Manolo for the Brides

For Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens, it was love at first sight. And that love? Well, let’s just say it was way too potent to keep to themselves. Sprinkle is an internationally known multi-media artist, a former porn star, a Ph.D. sexologist, and “a pivotal player in the 80’s ’sex positive feminist movement,”’ whatever that means. Stephens is a professor as well as a “an inter-media artist who works in sculpture, video installation, photography, web based media, performance art and home renovation.”

Together, they are two artsy people who have unsurprisingly turned their desire to tie the knot into an nuptial art project spanning years. Love Art Lab — achtung: sound — is where the pair documents the weddings they’ve had since 2005 and presumably where they’ll document the weddings they will have in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Each year’s wedding is based on one of the seven chakras…the latest one was green.

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I rather dislike “X things to do before you X” lists. Why the ambivalent rancor? Well, it seems to me that the best examples of those lists are tailor made to make you feel inadequate if you happen upon them after “you turn 21,” “you have kids,” or “you meet Mr./Mrs. Right.” I know they’re just guidelines, but who’s to say that my X things will be the same as your X things or her X things or his X things?

I was once a single girl who wondered how life would change when I tied the knot, and I’m glad I never stumbled upon MSN’s list of “Single-Girl Things to Do Before You Marry.” It seems to paint a pretty bleak picture of married life…one in which you can’t eat ice cream for dinner or throw crazy parties or put your coffee machine in the bathroom if you really, really want to.

Here are some of the highlights from MSN’s (and Cosmo’s, too) list of suuuuuper important pre-nuptial things to do:

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