Posts Tagged ‘planning’
Speaking of Spring
You bitches might be thinking, hey BWMB, seems like there isn’t anything you DO like. Not true. For example, we like brides who don’t lie and say their white gold rings are platinum, and we like perfection. There.
In our guest post on Peppermint Bliss , we talked a lot about pastels and the do’s and don’ts of spring weddings. Well here’s a new one: lose the pepto-bismol- pink and the god-help-me-peach and try an all white wedding. And don’t worry ladies, no need to show your V-card in order to have an all white affair.
CAKES and FLOWERS
DRESSES: PRONOVIAS
Nothing says romance like a frizzy hair and goosebumps.
There is a reason reception sites give huge discounts for March weddings: March is the fucking worst. March makes November seem like a good time. Terrible. Wait a month and at the very least, you can put your maids in yellow.
In March, at least half of your guests will be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder after spending the last five months getting rained or snowed on. Maybe you could crush up some Vitamin D tablets in their roasted red bliss potatoes so that your dance floor won’t be completely empty.
But all of that negativity aside, there is one (and only one) way to save a March wedding: spend an inordinate and obscene amount of money on a spectacular photographer whom you cannot afford, and invest in a big, black umbrella. No joke, bitches, this is your only chance.
Wow
Nothing screams financial success more than yacht clubs and extended vacations on the Vineyard. This theme allows you to be carefree and fun without sweating your ass off in some god-awful tropical climate and awkwardly barefooting-it through 4 inches of sand in a white ball gown. This theme really just says, “hey, we know the rest of our poor-ass guests couldn’t afford to follow us to Turks & Caicos, so we’re recreating the destination wedding vision here!”
We understand the draw, we really do. Everyone loves the beach! Sand at your feet, wind in your hair… but let’s face it, you don’t really want your fiancé’s friends seeing you in a two piece, do you?
Let’s get down to the details. Every nautical- or beach-themed wedding seems to require the following: must take place near the water, must have seashells on the invitations, must incorporate the color blue, and must encrust everything edible in brown sugar that looks like sand on the beach. Two tiny Adirondack chairs atop your lattice and lighthouse encrusted cake are also essential. So the questions is: really?
Keep in mind that seashells were once the home of an animal. An animal that may or may not be dead. In fact, it may have died just so that it’s home could adorn your tabletop as a centerpiece. Flowers are always a better choice. Think hydrangea. Think irises. Not orchids. Orchids are for the tropical wedding theme, which is not the same thing.
And that’s the real trouble with this particular theme; beach-brides often try very hard to incorporate too many nautical details, which creates confusion: Is this a lighthouse theme? No, I thought it was a conch-shell wedding? Oh hold on, isn’t that a starfish over there? This lack of focus makes a bride look sloppy and disorganized. Something tells me your wedding binder looks a little something like your train of thought: a convoluted, nonlinear, effing mess. Get your act together!
Also, do not give your bridesmaids jewelry with silver starfish. I don’t care if they have them at Tiffany’s. Have you ever seen them wear anything like that before? I didn’t think so!
Bottom line: No seashells on weddings cakes, ever. Flip flops are not wedding favors. They are not “fun.” Sand dollars and starfish are dead animals that someone collected after a storm; don’t put them on the table.
Please don’t kill me ☹
This theme let’s your guests know that you are a romantic to the core; you love the whimsical, the capricious and fanciful, you want your wedding to be an event unlike any other. Unfortunately for you, this will be an event like many others…and those events are called PROMS.
This theme announces to your family and closest friends (likely all gay co-workers and members of your theatre group), that you have never read Shakespeare (Cliff Notes do not count): 1) because you don’t have the intelligence level to process all the characters, and 2) because you were too busy dreaming up lame-ass wedding ideas since you were 10. The MND (Midsummer Night’s Dream) theme also lets those newly gained friends of yours (your husband’s friends wives and girlfriends) in on your past; you were obviously at one point tipping the scales; faeries are tiny, sexy waifs with wings, and only the formerly fat attach themselves to such unattainable and cartoonish visions of femininity.
We can just see your theme unfolding… enchanted forest, moonlight, fairy dust. Wake up! Do not create an environment in which your bridesmaids or slutty distant cousins will be making any progress towards finding love. This is your day GODDAMNIT!
Also, how confident are you? Are you sure you want scantily clad, hired actors roaming about your reception dressed in nothing more than tights and wings, all powdered up and shimmering? Hiring the right accessories can add flair and excitement, while simultaneously crowding the room to give the appearance of a larger guest list and unlimited funds. But did you stop to think that these “accessories” will be better looking than you? They’ll obviously be in better shape; you’ve had your fat ass plastered to the internet looking up themed weddings for the past 6 months rather than hitting the gym where you should have been.
Oh and p.s. that Tinkerbell decal on your fucking Jetta is lame.
Your Wedding Month Decoded
January Bride: committing your friends and family to one more month of gift-giving!
Face it, January weddings couldn’t come at a worse time. Regardless of how thrilled you think your friends and family are about your nuptials, no one wants to be celebrating anything in January, least of all you and your in-public, tongue-kissing future husband.
We’re assuming your January wedding has given you the unique opportunity to sicken everyone around you with details of your nuptials for the few months preceding the actual event. Thanksgiving and Christmas aren’t safe from you! There are clearly no limits to your need to interject, with nauseating detail, the topic of your wedding into every conversation. “Hey, Aunt Gladice, could you please pass the potatoes? Oh, that reminds me baby, did we decide on the rosemary roasted red bliss or the mushroom demi-glaze mashers for the starch at our wedding?”
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s… by the time folks get to your wedding, they’ll be burnt out and broke (so forget those envelopes full of cash and think shit you didn’t register for from Bed, Bath, and Beyond). You’ve got enough to worry about (i.e. your appearance), do you really need to toss in those few extra holiday pounds and tired puffy eyes? We thought not.
It’s probably best for you to hold out until February and have that equally tacky pink-and-red Valentine’s Day wedding you were thinking about.
1) Taking time for YOU- Of course there is the traditional spa-day-with-the-girls routine. This is a great idea. The smartest way to go about your day of pampering and beauty is to somehow attach it to the bachelorette party so that your maids are obligated to pay for you. Those 90-minute, hot river stone massages sure can get expensive!! But you deserve it after all the stress of planning.
Let your Maid-of-honor know that you’d like to do something like this on your “bachelorette weekend.” Refer to it as a “weekend” whenever possible. That way, you still get the fun night out on the town, and can detox and relax the next day too on someone else’s dime!
2) Laugh away the tension!- Everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine. A great way to use humor therapy is to set up a “bridesmaid roast” to giggle those worry lines away! Let your maids know what you’re doing and have them prepare a hysterical roast for one another, pointing out one another’s flaws (both in appearance and personality). It’s best not to have only one bridesmaid get roasted, as this will only make her feel as though she is being attacked and could prompt her to peace-out of your wedding party. (YIKES!)
Instead, let the girls know that they are all fair game and remind them that the reason you love them so much is for their senses of humor and not to take themselves too seriously. It would be best to keep this a girls-only affair, where they can really feel free to be themselves—having your fiancé or other groomsman there will only make them more self conscious when the jokes turn to such topics as: weight and self esteem, tally of sexual partners and/or sexually transmitted diseases, or jokes about the dysfunctionality of the maids’ families. Other suggested topics include how much your maids’ boyfriends suck, and how they had such high hopes for their careers in college and now they are administrative assistants. Be creative!!
In the end, declare a winner and a loser—the person whose jokes were the funniest and most biting, and the one who can’t take a joke, respectively.
3) Get Rid of the Stressor- Rather than trying to DEstress, why not eliminate what is causing the stress in the first place. You guessed it ladies—hit the goddamn gym!! If your arms are more toned (and yes, they can always get more toned) and your ass is up where it should be, the lingering anxiety caused by worrying about what you’ll look like on your wedding day will vanish.
All eyes will be on you the entire day, and keep in mind that as soon as all your guests leave, your appearance will be their first topic of discussion. Even kind and older folks will pass judgment on a bride, politely saying how “nice” she looked. Eliminate this worry so you can concentrate on your man!
4) Money Worries- Worrying about money is an enormous stressor for brides. As the cost of weddings continues to climb, brides find themselves scrambling to pay for their dream weddings with less and less help from increasingly stingy parents and in-laws. The best way to handle this is to head it off in the beginning. Have your fiancé tell his parents that your folks refuse to help out. He should act despondent and say things like, “we may have to elope” and “it looks like you won’t be able to invite most of your friends.”
Likewise, tell your parents the same thing about the in-laws and how miserly and spiteful they are. Your parents are sure to cough up something. Remind them that their names don’t just go on the invitations as a formality; they have to earn it.
When you have money in hand from both families with agreements that the money comes with no strings (we don’t need the mother of the groom telling us what kind of corsage she would like, do we?), go ahead and start planning your dream day. 
Wedding planning can be tough. But medieval-themed weddings are a completely different beast (and yes, we do mean beast). Other than the obvious people-watching opportunities that these weddings inherently provide, little good can come from a medieval-themed wedding. Therefore, lets go through a list of details associated with Renaissance nuptials and if you, as a bride, recognize any of these ideas as things that you have considered implementing in your own special day, then you can go ahead and burn your three-ring binder (if you even have one) because you won’t be needing it anymore.
The fashion: the most offensive aspect of the Renaissance wedding. I will bet the cost of a one-of-a-kind Vera Wang that if you are planning a medieval wedding that your body mass index is not under 35 or so. Am I right? Let’s just say that the maroon, empire-waist dress with long, tight sleeves and puffy shoulders is not going to make you look like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love (think Shallow Hal….).
You can go to a Renaissance fair with your boobs hanging out and dress like a tavern wench any old time, but there is only one day in a woman’s life where she can be the beautiful, virginal center-of-attention, and on this day one must wear white. Despite the obvious counter-intuitiveness of encouraging large-breasted, medieval-type brides to don white, it is still better to keep up with this tradition than to draw attention to the fact that you’ve rented (or even worse, sewn) a costume for your own wedding. Weddings are not costume parties. I’m sure the thought behind the silly get-ups is that it will make the wedding “fun” and “whimsical,” especially since you’ve had to rely solely on your self-deprecating sense of humor and personality to get you by all these years, but trust me, your event will be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
In addition, straight men don’t wear tights, even at the request of their future wives. So if your fiancé agrees to this arrangement, you had better rethink your choice of mate or you (and your offspring) will be paying for it in ten years.
The food and drink: Think of your guests before you put giant, greasy turkey legs in front of them. No one wants to eat “family style” at a wedding, unless by “family style” you mean “a nice champagne toast followed by a perfectly cooked filet mignon and some roasted red potatoes.” Guests will have dressed up for the occasion and will not appreciate the absence of silverware. Also, as a bride-of-size (BoS), the last thing you want family and friends seeing is you gnawing on the bone of a dead animal and yelling at your new husband to find you a napkin. Remember, these moments will be photodocumented.
Also, don’t call beer “ale” and for Christ’s sake, don’t call it “meade.” It’s embarrassing. Everyone gets it. You like Renaissance fairs.
The entertainment: A lute player is not an appropriate substitute for a band or a DJ. People will not dance to a lute. Also, did court jesters really wear those ridiculous outfits, or do those costumes just fit nicely into your cartoonish/American vision of what castle life might have been like in medieval Europe? Yeah, we didn’t think so. Better do your research.
While you’re at it, maybe you’ll find some other interesting aspects of medieval life that you can incorporate into your big day that will lend your affair an air of authenticity and historical accuracy i.e.: The Black Death, women dying during childbirth, the Spanish Inquisition, burning witches at the stake, and a rigid class system that resulted in lifelong poverty and sky-rocketing mortality rates for almost the entire population. Nothing says “I do” like death and suffering
