The Wedding Planners

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Build Your Dream Wedding Dress

I found a page on iVillage where you can design your own wedding dress. It's fun to play with the different styles of skirts, bodices, trims, veils, etc. Go here if you want to be like Serena James of the Wedding Belles and design wedding gowns!

Labels: melissa m, wedding dresses

Monday, February 23, 2009

Dresses

Serena James Wiley, dress designer for The Wedding Belles, here to say hello. It's been awhile since I stopped by. My husband, Kane, and I have been traveling lately. He just loves to fly around in his plane, but we're back in Boston for a bit. It's great to see everyone at The Wedding Belles. I've missed them so.

I wanted to see if any of you watched the Oscars last night? If so, did you notice all the white gowns? Several of the designs looked as if they belonged walking down the aisle not just the red carpet. You can see pictures of some here. I can only imagine brides wanting to copy several of those designs. What do you think?

In case you're wondering what brides this spring and summer might be wearing, check out this clip:

Well, Kane's calling me so I'd better run. Take care!

Serena

Labels: melissa m, serena, wedding dresses

Friday, January 23, 2009

Does that wedding ring come with guacamole?

I really didn't intend to post another wedding message right now. Certainly not another "unusual wedding" post. But then I saw this and I just had to share it. Just let me begin by saying that I am a frugal woman. I really am, so I am, of course, impressed at the cost of the dress in this video. Furthermore, I love unique and creative ideas. And yet...unusual wedding setting might be a bit too unique for even me. Or maybe not. If I was really strapped for cash, maybe I would do this. At least everyone seems to be having a good time. What do you think?

Labels: myrna, unique weddings, video, wedding dresses

Monday, October 20, 2008

The Wedding Dress Test

Serena, here, popping in to say hello! So much has changed since I last paid a visit. But I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might be new to The Wedding Planners so I'll just say I'm so happy I don't think a frown has touched my lips in months!

I ran across this little quiz and thought some of you might enjoy it, no matter what your marital status or desires. I took it and wasn't surprised by the answer! What about you?

What Your Ideal Wedding Dress Says About You

Your Personal Style:

Classic and elegant. You prefer to make a statement with a few quality pieces.

Your Ideal Wedding:

Traditional and formal, but not tacky. You think the most beautiful weddings are understated.

Your Philosophy on Marriage:

It's a serious commitment, and the couple entering it should be ready to work for their relationship.

Your Perfect Marriage:

Is calm, stable, deep, and meaningful.

The Wedding Dress Test

Labels: melissa m, quiz, serena, wedding dresses

Monday, October 13, 2008

The Dress...After the Wedding

Last week (October 8th) Melissa posted a video where...well, there was a bit of an accident (and if you missed it you have to go back and look). Let's just say that the wedding dress was probably never the same after that.

Which sent me off on a tangent, thinking about the lives of wedding dresses. What do people do with them after the wedding? Having rented mine, I just took it back to the shop. Lots of people obviously have them cleaned and heirloomed and store them, maybe even pass them on to another family member. But what about the people who don't want to go that route? What are some other options?

You could donate the dress to this charitable organization:

Brides Against Breast Cancer

Other suggestions I came across consisted of more drastic (although useful and sometimes loving) ideas, such as cutting the dress up into squares to make a quilt or making the dress into a christening gown. One woman used the fabric to sew baby outfits for a local hospital. Another had a seamstress make teddy bears out of her dress and gave one to each of her grandchildren with a personalized message on each one.

Many of you may have already heard of Trash the Dress . Brides hire photographers to take photos of them in their dresses as they destroy them in unique ways (the site is a bit difficult to navigate, but if you click on the Archives and move to different dates on the calendar--in blue--you can see some of the handiwork). Some of the photos are gorgeous and striking.

My personal favorite is the photographer who is the photographer who took the thousand dollar dress her mother had given her and went out on the road to photograph 1,000 women with the dress. Thousand Dollar Dress is a fascinating site with a unique story and some gorgeous photographs.

So, what did you do with your wedding dress (or what would you do if you had that choice to make)?

Labels: wedding dresses, wedding photos

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Wedding Dresses

Since my heroine is Serena James, the wedding dress designer, I thought it might be fun to look at some wedding gown fashions.

This video shows the Mon Cheri Fall 2008 line:

This video shows a bridal fashion show by designer Nina Duong:

And this one is from a FAshion Show Extravaganza at Wedding Fair in Canada:

Did you see any dresses you would wear? Any you wouldn't?

Labels: melissa m, wedding dresses

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Wedding Trends...

People

are always trying to predict trends, and weddings are no different. I don't know about predicting what tomorrow will bring, but here are some of the things I found that brides and grooms are doing now:

Green Weddings - recycling gold wedding bands, serving locally grown food, wearing bio-friendly all silk or cotton dresses, honeymooning at eco-resorts or having charitable event showers at soup kitchens.

Two wedding dresses - one for the ceremony and one for the reception

Black orchids for table decor - if you have the money, that is...

Tasting stations for the reception - wine and cheese stations, sushi bars, a champagne bar with mixers such as cranberry or pineapple juices included

A sweetheart table - where the bride and groom can sit alone

Having guests make crucial decisions - I've seen this one several places. The bride and groom ask their guests to vote on...anything from what kind of music should be played to whether the balding groom should shave his head or leave some hair up there.

Lots of red (including red wedding dresses)

Or black, with the bride wearing black and her bridesmaids dressed in white

It's all very interesting (and especially fun if you're not the person having to make the decision)!

Labels: brides, receptions, trends, wedding dresses

Thursday, May 22, 2008

On the Way to a Wedding Dress – Part 3

Here are some more wedding dress stories by friends (in this case, authors and artists) who were gracious enough to share.

The first story comes from Christina Wantz Fixemer:

In 1949, my grandmother saved her pennies for the white satin gown that featured a cathedral-length train. My mother wore it in 1971, followed by my aunt, then one of their cousins. The gown rested a final generation until 1999, when I was the last bride to wear it, by then a lovely cream tone that whispered of shared tradition.

Had I grown a mere half-inch taller, it would not have worked. The hem was let down the entire length, the fine tulle neckline replaced, and a bustle created for the weighty train. The other brides all carried the train over their elbow when not walking the aisle. At my reception, the bustle proved too much and cause brittle threads to snap at the waistline. Whether she was trying to spare me the guilty tears that lingered on my lashes, or because she truly didn't mind, she resolved the situation with a simple statement and a laugh: "If I was a fifty-year-old thread, I'd give way, too!"

The gown will not be worn again, as there would have to be too much work done to it, and because my grandmother went to a better place on December 26, 2004.

~Christina

Christina Wantz Fixemer
http://www.wantzuponatime.com/
http://www.mjtwain.com/

Bio: I'm a SAHM, artist, book reviewer, and aspiring writer of paranormal romance and fantasy. My nom de plume will be MJ Twain in honor of my children--Zoe Morgan and Daniel Jay--and Samuel Clemons, a distant cousin.

And the next is from Denise Swanson, bestselling author of the Scumble River mysteries:

I was engaged for just under two years so I had a long time to think about my wedding dress. I was a big Scarlett O'Hara fan (in more ways than one) and wanted a dress that would look as if I was walking down the grand staircase at Tara. On the positive side, I had the money. When my grandfather passed away he left me $500 for a wedding dress. On the not so positive side, Scarlett was probably a size 4--I was not. I was also a fan of hats back in those days (1980) so instead of the traditional veil, I chose a hat. I now look back at the pictures and think, Oh, my heavens! I ended up looking as if Scarlett had gained fifty pounds, put on her best dress, and decided to go for a horseback ride. Which only proves that I was way too young and stupid to get married. Luckily, at least I picked the right man. We celebrated our 28th anniversary this January.

Denise Swanson http://www.deniseswanson.com/
MURDER OF A CHOCOLATE-COVERED CHERRY

Thank you, Christina and Denise for sharing your stories with us.

Labels: brides, wedding dresses

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Wedding Odds and Ends

How old were you when you got married (or how old would you like to be)? In the year 2000, the average age for a bride was 24 and the average age for a groom was 24.

Most brides have 4 bridesmaids, including the maid of honor.

There was a wedding dress made in Germany that had a train that was 515 feet long.

During Princess Victoria's wedding processional in 1858, Wagner's Bridal Chorus was played, establishing a tradition which has lasted.

Every year in the United States an average of 17 tons of gold is made into wedding rings.

If you're into luxury items, you might be interested in a wedding dress created by designer Helene Gainville. It's embroidered with diamonds mounted on platinum and estimated to be worth 3.5 million pounds.

And last of all, an interesting reason for a tradition. In days gone by, after the bridegroom captured his bride, he placed her on his left to protect her, freeing his right hand (his sword hand) in case of attack.

Labels: music, traditions, wedding dresses

Friday, April 18, 2008

On the Way to a Wedding Dress - Part 2

A note from Myrna: When I first wrote about wedding dresses a couple of weeks ago, several friends graciously sent me stories and agreed to provide pictures (I only had to twist their arms a tiny bit).

Here are two (more to follow later):

From author Jennifer Stevenson:

It was 1973. My mother and I were shopping for my high school senior prom dress. I had spent most of my childhood in hand-me-downs, and this was only the second time we had ever bought clothes for me in, like, a real store. Senior prom was also my very first date. (I was a major geeky high school weirdo.)

We found this lovely Edwardian white lace thing for a mere $50 at a dress shop. My mother pounced on it, and it fit me. She bought it so fast, my head spun.

Four years later, I wore it as my wedding dress. D'ya think she had that in mind?

Jennifer Stevenson
THE BRASS BED April 29, 2008
Ballantine Books
http://www.jenniferstevenson.com/
http://smokingpigeon.livejournal.com/

And from author Lindsay Longford:

Me: barely 21, $100 for the entire wedding, no honeymoon planned because we didn't have any money. Other than the aforementioned $100, of course.

Yep. Those were the good ol' days, all right. Pre-Bridezilla, pre-many thousand dollar-extravaganzas.

They were also the days of Thin Me. 108-lb me. Yeah, definitely the good old days!

The Thin Me was able to fit into a very expensive, small-sized sample dress at one of the pricey department stores down south, and since the dress was soiled from the many try-ons and ripped, I was able to purchase this gorgeous, heavy peau de soie dress for $10. That's right: $10.

Cleaned and repaired, it saw me down the aisle with my homemade veil and into thirty-four years of mostly wedded bliss.

Best $10 I ever spent--and, like the gentleman groom, thank goodness, non-returnable.

Oh, and the honeymoon? The car broke down on the way to our friend's cabin in North Carolina, and we spent our carefully saved $100 repairing it and our honeymoon night in a run-down motel with no toilet paper.

So who needs $30,000 weddings? The story's the thing. As always. And we had many years of wonderful, crazy stories. Wouldn't have traded a single one for a Bridezilla Wedding.

Lindsay Longford

http://www.lindsaylongford.com/

Labels: guest blogging, wedding dresses

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

On the Way to a Wedding Dress

There have been so many exciting things going on here, but this is the first time I’m posting, so I’m pretty revved up. It’s got me thinking about how things often look when you begin something. I don’t know about you but I start out having this pretty solid idea of just how things are going to be, but (you can see this coming, can’t you?) I tend to be wrong. A lot. I take a turn I didn’t expect to take and I end up somewhere I never thought I’d be. Which, since we’re all about weddings here, brings me to remembering an unexpected turn I took once, the turn that took me to THE DRESS. Specifically, my wedding dress.

I had been dating my husband-to-be forever (and I’m not saying how long forever actually was, but trust me, it was forever). But despite the length of time I hadn’t even thought about what happens when a person gets engaged, the whole wedding planning scenario. Now I was. I had to, because we were old enough that we felt we should pay for and plan our wedding ourselves. I was totally clueless, but I knew one thing. I had to have a really great dress. It was going to be the dress that would make everyone in the room go temporarily blind and actually believe that I looked like Scarlett Johannson (or the equivalent beauty of the time). In other words, I had to have a total, magical miracle of a dress that was capable of mind control. I was only going to do this once and I was going to do it right.

The hunt began. I bought bridal magazines (of course) and flipped through them until they were ragged. I discussed THE MAGIC DRESS with my friends and my family as if it were a living being. And then reality hit. I could have the dress I wanted, but my future husband and I might have to give up eating for the next fifty years and we would have to live in his parents' basement for the rest of our lives. It was a pretty nice basement but…

In the end I gave up the magazine versions of perfection, but I still got the dress I wanted. It might not have had any super magical properties and it might not have been the dress that would have been right for others, but it was exactly the right dress for me, because it came to me through an act of generosity from someone close to me. One of my best friend's mothers owned a shop that rented wedding dresses. She cruised all the designer shows, studied styles, bought the best stuff she could afford and then rented out the gowns. These were dresses I could never afford and, frankly, I probably couldn’t have afforded to rent one, either. They were one of a kind (meaning you had to actually fit into the dress—no alterations). But, being a friend, she pretty much let me borrow one of these sparklers for the cost of wear and tear and cleaning it. For a woman like me who wanted to be a princess for a day and couldn’t afford it, it was a small miracle.

Looking back, I've forgotten who designed the gown. Does it matter? What matters is that this was the perfect gift from a generous lady who knew how much a dress means to every bride-to-be. Thank you, Mrs. B. You made me and a whole lot of other brides who stumbled into your pretty little shop happy.

And just so all of you reading this can see what I've been talking about, I've included a shot of the dress. All right, yes, it is out of date (we won't say what year this was, discuss why there's a shadow behind my head or…please don't make me explain my hair!) but for a day this dress was all mine, and I loved it.

I hope this brings back memories of your own wedding dresses (or dreams of the ones you hope to wear)!

Myrna Mackenzie

Labels: myrna, wedding dresses