How To Have A Very 'New York' Wedding
Hark! Wedding season is upon us! Get ready for brides running amok and way too many service-y pieces about buying dresses and choosing caterers. Helpfully, New York magazine has packaged everything together in the Summer installment of their twice-yearly Weddings issue, which hits newsstands tomorrow and isn't online yet. We decided to take a peek inside to see if, were we planning a wedding, which we're not, thank you God, the magazine would be remotely helpful or if it would simply inspire that oddly yet reasonably similar pang of irritation that one feels upon visiting Park Slope.
We like the portfolio of old New York wedding photos. Alfred Hitchcock accompanying his daughter Patricia up the stairs of St. Patrick's Cathedral! Sly Stone! A 1967 photo of Liza Minelli "before marrying Peter Allen, with whom she was set up by mother Judy Garland." Huh!
Some nterviews with various experts in the wedding industry. Oscar de la Renta: "Lately, there has been a lot of skin exposed in wedding dresses. I'm from a Catholic country, so it's always a little bit difficult [for me], this idea of walking half-naked into a church." We plan on wearing a burlap sack, so that problem will likely be avoided.
The "event maestro, " David E. Monn (who famously fired Anna Wintour as a client after doing the Met Costume Gala), hates napkin rings. Also: "I would probably never do a wooden dance floor or chair covers or bows on anything. Bows are for packages." Then again, his dream wedding (for himself) involves "110 members of the St. Luke's orchestra, like in the party scene in the ending of Meet Joe Black." Okay then.
The caterer, Peter Callahan, on what's "newly popular" for weddings: "Bottle service after dinner, like the kind you might get at Marquee, when waiters bring out champagne, vodka, scotch, and carafes of fresh juice." B&T clubgoers presumably not included.
The D.J., Dina Regine, on what she won't play: "I hate 'YMCA,' the chicken dance, the Macarena. If your family wants to form a line, it doesn't have to be to 'Hot Hot Hot.'"
Then there is a guide to Registering, but only for people whose friends and family have a lot of money. Also, a woman from Bergdorf Goodman talks about gifts: "I believe in having a couple of over-the-top things on every registry: a Lalique bowl, Saint Louis cut-crystal stemware. Last year, we had some terrific French shovels—literally, for digging a ditch—everybody wanted to register for them."
The couple that wrote The Bitch in the House and The Bastard on the Couch have a little discussion about tiffs between husband and wife. There's some story about their honeymoon in Maine and buying marbles that turned out to be a metaphor for marriage? Or something?
Oh a timetable about how to prepare for your wedding. Apparently, most wedding magazines advise beginning your preparations a year before the wedding, but clearly, New York women are not as fat and ugly as the rest of America so it will not take them as long. Six months is all they need for the necessary tweezing, peeling, Pilates-ing, meso-therapy, lasers, tooth veneers, Restylane, waxing, HydraPure treatments, and more!
A fashion spread with wedding gowns, and some looks from the runway. Boring. We refuse to believe that two-piece ensembles a la Jennifer Hudson at the Oscars are the wave of the future.
Ben Mathis-Lilley has a fun Approval Matrix-esque diagram of concentric circles about whom you are obligated, and not, to invite to the wedding. Charismatic teachers/professors who went the extra mile to inspire you in high school/college: definitely, if it's possible. Charismatic teachers/professors who went the extra mile to inspire you in high school/college because they're sexual predators: never. Helpful!
How to have a wedding on the cheap: make it a tea party.
Okay, so, it's fun to use the features that are in the regular magazine, but why did the wedding playlist have to be arranged on the undulating curve of shifting expectations curve? Something about crescendos and decrescendos, they claim. Not buying it. Also, "Ain't No Other Man" while you're cutting the cake? Really?
Then a whole bunch of photo albums of different New York weddings, including a gay one, where they had an after-party with buffalo wings and vodka-Red Bulls. And one where the hedge fund manager married his real estate broker: "The couple now resides in the townhouse Dorinda found for Richard, a happily-ever-after, indeed—but, Dorinda admits, 'If I knew I was going to live in this house, I would've pushed for the one on 81st Street."
Finally, some advice from Tim Gunn on pocket squares: "For a more conservative look, basic white linen from Brooks Brothers is my choice. If light and festive is more appropriate, then a colorful pocket square from Paul Smith is good. And if anyone were to raise an eyebrow over the latter, then simply respond, 'It's Paul Smith.'" Noted.