Manolo for the Brides

After spending a great deal of time brooding over yesterday’s marriage legislation rulings, I need a bit of a brain cleanser. I’m not suggesting we all sit back on our rumps and forget about the need to promote marriage equality, but there’s no reason we can’t take a breather to look at some beautiful accessories for brides.

Bel Canto specializes in one of a kind bridal jewelry crafted from vintage and new materials. Antique brooches are transformed into hair pins, bracelets, and pendants. Baroque pearl and rhinestone sparkle and shine in earrings. The inventory is always changing as the designer finds unique pieces and materials, so bookmark her blog to keep an eye on what’s new.

I have to get a little political…just a little, I promise. And what I’m about to say has nothing to do with the presidential election, thank goodness. I feel like this election has been going on for the last four years. No, I want to talk about California’s Proposition 8, Florida’s Amendment 2, and Arizona’s Proposition 102 and how much they burn my biscuits. In California, polls went back and forth with extremely slim margins, with approval generally leading, and now I read that it looks like it will pass. In Florida and Arizona, it’s a done deal.

That just makes me so sad…sad for the people who recently got married, sad for all the couples that were shut out of the institution of marriage, and sad for the people in my own circle of friends who were planning on getting engaged soon.

While we’re on the subject of “gay marriage,” let me offer up some better ways to protect the so-called sanctity of marriage.

• Work to reduce the number of divorces if you think divorce is bad. Last I checked, us straights are doing waaaaay more to destroy the institution of marriage than the gays ever will. You don’t have to sit idly by. The Beard and I did secular pre-marriage counseling and found it to be an eye-opening experience.
• Teach children that there’s nothing dirty or gross or weird about two people in love, no matter what is in their pants. I think kids know this instinctively, but they learn the opposite as they grow up. Then they’ll spend less time worrying about other people’s marriages and more time thinking about their own.
• There’s still a stigma surrounding marriage counseling — make it normal. Thirty years ago, if you said you were in therapy, people would be shocked. Now everyone and their mother sees a shrink. Let’s bring marriage counseling into the mainstream.
• Finally, civil marriages for all (thanks for the clarification, serenitynow78!). You want to get married in your traditional church? Do it — I myself was married by my family pastor. Just do it after you’ve gone down to city hall and gotten your contractual civil marriage approved by the state. For better or for worse, private institutions can choose who they will marry. The state, however, should not be allowed to discriminate.

I mean, seriously, are couples like the late Del Martin and her wife Phyllis Lyon (above) who were together for FIFTY-EIGHT long years really going to “destroy” marriage? How, exactly? Am I going to be so tempted by the lure of lovely lesbians that I will immediately run out and marry a chick because it’s legal? Will my adamantly straight father magically become gay because homosexuals are granted the right to marry?

Somehow, no one opposed to letting gays get married has ever been able to give me a logical reason why letting them do so will set us on the road to ruin. Odd, that.

Back in March, I posted a poll asking what sort of favor readers would most like to receive. Out of the 466 people who cast votes, only 8% liked charitable wedding favors best. Edible wedding favors were the definite favorite, with 38%. Everything else — from useful favors to quirky favors — hovered around 10%. Weddingish brings all of these categories together in their “In Favor of a Cure” wedding favors.

Charitable wedding favors have a long and mottled history here at Manolo for the Brides. Twistie isn’t down with them. I’m don’t mind them at all — though I’ve never encountered a truly preachy charitable favor. And your opinions run the gamut from “A charitable favor is in no way a gift for ME” to “It’s fine as long as the couple chooses an uncontroversial charity” to “I love them!”

That said, I’m not a fan of the “In Favor of a Cure” wedding favors. The pink ribbon campaign has been marred by controversy…so much so that the Think Before You Pink campaign suggests you always ask where your money is going and how much of it is actually benefiting the people who need it most to avoid getting scammed. And while a small card at each table telling guests that $X has been donated in their names is subtle, pink ribbon cookies and pink ribbon wildflower cards are anything but. Plus, I’d rather charitably-minded brides and grooms donate the full $2 one hundred times over rather than 10% of the net proceeds of a bulk batch of one hundred $2 favors.

We here at Manolo for the Brides tend to err in favor of moderation because we know that our readers hail from a variety of economic spectra. Of course, just because one’s wedding budget is $2,000 does not mean that one can’t admire and even drool over wedding gowns, wedding rings, and wedding cakes that cost ten or fifty times that amount. And speaking of over-the-top wedding cake, the always lovely Sarah sent me a slide show of Kuwaiti wedding cakes created by Omar from the Opera Cafe in Kuwait.

If you’ve ever dreamed of cutting into a wedding cake taller than the many of your guests, look no further. Sarah passed along thirty-two images of amazing wedding cakes…cakes that light up, cakes that are working fountains, cakes that look like they’re about to fall over, and cakes that look nothing like cake. I chose a selection to post here, and you can see more under the cut.

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One of the thornier issues that comes up when planning a wedding is the menu. No matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy with what you choose to serve. This only becomes more true if you are planning not to serve either or both of two popular items: alcohol and meat.

For some reason, there are a great many people who cannot wrap their heads around the concept that meat is not necessary in every meal or that it’s possible to have a good time without an alcoholic drink. The fact is it’s perfectly possible to have not only a delicious but a completely satisfying meal sans meat and it’s more than possible to have a blast without a glass of bubbly.

Chances are, though, that at least one or two people on your guest list would be skeptical of my claims in this regard.

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Just when I think I can’t love this job more than I do, all of you wonderful readers prove that you’re even more deranged and delightful than I’d realized. You really made me sweat about picking a winner for this one.

Last week, I presented you all with this lovely (if somewhat disturbing) image:

and you slapped me right back with nine gloriously askew responses.

In the end, though, there can only be one winner. This week, that winner is Fabrisse for tickling my funny bone with this culinarily creeptastic caption:

Thank you for volunteering.

So, the first course will be lark pate, followed by rabbit stew, …

Congratulations, Fabrisse, and thanks to everyone who played!

Oh, and I’d like an invitation to that reception, please. I’ve never tried lark pate.

I was going to post a corpse bride or a zombie groom in honor of Halloween night, but the fabulous Toni found something far more frightening for me to post.

Agh! My eyes! Missy Quinn (16, she of the £100,000 wedding and £16,000 dress) is much scarier than anything I could have dredged up on such short notice.

Happy Halloween!

Bridal showers are subject to all sorts of factors, from friends spread out around the country to delays caused by a complicated postal system to bridesmaids’ budget woes. Can your best friend afford to travel across two states twice — once for the shower and once for the wedding? Your favorite cousin didn’t receive her invite until two days before the event, oops. And air travel is just too much of a pain these days. Long story short, it would seem that tricky logistical problems are not at all uncommon, if the existence of Tutto Liccica is any indication.

Tutto Luccica specializes in remote (or, as they call them, “In spirit“) showers meant to transcend geographical differences. It works like this: Tutto Luccica helps the hostess pick a date and provides invitations, shower favors, and an event web site with information about the guest of honor. They then mail said GoH a centerpiece gift package that she is barred from opening until the specified date. I won’t go into that, but I can safely say it’s something you could easily put together yourself.

Finally, the hostess is given instructions that outline how to make it all work…instructions, I might add, that aren’t explained on Tutto Luccica’s web site. I can only assume that invitees are encouraged to send a gift that will arrive on or around a specified date, at which time they can use their powers of imagination to envision the bride-to-be happily unwrapping her bounty alone, in her jim-jams. Maybe it’s like the time I played Hour of Power with The Beard over IRC when I lived in NYC and he lived in Boston…

Does this seem a little weird to anyone else? In essence, you’re getting invited in spirit to a party that is only taking place in spirit, but you’re being asked to send a real gift. I’d be much more apt to send a gift to the bride-to-be if I were to receive an invitation to an actual bridal shower that circumstance kept me from attending. Am I just a stick in the mud who is not hip and with it enough to recognize the future of bridal showers?

Goodness me, I hope not.

My ultrasound was this morning, which, consequently, is why I’m not posting until after noon. If I had a scanner handy, I’d be impressing all of you with my extremely attractive — though currently rather Halloween-ready — offspring. As it is, our scanner is broken, so I won’t be showing off my fetus until I can drag my tush to the drug store to use the big girl scanner.

Instead, you get another round of alternative wedding flowers…this time from DK Designs in Hawaii.

I love the tight, polished look of this Stephanotis bridal bouquet, crafted from Claycraft by Deco clay and accented with tiny Austrian Swarovski crystals. The whole thing is finished with a double-faced satin Tiffany blue ribbon embellished with a square crystal buckle. And unlike your average bridal bouquet, this one will never wilt or fade or get nasty-crunchy.

DK Designs also makes floral centerpieces and (ta da!) hair accessories like this pretty and delicate gardenia hair clip.

Gardenia perfume can be added to the flower itself just before shipping so it smells just as sweet as the real thing.

Clay wedding flowers aren’t for everyone, of course. Real blossoms and blooms will likely never go out of style. But for the bride-to-be who wants something just a little bit different, they can be a beautiful alternative.