Age of the Dress

Here are the answers to this week’s quiz.

bridaldress_history_answer

So how did you do?

The Wedding Dress

The most exciting part of the wedding process for me as I remember was the buying of the dress. The white wedding dress holds a power that no other dress can.  Your dress will start conversations between strangers.   Your dress  will be in a million pictures – your dress will make your fiance’s heart skip a beat.  Your dress may become a keepsake – you may dye it – trash it – sell it or donate it. The dress has a life of its own that’s continues to grow.  It even has its own show –   “Say Yes to the Dress“.

The first recorded wedding gown was in 1406 worn by Princess Philippa, daughter of Henry IV, to Eric of Denmark.  For the Royals and wealthy of that time, wedding dresses were made of expensive velvets, silk, fur, gold and silver thread, gems and more.  Dress colors varied from red to purple to even black.  For the not so “liquid” it was the most beautiful dress that you owned that was your wedding dress.

I was surprised to find out that white wasn’t the favored color for a wedding dress in the middle ages. Blue was the preferred color.  Blue was a sign of purity.   A band of blue ribbon would be worn by the bride and groom during the ceremony.   It seems the  “something blue” rhyme came from this tradition.

blue_dresses

White became the real star for wedding dresses when Queen Victoria wore a white dress when she married Albert Sax-Coberg in 1840.  I guess we’ve always been influenced by what celebrities wear.

Queen_Victoria__Albert_1854.JPG

Godey’s Lady’s Book was a very popular women’s magazine in the 1800s. Here’s a couple of wedding dresses from that magazine.

bridal costumesAnd here is some images from Harper’s Bazaar, from August 2, 1860.

harper-bazaar-1870

My how time flies….

vera_wantmonica_lClaire_p

carolina_wedding_dressoscardelarenta2Carmen_Mare_Valvo

Here’s a fun quiz ..well it was for me… can you tell what time frame each dress is from?  (1920 – 1990)  Answers to come later this week.

bridaldress_history

Do you think you guessed right?

How to Tell Your Story

How to tell a story –  this is a great interview and great information from Ira Glass from  This American Life.

What’s you passion? Do you practice, practice, practice…?

Keri and Kevin

My friends Keri and Kevin were married in November 2008.  They had a beautiful video that was a little too long to show their friends so I edited it down to 30 minutes.   Then for fun I created a teaser for 5 mins.  Here is is.   The video and photos by Troy Atkins from the Bahamas.

For_web

For_web

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

How long is your wedding video?

Video Flyers

Found this very cool site Design Glut while spending some time on  Think Splendid.  And surfed my way through to find  Pomp and Clout and their very cool “Video Flyers.” I love this idea!  What do you think?

David Byrne Plays the Building

I was always such a big fan of The Talking Heads.  One day a number of years ago during my waitressing career David Byrne came into the restaurant to order take out!  I didn’t recognize him at first – his hair was white.  I couldn’t believe it.   Not that the white hair didn’t look good on him.  It did. But it couldn’t have been that many years that passed since. Or was it?  Maybe he colored it white so not to be recognized.

This was one performance he did in NYC last year that I missed.  But luckily I found a video of it today.

Photos in Motion

I often create photo & video montages for rehearsal dinners, anniversaries etc.   The best part of these jobs is getting a peek into people’s lives.

I found this video on-line today.  It’s amazing.  But wait – just before I was about to post this – I saw that there was some controversy regarding who the credit for the idea should go to.  And the credit should go to  Taijin Takeuchi who created a stop motion video called  A Wolf Loves a Pork.    That video follows The Pen story video.

A Wolf Loves a Pork

Thoughts?

How Her Business Saved Her Life

While this isn’t a story of how a couple met – it is an inspirational story that I wanted to share.

Payon_C2-higher

Payon_C2-higher

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

Do you have an inspirational story you’d like to share?

Take a Chance on Me..

Imagine meeting someone in person after 6 years of chatting on-line. Wouldn’t that be intimidating?  Without a doubt the most stressful part  of on-line dating is meeting someone for the first time.  What if they look drastically different from their picture?  How will you not show your disappointment?  What do you say if they ask you do they look like their picture – which they do.  It’s all so scary and so exciting at the same time.  

amber_blog2

amber_blog2

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

 

Do you have first meeting stories to share?  Email me – judith (at) reelinvitations.com.

Amber and Mark

It’s so inspiring to me the many ways to meet someone.  In the “old days” when I was dating, the choices were very limited.  Parties, bars, friends, bookstores maybe… work – sometimes.  But for someone like me who didn’t put out that “come hither” vibe it was difficult.  You’d think it would be easy in New York to meet someone special, but it’s not or wasn’t for me.   At some point, it must have been after a very dry period, I got the chops to sign up for an online service.  It opened up a whole world  to me.  I couldn’t believe how many people were doing the same thing!  I know there’s lots of pros and cons and not everyone has good luck.  I did. I’ve been with my boyfriend for 7 1/2 years.   

Amber and Mark are another example of never knowing who you might meet out there.

 

amber_blog1

amber_blog1

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.