Archive for the ‘Flower girls’ Category

Kid Week: Dressing Tiny Attendants

Wednesday, June 6th, 2012

Welcome to day three of Kid Week here at Manolo for the Brides. Enjoy your stay!

When you’re the one getting married, you do have a certain amount of power. For instance, if you want to dress up small boys like this:

(via Pegeen)

… or small girls like this:

(via Landy Wedding Dress)

… well, that is your right and you can make them do it. But it behooves us to keep in mind that Frances Hodgeson Burnett’s son never, ever forgave his mother for making him dress like her fictional hero, Little Lord Fauntleroy, and that was nearly a hundred and thirty years ago. Imagine the horror of being an eight year old boy today and having the school bully find a picture of you in satin knickers!

Do you really want to do that to a child?

And I imagine that while many a little girl would be pretty swept away when that gown first arrived, they would quickly and painfully learn why it is that strapless is for girls who are old enough to have developed secondary sexual characteristics. I’ll just leave it at that.

The key to using the power you have is to exercise it in such a way that you are considered a benevolent despot rather than the jack-booted offspring of a raging bull and a weasel.

Dressing small children in ways that keep them comfortable and don’t entirely empty their parents’ pocketbooks is one of those smart ways of exercising power. I’ll show you some ideas for that.
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Kid Week: Wrangling Ring Bearers and Flower Girls

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

Welcome to the second installment of Kids Week at Manolo for the Brides! Enjoy!


(Photo via Amado Photo)

Nothing produces an ‘awww factor’ at a wedding faster than a flower girl and/or ring bearer.

Lets face it, a small child walking up the aisle in dress up clothes is a super cute concept to most people. Add in quirky little personalities, and the happy couple may find themselves temporarily upstaged.

But those quirky little personalities and the dress up clothes can and sometimes do add up to some potentially problematic moments.
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Announcing Theme Week!

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

It’s been a while since we’ve done a theme week here at Manolo for the Brides, and I think it’s high time we did one.

So, next week there will be a theme to all posts on this blog. And that theme is….


(image via Kelly Pratt Photography)

Kiddie Week!

Yes, we’ll be talking about children and weddings. Everything from how to include them in your wedding party to how to exclude them from your guest list, plus tips on care, feeding, dressing, and general wrangling of wee folk at your shindig.

So if you’ve got a question you’d like to see covered, leave it in the comments and I’ll get to as many as I can starting sunday.

de la Renta Gets it Right

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012


Oscar de la Renta has come out with his 2013 collection for flower girls, and I’m in love. This is a perfect example of why. It’s simple, and it’s appropriate for a wedding. Most of all, it’s appropriate for a little girl to wear.

Most of the dresses are white, though a couple are blue or feature blue touches. I’m guessing that at least a couple of them will come in other colors when they get to salons… and most of the dresses inspired by them will probably be available in most of the popular colors for the season.

While de la Renta may feature price tags that most brides (and mothers of flower girls) can’t afford, the inspiration is certain to trickle down to more affordable designers and to pattern makers.

I’ve always preferred flower girl dresses that acknowledge that flower girls are generally very young girls, that are shaped for little girls’ bodies, and that can be worn at other events like parties… and in this case, the occasional First Communion.

Thumbs up for age-appropriate clothes for little girls!

LOVE/HATE: Mini-me

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011


So… flower girl as miniature bride. On the upside, apparently if you’re six you can actually have sleeves. On the downside, I gotta go with ‘everything else’ from the tiny, fussy updo to the (I assume) matching veil and tiara to the bodice cut to enhance curves that aren’t there yet to that annoying handbag.

Yeah, I’m going with HATE here. In fact, I’m going with ‘hate that burns like a thousand fiery suns’ on this. Give the kid the handbag for playing dress up, and let her be a kid while she’s being a flower girl. They grow up too fast as it is.

Inspiration: Pinwheels

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Maybe that should be spinspiration! Terrible, I know. But aren’t pinwheels fun? And there are so many great ways to use them in weddings that it would be impossible to list them all. Favors of pretty paper pinwheels with your names and wedding date printed on them come to mind. And how about using them in place of flowers in reception table centerpieces? I can even make it simpler – get a punch of pinwheels that coordinate with your wedding color scheme and stick them in the ground! Easy-peasy!


Gorgeous pinwheels for your bridal bouquet by Rule 42


Pinwheel wedding cake seen on Real Etsy Weddings


Bride and groom with pinwheels as seen on The Wedding Chicks


Pinwheels on a dessert buffet created by April Foster Events and pinwheel aisle decorations as seen on Wedding Bee


Pinwheel table numbers from Crossroads Cottage

Good and Bad Ideas Plus a Caution from Four Weddings

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

If there’s one wedding reality show I find myself really enjoying of late, it’s Four Weddings on TLC. For those unfamiliar, four brides getting married in the same area around the same time attend one anothers’ weddings and score them on the gown, the venue, the food, and the overall experience. The bride whose wedding gets the highest aggregate score wins a fabulous honeymoon to a surprise location, and the other three, well, they get to be on TV and attend three weddings without having to come up with a gift and being utterly free to snark or gush about whatever they please for the nation at large.

The two episodes I watched last night were particularly interesting to me, in that they included some really brilliant and some really, really questionable ideas. Take a look after the cut to see what I’m talking about.
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