Traviata….the cake!

Just a bit of Sunday Sweetness.
Finally a self decorating wedding cake!
Now where were these when I was still creating wedding cakes?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhHxIz83Ic&rel=1]

World Heaviest Wedding Gown

In another installment of the “What Planet Are These People Living On” thread I bring you this from the UK courtesy of Bridal Wave. (Is it just me or does this stuff always come from the UK?)

At 425 pounds, this is thought to be the heaviest wedding gown on record. My question is why would you? According to the original story in The Daily Mail the dress had 30 layers of fabric, a 60ft train and 30,000 crystals. Created by Nico’s Dressmakers, in Liverpool, England it tipped that other scale at just over $31,000.! Again I ask, on what planet are these people living?

The diminutive 16 year old bride topped out at 5’3” and according to published reports spent most of her reception seated due the weight of this monstrosity. Because of the weight of the train it reportedly took 10 of her friends to PUSH her up the aisle.

Ok, why? Why not get a gown you could actually move in? How I would love to see the video of this. You devotees of YouTube please keep your eyes peeled and let me know if it turns up. I want to see them push this up the aisle.

The Fun in a Hyper-organized Wedding

Back in September I posted the first installment in the saga of the Michigan wedding that friend of the Dish Courtney Hammons had the pleasure of participating in as a bridesmaid rather than the highly qualified wedding planner that she is. Well I finally wrangled the rest of the story out of her.

Let’s see if you find bits of this as funny as I do. The commentary at the end is purely my own; sometime an outsider sees thing a little differently. At least there weren’t any bomb scares at the wedding. Read Part I here and Part II here

Wedding Day – Sept 15th

7:30am and my mom is knocking on my hotel room door – I am being told that it is time to go get ready for a 5pm ceremony. Seriously what is wrong with this picture?1 So out I go in my powder blue sweat suit (that matches my mom, sister and all the other bridesmaids!!!)2 Once at the house of the parent’s of the bride the fun begins! I guess when you are doing hair and make-up on 18 people you got to start some time.3 Mom is first so that she can go back to the hotel and take care of my niece. It’s amazing that even when she get’s her hair done it looks just like she did it. Mom is back to the hotel with my sister and I settle in for a day of lounging around. By 1pm everyone is done with hair and make-up and we begin the task of getting everyone dressed. All the dresses are hung alphabetically (did I tell you we had to ship our dresses ahead of time)4 Some dresses are to big and others are to small but in the end everyone is in their dress and ready to help the bride put on her one of a kind bridal gown. She looks gorgeous and is so happy to be marrying my brother. The flowers arrive and I all can say is please consider the size and weight when choosing bouquets! The bride’s bouquet came in at 10lbs can you imagine that for the next 10 hours.5 Pictures went without incident at the house and once everyone was loaded into the 2 limos and the Bentley off to the ceremony. A beautiful ceremony it was but the pictures afterwards took FOREVER! Not only were we a hour late to the reception we somehow managed to miss the sunset shot. Now let me take a moment and explain the reception one room was for dinner and the other room was for the band and dancing. So we have everyone enter the dancing room for announcements, first dance (which the band did not know!!) and the father daughter dance. We than move everyone (250 plus people) to the dinner room and than towards the end of dinner we ask everyone back to the dancing room for the Horah and the mother son dance! Anyone else see some challenges here!6 Well that’s it! After a year of planning, parties and excitement it was all over in a matter of 8 hours! Off to Belize went the bride and groom. And back to Tennessee came my husband and me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  1. Do you have any idea how exhausted everyone is going to be by the end of this day? Sure the bride and groom are off to sleep it off in Belize but the rest of the world has to get back to their real lives.
  2. Please, please tell me they did not have “Bridesmaid” embroidered across the butt. Please.
  3. Ok if you subtract the two mothers and the bride that leaves 15 attendants. What! you asked your entire sorority to be brides maids???
  4. I don’t even know where to start. Hung alphabetically? OK then, that takes being organized to a new level. Add to that the “ship our dresses ahead of time” thing, which was so the mother could install identical bustles and you are bordering on obsessive. Can some one explain to me how long of a train a bridesmaids gown has to have to require that it be bustled?
  5. Piece of cake. You only thought that the reason a bride must spend the year before their wedding lifting weights was to tone their arms, it’s really so they can lug around 10 pounds of flowers in addition to the weight of their dress. Never forget that it’s not just a wedding – it’s a marathon. Train, train ,train!!!
  6. This is the one that cracks me up. I can only picture this crowd of 250 rising as a single unit and shuffling from room to room, sitting in unison and then repeating again and again. Reminds me a very well dressed, multicolored giant amoeba.

I am glad that Courtney survived with her marvelous sense of humor in tact.

I want to hear your tales of wedding excess, leave them in the comment section so we can all share in the joy.

Is This a Foreshadowing?

Friend of the Dish, Courtney Hammon has started sending her report on bridezilla’s wedding in Michigan. You may remember, this is the bride that insisted that her bridesmaids have hair extensions for their matching updos. I can’t wait to see the next installment. If this wedding saga begins with a bomb scare I just can’t imagine where it will go from here. I wait as anxiously as you for all the little details.

Thursday the 13th My Big Travel Day

Since there are so many friends and family coming from across the country my husband and I had decided to arrive into the Detroit area a day before the big festivities were to kick off. My parents were already there and so was my sister and her family. The flight on Northwest was great and we landed in Detroit shortly after 10:00am. Now this is where the real story begins: the flight attendant tells us that there has been a security breech in the airport so we may come across some barricades on our way out. Being the good daughter I call my dad and tell him to not wait at our usual spot until I call but instead come all the way to the terminal as he may have some challenges with the “security breech” and all. Once we are off the plane we immediately notice the airport is not right!!! There is not a soul to be found?? They have evacuated the terminal. If you look out at the gates all you see are police cars and fire trucks. We make our way to the luggage escalator and we are greeted with 10 – 15 police officers who politely inform us we cannot leave! My father is now calling telling me he cannot get to the terminal as it is blocked off by police and news crews! (Some security breech!) After 30 minutes we are allowed to go and claim our luggage – it is than we find out it was a bomb threat. Dad has successfully made it to the terminal and we are on our way to the hotel!!! Only once we get a mile from the hotel traffic is in a dead stop??? It seems the bank across the street from the hotel is being robbed! Wow my brother and future sister in law sure know how to welcome their guests to the Detroit area.

Friday the 14th Manicures Pedicures and Rehearsal

So the boys are all off golfing and I am to get my mom, sister, family neighbor and niece all to the salon in our matching pink shirts that the bride sent us to the spa. We make it there with little challenges other than learning what a Michigan left turn is! Upon arrival we see 15 ladies in their matching pink shirts sipping mimosa’s and enjoying the day together. The bride has gone from a size 10 to a size 2 and looks fabulous!! Leave it to my family that my 2 year old niece gets her first manicure and pedicure! But she sure was cute!! I have one word to describe the rehearsal LONG maybe its because I see weddings every week or maybe its because it was my family and friends but just over a hour and a half was way to long for a 20 minute ceremony. The rehearsal dinner was lovely with all 80 people but it was great to have some time with the out of town family that we see so rarely.

Tagged. I’m It.

In cleaning up some stuff to get ready to hit the road I realized that I still hadn’t responded to being tagged by Lara at A Softer Image. Sorry ‘bout that, Lara.

OK, in the spirit of the game here are eight random facts about your Wedding Diva.

  1. I sailed competitively for 13 years and I would do it again in heartbeat if I had the time.
  2. I’m a mint freak. At any given time you can find at least three different kinds of mints in my purse.
  3. I collect coffee mugs. My current fav’s are the city specific ones from Starbucks.
  4. I have had 2 weddings: one was a country club affair with all the trimmings and the other was in a city park in a Laura Ashley sun dress. (My mother and I fought over the right shoes both times. Grrrrr)
  5. My bachelor’s degree is in Plant and Soil Science with a minor in design.

As Lara said I think everyone has already been tagged but I’ll give it a go.

David Wright

Heather Levine at the Knot

Rebecca at Weddex

Alice Hendry

What Not To Do

~sigh~ every now and then I wonder what planet some brides really live on.

I met my friend Courtney for lunch last week. Courtney has lovely shoulder length blond hair, or I should say did have. What she had on Friday were four hours worth of hair extensions. When I asked her about it she laughed and then almost cried at the general absurdity of the situation.

Courtney is in a wedding in 2 weeks and the bride has insisted that her bridesmaids have hair extensions put in so that they can all have the same updo! Excuse me, that’s excessive. My question was why so early? “So we have time to learn how to take care of them before the wedding” was Courtney’s dead panned response.

OK, come on. Can we all not clearly see the insanity in this? Is this bride even cognizant of what she is doing at this point? The bridesmaids were also required to have their gowns at the MoB’s house in Michigan 3 weeks before the wedding so that mom could make sure that the bustles were all identical and the bride could be reassured that they were there on the wedding day. Wonder if identical panties are required. They were allowed to choose their own shoes…as long as they were black strappy sandals with 3’’ heel. Hmmmmmm.

At what point do you just have to say enough is enough? Is it a wedding or a Busby Berkeley musical?

To add further insanity to the madness; Courtney is a first class wedding and event planner. She has worked all over the world for a client list that reads like a who’s who.

Her offer of coordinating the wedding as her gift was turned down.

Courtney has promised a full review upon her return, assuming she survives.

Do Not Mess With This Bride

This gives a whole new meaning to bridezilla; such a lovely young lady, such a large weapon.

It was all in fun at a recent “trash the Dress” photo shoot done by blog buddy Lara over at her blog for A Softer Image. You can see more of the images here and here. If you are planning your wedding Lara has some great tips on all kinds of wedding lore and traditions. Especially interesting are her posts on wedding photography written for brides.

The bride, Meghann, will be donating her dress to the

Mary Madeline Project, a group in New England that takes old wedding dresses apart and makes burial gowns for infants that pass away. Then they donate them to families who are too poor to buy a gown, or too distressed to shop for one.

What Not To Wear

From the country that brought us What Not To Wear the UK now brings us the most outrageous example I think I have ever endured. ITV program Britain’s Youngest Brides got a mention on the BridalWave, my favorite British wedding blog.


For your Friday funnies, have a look at this video clip courtesy of The Heat. Trying to get that girl in that gown into the limo is a riot. Also not to be missed are what the guests are wearing.

What I wouldn’t give to see the video from the reception. Then again, maybe not…I just ate breakfast.
Enjoy!

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