extreme wedding design

Since Wedding Belle, wedding advisor to the whacky, asked for exteme wedding ideas in her post a couple of days ago, I figured I'd chime in here with two words sure to strike fear in the hearts of wedding guests everywhere: Renaissance Wedding.

It was my cousin who did it. Some people, including the bride, her mother, and a few guests with too much time and money on their hands, actually rented costumes. The rest of us just cobbled together what we could out of velvet skirts and brocade jackets, throwing in a quick trip to the crafts shop for braided trim and veils.

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Taking the Plunge

Apparently a couple in Alaska recently hosted their wedding at a swimming pool. Not just AT the pool, but actually IN the pool. Instead of a walk down the aisle, the bride slid down a 136 foot slide into the water to meet her groom.

Alaska + March + Swimming pool = Wedding?

 

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Making an Entrance

Whenever I visit one of these home design shows, I’m always on the lookout for the unusual, for the bold design, and for something functional also. After all, when you live in a space-challenged city apartment, you want furniture pieces to multi-task too! I wandered around the recent Architectural Digest Home Design Show with a skeptical mindset. I saw beautiful furniture everywhere but they really belonged to a mansion in Beverly Hills or at a penthouse suite.

I was looking for something to perk up my humdrum hallway when you enter my home – you know the type: a hallway too small to put anything really functional like a desk or a bookcase in it yet big enough that you can’t ignore it. There’s always mirrors and artwork but it’s not very original. Most people entering the hallway barely give it a look.

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Fung Shui With Those Fries?

A McDonald’s restaurant in Southern California has taken the bold step of getting a Feng Shui makeover, a move which at first glace may seem a little like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear—or in this case, a silk purse out of a cow’s ear.

Feng Shui is based partly on the idea that the physical world influences our internal world. It supposes that the physical things of our world—wall color and furniture placement, whether they are mirrors in the living room or a big TV in the bedroom—can have a tremendous influence on our psychological, mental, and spiritual lives.  The good news is that we can have some control over this, by having living plants in our homes, by using certain colors, or by placing particular elements in certain spots in a home or business.

 

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Adam & Suzy

At this weekend’s wedding I experienced something I never expected…well really a few things I never expected, but here’s just one of them. Adam was quite surly all evening. Suzy wanted a massive dance party that went on all night. When it was time to do the chair dance and the Hora the (Jewish) groom had no desire to participate. The (Chinese) bride was obsessed with making sure that it went off perfectly.

This dynamic made for a pretty thn line for us to walk that evening. We had to get everything in that Suzy wanted, without pushing Adam too far. And we were pretty successful with the first dance, the Hora, the cake cutting, etc. Adam was grumpy, but did what he was told. But then the evening was drawing to an end. At midnight Adam made no bones about wanting to leave. The reception was slated to go until 12:30 a.m., so Suzy was having none of it and kept dancing. I was in charge of calling a car for the couple at the end of the night and knew it would take at least 20 minutes for the car to arrive. I told Adam I was going to call a car and have it here ASAP…then I ordered it for 12:40…and I told Suzy it was coming at 12:30.

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