Thursday, July 28, 2011

Paralyzed bride receives corporate-sponsored gift

Last week the story of Rachelle Friedman was making the news; she's the woman who was paralyzed at her bachelorette party.

This week she's received a nice gift from Toyota. Most young women don't want mini-vans, but this is a nice gesture. She and her new husband received a Sienna Rampvan to accommodate her wheelchair. The van will put an end to Rachelle having to be carried in and out of the family SUV.



According to the press release, she plays quad-rugby. This girl is a badass! I hope the good stuff keeps coming for her.

-KB

Monday, July 25, 2011

Parents: Always mildly annoying

Don't get me wrong, parents are awesome, but sometimes there's an issue they just won't stop pushing.

This article outlines gay couples who are being pressured into marriage by their parents; now that gay marriage is legal in New York, their parents want them to make it official. Here's an excerpt:

One parent seeking that official stamp is Vicki Robinson, 58, a physics professor at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester. Ever since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the same-sex marriage bill on June 24, Ms. Robinson has been nudging her 27-year-old daughter, Stephanie Pollanen, to marry her girlfriend of six years, Lindsay Hall.

“I’m a Bible-thumping Lutheran who just got my church to put rainbow stickers on their door,” said Ms. Robinson, who is divorced and uses her maiden name. “If they were married, I would feel more like I could write Lindsay’s name in the family Bible in ink.”

But her daughter has refused to share her thoughts on marriage, so Ms. Robinson has taken to following her daughter’s Twitter feed for signs of matrimonial chatter.



“I intercepted a Twitter tweet of my daughter’s one day to a friend indicating that perhaps a wedding was on the horizon,” she said. “So I took my daughter and her girlfriend out to dinner and bought several rounds of martinis, and her partner happened to spill that they had discussed plans for a fall wedding.”

Nothing has been set, but that has not stopped Ms. Robinson from planning the big day in her head.

“Lindsay is small and adorable, so I see her in a flapper thing in ivory silk with an overlapping handkerchief hem and a cloche,” she said. “My daughter is larger than Lindsay and very curvy, so I see her in an old-fashioned off-the-shoulder wedding dress with a big skirt.”

Table settings and menus have also been considered.

“I also see lots of flowers and a string quartet with a band for dancing after,” Ms. Robinson added. “The food would be fabulous and exotic, maybe something sort of Moroccan-Middle Eastern.”


Wow, Mom. That isn't just pressure, it's a boa constrictor.

-KB

Thursday, July 21, 2011

January-December wedding photos emerge

I love a good Hollywood scandal, so of course I've been following this trainwreck of a marriage. A 51-year-old actor married a 16-year-old girl, and they claim it's TRULUV4EVR. The girl's mom claims her daughter has never had plastic surgery, and is a moral young woman; the newlyweds claim they didn't have sex before their marriage and that their relationship is true.

Now the world can further judge them because they've released their wedding photos:

Lots more at the source


I looked at his IMDB page, and despite having seen a lot of his work, I can barely remember him.

So maybe they're both getting what they want - attention, infamy, and sex. Good for them?

-KB

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Watch out for your bridesmaids

Don't get me wrong - this is a really sweet story about a long-term couple that takes the "sickness and health" part of their vows seriously.



A year ago, Rachelle Friedman was suddenly paralyzed, and it put her wedding to Chris Chapman on hold for a year. Their current upcoming wedding is getting national attention and lots of donations - it's a dream wedding now for a couple that has been through hell.

But listen to how the bride was paralyzed:

Days before the ceremony [last year], fate twisted their plans in another direction.

At her bachelorette party, a friend's playful push landed Friedman awkwardly in the shallow end of a pool. Doctors said she was permanently paralyzed.


First, I'm sure that friend feels awful, but there's a sick joke about an ugly taffeta dress in there somewhere.

The bottom line? Love is forever, but don't fuck with your bridesmaids.

Seriously though, good luck to them both. They're a cute couple.

-KB

Monday, July 18, 2011

Wedding guests get food poisoning

Last week, shortly after declaring the entire wedding world boring, I got hideous food poisoning that took me out for the rest of the week. Because my mind is always in the wedding gutter, I was in a cold sweat, barfing my guts up and thinking "I wonder how many times people have gotten food poisoning at a wedding reception?". I Googled it - it happens all the time! Here's the most recent case:


Ninety-two people were hospitalized on Saturday in the northwestern province of Düzce [Turkey] shortly after sharing the same wedding dinner, leading to suspicions of food poisoning.

The Anatolia news agency reported that they were served chicken and pilaf at a wedding in the neighborhood of Aziziye. The 92 people all went to the hospital with complaints of nausea and vomiting. They were then diagnosed with food poisoning. The victims have been receiving treatment at various hospitals in Düzce.


I love that he's on his phone. I got food poisoning and double-eliminated right on the dance floor. Can you believe that?

Meanwhile, officials from the Düzce Provincial Agriculture Directorate took samples from the wedding meal to further investigate. Officials from the Düzce Provincial Health Directorate also took samples from the water the guests drank in order to find out if it was the water that had caused them to be ill.


If this happened at my wedding, I would feel so awful. Brides always worry about things that will ruin their wedding day, and truly this is one of them.

Eat safe!

-Kay

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Bor-ing

There's nothing good going on in the world of weddings right now. Kim Kardashian, Prince of Monaco, blahblahblech. So it seems like a good time for a break. I'll be back next week with...stuff?

For now, here's a picture of an awesome Homer and Marge wedding cake.




xo,

Kay

Thursday, July 7, 2011

I Moo.

If you love delicious sandwiches* as much as I do, then you'll love this.



Personally, I'd rather have a hamburger ring (hence the title of the post) because I think a domed, sesame seed encrusted ring at the top would look cute and make a funny engagement ring. "Here's the bun, baby, but you have to wait for the meat". That's vulgar.

-Kay

* If you're vegan/tarian, you can pretend the bacon is seitan. Or avocado if you're a celiac vegan. Let's just put avocado on everything and call it a day.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Kindle Single - Sparkle by Mara Altman

Amazon recently introduced Kindle Singles; "long-form journalism" that is shorter than a novel, but longer than a magazine article. They cost a buck or two, and focus on one specific topic.

It seemed like fun to try something new, so I bought Sparkle by Mara Altman. It is well-reviewed, and one of the reviewers was absolutely appalled by the filthy language, so I was pretty sure I'd find it funny.



The general gist of the book is familiar - a slightly neurotic modern woman gets serious about her boyfriend and wonders if she's losing herself as a result of the coupling. The (essay? article? I don't know what to call it) story outlines Mara Altman's personal crusade to discover WHY people wear engagement rings, and why she's so conflicted about wearing one.

Not being an engagement ring kind of girl, I snorted forcefully at the description of the classic 3-stone ring as "the cock-and-balls model". Altman researches the history of the engagement ring back to the old Egyptian myth that says the vein in the left-hand ring finger flows right to the heart and quips, "Anatomically speaking, veins that connect to our hearts also eventually connect to our assholes." How can I not love this woman?

I will not divulge all of Altman's discoveries on her journey to dissect engagement rings (and her relationship), so I'll just say that the article was enjoyable. It was part informative and part engaged-Bridget-Jones; I related to many of her feelings about engagement rings and learned a few things along the way. Overall, I'm pleased with my first Single - it was $2 for a lazy morning's entertainment, and I think that's a good value.

-KB

Friday, July 1, 2011

Carmageddon wedding in LA

Southern Californians are bracing themselves for "Carmageddon weekend", the weekend when a huge stretch of the major 405 freeway will be shut down for repairs. It seems like it's going to be bad, but hopefully people will stay home and not clog all the major roads. My close friend and I have been wondering how many weddings will be affected by the freeway closure, and how much it sucks because there was no way of knowing about this last year. Here's the first story I've seen:


A year ago, a young Marina del Rey couple picked the seemingly innocuous date of July 17, 2011, for their wedding in Bel-Air. Then came the unthinkable: Transportation officials announced that a nearby section of the 405 freeway would be closed that day.



"My mom said, I'm going to tell you something, but don't freak out," said soon-to-be bride Dalia Franco, 25.

But panic has been unavoidable, and Franco brought her concerns to the freeway closure meeting Thursday night. A total of 130 wedding guests are expected to arrive from local areas as well as from San Diego, other parts of the United States and even Israel and Africa, she said. She's worried that people will not be able to get to the ceremony on time.

A family friend's house on Bellagio Road will serve as the venue for a 5 p.m. garden wedding themed "Romance under the Stars," Franco said. She and her fiance, Moshe Shmuel, 26, are bracing themselves for a logistical migraine. The couple have asked guests to schedule early flights that will land in plenty of time for the ceremony. Few options exist to ease the drive from the airport or from guests' homes.

She has sent frantic calls and emails to local government officials, asking for their help. She approached public safety officials at the meeting Thursday night seeking advice for her wedding guests. Shmuel, a business student at Santa Monica College, also came to the meeting.

After hearing Franco speak, Los Angeles city officials promised to help the couple make a contingency plan. A group of police officers came up to talk to her after the meeting.

"What we're doing is finding out more about the event and looking at alternate routes," said Capt. John Egan of the LAPD's West Valley area and an operations chief for the closure weekend.

The plans may involve buses or other ways to efficiently move a large number of people, Egan added. Franco said she greatly appreciated the response.

"It's something to calm my fears a little bit," she said, adding that either way, "it's a wedding no one will forget."


I sincerely hope this all works out for them. Good luck, Dalia and Moshe!

-KB