Well, jeweler Sakurako Shimizu has taken this idea and run with it. Those rings above? Are Shimizu’s work. The design is the wave form of someone saying ‘I love you.’ The rings come in silver, platinum, or 18k yellow, white, or pink gold. If you request it specially, they can also be made in 14k yellow gold. Oh, and if you’d rather it say something other than I love you, yeah, you can get a different (short) word or phrase instead. Each piece is custom and uses the wave form of the person you choose.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is one of the most romantic ideas in jewelry I’ve seen in a very long time.

In fact, if I come into some money soon, I’d love to have one made for me of Mr. Twistie’s voice. I may not need a new wedding ring, but another symbol of his love is always welcome.

In this case, I was pointed in the direction of an article at Jezebel about a wedding missing an important person and how the family dealt with it in the photos.

You see, the groom’s father (at least I’m assuming it’s the groom’s father since they look a lot alike and it’s the groom’s sister who did the alterations to the pics) fell ill and wound up being in the hospital on the wedding day. The wedding went ahead as scheduled, but of course everyone missed the missing father, as you do.

So the groom’s sister sat down with the wedding pics and Photoshopped him into a selection.

How do I feel about this one? Well, if whoever is ill is going to be fine, and if it’s done in this entirely tongue-in-cheek way of adding completely ridiculous images, and if it’s just a few pics mostly for the family… then I kind of LOVE it. Otherwise I think I might HATE it.

But right now I’m finding myself thinking of asking Photoshop wiz Mr. Twistie to take my fave shot of my mother living it up at the Renaissance Fair and digitally adding it to one of our wedding photos. I know she would have had just that great a time at our wedding, had she lived to see the day.

So what do all of you think?

One thing both generally have in common is the assumption that these dresses will be in a solid color… but that’s not in any way required.

I’m not personally all that wild about this particular Betsey Johnson dress worn by the bridal party above… but I really like the idea behind it. I think it might be fun to see more weddings where the bridesmaids wear stripes or floral prints or polka dots. It’s festive, and my guess is that a lot of women who will never, ever, ever on pain of death wear that shell pink chiffon evening gown or the emerald green taffeta ballgown again might actually haul this little sundress out of the closet and wear it for a variety of occasions.

So, yeah, I’m going with LOVE on this trendlette. I’d like to see a lot more of it.

It’s been quite a while since I talked about brides in glasses here, so I thought I’d discuss it a bit today.

Most of us know Dorothy Parker’s quip:

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses

But you know what? Men do. And women do. And some of those men and women who do make passes at girls in glasses wind up marrying them.

If you’re one of those brides who wears glasses, there’s good news! In decades past, nearly everyone would have advised you to leave off your specs and simply crash adorably into walls when you aren’t specifically on someone’s arm. This, though, is bad advice and the world is beginning to get the heck over it.


(Illustration via Postcards and Pretties)
Now more and more bespectacled brides are being encouraged to wear their glasses so they can see all the action clearly on their big days. Of course if contact lenses work for you and that’s what you’d rather do, I definitely have your back.

But if you usually wear glasses, then consider wearing them on your wedding day, too. After all, you’re going to spend your future with someone who knows you need corrective lenses. You should look like you. In fact, it might even be a good excuse to go out and get a great new pair of frames!

And if you really consider glasses a part of your personal style, you might even work them into the decorations in other ways.

(Illustration via Project Wedding)

It’s not like I have a big thing against them. It’s just that I don’t really see the point. Then again, I tend to be camera shy at the best of times. And of course when Mr. Twistie and I were getting married, we didn’t have a budget that included many optional extras… but even if we had, we just plain never thought about engagement photos.

Then again, I’ve seen some really nice photo sessions that sprang from engagements. As I said, it’s not like I have some sort of moral objection. It just never would occur to me to do it.

But I’m curious. What about you? Did you do it? Will you do it? Do you have any strong feelings one way or the other?

Tell me all about it!

You all know how this works. I post a picture that’s barely squeaking by without a funny caption. You provide said captions via the comments function. Next week I declare a winner, and we all do the Electric Slide to praise the victor.

This weeks’ image comes from the Little Engine That Might Just Manage It file, and it looks a little like this:

Ready… set… snark!

The couple shown above are Lena and Ola Pahlsson. One day in 1995, while Lena was in the midst of a marathon baking session for Christmas, she lost her ring.

The couple searched over and over. When they remodeled the kitchen several years later, they even looked under and behind appliances and under the floorboards. No luck.

Sixteen years after the ring disappeared, Lena was in the vegetable garden pulling up some delicious carrots, when one of them proved to have something surprising on it: her long-lost wedding ring!

This is just one of seven amazing stories of lost and found wedding and engagement rings in an article over at Neatorama. Go read them for a combination good laugh and glowy feeling of things coming right in the end. Oh, and to get a couple good ideas of what never to do with your wedding ring!

Most of us know about karaoke, that staple entertainment of drunks who can’t sing everywhere. Yes, I have heard a couple people who really were good belting out a great song, but let’s face it, the vast majority of karaoke is sung by people who could barely keep the tune inside the bucket when they were sober… three shots ago.

I must admit the worst karaoke experience I ever heard wasn’t someone who was drunk, but a young boy attempting to sing all parts of Bohemian Rhapsody while in the throes of his voice changing. He didn’t know from one note to the next whether he was going to be a counter tenor or a basso profundo. Yeah, that was kind of the last mental straw for karaoke and me.

Then again, marryoke doesn’t involve anyone actually having to be able to sing. So what is it? I thought you’d never ask!

Marryoke is a wedding video trend that started in the UK, as best I can tell, and has migrated to our shores over the past few years while I wasn’t looking. Or at least not going to weddings where it was being done.

Basically, the couple chooses a song and – depending on how elaborate the plans get – lip sync and act it out with the help of the bridal party, the parents, and even in some cases the wedding guests. The videographer cuts all the footage together with the song and the happy couple gets a video of themselves and/or their friends and family members pretending to sing a famous song. It’s not so much karaoke and your own personal chance to star in The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert for four minutes.

Of course, you don’t wear fabulous drag costumes, unless that’s what you’re getting married in.

If you want to see an example and learn more about the process, I suggest heading over to this site for an Irish company that makes marryoke.

Me? I’m not impressed, but I’m hardly offended. I do, however, think it’s important to keep in mind the personalities and proclivities of your friends and families before getting them involved. After all, it’s no fun if you’re spending half your wedding reception herding camera-shy guests or quaking in fear about what the best man is going to pull out of his vest next.

Well, recently another trend has popped up that’s just a little more elaborate, but still does away with that endless cake cutting: the individual wedding cake.

As you can see above, they’re tiny versions of a larger wedding cake. Typically there will be one full tier for the happy couple to cut and serve among the wedding party, while the waiters serve individual small cakes to individual guests.

Even though it reduces the cake cutting fees, this is still more expensive than cupcakes since each cake is more elaborately decorated and a little bit bigger than a cupcake, more often than not.

Is it for everyone? No. I don’t think there’s much of anything that’s for everyone. All the same, I’m coming down on the side of LOVE for this one. They look charming, and there’s something delightfully indulgent about the concept of eating an entire cake by yourself… even a very tiny one.

What about all of you?

No very specific reason was given for the split, but the couple did release a joint statement, saying they had “grown apart” and that their separation is amicable.

Whatever their reasons, I do have to appreciate the fact that they are refusing to air their dirty linen in public. That, my friends, is how to do it the classy way.

The other split that made the news this week is Aretha Franklin and fiance Willie Wilkerson, who announced the end of their engagement just weeks after announcing its beginning. While the engagement is off, though, there is no word of whether or not they have ended their romance.

Franklin’s statement said that she and Wilkerson had decided they were moving “a little bit too fast” and said there were “a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly.” The upshot? “There will be no wedding at this time.”

Whatever their issues, it is my fond hope they can be resolved to the satisfaction of all involved. But if they can’t, I do believe it’s better that things end in a broken engagement than a painful divorce down the road.

None of this is happy news, but the heart is a resilient muscle. May all four parties find happiness in the long run, if not at the moment.