$9000 family heirloom lost during proposal

This is all over the news, and I can't believe that everyone is focusing on the cost rather than the meaning. Rings can be replaced, but imagine losing a family treasure! Here's the story:

Cawley's plan was to surprise Scanlon with the ring during a romantic walk along Lighthouse Jetty in South Yarmouth on Monday morning.

He tied it to a big sand dollar with some string, slipped it onto a rock when she wasn't looking, and then slyly called her attention to it. She grabbed the sand dollar, but the ring tumbled into the rocky nooks of the jetty -- and vanished.



"You could just hear it go -- click, click, click -- down through the rocks," said Cawley, a 30-year-old from Dedham who works in his family's restaurant. "I knew it was gone." "It was just a freak accident," lamented Scanlon, a 31-year-old schoolteacher from Needham. "I don't understand why it happened to us. It's one of those things 'Why us?'"

The panicky couple summoned beachgoers, lifeguards -- even Tom Flynn with his metal detector. But four hours of searching proved fruitless.

The couple's relatives -- waiting back at the house to throw an engagement party -- were left to wonder. [It's rather presumptuous to throw a party, but it's a thoughtful idea] "They were worried because we were gone so long," said Cawley with a laugh. "Either thought she said 'No!' or they thought we got a room."

Cawley just shakes his head [over the incident]. "I asked her 'Did you at least see the ring?' And she said 'No!'"

But Cawley still uttered the key question as they made their way back from the beach -- ringless -- and Stacey said "Yes!"

Now Cawley knows why his Mom scolded him so often as a kid about climbing on those rocks.

"And now 30 years later she's saying 'I always told you to stay off those rocks!' So listen to your mother." Good idea. Because last Friday, Matt's mother, unbeknownst to him, went ahead and insured the ring -- just in case.

My cynical opinion - insurance scam. Or this guy is hopeless at predicting the future. Jewelry and beaches to not mix!

-KB

Rush Limbaugh's wedding pictures

Rush Limbaugh posted his wedding pictures on Facebook. Wait, where are you going? Hear me out: I listened to his show every day for several years at my first real job. At first, I thought I was going to have to quit (no headphones allowed, and we HAD to listen to Rush), but then I realized that if I pretended the entire show was a joke or satire, he was actually really funny. He did so many drugs that he lost his hearing, yet he still maintained a radio show. And he marries much younger women, and he loves to party. Not what I'd expect from the most conservative man in radio (or is it?). Check out his opulent wedding:



Rush and Kathryn (nee Rogers). I, uh, notice something very obviously...noticeable...in this picture. Do you see what I see?


There's no other word I can think of that better suits this than opulent. Those flowers and chandeliers are so...big!



I'm not a journalist, so I'm not going to try to figure out where this place is, but it's gorgeous.

Apparently this is Snerdley. When I listened to the show, I always pretended that Snerdley was his imaginary friend or a code name for drugs. I guess I was wrong.

Rush and Elton. Cats and dogs, living together, MASS HYSTERIA!

-KB

Honeymoon at Hogwarts

This is a postcard from Post Secret, and yet another of the "secrets" that I can relate to.



I laughed out loud (yeah, I spelled it) when I read this because similarly nerdy thoughts fill my head. I don't specifically love Harry Potter or Hogwarts, but I frequently wish I could visit something Seussian or Burton-esque. I look on travel sites sometimes, but I don't know the airport code for Hallowen Town.

-Kay Banks

Desire To Ejaculate Motivates Local Christian To Wed

Ah, I love The Onion:

PADUCAH, KY—Throughout his life, 22-year-old Matthew Leske has been a devout Christian, attending services three times a week at Holy Christ Almighty Lutheran Church in his hometown of Paducah, regularly participating in Bible-study devotionals with his mother and four sisters, and faithfully adhering to the dictums of his strict fundamentalist Christian upbringing.


Though his wedding date has yet to be set, fundamentalist Christian Matthew Leske is so eager to ejaculate that he has already purchased his tuxedo and is waiting patiently at the church.

Throughout his post-pubescent life, Leske has also, like all male humans, been gripped by an intense, all-consuming desire to ejaculate sperm, but has been unable to do so out of fear of incurring the wrath of God and suffering an eternity of agonizing punishment in the afterlife.

A part-time prep-cook and odd-job yardwork handyman when not volunteering as a Bible witness to local shut-ins and nursing-home residents, the young Leske has never had much time for socializing with members of the opposite sex. Nevertheless, last week, Leske announced his intention to marry fellow Christian Luann Ruth Perkins, also a member of Holy Christ Almighty, whom he met on a church-sponsored Luther League hayride two months ago.

Leske cited his irresistible desire to achieve sexual climax and ejaculate sperm without having to go to hell as the number one factor in his decision to propose marriage.

We've all known couples like this, amirite? Couples that don't quite seem on the same page except for their burning hot desire to suddenly get married.

It's 8/9/10. Weird.

-Kay Banks

Eddie Munster dates super fan

News sources kind of screwed up this one because originally stories said that Butch Patrick got married, then he was just engaged, and now he's simply dating this woman. It's a weird story anyway, so just pretend, yes?

Forty-five years after a Pennsylvania woman sent a fan letter to her favorite TV star, they've made a Munster match. Donna McCall was a 10-year-old with a crush on Butch Patrick, who played boy werewolf Eddie Munster in the mid-`60s sitcom "The Munsters." In her letter, she asked Patrick how tall he was because girls at the time were making gum wrapper chains long enough to match the height of their boyfriends. To her delight, the young actor responded and included his height — 5 feet, 4 inches. Like many childhood projects, however, the wrapper chain wasn't completed. Decades passed.





McCall was a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader in the late 1970s, worked for 20 years as a hospital pharmacist, married and divorced. When "The Munsters" ended in 1966 after two years on the air, Patrick left Mockingbird Lane and appeared on shows including "My Three Sons" and "Lidsville," though Eddie Munster remains his best known role.

An online article about a man who holds the world record for making a 12-mile-long gum wrapper chain triggered McCall's memory of her preteen idol. She found an e-mail address for Patrick, and a correspondence began. McCall, now 55 and living 30 miles outside Philadelphia in West Chester, sent along a picture from her cheerleading days, said Patrick, 57, who never married but has a 23-year-old son in Missouri. She also sent photos of herself doing activities on her "bucket list," from scuba diving and trapeze lessons to race car driving, he said.





"That intrigued me a lot," Patrick said. "She's single, she's beautiful, she's in the nicest part of the country and she likes to do adventurous things. I figured I had to meet this woman." The pair agreed to meet May 8 at a horror convention outside Pittsburgh called DraculaCon. You could say it was love at first bite. "I think a lot of people ... thought there was something special going on between us," McCall said. "It was just very comfortable, very easy."

Within weeks, Patrick, who has homes in Los Angeles and Florida, moved to Pennsylvania to be with McCall. He's working this Halloween season with a company called 13 Haunts as its "spokesperson and in-house celebrity Munster" for appearances at its 13 haunted houses in the Philadelphia area.

The couple say they are not engaged, contrary to other reports.

"We've only known each other for three months, four months, so it would be a little crazy to be jumping into that," McCall said. Patrick added: "It's not that it's not going to happen, but one day at a time, so to speak."

Meanwhile, they say they're enjoying getting to know each other — both are active in fundraising at the Chester County Arts Association, and Patrick is enlisting Hollywood friends including Shirley Jones and Lindsay Wagner to lend their celebrity signatures to an upcoming exhibit of embellished bras called "BRAvo Arts Alive" to benefit breast cancer organizations.

After the busy Halloween season for Patrick, he and McCall plan to head to Los Angeles so she can meet his family. "We'll get through the holidays," he said. "Then next year's a new year. Who knows?"

Isn't this a strange story!? Can you imagine sending pictures of yourself doing things to a celebrity? And then getting a response!? It's great that they're happy, but I think it's a little creepy. Maybe that's perfect for the guy who played Eddie Munster.

-KB

P.S. In case you're wondering where I stand on the great Addams vs Munsters debate, here's my position: While I absolutely love the Munsters, I'm team Addams all the way.

Weird/cute proposal that stops time

This guy wanted to proposed to his girlfriend in a spectacular way - he wanted to stop time:



Skip ahead to 5:15 to just see the proposal, but if you do you'll miss the part where they take the groom-to-be shopping. He tries on clothes suggested by the fashion expert and says that they're uncomfortable, weird, and he doesn't like them, but "Nadia will like it". Sounds awful. And the result was jeans and a sport coat. Eye roll!

The proposal is also a little off - she looks embarrassed and annoyed. But hopefully they're happier than this video demonstrates.

My favorite part is the crowd. They all do such a good job of freezing - I especially like the guy who is halfway into eating something, and his mouth is wiiiiide open. Such commitment!

If there are any grooms out there who want to do this without the planning committee and camera crew, here's my idea. Talk to your favorite local ma and pa hangout. Fill said hangout with your friends and family (who will do this for free). Go for a casual dinner with friends, and then, after dinner, stand up and snap your fingers. It won't be perfect, but you'll be surrounded by all the people you love for an immediate celebration.

-KB

Thanks to absentee guest blogger Harriet for the link.

Wedding insurance

There's a company that will insure you against having a crappy time at your own wedding. Seriously.

Putting on a wedding is a lot like putting on a show. A very expensive stressful show that's for one night only. There's lots of different vendors, moving parts, and deposits to take care of, and if something goes wrong or, lord forbid, the wedding date needs to be moved, it can be costly, especially considering you have to work on a tight timeline.



Enter Wedsafe, which offers all-inclusive policies that can insure you in the event of cancellations, weather, disaster cakes, and if an overly drunken guest gets into an accident or a fight, in addition to the liability insurance that most venues will require you to purchase.

They're underwritten by the Markel American Insurance Company and have been around since 1999. The liability insurance can be purchased online up to 24 hours in advance of the event and the cancellation insurance can be gotten up to 14 days prior. It's only a few hundred bucks and you can do it all online within a few minutes. Unfortunately, they do not cover losses incurred due to Bridezilla attacks.

I have a better idea. Check your vendors' references, and don't invite people who can't behave. Ta da! No insurance required. Can't help you with the weather though. Don't get married in May if you don't like rain.

-Kay

Thank you, but no.

This is just an excuse to talk about Morrissey...

WHEN it comes to booking a wedding singer MORRISSEY is not the most chipper choice to put a smile on the face of the congregation. But RUSSELL BRAND and KATY PERRY have asked the miserable Manc to do the honours - even though he's told them not to tie the knot.


We're not tourists, we're just enlightened.

Katy said: "I met Morrissey for the first time the other day and we had tea together. He's Russell's mate [Katy Perry said "mate". I doubt it, The Sun] and he is fascinating but he was giving us a hard time about getting married. He swooned and sighed, 'Oh, left hand third finger, don't do it.' It was just so eloquent and poetic and like one of his songs."


Morrissey - Will Never Marry
Uploaded by samithemenace. - See the latest featured music videos.


I suppose that classic lyric-writing comes in handy when you need to say something out of order. But Mozza - who Russ named his beloved cat after - has still been invited to this autumn's nuptials in India.

Katy added: "It would be great to have him at the wedding but I told him, 'We can't have a Mr Misery like you messing things up.' It's going to be a small ceremony, so I don't think we'll have a proper band. I'd love to have Morrissey."

Hahaha, I love that he was so typically dramatic about getting married. Given all the bitchy stories I've read about Morrissey, I'm surprised he didn't send an assistant to have tea with Katy Perry so that he wouldn't have to.

Have a dreary and romantically soul-crushing weekend.

-Kay

Beheadded bride

If you are planning a Victorian-themed horror wedding, I found the perfect cake toppers for you.






I'm not sure that they're actually cake toppers, and there's no groom, but I think they're hilariously awesome.

The artist has a few more macabre/Victorian things on her site. They're perfect if you belong to the same secret club as these ladies...ma'am.

-Kay

One USB ring to rule them all

Since Monday's post of the "heart claddagh" ring, I've been thinking that there's probably some geek couple out there somewhere that would appreciate a disgusting internet meme ring. She could wear the heart, and he could wear this:


Ray Arifianto is a game developer for Microsoft, and his bride wanted to show her support for his extreme nerdiness, so she had a ring custom made to look like a USB drive.

It's not a working ring, but I love the idea and it's cool that the bride would get her groom such a thoughtful geeky wedding ring.

-Kay

P.S. Thanks to you-know-who-you-are for the link!

CL-Assy.

Since you, miss, madam, or sir, are classy, you don't understand why this is funny:




But I am not classy, and I'm a citizen of the internet too, so I'm LMFAO at the poor schlub who buys this ring as a present or (gasp) an engagement ring without knowing what it REALLY is.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Hahahahaha...

ha...ha...ew.

-KB

Do you want to get married in a retail store?

I've covered many weddings inside retail locations, and the trend must be over because it's becoming a normal thing to do.



From the Consumerist:
A few months back, we wrote about a couple in Illinois who tried to combine cheap with hilarious by getting married at a Taco Bell. For better or for worse, it looks like that happy couple is not alone, with an increasing number of people walking down the aisles of retail stores and restaurants.



Take for example one couple in Michigan who will have the honor of being the first to say their "I do"s inside a TJ Maxx this summer. Explains the bride, "The one constant in my life, no matter what, has always been T.J. Maxx."

Then there's Home Depot. The chain of hardware stores has already played host to around half a dozen weddings, which they don't charge a fee for since most of the materials used for the ceremony -- buckets, planks of wood -- go right back into the store's inventory afterward.

If hand-blended ice cream flavors and annoying names for cone sizes is your thing, then look no further than Cold Stone Creamery for your special day. Two Cold Stone employees recently got hitched at their place of employment for free. But a rep for the company advises that such decisions are up to each independently owned store.



Says an editor from wedding website theknot.com:
“Brides are obsessed with making their wedding different from anyone else's... In some cases, too, I think the economy might play into it, where people are really trying to be resourceful.”

I'd rather get married at T.J. Maxx than go into crazy debt for a wedding - I guess I'm not the only one!

-KB

Stupid questions from the wedding party

Most people have worked a retail job, so everyone can relate to this confusing exchange between customer and clerk:

(I work in a custom ceramics shop were we offer a touch-up/repainting service. A woman in a formal dress comes in with an armful of garden gnomes.)

Customer: “I need these gnomes to match this dress.”

Me: “Okay, we can do that. Do you mind if we take a picture for reference?”

Customer: “It’s for a wedding.”

Me: “That’s nice.”

Customer: “It’s this afternoon.”

Me: “This afternoon?”

Customer: “Yes, at three. What, did you think I just walked around dressed like this all the time?”



Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we can’t help you. It would take the better part of a day just to paint all these little guys, and it takes at least three hours for the glaze to dry completely.”

Customer: “You don’t need to paint them! Just get them to change their little clothes!”

Me: “Ma’am, these are garden gnomes.”

Customer: “Exactly! Now, unfreeze them and make them change! I’m going to be late!”

It sounds like a joke, but for some reason people turn off their brains when they walk into stores, so I believe it.

-KB

The hot Old Spice dude proposes to another guy's girl

In case you missed last week's internet meme, you can find most of it here. It's the Old Spice guy (real name: Isaiah Mustafa), famous for crazy, all-in-one-take commercials, making You Tube videos in response to people's questions. One guy asked him to propose to his girlfriend, and she said yes. Because, seriously, WHO WOULDN'T SAY YES TO THIS GUY? I think there are some very hetero guys out there who would say yes to a marriage proposal from him.

A fan named Johannes S. Beals tweeted, “Can U Ask my girlfriend to marry me? Her name is Angela A. Hutt-Chamberlin” to Old Spice. The following video popped up on YouTube within an hour, and Old Spice tweeted it at Beals.



Of course, Ms. Hutt hyphen Chaimberlin said yes, and here's the proof:

Sadly, Old Spice Man has signed off (hopefully he remains shirtless), but we'll always be the best internet friends.

-Kay

Gay weddings legalized in Argentina

Argentina has legalized gay marriage, so let's look at some wedding accessories that might become popular there:

Funny wedding invitations! Everyone is so formal with their invitations, so these are unexpected.


From Wedinator:
Shelley and Laura
Request the pleasure of your company
as they help destroy
the sanctity of marriage

Cake toppers:



What's wrong with these guys? Why are they on different tiers of the cake? Is it a nod to their past of being helpful boy scouts or is the other guy just late to his own wedding? The description lists them as "helpful". Maybe that's some kind of stereotype I've never heard.

To round out the gay wedding planning, everyone needs a drunk groomsman to make a toast:

If you have 8 minutes and you want to feel as though you are are really at a wedding, watch the whole thing. Otherwise, skip forward to 3:30 to see it slowly fall apart. It's not HAHA scripted funny, but oh no, this is incredibly awkward funny.

-KB

Mah boyfriend got married

Two days after getting married in Lake Como, Italy, Saturday, newlyweds John Krasinki and Emily Blunt touched down at Los Angeles' LAX airport.



The two held hands and kept their sunglasses on as they picked up their bags. Blunt flashed her new wedding ring. See more pics of Blunt's bling.

Blunt, 27, donned a custom cream chiffon sweetheart draped Marchesa gown with embroidered detail to say "I Do" to her The Office star, 30, who proposed last year with a 3-carat diamond and platinum ring designed by Neil Lane worth $100,000.

"It was an outdoor ceremony and absolutely beautiful," an insider told UsMagazine.com of the nuptials, which were attended by George Clooney and his Italian girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis. Blunt and Krasinski had been staying at Clooney's nearby Lake Como estate since the July 4th weekend.

They seem pretty normal for celebrities, so maybe their relashionship will be another Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward or Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi. I mean, unless John wants to run away with me!

-Kay

Why do women cover their face during a marriage proposal?

When my husband proposed, I think I looked at him in disbelief, but I don't think that I covered my face with my hands. In fact, I can say with all certainty, that even when I'm REALLY surprised I don't cover my face (but I do make silly faces). This article says that I'm in the minority. It is really common for people to cover their faces after receiving a marriage proposal.



Marriage proposals can get pretty creative, but often the reactions are the same. Women typically cover their faces once they realize what is happening. Psychologist David Rose says our faces tell people what we're feeling, and at the moment of a proposal, the emotions are so intense that not covering the face would feel like being naked in public.

Rose told NPR that it might be cause for concern if a woman doesn't engage in this form of "shielding." He said:

"It's as though the woman is thinking, 'Oh, my god, this is going deep into my soul, what am I showing here?' When I see the very few who don't do it, I wonder, what does this mean? Are they unusually non-emotional? Does it mean they don't care about this guy? I don't know."

-KB

P.S. Hey! Congratulate me on my dedication! I had a lot of extremely unexpected stuff to do today, and this is the first time I've had to myself in almost three days but I'm here POSTING FOR YOU, dear reader. Ouch, I think I just twisted my arm patting myself on the back...

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a weener

This poor photographer:



Oh, did you think I meant a winner? Because I meant that too! The winner of the $25 giftcard giveaway is RJ! I'll be emailing her shortly with the details. Thanks to everyone who entered, and thanks especially to Diamond Favors wedding favors for their generosity.

-KB

Marriage in the time of Sparta

Just last week I was teasing a 20-year-old guy/man/kid about getting his news from Mad Magazine, and here I am regurgitating something that I found on Cracked. But Cracked has links to other things to back their stories up, and this kid just had a wild-ass story about David Bowie's eye, so I stand firmly by today's post.

Modern brides will do anything to get that perfect wedding day. Hair, nails, facials, dresses made of golden gossamer fairy wings; no expense is spared to play the part of the pretty, pretty princess on that special day. The brides of ancient Sparta were just like modern brides, if we were in Oppositeville.


A bald bride From f_rim (ephraim)

For starters, they began the big day by shaving their heads. Second, they donned men's clothes and sandals. Then, instead of participating in a ridiculously expensive ceremony with family and friends, prospective brides laid alone in the dark on a pallet, waiting for their grooms to come and steal them away in the night. Once a groom had his way with his new bride, he deposited her shaved, man-clothed self back at her parent's home. Done. Married. Que romantico!

She wouldn't see him again until the next night, or the night after that. Sometimes, years could go by before these married lovebirds actually saw each other in the daytime.

Why?

According to some historians, to help ease the Spartan groom into heterosexuality.



Spartan men were avid practitioners of dude-love. While we might be tempted to think this made them champions of gay rights, the reality was that women were so poorly regarded in ancient Greece that, not only weren't they regarded as citizens, they didn't even deserve your warm pork injection.

The problem was that when the time came to do their duty to their species, Spartan men didn't even know where to stick their bits. So to facilitate the soldier's transition from gay love to straight love, brides shaved away their femininity and threw on some man clothes.
As for the sneaking around stuff, Spartan men were required to live in military barracks until the age of 30, but the average age of marriage for men was 25. So most couples married, did the hanky-panky in the woods or whatever, made some babies, and didn't even live in the same household for the first few years of their marriages. Hey, we wonder how the Spartan men comforted each other over the absence of the women in their lives? Eh, we'll probably never know.


Here's the less-vulgar (and less-entertaining) scoop from Wikipedia:
Spartan men were required to marry at age 30, after completing the Krypteia [training]. Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:

The custom was to capture women for marriage(...) The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl. She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark. The bridegroom—who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always—first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed. [sounds like an easy bridesmaid job? I'd rather shave the bride's head than plan a bridal shower, bachelorette party, AND wear a stupid dress]

The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage. These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signalled her entrance into a new life.



And, just to make this as TL;DR as possible, more information:
Marriage was stressed highly in Spartan society, specifically in the proliferation of young healthy children. However, the marriage ceremony for a Spartan man and woman was not highly ritualized. The woman was abducted in the night, her head would be shaved, and she was made to wear men's clothing and lye on a straw pallet in the dark. The groom afterward would return to the barrack of young men, and would have little or no contact with the bride from thereafter, save for purely procreative visits. A Spartan male could have multiple wives, (anthropologically known as polygamy) but lived mostly amongst his mess and barrack mates with little connection to the opposite sex. Until the age of thirty or onward, a Spartan man's life was entirely dedicated to his state and to the army.

And now you can go about your day knowing that you have an interesting tidbit of information to share at that wedding you don't want to attend this summer. You're welcome!

-Kay Banks

Joe Francis the Girls Gone Wild guy is engaged

Seems like 'Girls Gone Wild' founder, Joe Francis, has found the love of his life. Francis, one of Hollywood's most notorious men, is reportedly engaged to Los Angeles local news reporter, Christina McLarty. Christina is the niece of Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, Mack McLarty. She is currently an entertainment reporter at CBS 2 and KCAL 9 (LA TV stations).




The beautiful brunette attended New York University where she majored in Broadcast Journalism and English. She has previously worked for E! Entertainment's 'Fashion File.' Some of her most notable subjects include Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton (whom she interned for) Diane Sawyer, Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty.

I know nothing about her and little about him, but here is my prediction that I just came up with: The two will have a bunch of kids that will eventually go on to become the Kardashians or the Hiltons of tomorrow. They'll have reality shows on E!, gossip-worthy body parts, and join forces to become an unstoppable media gravy train. Joe Francis will be featured on one of the shows and, like Ozzy and Gene Simmons, will become a dopey comedy foil. We'll forget that Joe Francis ever took pictures of underage boobs and evaded his taxes and say things at parties like "That Joe Francis...he's just like my uncle! Who knew?!"

-KB

Don't forget to send me an email with the subject "LOVE DIAMONDS" to enter to win a $25 gift certificate toward wedding favors!

Win a $25 gift card for wedding favors (Giveaway time!)

Hello faithful readers and newcomers who like to enter giveaways! I have a $25 gift certificate for Diamond Favors to give to one lucky person. To enter send me an email (bloggerofthebride-at-gmail-dot-com) with the subject "Love Diamonds". The winner will be announced next Friday.

Diamond Favors doesn't just have wedding favors, they also have wedding accessories like unity candles and flower girl baskets, and bridal shower favors, and even baby shower favors. Here are a few of my favorites...


A pretty fan with cherry blossoms and branches - nice for a warm summer wedding or match the popular cherry blossom wedding motif.

These mini pails are cute because I am a sucker for anything mini that also contains candy.

And these little bamboo boxes are perfect for you tree-hugging hippies who want to use sustainable materials, or just for people who like cute little boxes.

So, send me an email right away for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate toward anything on the Diamond Favors site. Good luck!

-Kay

Saying what the bridesmaids are thinking...

The scene is set, but this sarcastic license plate kind of spoils the mood by telling the truth:

WUP T DO

-KB

Come back on Friday for a chance to win a gift certificate!

More couples have a friend officiate their wedding

This doesn't surprise me at all - in the last 5 years or so, all but one of the weddings I've attended was officiated by a friend or family member.

From NPR: As the summer wedding season approaches, don't be surprised if there's something noticeably missing at the next wedding you attend: a member of the clergy. The Wedding Report, a research firm, says last year one out of every seven weddings in the U.S. was performed by a friend of the couple.

"I've seen it become increasingly popular over the last few years," says Melissa Evans, who has been helping couples plan weddings for more than a decade. Evans says having a friend perform the wedding is one way to make a ceremony meaningful for couples of different faiths.

Wildly inappropriate picture that made me laugh so hard I snorted.

"One partner doesn't necessarily have to give up their religion, their faith, their history," she says. "They can tie it all together."

Looking through pictures from their wedding last fall, Kate and Ed Kochem of central New York say they wouldn't change a thing — especially asking Kate's aunt to marry them. "It really made me feel more like part of Kate's family, you know?" Ed Kochem says. "As opposed to someone that I don't know, some judge or pastor that I rarely see doing the ceremony. With Kate's aunt, it really seemed like I was becoming part of her family."

"It's frightening, but it's exhilarating," says Ted Botsford who's getting ready to perform his second wedding this summer. "When somebody that you care about, and you've known for their entire lives, asks you to perform their wedding ceremony, it's a feeling you just can't imagine."

The Wedding Report says two years ago, clergy performed 70 percent of all weddings. Last year, it was down to 62 percent.


I support this trend! Not only is it cost-effective, it brings a much more personal touch to the ceremony. Why would you want someone you've only met a few times to oversee your wedding? As a guest of friend-officiated weddings, I appreciate the perspective that a good friend can bring. They know and share things about the couple that are special, and that gives me the warm fuzzies.

-KB

p.s. I'm announcing another giveaway this Friday! Stay tuned.

Couple pays for wedding with cans

I've probably talked endlessly about how much I hate hearing about people buying stuff they can't afford, so this makes me very happy.

A Spokane couple has reached its goal of collecting enough recyclable aluminum cans to pay for their wedding.

Peter Geyer and Andrea Parrish estimated they needed to collect 400,000 cans, worth about $3,800, to pay for the July 31 wedding. With the help of a 150,000-can donation from Alcoa and 73,000 cans from United Recycling Services, they have reached the goal.



The couple continues to collect cans, this time to pay for their honeymoon. They also plan to donate some proceeds to Doctors Without Borders and Rim Country Land Institute.

Pete and Andrea also have a website, and I found this particularly endearing:

What kind of wedding are you planning? A community-centered, homemade celebration of family and friends. With only $3,800 – $4,000 for a budget (less than 20% of the budget of a $25,000 “average wedding”), we will be keeping it fairly conservative. It will be a handfasting officiated by the friend that brought us together. Oh, and the bouquet will be tossed with a trebuchet.

On top of being money-wise and donating to excellent charities, they also like to sling things through the air! Love this couple!

If you've never taken anything to the recycling center, I can tell you that it is REALLY hard to make any decent money off of it. As a, um, young person, I once filled my car's trunk FULL of glass bottles (from...soda) and I took them to the recycling center and I got about $7. My dreams of a wealthy summer were dashed.

-KB

Teenager marries cow, becomes widower

Here's a weird, sad, sick, weird story:



A teenager who was forced to marry a cow he claims seduced him fainted during his wedding. What’s more, shortly after the ceremony, Ngurah Alit, 18, became a widower when villagers drowned his ‘bride’. The teenager was spotted naked in a field with the cow. He said he believed it to be a beautiful woman who had seduced him with flattering compliments. He was then forced to marry the cow to ‘cleanse’ the Bali coastal village of Yeh Embang [Indonesia] of the bestiality.

Poor cow.

-Kay Banks

Couple marries at Home Depot

56-year-old Carolyn Weatherly and 55-year-old Audwin Mosby were married in the garden center of a Lake Forest, CA Home Depot store. Carolyn says the store is like a second home since she and Audwin both work there, as well as her son and his daughter. Co-workers suggested the store as their wedding location.



Carolyn, her the wedding party, a ring bearer and three flower girls walked through light bulbs, grills and paint on Aisle 1 to the center of the store, and outside to the garden center. There the couple was married in front of 100+ guests and some Home Depot shoppers under a wedding arbor built from Home Depot lumber and supplies.



"I can't believe there's a wedding in the Home Depot," shopper Linda Brown told the OC Register. "I'm not dressed for it! We walked in here past the minister and I thought 'Oh my God, should I be in here.'"

"I just love it," said another shopper. "It's a very nice surprise. The men look wonderful in their white tuxedos."

I love the orange tie on the groom's new work apron. Mostly, I can't believe that they fit all those people in the garden center. Having seen quite a few store weddings now, I think this is one of the prettiest.

-KB

A destination wedding where the destination is death

If you like weddings and horror movies, you'll be excited about this: On August 8th, 1978, you are cordially invited to the marriage of Gwen Anne Sanderson and Brent Forrest Hall. There will dinner. There will be dancing. There will be murder. Killer Disco Wedding. A destination wedding where the destination is DEATH.

Killer Disco Wedding Trailer from Killer Disco Wedding on Vimeo.

Conceived by filmmakers Vaughn Blake and Andrew Gettens, Killer Disco Wedding grew out of the two's love of grindhouse cinema and interest in mid-90's kitsch. Shot over the weekend with the help of friends, the project was a labor of love designed to get a laugh from their friends across the country.

Who doesn't love campy '70s horror movies? If I ever meet someone who claims to not enjoy watching terrible, terrible movies, I will do the disco call and kick that jive turkey outta my face.

Have a terrifying weekend!

-KB

Pregnant bride fired on the eve of her wedding

The article is wordy, so I will tl;dr it for you.

Jarretta Hamilton was a fourth grade teacher at a Florida Christian school until the school administration found out that she was pregnant and unmarried. She asked her boss for a leave of absence for her wedding and mentioned that she had just become pregnant.



The school's strict guidelines prohibit teachers from "fornication". Jarretta was asked not to return to the school.

It won't surprise you to find out that Jarretta is suing the school; the school claims they've done nothing wrong.

From the picture of this new family, it looks like Jarretta and her new husband are more mature, so it's not surprising that they'd start trying to have kids right away. The article says that she was three weeks pregnant on the day of her wedding. If the point of the firing is to keep her pre-marital fornication a secret, they could have just said it was a honeymoon baby. Finally, what kind of Christians turn away a pregnant and temporarily-single woman? It's been a long time since the slow, painful torture of private Christian school, but I seem to remember that Jesus was born in a barn because nobody would let a pregnant and unmarried woman stay in their inn.

Good luck Jarretta!

-Kay

Wedding planning in a hurry

It's Monday morning and I'm...in a jam, so I need to plan a wedding in a hurry! Where can I go to get ideas to force my baby daddy to marry me, buy a gown, and refreshments for our reception?

Hussey's General Store, of course! It's a store so large that it has a dedicated (but brief) wikipedia entry.



I'm not pregnant. I'm not even pregnant with emotion because it's Monday morning and I'm half asleep.

Humph.

-KB

Octopus wedding gown

This picture is a mystery since I can't find* a source for this bizarre octopus wedding gown.

She's missing some legs, of course, but the octopus leg bodice and the seaweed tiara are awesome companions for this whacked out wedding gown.

I've loved octopuses as a design theme ever since I walked into a new local Italian restaurant and saw a giant, hand-carved wood octopus chandelier with red jewel eyes. The octopus's legs were stretched and curled around a ship's wheel, and it was the best chandelier EVER. Seriously. Sadly, the restaurant was terrible, and it went out of business, and I went down there to see if I could somehow buy that chandelier, but knew no way of getting in touch with the previous owners. Some day, I might have one custom-made for me because I am crazy and I would really hang it in my house. But I never took a picture, so I have only my faulty memories to go on.

Since I'm going off on many tangents, and it's Friday, and you probably stopped reading after the first picture here's some octopus music for you:

Have a great weekend!
-Kay

*by "can't find" I mean I Googled it and didn't immediately find the answer. DIYDS if you want to know the real source.

Man proposes via tattoo

Joe Wittenberg has been designing tattoos for nine years. So when it came time to ask the woman he loves to marry him, he put the machine to his own skin. "It seemed pretty apt for how me and Rachel are," he said.

It's one thing to get a tattoo designed by someone else, but could you imagine doing all the work on yourself? That's exactly what Joe did. "I made a stencil and put the stencil on my leg and then just followed it along," he explained. Joe and Rachel have a 6-month-old boy named Liam, so Joe decided Mother's Day was the perfect date.

"I was already down on one knee, so I pulled up my pants and she saw the tattoo," Joe said.

[Note: Men, normally, you should not do strange things with your pants when talking to the ladies. It's creepy]

As Rachel stared at the tattoo, she says everything went from shocking to fitting. And she gave an answer: Yes.

And while some might find a proposal through a tattoo somewhat risky, this bride-to-be-says Joe traced his ink just right, "He scored some points for putting my name on there for sure," said Rachel.

There's a video at the source if you want to see the interview with the couple - they're cute!

It's a bold move to tattoo a proposal AND a girl's name on your leg, but since they have a kid, it seems likely that she'd say yes. I'm assuming that they live together too, so I want to know how he kept a leg tattoo a secret for longer than 10 minutes. I'd notice if my husband got a giant tattoo on his leg.

-KB

Gorgeous vintage wedding photos

James Van Der Zee was an African-American photographer who was best known for his portraits of black New Yorkers during the Harlem Renaissance, with a theme of the emerging black middle-class. [Thanks, Wikipedia] Here are some photos that he took of affluent weddings.


Van Der Zee was an experimenter. Here you can see the ghostly image of a child next to the newlyweds "to suggest the couple's future". The couple is cute, but they look really (really) young, and she is wearing a shower cap. Oh, fashion!



An obviously-wealthy wedding party from 1926.


Another example of Van Der Zee's experiments - if you view the larger version of the photo you can see that he's added a touch of color to make the photo more romantic. Love the cloud of tulle and silk that she's standing in.

James Van Der Zee's work is new to me, and I'm in love! I always like vintage photographs, but I think his are especially exciting because he was forging new ground with his style and his subjects.

-Kay

Originally found on My2SecondShelfLife - thanks!

Al & Tipper Gore's wedding photo

As it turns out, I'm not as lazy as I think I am, so here is the Al Gore wedding photo that I promised.

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. and Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson met got married on May 19, 1970, and then had a bunch of kids.



Al looks bored and Tipper looks smug.

You know who Al and Tipper Gore are right?

Tipper Gore had lots of promising new ideas about censorship:



And Al Gore invented the Internet:


I wish them both the best of luck in their exciting new ventures. What's next from this enterprising couple? The Internet 2? An asterisk on the First Amendment? I can't wait to see what they'll do next!

-KB

Another reason not to hyphenate your name

Just ask Theresa Kumon-Topomi.



I hesitate to believe this, but it must be one of those stranger-than-fiction things.

And did you hear that Al and Tipper Gore are getting divorced. If I wasn't so lazy I'd dig up their wedding photos. Maybe later.

-Kay