Ritva Westenius

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Ritva Westenius is the Grande Dame of British wedding couture. Celebrating 30 years of dressing the likes of Jane Seymour, Faye Dunaway and Jacklyn Smith she is not even slowing down. This year marks the launch of a new collection, Capital Bride which is being designed in conjunction with her amazing daughter Chenca.

Chenca, a former principal ballet dancer is the real story here. Her glamorously bubbly, high energy personality absolutely shines through every one of the pieces. From a stunning short gown with a bit of fifties inspiration to the Jane Austin inspired “Sense and Sensibility” each one is more red carpet worthy than the next. What really knocked me out are the gowns in the Capital Collection that whisper Hollywood. The gown Chenca is holding is named Fabulous, and rightly so, don’t you think? The gown on the hanger is “Bronte”.

Gowns from Ritva Westenius are available in the states at Pure English Couture Bridal House in Virginia Beach, VA.

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Trend Watch/ Harrogate

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The first trend to really pop out at me for Spring/ Summer 2008 is about the fabrics. There is an abundance of sheer fabric overlays done over a soft satin base. On some the base color is white or ivory with the overlay adding a bit of color but mostly it is the other way around. There are gowns with spun gold under and sheer white lace over, or a rosewood base with a sheer chiffon overlay. Quite often the overlays are embroidered or lightly beaded.

The other trend has to do with the hem lines. I saw several gowns yesterday with fuller A-line skirts that had outer layers getting progressively shorter revealing either beautiful laces underneath or heavier satins and taffetas in a tiered effect.

Big on the runway were pleats. Any thing pinch pleats was in. Used in the beautifully soft sheer fabrics being employed it was adding a very flowing fullness over a touch more fitted gown on up to the other extreme of fullness. All in all a soft romantic look.

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Tagged. I’m It.

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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

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How to Alienate Your Vendors in Five Easy Steps

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  1. Only communicate with them through a third party: ie your mother. This ensures that the vendor is never really quite sure if she is doing what the bride actually wants or just what she has been told she wants,
  2. Tell one vendor that your planner is ‘really’ uncomfortable working with them in hopes of cutting a better deal behind your planners back. I bet it didn’t occur to you that they had been working together for years before you showed and would be for years after you have gone.
  3. Pop in unannounced on your cake designer in the middle of a Saturday, even though you have been told that your designer would be happy to schedule a tasting for you any day BUT Saturday. I am sure the brides expecting their wedding cake that day won’t mind if it’s late so the designer can take the time to meet with you and produce a tasting platter out of thin air. Wait, even better maybe you were hoping she could just cut up a couple of those wedding cakes so you could taste the real thing.
  4. Spend four hours with a consultant and your planner going over every possible combination of linen, china and chair only to call up the next day and tell them you are going to use the standard hotel linen and china. I am sure your planner had nothing better to do than load half of the rental company’s showroom into her car and drag it to the hotel so you could see what it looks like in the ballroom.
  5. Ignore the fact that the reason you make your final payment a week before the event is because there won’t be any changes past that point. I’m sure the catering staff won’t mind changing the menu the night before your event and why would they have a problem getting something from the wholesaler on the Saturday night of a three day weekend? I mean come on, grocery stores are open.


Can you tell I just got the rundown on the wedding from hell from a planner friend of mine? Considering the above he/she has asked to remain anonymous. I don’t blame him/her a bit.

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What Not To Do

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~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.

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Observations from a Wedding

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Huge apologies for not posting for the last few days; I was helping my friend Vicki of Branching Out ~An Event Florist with the most amazing wedding. Here are a couple of observations from the back side of pulling off an event this large.

1. I do not care who you are or what your budget, you can not anticipate what mom nature will have in store for you. As you sit there in January planning your event you should know what flowers and foods will be in season for your August date on a normal basis. What you do not know is that mom nature has a 25 day string of temperatures over 95, with 11 of those over 100 in the works. You can not foresee that that your lovely wedding will fall smack dab in the middle of a drought of near monumental proportions just as the temperature records start dropping like flies. Sometimes what sounded great in January is darn near impossible in reality. So if your caterer tells you that the fresh mint for your Mojito’s looks a lot less than perfect because the crop dried out or the flowers that should have looked perfect for several days are wilted half way through the day realize that if there had been anything they could have done differently, they would have bent over backwards to do it. As a bride, you have to be flexible and understand that the professionals you are working with are as much at the mercy of the weather as you are.

2. As you plan, schedule in some free time for your guests. This weekend there were events scheduled non-stop. Luncheon on Friday followed by the rehearsal, Greek dance lessons and then the rehearsal dinner. On Saturday another luncheon, the wedding and reception and a 9:00AM brunch on Sunday. We went to breakdown the reception at the appointed time of 12:30 Saturday night fully expecting the party to still be in full swing since this was a very large, very partying type crowd. But no, not only were we able to walk right in and start breakdown, it seems that the event had actually wound down fifteen minutes earlier than expected. By the time midnight on Saturday rolled around everyone was so worn out that they were all ready to turn into pumpkins. I wasn’t there but I bet there were quite a few no shows at that 9 AM brunch. Any hostess wants to make sure that her guests are entertained, but sometimes a nap is entertainment enough.

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The Reality of Reality TV

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I know you watch them; those shows like “Who’s Wedding Is It Anyway”. You do know that those are only real in the loosest sense of the word don’t you? I mean they are real brides and real vendors but that pretty much is the end of it.

Let me tell you about what goes on behind the camera. In the real world that planner is on the phone with her favorite wedding pros the minute she/he got the call from the TV show. So everybody knows just how important this wedding is to their reputation and marketing. No one wants to be on National TV putting anything but their best foot forward.

Take for instance the florist. If you ask for a mock up of your centerpiece or bouquet you might very well either meet with resistance or be told the specific date they can do it. Here’s why: it will only take a few of each flower you are using to make the arrangement but the florist still has to order the entire box or bunch multiplied by the number of flower types used; very few can be ordered as a single stem. The florist now either has a huge investment or they will try to set it up on a date when they already have the same types of flowers ordered for another event. The smaller the florist the harder this is. If on the other hand that same florist knows that a camera crew is going to be showing up for the trial what do you thing they are going to do? I’ll tell you what they do, they beg, borrow and steal what ever is needed to make sure that those arrangements are gorgeous at whatever time or date the planner wants to see them. They will call in every favor from ever supplier they have to make it perfect. Heck I have even know a couple to paint the workroom.

The same goes for caterers, they hate tastings. It isn’t because they don’t think there food is great; it is because it costs them a fortune. In order to get the kind of prices and quality they need they have to order in bulk. Now what are they going to do with the other 2.5 pounds of extra large shrimp they had to thaw out to get the 6 they put on your plate? If the camera crew is there they are going to feed them and most definitely the producer. Why do you think the caterer always gets so much air time??

It is not that the wedding professionals you are interviewing are treating you badly, they are treating you normally. It is just that you don’t have a camera crew in tow. Those are the ones that are getting spoiled.

They may call them reality TV but you need to take them with a real big grain of salt.

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What Not To Wear

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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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