The Goal (Neatly Illustrated)

It's strange how weddings have the tendency to bring out the best and the worst in people. We all know about the best: the joy, the generosity, and the love. But I've found out that, at least for me, weddings can sometimes bring out the worst, even if it's in a small quiet way. How many times have you looked at pictures of a big luxe wedding and felt a nagging bit of jealousy? Why can't you afford those shoes or that dress, or that photo booth? How many times has your budget made you feel isolated or sad because it's not as big and fabulous as so-and-so's? And that's not even mentioning the wonderful stress induced behavior that wedding planning brings out in each of us.

But, what I really want to talk about is the competitiveness that weddings can bring out in even the sanest of brides. When I started this blog I cited Ariel's "Your Wedding Is Not A Contest" post as some of the best wedding advice I'd heard. Now 168 (!) wedding posts later, I think this is even better advice. Those of us who are trying to plan a wedding our own way spend so much time and energy fighting conventions and the wedding industry, that it's only natural that our defenses go up. "I'm having the greenest wedding ever!" we say. "My wedding is going to be the most amazing tiny budget wedding of all time," or "Everything about my wedding is going to buck tradition."

While all these goals are worth being proud of, sometimes we need to take a step back, and realize that's not the point. As awesome as our line-item budget skills are, the point isn't coming in 20% below the budget. The point isn't even to make our wedding totally unique and personal. Nope, the point is to plan a wedding that's the best wedding for us. The point is to find a good balance between not going broke and staying sane.

The real point is to end up married. And it's good to remember that we all have the same goal.

So next time you catch yourself thinking, "Our wedding is going to be totally unique!" or "Our wedding is going to be the thriftiest wedding ever." Stop, and think, "Hey, at the end of my wedding, I'm going to end up married!"

Now if I can only stop my wedding related guilt (but that's another post).

Photo via Our Labor Of Love.

Meighan & Seth's Fort Tyron Park Wedding

So there I was, sitting at the Sunday breakfast table, reading the New York Times, and pondering my first post of the week, and bam! I flipped to the "Vows" column and the subtitle was "When it comes to planning a wedding in just three weeks in Fort Tyron Park, who do you call? Yourselves." Ah-ha! I thought to myself, a practical wedding, and in one of my favorite places.Meighan and Seth met working for The One Campaign, the antipoverty group founded by Bono. She was Christian, he was Jewish, they were co-workers, and yet, they couldn't stop themselves from falling in love. He proposed in Buenos Areas, and two years later, with their hectic work schedules, they still hadn't planned a wedding. So they made some phone calls, and suddenly they had a wedding date in just three weeks at the New Leaf Cafe in that oasis in Manhattan, Fort Tyron Park. (Which goes to show you, you can slack from now till three weeks before your wedding date!) And to be honest, this paragraph made me tear up:

The sky over the Hudson threatened to drench the bride’s Jenny Yoo gown — but held off for the couple, who, under a bower of lindens, melded Christian and Jewish traditions. Mr. Hickson, their officiant, welcomed the couple to the “room that God has created for you.” Then, as a blaze of orange broke through the cloud cover, a handful of guests erected a simple wedding canopy over the couple. Standing beneath it with his bride, the air crackled with the sound of Mr. Amgott stamping on a glass.

The pictures of this wedding are so lovely! Read all about it here.

Non Floral Wedding Bouquets

Phew. Well, I think this hotness proves once and for all that you don't have to carry flowers.
And then there is this adorable pregnant bride rocking the feather bouquet (with feathers on her shoes!)

Happy Weekend!

Photos via Red Heart Photo and Stephanie James Couture.

Imperfict Weddings II

So, it seems that we all needed to hear that our weddings don't need to strive for perfection! The post I wrote last week was written mostly to remind myself that the standard being set for weddings is insane and unrealistic, and I needed to chill out, and let the pieces fall where they may. Whew! Well, talk about a big response. My inbox was flooded with "Mmmhummm! Preach it!" emails, along with the "Oh my god, I needed to hear that" emails. And then, everywhere I looked the post kept popping up again. Which is all well and good. If the only thing anyone remembered from this little blog was me saying "If you still believe in perfection, you are too young to get married," then I would be happy.

Since I started thinking of the delightful imperfection of both weddings and marriages, I've stumbled on some quotes on the subject that I loved. Lest we forget:

"Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished." - Goethe

"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the real soulmate is the one you are actually married to." – J.R.R. Tolkien
And finally, the quote that would make the most excellent wedding reading, from Ms. Peonies:

"Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"
- Leonard Cohen

Pictures from Marie Labbancz (thanks Kathryn)

Why I'm A Practical Bride Contest

I'm excited to announce our very first contest! Who-hoo! Now, do you think I'm giving something away, and all you have to do is leave a comment and get picked? Of course not. Over here at chez practical we value wit more then that. So, Modern Bride has introduced a new ad campaign, "I’m a Modern Bride because..." I've included the only adorable ad above. As for the rest, well, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, right? Except, really? You’re a modern bride because your wedding lasted four days? FOUR DAYS? That is a lot of inconvenience and forced merriment on the part of your guests. When I was small my mother used to tell me that if Christmas was every day, it wouldn't be fun anymore. The same can be said of weddings.

Which brings me to the contest. Why are you a Practical Bride (or groom)? Leave your answer in the comments. I have two prizes! A copy of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding for the wittiest answer, and a copy of Miss Manners On {Painfully Proper} Weddings goes to the writer of the wisest answer. Oh yes, and (internet) fame and glory. That goes to both winners. Go for something that will make us laugh, or will make us nod our heads, and murmur "true, true."

Let's see what Team Practical can come up with. I'm expecting big things. (Also, you absolutely do not have to be engaged to enter, just a clever writer.)

And… GO! Comments are open for exactly one week (and you can enter as many times as you want)

Kathryn & Hugo's Jewish and Mexican At Home Wedding

This lovely and simple at home wedding was sent to me by the fabulous bay area photographer Loren Weltsch. I think this wedding is a great example of how the wedding ceremony and celebration itself have a beauty that shines through when you strip it down to it's elegant essence. Here are the details Loren sent:
This wedding took place at the brides parent’s home in Saratoga, California. The entire celebration was a wonderful example of two cultures coming together - the bride is Jewish and the groom is from Mexico.
The ceremony took place on the front lawn with a simple chuppah. The two little ringbearers were eager to come down the aisle since they found big lollipops at the end! The bride and groom did not have a wedding party but asked several friends to participate in the ceremony by reading blessings.
The bride wore a simple lace dress and her wedding ring is a family heirloom from her grandfather. She had friends help do her hair and make-up.
Guests enjoyed traditional Jewish dancing as well as music from a mariachi band. Once the sun went down the backyard was lit up with strings of white lights and paper lanterns.

There are so many things I love about this wedding: the simple lace dress, the family ring, the merging of two cultures (which is something we are carefully considering during our wedding planning), and more then anything the pure joy on the brides face as she is being lifted up for the chair dance. A big thank you to Loren for sharing this wedding with us.

Jessamyn Harris - Adorable Same Sex Weddings!

Have you been checking out Jessamyn Harris' adorable gay weddings? If you haven't you totally should be.

The Slavery Of Choice

This weekend I learned a new phrase, one I'd somehow missed in my 28 years of being on this earth: "The best is the enemy of the good." It's a Voltaire quote, that means, roughly, that good is sometimes good enough, and that our endless quest for perfection sometimes ends with us sacrificing good options while we look for the elusive 'best' option.

Whew. So is there a phrase that pertains to wedding planning more then this? As the cultural pressure mounts for us to have perfect weddings, I keep seeing brides (and sometimes myself) freezing like deer caught in the headlights. How can we make a decision on a florist until we have researched every possible floral designer working in our area, and found the one who's style and vision best meshes with ours? How can we pick a photographer when the ideal photographer might be just around the corner, or just out of our price range, who will perfectly memorialize our wedding day for all time? How can we select one kind of guest book when we have so many options, each of which might capture our guests sentiments in an original yet emotional way? It's our wedding day, it has to be the best, and it has to be right for us. With so many options and so much pressure how on earth can we choose?

Even practical budget couples can get caught in this trap. The Paradox Of Choice goes a long way towards describing what is going on. This (fascinating) book's argument boils down the idea that the more options we have, the more we are both frozen with indecision and ultimately unhappy with our choice, because we fear we might not have made the best one.

Since I suspect we are all at times caught in this wedding planning trap, we need to identify it, take a deep breath, and realize that the best is indeed the enemy of the good. If we wait and wait to pick a wedding vendor because we're not sure if the ones we have found are quite right, all of the good vendors might end up booked before we bite the bullet. If we immobilize ourselves when trying to make even simple wedding choices, we may well sacrifice enjoying our wedding planning for the quest to find 'the best' choices.

Every wedding choice we have made so far has been made like this:

1. We did a lot of research to find out what the options were in our price range.
2. We went out talked to people and looked at the choices first hand.
3. We found something we really liked a lot. (When I walked into our venue, I looked around and said "this is for me", and walked right in to the office to inquire about availability.)
   
4. We obsessed about if the choice should really be this easy, if we should do a little more research, if we were going to miss something great by just going with our gut.
5. We signed the contract.
6. We felt relieved and happy.

I can't tell you yet how this is all going to turn out on our wedding day, but I can tell you that we are probably going to have all our major contracts signed a full year before we get married. Which should give us a lot of time to chill out, and fuss around with the enjoyable details.

How have you wrestled with the wedding decision making process?

Picture: This is toooo many cakes to pick from, and this is just a few of thousands of options.

Baby Got Back Awesomeness

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, or know me in the flesh, you probably know of my unshakable love for Baby Got Back (and Justin Timberlake's nonsense, but that's another story). So you will understand the giggle fit that ensued when I watched this elegant and lovely wedding first dance to Sir Mix-a-lot's classic work.

Also, if you know me in real life, you will understand that David and I would not have to work out pre-set choreography to this particular ditty. We've got that sh*t in our souls.

Thanks to Reim for the heads up.

Ginnifer Goodwin, The One 'Celeb' In The Practical Club

I think that our obsession with celebrity weddings are part of what is slowly destroying our weddings and our sanity. Do I even need to qualify this? Can't I just say: Eva Longoria & Tony Parker, and TomKat? Right. Done.

I picked up my new Modern Bride (yes, I now have a subscription, thanks to a hilarious gift from our friends Kory & Beck) and flipped through it to see a page called "Celebs' Favorite Weddings." Of course most 'celebs' interviewed said their favorite wedding was their very own, as it was the most ostentatious they had ever attended. But there in the middle of the page was the adorable Ginnifer Goodwin, who said "At my favorite wedding, the guests sat on lawn chairs, and the bridesmaids wore what they wanted to wear. There was a buffet instead of a sit-down dinner, and we danced under the trees. I had the time of my life." Awwww.... now I love Ms. Goodwin even more!

Of course a few pages later, the new Mrs. Charlie Sheen explained that because she wanted her wedding to feel more like it had taken place in a backyard, she had large potted trees brought inside the expensive estate they rented for their wedding.

And then my head exploded.

Nole & Andrews Budget Garden Wedding

Style Me Pretty posted such a beautiful $13,000 garden wedding this week, that I just had to post some additional images, in case you missed seeing it. I never cease to be inspired by the thrifty and creative choices that couples planning weddings on tight budgets make. So often they end up making more interesting choices then you see in the average big budget wedding. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.
A homemade table runner, which is our plan as well.
The bride had a stunning bouquet of lilacs, and wore a used designer dress from Preownedweddingdresses. The great thing about used wedding dresses? It's not like its been worn more then once!
A cake buffet! The practical alternative to the overpriced wedding cake dilemma.
Also, Style Me Pretty has launched a site re-design, and it now has a budget beautiful wedding section, along with a Do-It-Yourself Inspired wedding section. Go browse, it's awesome.

All pictures by Puma Bean Photography via Nole's Knot Bio.

Mission Accomplished

A few reasons why you practical wedding readers (or "Team Practical" as I call you in my head) are awesome:

1. You just are, obviously. You leave the best comments, and send me the most supportive emails. You're positive and helpful, and give such constructive tips and feedback. Half the time the comments here are better then my posts.
2. Thus far you've raised $135 for Dianne & Chuck's $10,000 wedding in reverse. Can we make it $200? Lets see!
3. You brought The Engaged Guy out of his slumber. I told you, peer pressure works. Check out his post on the subject here.* And please disregard him calling me famous (it made me blush).

Go, go, Team Practical!

*Ohdearjesus. While you are over there, please listen to the podcast of the post. The auto voice reading the post is so awful-hilarious, it made me actually cry a little bit from the laughing. Perhaps we should start the podcast nonsense here?

Light Up The Night - A $10,000 Wedding In Reverse

I thought we'd end the week on a sweet note. This wedding is the perfect antidote for feeling burned out by all of the spend, spend, spend associated with the modern wedding. Dianne and Chuck met online, and had only been dating a few months when she was diagnosed with stage IV lymphoma. When she told Chuck that it he should run away he told her "When God gives you a gift, you don't give it back," and proposed to her at her hospital bedside.

Which brings us to the upcoming nuptials. The couple is getting married in their backyard, and the next night they are asking all of their wedding guests to walk with them at the Leukemia and Lymphoma society's annual Light the Night Walk. Their goal is to raise $10,000 for blood cancer research with their wedding, instead of spending $10,000 on their wedding.

In the midst of the intense narcissism that sometimes surrounds weddings, this story is so refreshing, and touching. It reminds us to be careful and thoughtful about how we spend our wedding dollars, because the money we spend on our wedding is very real money that we should be using to make a small difference in the world, whether that is supporting vendors we like and trust, or starting our marriage with this kind of profound tzedakah. You can give a donation to Dianne and Chuck's goal, here, if you feel so moved (remember teeny tiny donations help too). Think of it as a small rebellion against the madness of the wedding industry.

Best of luck to Dianne and Chuck! They have promised to update us after the wedding, and I for one am rooting for them.

Photo via Apaoli's Flickr stream

My New Style Board

I'm always a little shy about posting my inspiration boards, because I just make boards for myself, not lovely works of art like Abby and Kathryn. But, I created this new board for our wedding, to give people a idea of our ideas for our jewel toned, vintage-y, laid back, joyful wedding day. This board had a little more pink then we want to use, but it gives the vibrant feeling we are going for. You can see my first board here, which contains lots of elements we are still planning on using.

Your Mission (Should You Choose To Accept It)

Ok, so we've talked before about the pathetic status of grooms at weddings. They are supposed to show up, shut up, and pay up, as far as I can tell. And most things on the internet written for (or even by) grooms reads like it's written for barely literate frat boys* - people I don't even want to have a drink with, let alone spend the rest of my life around. Because seriously, if your groom only cares about bachelor parties, lingerie, cigars, honeymoons, and drinking, you need to leave him by the side of the road. Now.

So into this black hole of groom nothingness, steps The Engaged Guy. He's the blogger my fiancé would be, if my fiancé blogged about weddings (well, except for the skinny ties thing. David wants you to know that he holds no truck with skinny ties). He's hilarious, he's smart, his fiancé and wedding sound amazing, and he's a professional writer. I know you've heard about this blog before, but I have been to his site, and there are almost no comments. So, you clever and funny Practical Wedding readers, hie yourself to The Engaged Guy, and pepper him with your comments. Perhaps we can peer-pressure him into posting more often? Peer pressure is awesome.

*I recently learned that the term "frat" is offensive to some people. If this is true for you, my apologies. Please substitute the term "fraternal brotherhood."

Brooke & Tim's Musical Summer Camp Wedding

I've been in love with this beautiful carefree summer camp wedding for a few weeks, and I'm excited to finally get to share it with you. Summer camp and other more rural wedding locations are practical in some areas, and not so practical in others. We made some calls to rural venues, and a woman told me "Our rental fee is reasonable. But, please keep in mind that you'll need to rent all your own generators, rent toilets, set up lighting, bring in water, rent shuttles, and pave the roads leading to the the site." Or whatever. And I thought, "Lady, you lost me at generators."

But this wedding, ohhh, this wedding. Shot by the wizards at Belathee Photography, it took place at Camp Collins in Gresham, Oregon. It's rustic, it's casual, its sassy, it's hip. I'm in love. All you couples who live in areas with practical summer camps, run with this!
Sassy wedding guests always seem to make a wedding. Good thing we have awesome friends!

I love big groom shots at weddings, and this shot is really great. Everyone looks like they are having so much fun. It looks, well, like summer camp. We are definitely doing a group shot, and we are thinking of setting up a little photography backdrop like this one.
There was lots and lots of music at this wedding. I used to go to world music and dance camps in the Redwoods in California... or magical musical hippy festivals, if you want a translation. The vibe of this wedding reminds me of dance camp, and makes me want to run away to the redwoods to get my bellydance on right NOW! (Note to self: get some kick *ss musicians to party at our wedding.)

What makes the wedding for me is this picture of the bride and groom. We all know I'm pretty picky in the wedding dress department, but this fits the bill. Simple, lovely, and pre-rumpled so you can party, party, party!

Belathee Photography shoots in New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. My kind of girls!

Imperfect Weddings

If you still believe in perfection, you are too young to get married. Nothing in life is perfect, especially a big party. But even if we don't believe in perfection, we are all being force fed this idea that our wedding day will be perfect. Everyone talks to you about "Your Big Day" "Your Perfect Day" "The Happiest Day of Your Life." The problem with these ideas are that they stress you out. Since brides are told to expect and require perfection, and that all the details matter, that often translates into a huge amount of stress. I've seen brides waiting to go down the aisle in full freak out mode over one detail or another. I read about a bride who didn't enjoy her wedding day at all, because after all her planning, her $10,000 gown ripped, and even after some safety pin intervention, she couldn't enjoy the rest of the day. And I think we can all agree, we don't want that to happen to us.

So, what to do? Things are going to go wrong on our wedding days, and we need to expect that. Our Labor of Love posted pictures of this adorable bride, who was in a cast on her wedding day. Instead of ruining the day, it made for great pictures, and gave the couples stories they will tell for the rest of their lives. She was carried down the aisle on a chase lounge, holding her dad's hand, and her new husband carried her back down the aisle.

When you start asking around, everyone has a story of something that went wrong on their wedding day. My parents had all red and white flowers for their wedding... except for the floral cake topper which the florist inexplicably made out of bright yellow roses. During our friends wedding the grooms 11 year old brother and groomsman fainted during the service because he was locking his knees to stand "extra tall." I went to a wedding where the DJ started narrating the brides every move "The bride picked up a wine glass! The bride kissed the groom!" And my mom turned to me and said, "Boy is this going to make a great story one day." These crazy mistakes didn't ruin the weddings. They added imperfection to joyful days celebrating wonderful, but imperfect relationships.

Maybe we should think of whatever goes wrong on our wedding days as lucky. Maybe we should start telling brides to "break a leg" on their wedding day. It would be healthier then wishing them the happiest day of their life.
Photos via Our Labor Of Love (my photo crush out of Atlanta).

Guest Blogging At Snippet And Ink

I'm super excited to announce that I'm guest blogging over at Snippet and Ink all day today. I'm a huge fan of Kathryn's work, and I was terribly flattered when she asked me to guest post. I'm posting my top practical wedding tips throughout the day, so go check it out, and chime in to the discussion.

My New Header!

I'm super excited about my new header! It was drawn by my friend Gina* who has been drawing cartoons with me in them for more then a decade now. Who would have thought that one day she'd be drawing me in a wedding dress for my wedding website? (Answer: probably Gina. She's oddly clairvoyant like that). As I'm sure you can imagine, I love both drawings very much, but I love this picture of me, frazzled by the wedding industry, the very best. If you look closely, bobby pins are popping right out of my bun because I am SO FREAKED OUT by all the things I'm being told I MUST have and all the money I MUST spend to get married.

Also, I really do look like this.

*Gina is launching a awesome and hilarious T-shirt site soon, and I'll tell you about that when it goes live.

Kara & John's Simple Sassy Wedding

One of the very best things about writing this blog is getting to see cool inspiring weddings that are not over the top, are really simple, and emotionally honest. This wedding was sent to be by a reader, Allison, as a great example of a practical wedding. It was shot by the amazing A Bryan Photo, based out of Birmingham, Alabama.
The thing I love the most about this wedding is the couples easy way with each other. They are so in love, but not any a sappy posed way. They both seem totally in their comfort zone at the wedding, which is so important. Other things I love: the brides dress (which looks like a bridesmaid dress in white to me!), and her awesome wild flower bouquet.
You so rarely see touching shots of male friendship from weddings (or really, shots of men at weddings) and this picture just captured my heart.
I love it all, but it was this picture which sold me. The bride walked herself down the aisle!
A simple outdoor ceremony.
Look. I'm going to admit this. I'm a sucker for a cute baby. Period. And you know I'm a "as many kids as possible at the wedding" kind of girl.
David describes my flower style as "bunches of wild flowers" so clearly, I love this bouquet.
For all of you feeling tense about the current obsession with wedding details, and wondering if your wedding will live up in every little way, please note! They are toasting with plastic cups! And the wedding is super excellent.
Homemade cake! Yumm! Best part about this cake? It's not towering and covered with perfect sugar impressions of the lace of the brides dress, and a diamond monogrammed topper, but unlike those cakes, it looks good enough to eat. And it makes me so happy that someone made the cake just for them!
A wedding tradition that has gone out of style, and I really miss. The bride and the groom changing into traveling clothes, and heading off to their honeymoon and married life!

Look at all of the photos over here. There were so many great ones I couldn't fit in the post, that will make you grin. Thanks for the tip Allison!

A Call For URL's

As you might have noticed, I am less then excellent about updating my blog roll. Blogging is a joy for me, but I tend to squeeze in my writing to small quiet moments in my busy days, so blog rolls and small details sometimes get overlooked. But! In the next few weeks, I want to start putting together a compendium of practical wedding brides and grooms*... a practical reader, if you will. So, all you budget savvy, crafty, and chic bloggers, if you'd like to be included, please leave me your URL in the comments.

Go team practical! (Now lets go save some money).

*un-engaged folks are of course welcome.

Dress Shopping, The Generic Edition

So, I finally swallowed my pride, along with some past bad experiences, and waltzed in the door to David's Bridal. I'm a bride trying to keep on a budget, after all, so pride is overrated. I was expecting everything in the store to be a sparkling, princess, A-line poof - and I was wrong. David's Bridal is in the business of creating designer knockoffs, and business is booming. I told them I was looking for long and lace, and off they trotted. They came back with a few dresses priced from $250 on up. One of them (from their "couture" collection) was $1000 and perfectly lovely. In case I wasn't picking up on the fact that this dress was COUTURE, it was called Monique Lou(huillier of course, was implied). I put on the dress, and I can absolutely tell you, it was a nice dress. Full stop. There was not a thing in the world wrong with it. I looked lovely in it, the lace was nice, I looked like a bride.

And yet, somehow, it left me with a empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked like A BRIDE, ie, a dress up doll of a bride. I looked like a bride, but I didn't feel a thing like myself. My inner sass, I'm afraid, was completely muffled.

So here is the crux of the issue. I don't believe in wedding perfection. I don't think that you need to have some life changing transcendental "oh mommy" moment when you put on a dress. I have a great life, thanks, I don't need to find my moment of zen in a wedding dress store. But I do think that we each deserve to feel fabulous on our wedding day, and on my wedding day I would like to feel fully, absolutely, and radically like myself. And I'd rather wear a amazing cocktail dress then a beautiful wedding dress that doesn't feel a thing like me.

So, for gods sakes, you lucky brides with the dress in the closet, tell me there is hope (even if it does not live in David's Bridal.) And if you don't have a dress, you should try ye old David's Bridal. My neurosis should not stop your bargain shopping!

Picture: this homemade dress, this dress has sass. via Our Labor Of Love.

Much Needed Vacation!

I'm off for some southern California vacation. Sitting by the pool, walking on the beach, sleeping in, soaking up the sun, time with family, toasting David's brother's engagement.

I'll see you Monday. Lots of good stuff is coming your way next week, stay tuned.

Happy Fourth of July!

Photo from The Dancing Mermaid's flickr stream

Lovely DIY Friendly Flowers

Me! With the flighty little snippets of style! What is happening to my thinkythinkyness? Preparing for vacation is what is happening. My usual writing will resume next week. Till then, fun!

These two floral arrangements are beautiful, but are also somewhat manageable from a DIY standpoint.

Small arrangements are so much easier to make beautiful then big lush ones, I think. Plus they are great for long tables. I love the mixture of textures here.

Floating flowers in water? Check. Reusing the vases again at home? Check, check.

Top photo, lovely flowers by Housemartin via Black*Eiffel. Bottom photo by Anna Kuperberg.

Weddings On The Other Side Of The Pond

Things the British have right about weddings:

• They give the guests a opportunity to wear fabulous, stylish, over the top hats*
• No garter toss
• No cake smooshing on the face
• A proper sense of restraint and dignity
  

Now, I might be biased, given that my British cousins have had the coolest practical weddings of all time. They got married (respectively) at a lighthouse, a small castle, and a local parish church (which is hundreds of years old, of course) with a reception at the family sheep farm. Why can't we do that? Oh right. No castles or sheep farms. Gah!

So I have this to say to all you UK brides: keep the faith. Don't Americanize your wedding. It's just not worth it.
And I'm not even mentioning the other things the British have right, like tea made properly, marmalade, and London.

*Technically, these hats were worn at a Knighting. But I'll take that in a pinch.

Fun Affordable Wedding Gifts

Mighty Goods*, which is one of my favorite sites on the internet, has done it again. This excellent shopping blog (which is pretty much like having your own personal shopper, as far as I'm concerned) has just published a list of great wedding gifts under $40. It's excellent for wedding season, but also great if your looking for affordable things that you actually want to put on your registry. I'd be thrilled to get any of these things! They also has a top shelf guide up, filled with really unique liquor choices. Ostensibly, it was for fathers day gifts, but it's also good for the wedding gift shopping, I say. Who doesn't need a drink before they walk down the aisle?

*Totally not a sponsored ad, I actually love this site that much. David finds half my presents there. Check it out!