The Bride Was Beautiful

This was a tough series of photos to get through: The Bride Was Beautiful.

Katie Kirkpatrick, 21, held off cancer to celebrate the happiest day of her life. [...] Her organs were shutting down but it would not stop her from marrying Nick Godwin, 23, who was in love with Katie since 11th grade.

The last photo is just heartbreaking. (via cup of jo)

Bridal preparations

T&A is not my usual schtick here, but I found these photos of brides in their underwear -- most are pictured getting dressed for the ceremony -- appealing for non-obvious reasons (the titillation factor here is almost zero unless you're 12 years old). There's something about the natural, unguarded informality of the preparation in comparison to the fussiness and solemnity of the ceremony itself...it makes the wedding part seem artificial. It's also disturbing that all these intimate photos ended up online, likely without the consent of the undressed. Really NSFW.

Bratty brides

Gay marriage should be allowed and encouraged in the US but denied to brides who want their bridesmaids to get Botox or boob jobs before walking down the aisle with them.

Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her -- and five other attendants -- to have their breasts enhanced. "We're all Asian and didn't have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two," said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead. Not for nothing are some maids known as slaves of honor, but this kind of cajoling is a recent development on the wedding front.

Another woman requested professional spray tans for all her bridesmaids...two declined and were removed from the wedding party. Ugh, what horrible self-centered people.

Wedding then earthquake

Absolutely incredible photos of a wedding and then an earthquake.

Can you imagine what it was like to have been photographing a wedding in Sichuan, China when 7.9 earthquake hit and shakes for three minutes? From what I understand, there were thirty-three missing guests in this church.

A "story map" distributed to guests of

A "story map" distributed to guests of a wedding that shows the possible occupational, relational, and recreational relationships between guests to be used as a conversational cheat-sheet. Reminiscent of Mark Lombardi's network maps. Better larger. (via gulfstream)

Really listening

I was recently talking with an acquaintance who makes custom wedding dresses. The lead time for making dresses is typically several months and tailoring a dress that's going to fit someone 3-4 months after the initial measurements are made can be challenging. Most brides-to-be desire to lose some weight before the big day and typically share a target weight/size with her..."Make it a size smaller because I'll be 20 pounds lighter on the day of the wedding".

This woman's been doing it for so long that she's learned to ignore what these brides say will happen and to plan for what actually ends up happening. The outcome is pretty simple, she says; as the wedding day approaches, thin women get thinner and the heavier women get heavier. The hypothesis here (expressed by the dress maker) is that the weight loss/gain depends on how these women deal with the stress of the event: thin women don't eat or lose their appetites when stressed while heavier women eat in response to stress.

Aside from how general a statement you can make about relation of the stress/eating/weight factors, the fact that she's able to accurately size dresses based on this simple rule is another reminder of how misleading it can be to rely on asking people about their potential behavior. As a web designer, one the most valuable things I learned when building sites was that watching people use prototypes or web sites was way more useful than asking them what features they wanted.

Two bloggers get married via their blogs.

Two bloggers get married via their blogs. Texas law requires a public declaration of the marriage with local witnesses and their blog posts satisfy that requirement. (via mr)