You Know You're a redneck If...

Now that I'm settling in to my new life in the South, this latest installment of You Know You're a Redneck If seems all the more endearing. Frightening. A little bit of both. Love the shirt.

Calling All Bergman Looalikes

The pumpkin pie has long since been digested, the turkey coma a pleasant, distant memory (except every time you bend over in those previously favorite jeans of yours), and you're back to the bloggy grind. Welcome back! If the idea of pickled pig's feet and meatballs sound like a wedding reception must, you dream of a land where the sun disappears for a month's stretch at a time and happen to bear a drop dead resemblance to a lovely, somber-eyed, Bogie-romancing Swede, you may have just won yourself an all-expense paid wedding! With Ingrid Bergman's wedding china to boot! Kinda creepy!

And in the least surprising bit of news, this frisky pair is calling it quits after only four, globe-trotting, nuptially-hungry, champagne swilling months.

Cheap, Nasty and Out of Control

Today's bridal meltdown comes from an unlikely source. Instead of a bitchy bride ripping her support staff a collective new one, this time it's a vendor who spews some serious venom. (First Mel Gibson, then Kramer, now this lady. Anybody have any theories on why such nastiness in the air?)

New Zealanders Steve and Paula cancelled the wedding tent they had ordered for their upcoming nuptials, displeased with what had been assembled. The reply they received from the manager of the Great Marquis Company then quickly became the email shot fired around the world :

"The firm's office manager, Katrina Jorgensen, had written: “Your wedding sounded cheap, nasty and tacky anyway, so we only ever considered you time wasters. Our marquees are for upper class clients which unfortunately you are not. Why don't you stay within your class levels and buy something from Payless Plastics instead.”

That jawdropper continues here

Tomkat Makes it Official

I'm thrilled to report that the Cruise wedding went off with a nary a hitch this weekend in Italy.










The Beckhams giddily reveled in the costume-optional clause in the wedding invitation, showing up as Schoolmarm Barbie and Captain Metrosexual.




Laughing off the widely reported scientology vows they were expected to exchange, the beaming couple recited their own personal pledge to each other, and really, to us, promising their marriage would contain no more press grandstanding, couch surfing or mentions of Kate Cruise. And that they would, upon their return from their honeymoon, disappear forever inside their Colorado compound, only to surface to vote or take advantage of the season-end sales at Bloomies. The bride wore heels and towered over her tiny, beaming husband and didn't radiate her usual zombie-like child bride aura in their official photograph. And there was much rejoicing.

At least, that's how it played out in my head.

TomKat: Comb, yes, but commerative plate?

As once respected TV news journalists breathlessly recount Katie's purchase of a La Perla chantilly lace bra and thong set for her wedding night and said child bride awaits the marital gift of perhaps a mangy Siamese and wide-tooth comb (thanks to a savvy reader for this link ) from her husband to-be, antsy shopkeepers in England have decided to capitalize on the worldwide wedding frenzy by thrusting their own marital candidates into the ring:

From CNN : "Britain's Prince William has yet to pop the question to long-term love Kate Middleton, but one retailer is so confident he will that it has prepared an array of souvenirs with their pictures to mark the occasion.

High street chain Woolworths said it could have 100,000 items, including mugs, plates, tea towels and mouse mats on store shelves within 48 hours of a wedding announcement, according to the Daily Mirror on Friday.

Other items include plastic dolls of the couple, fluffy slippers, mobile phones, wine glasses, thimbles and even a special Pic 'n' Mix range of sweets."

Click on the question mark to take a gander at that commerative Kate and Wills wedding plate!

Hooray!

On Saturday my best friend Alexa married the adorable Mike, and with the minor exception of the freezing cold weather (it was an outdoor candlelit ceremony), it was a gorgeous celebration with a radiant bride and groom, yummy southern food, a killer psychobilly band and just so much fun. The newly minted husband and wife are luxuriating somewhere in Mexico as I write this, and now that I have official permission from the bride's father to lure his daughter away from LA to Memphis, I am preparing to launch a full scale attack. They will need their vacation. If I learned anything from this past election, subtlety doesn't pay.

Speaking of lack of subtlety, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Vegas sadly had to send back the wedding gifts and rescind the invitations for the planned nuptials of wax Brad to waxy Angelina which was to have taken place this weekend. No word yet if wax Jennifer Aniston shed waxy tears of gratitude.

p.s. Wouldn't the bride make a killer corset model?

Gown Friday

It's a virtual cornucopia of wedding dress news!

First, to make up for that wretchedly depressing previous entry, a truck full of wedding gowns on their way to LA for a charity auction are stolen. But wait - before you get mad at me - designers respond by donating over 4,000 gowns! Happy days!

Lindsay Lohan has, like, sketches of her dream gown to be and stuff. Totally awesome

Viktor & Rolf's fantasy wedding gown (for 219 Euros) goes on sale at the London store. Fists are thrown and fingers jabbed as shoppers and - more likely - ebayers vie for the chance own Darby's wedding gown from Steel Magnolias. I don't get it.




And finally, my best friend in the world (pictured below) gets married tomorrow in this beautiful gown to a beautiful man. Happy days indeed! Enjoy your weekend!

*picture removed until Monday to make sure none of the guests - this means you MIke! - gets a glimpse of the bride in her dress before the big day...

My Big Fat Myamar Wedding

The country of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is brutally ruled by Than Shwe's military regime, and the country has suffered from severe neglect. 2 out of every 5 children under the age of 5 are malnourished, and the country spends less on health care than any other in the world. So it came as no little shock when a tape was leaked featuring the staggeringly opulent wedding of the ruler's daughter. It is estimated that the couple received over $50 million in wedding gifts; the daughter alone is wearing a fortune in diamonds and emeralds. It's a bummer of a story to say the least, but since no one reading this will come even close to spending that much on their nuptials, maybe you can feel a little less guilty about buying the $75 wedding night heels with those frilly pom poms.

Much more upliting wedding news to come!

Happy Monday

Know a blushing bride to be who can't seem to stop blathering on in excruciating detail about seating charts and alterations and program font? This subtle little reminder will shut her up in no time - and hopefully crack her up if she has an appropriately dark sense of humor. Available in t-shirts, mugs, clocks, notecards, but blessedly - no thongs - the Please shut up about your fucking wedding mandate is the favorite wedding/shower gift your bride never knew she wanted. I ordered the tank and wore it when I was feeling especially cranky. I feel it my duty to share the love.

The Marriage Bed

One of the more frustrating things about moving to Memphis is the lack of 24-7 NPR that I took for granted while in LA. Where I used to be able to find endless programming and endless pundits to satisfy my current news fix, now I lie in wait of commercial breaks from the 6 hour block of classical music that used to be Talk of the City and Bookworm and Which Way LA and Larry Mantle and Film Week. Now I get little snippets at the top of the hour - rushed little clips of Jamie Tarabay sounding depressed in Iraq or Corey Flintoff sounding smug and cozy in the highbacked armchair and pipe I for some reaosn picture him with. Today I lucked into the Writer's Alamanac, Garrison Keillor's homage to since-passed authors and a lovely poem to round out the segment. Today's poem was The Marriage Bed by Michael Simms, a beautiful tribute to the beauty and excitement and boredom and challenges and the ultimate satisfaction of sharing your life with another. I'm happy to pass it onto you...


The Marriage-Bed

for Eva

The marriage-bed is the center of happiness,
a point from which all things ripple outward,
a nest from which all things learn to fly.
It is the sign of return, part of the great rhythm
of the seasons and of the years.
It is the dream of return, the strength and faith
that sing of home.
It is the wren's nest woven of twigs and string,
the swallow's nest of saliva and mud.
It is what we return to, as migratory birds
passing over marshes and fields
dream of the end of the journey.
It is what frightens night-devils away,
even in winter.
It is the tree that grows through the house,
the hollow of the tree that has never known death.
It is the crystal of all feeling, the flower of all
understanding, the small containing the large.
It is the nautilus growing its many chambers of love.
It is the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent.
It is the idea that a calla lily can be shaped
like a wineglass on a long green stem.
It is the heart-stone.
It is the name of all names
that thinks it is a star and a rose.
It is a conch-shell rough on the outside,
pearly in its intimacy.
It is a snail rolling over and over
building a staircase.
It is an animal, an almond, a repose.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
These are the walls we've pressed back into a circle
in the shape of our merged bodies
And it will take a long time for the waves
spreading from the center of our intimacy
to reach the ends of the world.