Are you stoned? If so, that’s a good thing, according to Brides magazine, which has launched a new advertising campaign aimed at proving to media buyers that selling directly to brides is big business.

Build a cool bridal avatar for yourself, thanks to Conde Nast’s Brides magazine’s Stoned and Dangerous website.

But wait. Why? Why are they doing this?

This cheeky campaign is aimed at stoned women (those with engagement rings).  Brides magazine knows that brides are planning and shopping with their “emotional aperture [wide] open,” according to Carolyn Kremins, vice president and publisher of the magazine, who was interviewed in today’s New York Times. And, this campaign is out to prove it.

The purpose of the avatar-building site–get bridese to create avatars on the website and prove to media buyers that marketing to brides directly translates to big bucks.

Brides are buying much more than a dress, cake, rings and a photographer. They are making lifestyle purchases and this new campaign will prove  to  media buyers that pitching to brides-to-be directly is profitable to everyone from caterers to car dealers. Anyone, selling anything remotely related to weddings and lifestyle, doesn’t want to miss out.

Read more about why Brides believes hooking engaged women on their avatar-building website translates to big bucks in the world of advertising dollars. Go ahead–create your avatar, they’re fun and cool. Why not? You’re already stoned, anyway. Just know what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Read this article from the New York Times and learn more.

Log onto Brides magazine’s Stoned and Dangerous website for brides and create your avatar here.

I recently blogged about a bride and her nose. No sooner did our bride put to rest the notion of a pre-wedding trip down the aisle, and through the OR doors straight into the hands of a plastic surgeon, did an article titled “Here come the dolls” turn up in  her local paper.

Columnist Judith Marks-White details the experience of a bride and groom who, between the two of them, had two nose jobs, a little lipo and a chin implant – all in time to walk down the aisle.

The story doesn’t end there. There’s also the part about the mother of the bride who had facelift, tummy tuck and a Brazilian butt lift before her daughter’s big day.

“When I walked down the aisle, all eyes were upon me,” said Annie, mother of the bride. “I was nipped and tucked from front to rear. I looked and felt as beautiful as my daughter.”

Our bride shared this with her own mother:

“My mother was horrified with that! As for me, I just want to keep it real. [The groom] fell in love with me for who I am – how I am. Now I realize I wouldn’t be caught dead going under [the knife]. What would my kids say one day? What would I tell them?”

My sentiments, exactly.

What about you? Will you go under the knife before you walk down the aisle? As a bride? Bridesmaid? Mother of the bride? Or groom? What if money were no object? Does that change things?

We’ve all heard of the “Summer of Love,” but it took The New York Times‘ columnist Bruce Feiler’s recent piece, “The joys of vicarious divorce,” to point out that 2010 was definitely the “Summer of Divorce.”

Though the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention pegs America’s divorce rate at a 30-year low, our media, spearheaded by the summer’s hit movie Eat, Pray, Love and Tiger Woods’ marital turmoil, painted a picture of deceit, break-ups, relationship hiccups, drama and couples in conflict. Feiler points out that break-ups graced the cover of no fewer than 12 People magazine covers this year, while marriage appeared on less than half that number.

In the flesh, we have Bullock, Woods, Kardashian (2 out of 3), Evert (just to name a few) going through tough times with lovers and spouses. In fiction, we’ve got the country’s hottest TV show couple, Bets and Don Draper from Mad Men, and Julia Roberts’ character in Eat, Pray, Love living life post-divorce on the small and big screens, respectively.

Though these images of divorce abound, let’s take a look at the real statistics provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention :

• The divorce rate in America is at a 30-year low.
• The current divorce rate is at 3.5 per 1,000, which is down eight percent in the last five years, and down 16 percent since 2000.
• The divorce rate is down 34 percent since its peak in 1979.
• Roughly 20,000 fewer American couples are divorcing every year, as compared with a decade ago.

In our culture, we’re encouraged to find, follow and love scandal. This week, I encourage you to tune out “divorce” and dial yourself into what is relevant in our lives — the successful relationships that surround each of us.

I have learned more about marriage, relationships and reality from the parent interviews I conduct with WriteShot couples’ parents. Take some time and ask those who are making it work, how they do it. You’ll be glad you did.

“True confessions — I’ve been looking into getting a nose job” a client said sheepishly over the phone. “You know, in time for the wedding.

“I hate my nose. I hate my profile. I hate my nose in my profile . . . “

She went on for some time, pooh-poohing her proboscis.

“I never thought I’d be the type to go under the knife,” she admitted. “It’s actually really scary, but I don’t know what else to do.”

She caught herself mid-sentence, took a deep breath, then continued.

“I cannot even buh-lieve I am telling you this. The only one who really knows how I feel is my fiancée. My photos are forever and I don’t want my nose ruining them.” Read the rest of this entry …

At a recent wedding, I witnessed the planner informing her bride that she had the amounts tallied for each vendor who was still due payment. This happened on the wedding day, the bride perched high upon a stylist’s chair, still in her bathrobe,  a mimosa in one hand, a cell phone in the other, waited patiently for the stylist to adhere her false lashes.

Somehow, the bride managed to hold the list of accounts handed to her in her pinky, her other fingers wrapped tightly around the stem of her champagne flute.

Just like that, the bride summoned her mother, who ran, checkbook in hand, to the side of her daughter. The planner produced the figures; mother and daughter concurred with the amounts; mother wrote the checks. And, everyone in the room felt awkward.

Even in the best circumstances, money is be the currency of emotion, especially on a wedding day. Elation. Relief. Reward of a battle well won. A generous gift with no strings attached. No matter what the emotion, there is no need for a bride, whose emotions may be tried already during her wedding preparation time, to be complicated by monetary transactions. It taints the experience, it’s not fun and it ruins the photos (as only a photographer could say). It’s uncomfortable, no matter how gracious the check writer. Most of all, it’s not necessary.

This system of checks and balances, provided by Las Vegas Wedding Concierge Tracey Kumer Moore, will help you steer clear of the scenario above. Read the rest of this entry …

Bride X, a physically fit, AAA personality, who put herself through medical school and now specializes in pediatric cardiology appeared to have a strong, firm grip on everything in her life, including her wedding plans, details and her bouquet. Especially her bouquet.

When it came to time to shoot some post-ceremony portraits of Bride X and her groom, her Kung Fu grip proved deadly. Her whiteknuckled grip was so tight that her bouquet stood upright pointing toward the sky, her elbow poking out to her side like a BBQ chicken wing.

I wanted to tell her to relax. But that never works. It usually just makes things worse. I showed her some alternative ways to hold her bouquet, but in the end she was just too tense.

Like many brides she revealed to me that she was worried about her guests. What were they doing while she and her groom were off on a photo shoot? Were they bored? Upset? Frustrated? Hungry?

No matter how much I told her the truth—that her guests were being well fed, enjoying cocktails and one another; that the anticipation of seeing the groom and her make their grand entrance had not even peaked, she fretted.

All her worry manifested itself in  her ridiculous bouquet grip, which her husband, an avid golfer would later get her to giggle about. “If she held her clubs like that,” he said, “She’d have one hell of a game!”

Bride X taught me to take the time to discuss with our brides what a couples shoot will look and feel like after the ceremony, before the reception. Setting realistic expectations is a must. Follow these tips, if you want to have a successful couple’s shoot . . . Read the rest of this entry …

This past weekend, WriteShot participated in the Dragon Ridge Country Club Show, in Las Vegas, NV and the Simply the Best of Santa Barbara Show in Santa Barbara, CA. Somewhere during the course of the weekend, we made a bride cry–not because of something we did (or didn’t do), but  because she had just made the final payment to her wedding photographer and had no idea that WriteShot and our books existed.

“I didn’t know I could do THIS!” said this teary-eyed bride, as she stood in front of our booth with her best friend and maid-of-honor, who tried to gently escort her out of the vicinity. She was devastated. We didn’t know what to say. I wanted to give her a big hug and try to make her feel better, but the truth is that nothing short of having her wedding shot by us and her book of love written by us would console her.

There is absolutely nothing worse on the “planet wedding” than a crying bride.

“Can’t  you do our book using another photographer’s photos?” she begged.

Unfortunately, we can’t do this because we shoot with book design in mind and there are just too many snafus we can run into if we use another shooter’s photos, no matter how talented that shooter is.

Luckily, we had a dedication book on hand from one of our clients, who hired us to do a book for his wife of 8 years, as a gift. Though disappointed, this bride settled on the idea of a first year anniversary book.  It seemed a small consolation, but one that allowed her to wipe her tears and move on to the bakery booth, where she tasted some delicious confections that put a smile on her face.

I’m beginning to think it’s dangerous for brides, who have already signed their vendors, to attend bridal shows  . . .