Manolo for the Brides

When Kate Harding of Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose decides to spice up a Friday night, she goes all the way. On a recent Friday night, for example, she and her sweetie Al decided they could either go visit the Hoover Dam… or they could get married. Guess which option they chose.

They tied the knot, obviously! The pair hit up the famous Little White Wedding Chapel (along with Al’s mom) after what amounted to a few hours of hardcore wedding planning and said their vows.

Can I just say that I’m just a tad jealous? Oh, I’m a lot happy for the resplendent Ms. Harding — don’t they just look lovely? — but still a little jealous. It sounds like she had a joyful, absolutely stress-free wedding, though there’s no word on whether she ever did get to see the Hoover Dam.

Now go check out the Wedding FAQ and wish the newlyweds all the best!

We’ve written about using fruit as reception centerpieces, sweets as wedding decor, and even diamonds as wedding cake embellishments. All in all, we’ve proven we like things that are as yummy as they are pretty, though we definitely recommend picking all gemstones out of your icing before serving your reception dessert. Today I want to put sweet things aside to show you some things you can do with veggies… specifically artichokes.

Artichokes make splendid wedding table decorations for a number of reasons. They can stand up on their own, meaning they can hold a place card or a candle. And they are relatively dry when compared to, say, a cabbage or even a carrot, so you needn’t worry about drowning them in water when using them in centerpieces. You can even use artichokes in your bridal bouquet (as evidenced above), though beware that they add quite a bit of heft.

Sandra Lee, queen of the semi-homemade craft, suggests using artichokes thusly:

1. Group one small, one medium and one tall cylinder glass vase on a tabletop.

2. Stack whole artichokes inside, positioning some upright and some sideways to make an artful arrangement.

(However, she goes on to suggest that you can make gourmet mac & cheese using Kraft dinner, so feel free to disregard most of the advice found on her web site.)

For many years, cakes have ruled wedding receptions. One of the first questions people ask about weddings is what the cake either looked or tasted like.

Over the course of the past few years, though, the cake has started losing its place at the party. Oh, it’s not like they’re going away anytime soon. I expect them to continue to be the most popular dessert at weddings for a very long time to come. It’s just that now more people are more open to variations on the theme.

One popular variation that’s sprung up of late is the dessert bar. With this option, the couple may or may not have a traditional cake, but they will offer multiple options in sweet ways to end a meal.

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I have a great fondness for LOLcats. Of late I’ve noticed several with a wedding theme, and decided to share them with all of you.

And a final thought….

Always remember: chances are your cat is plotting against you. Be Prepared.

disclaimer: Mr. Twistie is greatly loved by my cat, who has never ever plotted against us except for that one time that’s still going on.

I don’t have much to say today, recovering as I am from the usual post-Christmas travel stupor. However, I am certainly feeling well enough to both look at photographs of wedding garb and find some amazing period wedding attire for you to covet.

The fabric comes from Hyena, which also provides fabric to one of my favorite gown designers, Alisa Benay. The period wedding gown itself was created by Kindred Spirits, which creates gorgeous garments using the traditional methods of haute couture.

Whatever your preferred end of December holiday, Twistie and I want to wish you a happy one! My holiday will be all the happier for including cupcakes, like these from Nicholas Lodge. Yum!

Unusual wedding venues… some say no, I say yes.

Getting married on an airplane like Brazilian bride Eliete Ferreiraand her Portuguese groom Jose Santos… well, if you can ignore the lack of leg room, those horrid little packets of dry roasted peanuts, and the ever-present stale coffee smell that pervades the cabins of all classes of airliner, that’s your choice.

Would I do it? Nope. But what say you?

Every now and then, I (or Twistie or a commenter) will suggest some alternative bridal accessory or wedding venue, and one or two people will chime in to express the opinion that tradition ought to be kept in the traditional wedding for tradition’s sake. Or to ensure that no one is offended or confused. Or because that is simply how things are done ’round here… wherever here may be.

When it comes to tradition for tradition’s sake, I can no more argue that there’s anything wrong with wanting a traditional wedding than I can argue that there’s anything wrong with untraditional weddings. And when it comes to “how things are done,” I can’t argue that, either.

What I can dispute is that straying from the traditional wedding format or wearing alternative bridal garb or serving a macrobiotic reception dinner is less than etiquette friendly because it will potentially offend or confuse someone, somewhere.

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Ugh, Monday. And it’s a busy pre-Christmas Monday. I very much remember what it was like having to deal with all of the wedding planning duties while also working and finagling holiday gifts and traveling. What I remember in particular was that it was not a whole lot of fun. I found the occasional five minutes of solace in wedding themed virtual toys like bridal paper dolls or sites like Etiquette Hell. Oh, who am I kidding? I still find the occasional five minutes of solace in that sort of thing, and I recently added Multicolr Search Labs from Idée Labs to my roster of time-killing bookmarks.

Multicolr Search Labs is perfect for brides-to-be who haven’t chosen their wedding colors yet. Idée Labs extracted the colors from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr and lets you search for photographic inspiration using anywhere from one to ten colors. What you end up with is a snapshot of what colors work together and what colors definitely don’t.

Here are two I whipped up based on some color combinations I like:

As unexpected as it was, the photo of the iris in the bottom row was pleasantly surprising in that I would never before thought to combine yellow, black, white, and purple.

I’m loving the cartoon chicks (or whatever they are) in the bottom row on the right.

You don’t get a say when it comes to what photos come up — and I’ve gotten at least one that looked marginally NSFW — but every so often a photograph of an actual wedding with your favorite color scheme will come up or you’ll get a graphic that gives you a color template to work with when deciding on your own wedding colors. And, hey, if family and friends wonder why you’re sitting at the computer instead of wrapping last-minute presents or shopping for the best price for wedding favors, you can tell them that you’re doing important wedding-related research.