“The wedding dress rule,” advises Vanessa Rae with the Consumer Protection Branch in Ontario, “is the notion that in some situations the delivery of a good must be done by a drop-dead date, no excuses - what good is a wedding dress delivered one day too late?”
Does this happen a lot?
“Unfortunately, the ministry’s Consumer Protection Branch has received complaints like this in the past,” Rae indicates. “Either the dress is not delivered in time or it’s too small, too big, poor quality or the wrong one altogether.”Some of the other frequent topics of wedding product/service-related complaints received by the ministry include wedding photography services and banquet halls and wedding facilities.
How to avoid some of these common consumer problems? Ask lots of questions beforehand. For instance:How long has the company been in business? Can they provide reference clients? Do they have a service delivery guarantee? Will they return your deposit in case of a change of plans?
Try to keep advance deposits to a minimum in case the business unexpectedly closes its doors, and insist on a written contract which spells out important information such as their refund/exchange policy and the start dates and delivery dates.
You can check out the company’s name at the ministry’s Consumer Beware List, an online database which will indicate if the business has failed to respond to complaints lodged with the ministry in the past at www.mgs.gov.on.ca. By taking certain common-sense precautions, you increase your chances of a hassle-free wedding day.
Heather Saint was surprised to win the antique white lace and silk dress with such a low bid.
Mrs Saint, 20, from Billingham, Teesside, said “It is gorgeous and I was proud to tell everyone at the wedding how much it cost, I didn’t mind anyone knowing”.
“You should have heard me squeal with excitement when I opened the parcel and saw how perfect it was. It’s made by a designer from Singapore.”
And with such a bargain dress, Heather could afford to embellish it - with a £19.95 hooped petticoat.
Mrs Saint said: “My dress was worth every penny. There was a £40 postage charge, but the dress itself was just five pence.”
She married her husband Mark, 24, in the thrifty frock. They have a 19-month-old daughter together called Emily.
The couple wed at St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Stockton, and kept the cost of their wedding down to £3,500.
They made the invitations for 70 guests to attend a reception at the Smiths Arms in Carlton.
Mrs Saint said: “We were careful about the cost, but we had absolutely everything we wanted. It was just that having a little girl and a house we had more important things to spend money on.”
Whoever said that a woman will only get one chance to wear her wedding dress was wrong.
On Saturday, about a dozen friends gathered for appetizers and cocktails at Humarock Beach in their wedding dresses, each retelling the stories of their wedding days.
The dresses don’t necessarily look the same as they did the first time these women – or family members before them – wore them. Some of the dresses, including one that was 72 years old, were altered for the occasion.
Single guests dressed as bridesmaids and participated in a bouquet toss.
Monwabisi Bota’s wish to give the woman of his dreams her fantasy wedding has come true, thanks to Wedding Expo and Sowetan.
Bota, 25, of Orange Farm, Gauteng, is the lucky winner of a wedding worth more than R47000.
He sent more than 30 SMSes and “prayed to God” to be able to walk down the aisle with his Nomadlozi Thabethe in style.
“I still can’t believe I won. We would not have been able to afford our dream wedding without the prizes,” Bota said.
The package includes a wedding dress, a suit, photography, invitations, wedding décor, a marriage contract and will, jewellery, a cake, personalised bath robes, mobile disco and decor lights.
Sowetan ran the competition earlier this month for couples who were engaged.
Bota will marry the “woman of my dreams” next March.
The two met in church and were friends for eight years before they fell in love.
Bota popped the question last year and waited for eight months before Thabethe accepted his proposal on New Year’s Day.
“She is the woman of my dreams. She was worth the wait.”
Thabethe said she could not wait to put on her wedding dress and jewellery.
“Maybe this time I will get a bigger ring,” she said.
Eco-Chic - The modern North American wedding is a joyous, extravagant and increasingly consumerist occasion. It costs $27,500 US on average, includes about 160 guests, and involves more than 40 different professionals. There’s even a nickname for the self-absorbed, money- is-no-object bride: they call her Bridezilla.
In her just-published book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding (Penguin Press), New York journalist Rebecca Mead investigates the modern U.S. wedding and the multibillion-dollar industry it has spawned. The whole purpose of this growing industry, she says, is to encourage brides to become obsessive, extravagant, self-centred creatures.
But for renegade couples who want to buck the consumerist trend, there’s a growing selection of environmentally friendly options. Here are a few green-wedding ideas from Eco-Chic Weddings - The rings: The production of a single gold ring can generate 20 tonnes of mine waste, Anderson writes. Diamonds often originate from areas in sub-Saharan Africa where the profits from their sale are used to fund guerrilla military activity. Opt instead for faux diamonds, such as the synthetic stone Moissanite, which looks real, but costs a fraction of a diamond’s price. Choose recycled gold. Have your engagement ring serve as a wedding band as well.
- The gown: A typical wedding dress can take 15 metres of fabric or more. Often, it’s made in China using child labour and/or environmentally harmful chemicals. And it usually costs more than $1,000. Instead, buy a gown made by a local designer. Choose a dress you can wear more than once. Consider a recycled or rented dress.
- The bridal registry: Create a registry to cut down on unwanted gifts you’ll never use. Better still, register with companies that encourage sustainable and fair trade practices. Or be totally selfless and ask for charitable alternatives to gifts.
- Bonbonnieres: Admit it — nobody ever uses those tacky little wedding favours. Dispense with the bonbonniere altogether and make a donation on the guests’ behalf.
- The invitations: Some stationers recommend the so-called “wedding wardrobe,” which might include up to 10 different pieces for a single invitation. Consider a simpler invitation, perhaps using tree-free or chlorine-free papers, or artisanal paper and include a “please recycle” note on the back. Or go digital and send e-vites.
- Flowers: The toxic chemicals used on flower farms in Central and South America poison the soil and groundwater. Choose organic flowers. Or find locally grown flowers in season.
- The menu: It is humanly impossible to eat everything at most weddings these days. Sushi, smoked salmon, tapas for cocktails, a pasta first course, soup, salad, the main meal, followed by dessert, then a sweet table. It’s way too much for even the biggest gourmand, and tons of it ends up in the dumpster after the party’s over. Simplify the menu.
- The honeymoon: The average amount spent on a honeymoon is $3,700, and almost two-thirds of those trips are to foreign locales. Investigate green hotels. Go to the website greenhotels.com to see if a hotel or resort supports organizations that pay fair wages and follow good environmental practices. Check blueflag.org or greenglobe.org, two sites with environmental information about international destinations that promote sustainable development.
When it arrived in my boyfriend’s mailbox last summer, the invitation to the September wedding of a college friend immediately posed a problem. “It’s on a Saturday,” he said, scanning the R.S.V.P. card. “In Maryland.” Saturday meant Shabbat - the day of rest when Sabbath-keeping Jews like us, abstain from driving, using electricity, spending money and engaging in the 39 types of “creative work” identified in the Torah. Dancing after the ceremony was fine. Traveling there by car was not.
Still, my boyfriend was determined to go while following Shabbat’s laws. The nearest hotel was four miles from the wedding. We could arrive Friday before dark, he reasoned, wake up late and walk to the midafternoon ceremony with time to spare. “Sure,” I said, when he asked if I would go with him. “Sounds like fun.”
As the day approached, my excitement about our journey began to build. I remembered a line from my days as an environmental-studies major: “Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation.” Was that Gary Snyder or John Muir? No matter. We’d walk the terrain that Shabbat afternoon and pray with our feet! When the day arrived, we set out from the parking lot of our hotel with enthusiasm and plenty of time to make it.
Less than a mile into it, however, it was clear that our route was not meant for walkers. The few existing stretches of sidewalk dwindled away, swallowed by the hot highway. Cars hurtled around sharp bends. But we continued, past gas stations and car washes. Past enormous housing developments and swaths of undeveloped land with For Sale signs sticking like birthday candles out of the soil. Make a wish! Buy your dream home!
One mile became two. Under the sun’s glare, the relaxing Shabbat evening we’d spent in the hotel slipped away, and so did my poetic sentiment. Freckles of sweat dotted across my boyfriend’s T-shirt as he trudged a few steps ahead of me. I thought about my slinky black dress, now crumpled in his backpack. Kicking a pile of dusty stones, I drained my water bottle, irritated that I’d neglected to bring reserves. The
“Maybe we could knock on one of the houses and ask to fill up,” he said. But the homes gave off an impenetrable air, like fortresses with cul-de-sacs. The manicured lawns were absent of children. Living in New York City for four years, I have grown accustomed to the clamor of pedestrians on the sidewalks. But the only people we passed were two young Hispanic women heading toward one of the houses from a bus stop. “They must be cleaning ladies,” I said aloud, alarmed by my assumption and the suspicion that I was right.
Around Mile 3, a rummage sale on the side of the road appeared like an unlikely mirage. “Did your car break down or something?” asked the man sitting in a lawn chair, surrounded by bric-a-brac. We assured him we were fine, throwing him shoulder-shrugging smiles. How, in exurban Maryland, could we explain that we were actually walking on purpose?
My thirst was starting to get serious when we heard the faint sound of drumming. It was celebratory, slightly militaristic. An SUV streaked by trailing colored streamers; a high-school football game was nearby. We practiced asking for water as we approached the outdoor stadium. “Should I explain that it’s Shabbat and we can’t pay for a bottle?” I asked. My boyfriend said, “No need to answer that question if it’s not asked,” showing far more experience than I with moving through the world as an observant Jew. The woman at the gate raised her eyebrows, but she took the empty water bottle from me to refill it.
When we finally “pulled in” to the small farm where the wedding guests were gathering, I felt my dreamy naturalist euphoria return. I went into the bathroom, splashed more water on my face and neck and changed into my miraculously unwrinkled dress. Outside, I found him looking handsome in dress pants and a tie, coming from the bar with a drink for each of us. We quietly agreed not to bring up our walk to the other guests. The walk was ours, but the day belonged to the bride and groom.
Later that evening the late summer sun set, signaling both the end of Shabbat and the party. We hitched a ride with a guest back to our hotel. I strained my eyes in the darkness, trying to catch familiar glimpses of the landscape now blurring by at 40 miles an hour. It took us more than two and a half hours to get to the wedding that afternoon. The drive back took 10 minutes.
The wedding of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly was evidence that things have changed forever — and not only because it was the first marriage of the Royal Family and Hello! magazine.
The images of the young Windsors signalled a seismic shift in how we approach dressing, a formal acknowledgment, on the most formal of days, that it is not so much about what you’re expected to wear as how you wear it — and, as importantly, how often you’ll be able to wear it again.
This change coincided with the release of the long-awaited Sex and the City movie, reminding us that any day — every day, in the case of Carrie Bradshaw — can be special when it comes to clothes. Indeed, any outfit has the potential to create a stir if worn the right way.
The reincarnated Gwyneth Paltrow adheres to the “new special” way of dressing by dressing down this black number at the UK Charity Premiere of ‘Iron Man’ in April.
the “special occasion outfit” has passed its sell-by date, to be replaced by the “new special,” a way of dressing that is much easier to achieve — and a lot more fun.
It’s a trend long pioneered by a host of funky, high-profile, stylish dressers, from rocker Gwen Stefani and model Natalia Vodianova to Kate Moss, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and the reincarnated Gwyneth Paltrow, and it hinges around one adaptable wardrobe staple: the dress.
This season, they are everywhere — prom styles, floaty maxis, romantic, ruffled, you name it. And they are key to making this idea work. The trick is to invest in one great dress that makes you feel good, rather than “appropriate,” one that suits your body shape, highlights your personality, and makes you feel comfortable, confident and sexy.
It could just as easily be something you have worn on holiday, for work, or a favourite piece you have had for years, as something bought with a specific outing in mind. Then, you just “dress up the dress” — adding accessories and layers as you feel inclined.
The best thing of all about the “new special” is that you can dress it down just as easily. You should be able to take off the jacket, swap your pill-box for a straw “pork pie,” trilby or even a sun hat, trade your smart high heels for gladiator sandals and your beaded clutch for a casual tote, and you’re ready for a beach party or barbecue.
All the twenty- and thirtysomethings at the royal wedding had the “new special” mode down pat: there wasn’t a too-matching ensemble in sight.
Instead, there were plenty of simple styles that weren’t strictly in wedding territory and could easily translate to casual for a picnic or a garden party.
“Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo has defended her decision to dress down for her 2007 wedding.
The actress wore a black Yves Saint Laurent dress and boots as she married record producer Christopher Ivery last November.
And the star admits she snubbed the traditional white gown and veil because she always wears stunning dresses for work.
She tells Allure magazine, “I get to dress up all the time. I completely understand women wanting a wedding, because most people don’t get to dress up in gorgeous dresses and have their hair and make-up done.
“I, however, am fortunate enough that I get to put on beautiful dresses and make-up and jewels all the time.”
The Perfect Gowns can accommodate the many different needs that a bride has and have hand selected the most popular and elegant designer wedding dresses. The designer wedding dresses are available in nearly every size, from petite to plus sizes. The dresses also come in many different fashions. Some of the most popular styles on the site include Vintage, Informal, Cotillion, and Quinceanera dresses. All bridal gowns are brand new and are fifty to ninety percent off retail prices.
Anne Burnell, a long-time industry expert and founder of The Perfect Gowns noted, “We’ve sold thousands of wedding dresses since 1999 and now with our updated website and increased selection, we plan on becoming the industry leader focusing primarily on quality, choice selections and customer service.”
The Perfect Gowns has also made the decision process of finding a designer wedding dress fast and easy. Each wedding dress has a full description and in many cases up to 15 pictures to show nearly every angle of the wedding gown. Nearly every dress is shipped within 48 hours with 100% customer satisfaction as the primary goal.
“I personally select genuine designer gowns and wedding dresses. Most straight from the designer. Because we are distributing these dresses as “closeouts” we can pass on the savings directly to our customers and deliver the dresses immediately,” said Burnell. All the gowns are in stock and ready to be sent. Since the gowns are designer closeouts, there are usually only a few available in each style. The Perfect Gown also carries its own label with additional styles and sizes.
The Perfect Gowns specializes in providing gowns for a certain niche of customers who have a harder time finding what they need from traditional wedding dress retailers. “Our clients are normally not your 20-something first time brides. They are usually in their mid-30s and are more concerned with feeling beautiful than all the fanfare of finding a wedding dress. They are budget conscious and love the convenience of shopping online,” said Burnell.
“We have ‘mothers of the bride’ who are looking for a good deal on a wedding dress for their daughters. We also carry dresses for plus size brides who have a hard time finding their size in a boutique,” notes Burnell.
Sometimes brides need to find a dress quickly. “We get a lot of frantic last-minute brides who are getting married within a month and for various reasons don’t have a wedding dress. They can get a designer dress delivered directly to their home within a few days,” Burnell said. The Perfect Gowns also carries bridal accessories.
About The Perfect Gowns
The Perfect Gowns is an industry leader in selling designer wedding gowns, dresses, bridal veils, bridal, tiaras, crinolines/petticoats, and bridal gloves through it’s website www.theperfectgowns.com. The company is a family owned and operated catering to Internet savvy brides since 1999.
Read what our brides say about their designer wedding dress from The Perfect Gowns.
Q. I have seven months until my wedding, and I plan to lose 15 pounds beforehand. My mom keeps saying I need to get a dress now, but I want to lose the weight first. What’s my absolute deadline for dress shopping?
A. It’s ideal to start shopping about nine months before the wedding so you have plenty of time for fittings. Since you’re at the seven-month mark, I’d say listen to your mom and hit the stores. Why? Most gowns are custom-made and require several alterations. Besides, even if you do lose weight, your actual shape won’t change so dramatically that you’ll need a completely different dress.
To address a larger concern, though, making your wedding date the deadline to lose a certain number of pounds just puts extra pressure on you during the already stressful planning period. Eat healthy and exercise, but remember that the man you’re marrying loves you for you.
admin | 
09 19th, 2008| 
