weddings and births being immortalized in everything from tea towels to ashtrays but when it comes to the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Buckingham Palace has apparently issued strict guidelines on what can and cannot be used on official souvenirs and commemorative merchandise. Not that anyone really abides by said guidelines. Wacky royal wedding tie-ins? Bring ‘em on!

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!

Seems there’s a trick or two to pulling off a beautiful rainbow wedding!

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!)

Every twice in a while, a bridal reality show comes along behind my back. This was definitely the case with CMTs My Big Redneck Wedding. At least it makes a change from bridal weight-loss shows. Here’s what CMT has to say about the show:

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.