Awesome proposals

As I’ve mentioned before, the holidays are a prime time for proposals and engagements. In my circle of friends on Facebook, I’ve seen quite a few. Plus, there have been a few in the news, and I just wanted to highlight a few here because they’re such great stories.

My favorite story by far this engagement season is from an old family friend. Cecile Tecson is the daughter of Andy Tecson, a wedding photographer who worked many a wedding with my mom. We’ve kept in touch over Facebook, and over the weekend, saw the amazing photos in an album titled “Graffiti Art at Venice Beach.”

These amazing photos were shot by Cecile’s brother, Ja Tecson, a spectacular photographer in his own right! And yes, he does weddings too!

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What a wedding story

Courtesy ultimateweddingcontest.com

I’ve been out of commission for a while, thanks to a now 2-month-old cutie pie named Michael, but have been keeping an eye out for good wedding posts. And while this one doesn’t have much to do with decorations, I love the story, and darn it, I really hope this couple wins.

This is Matthew and Chloe. I was alerted to their story by a work colleague, who had posted a link on Facebook to their entry at Crate and Barrel’s $100,000 Ultimate Wedding contest. I think what caught my eye was “third time’s the charm!” Third time for what? I clicked to find out.

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A Minnesota Desi wedding

By Shruti Mathur Desai

You may recognize my name from reporting back to Wedding Decorator about the various weddings I’ve attended. But now I’ve been invited to write a bit about a very special wedding (to me): My own!

A bit of background: My fiance Ravi and I met on our second day of college at the University of Minnesota. It took us a year to start dating, but it’s been eight wonderful years with him! Last September, he ambushed me with a surprise proposal and on July 4, 2009, we were married at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul Minnesota.

I will spread out my wedding planning process over a few posts and I hope to add layers with pictures, as they come in from my talented friends and family.

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Wedding and money horror stories

Photo by Flickr’s dkcameo

Personal finance guru Michelle Singletary wryly noted in her Washington Post column last week that wedding season can often bring family and money together with disastrous results. In fact, aren’t there cardinal rules about that, akin to don’t talk religion or politics at the dinner table? Something along the lines of don’t mix business with family or friends? There should be. Anyway, she pulled together just a few horrific stories.

Another egregious money story started in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. The bride and groom decided to go it alone and didn’t invite any guests. Then the bride’s cousin decided to get married. A friend of the cousin was throwing her a bridal shower. So how did the bride who had no guests at her wedding respond? Since she never had a bridal shower, she suggested that everyone at her cousin’s shower bring a gift for her, too.

Wow! That woman had some serious balls, asking people to bring a second gift for her to someone else’s bridal shower. I think, in a case like that, I would have said no. What’s the lady going to do? Not invite me to her wedding? Oh, wait, she already did that!

During a reception, four members of the groom’s family decided to order a dish that was different from what other guests were eating. This was not for any religious or health reasons. They just didn’t like what was being served. So these rogue guests bullied the waiter into bringing them ahi tuna entrees. The bride’s dad got stuck with the tab — in addition to having to pay for the meals the pushy guests didn’t eat.

Wow. Not only did they not eat the dinner served, they made the waiter bring them ahi tuna — often one of the most expensive dinners you can get at a restaurant, never mind a hotel catering kitchen. Obviously, this is just plain rude. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat it and just make plans to go somewhere else for a late dinner! Sheesh. Talk about no class.

Usually, the easiest way to avoid these kinds of money-grubbing stunts is to pay for everything yourself. That way, if you don’t want to listen to your mom or your aunt or your mother-in-law-to-be tell you how this photographer is the greatest and that florist is just to die for, you don’t have to. Easy. Yeah, I know, easier said than done.
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Trial Wedding by wildfire

This is a small tidbit, that really has nothing to do with decorating weddings. It was a great read I found on LA Observed this afternoon — freelance writer Adam Baer blogged how his wedding plans literally went up in smoke because of the California Wildfires. That was some bad luck, lemme tell ya — not only did the city where he was to be married go up in flames, he sliced his wedding finger in three places and had to go to the hospital.

It’s just an interesting story in how one couple had to abandon their probably long-standing plans and get flexible thanks to something they couldn’t control. It makes me wonder how flexible most brides are when it comes to their wedding day — many brides dream and dream about their wedding, spending thousands one that one day.

It sounds like Adam Baer’s bride Lina rolled with the punches though:

Then it was just a matter of calling the officiant, Judge Fried, and our photog Michael, and asking them to stay tuned for some more info. I decided we would have to leave Malibu despite Lina’s despair about the death of our beach wedding plans. Maybe we could have a wedding at a scenic outpost on Mulholland Drive, I posited aloud. Maybe we can use a beach in Santa Monica. Quickly, Judge Fried got back to us and offered some amazing news: His private Hollywood Hills tennis club –a historic spot serving recently as the site of ironic-prepster celeb parties–would let him let us use their skyline veranda with the best views in the city.

It was a good thing they left Malibu that day — nothing puts a damper on a wedding like guests in face masks and the bride and groom hacking on ashes as they try to say their vows.

And it sounds like everything turned out as it should anyway. They got married, it was pretty, and everyone has a great story. Talk about a happy ending.

I would imagine, with the growing frequency of these wildfires, that more and more weddings are being disrupted the same way. Not only Adam Baer, but also myself (decorating for my buddy Moonie, not my own wedding), plus at least one other couple, judging from this video I cut from work. Anyone else know how many others have been affected?
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