Twilight Wedding Dress: For $799 You Can Be The Child Bride, Or Join a Twilight Flash Mob

Replicas of Bella Swan’s wedding dress from Breaking Dawn: Part 1 can be purchased for only 9. While inexpensive in comparison to some gowns, it’s a high price to pay to sacrifice, you know, your individuality and/or pride.

Last week, after watching the newly released trailer for The Hunger Games, I asked whether we might soon see Katniss-branded bows-and-arrows merchandise.

While I haven’t found any merchandise to turn rabid fans into “The Most Dangerous Game”-type killers, we do have merchandise to turn rabid fans into child brides awaiting their disturbingly violent deflowering. That’s right — the Breaking Dawn: Part 1 Bella Swan wedding dress will be available for purchase!

For only 9, you could look like the 18-year-old bride of a vampire (chastity and Edward Cullen blow-up doll sold separately). The dress is being sold by the Alfred Angelo bridal design house and will be available in sizes 0-30W, so at least obsessed Twilight fans won’t need to also replicate the disturbing ritual of pre-marital starvation while they, um, do whatever it is they’ll be doing in their Twilight wedding dress. Going to see Breaking Dawn: Part 1 for the fifth time? Gathering with others wearing Bella’s dress to stalk Robert Pattinson and/or engage in a Bella Swan flash mob? Actually getting married? The possibilities are endless(ly disturbing), although I’m not sure any marriages can take place before the Edward Cullen tux comes on the market.

On the other hand, it might be possible that there aren’t enough potential child-grooms obsessed with caking on white powder and buying red contacts to marry all the women/girls (I’m not sure that women who purchase a replica of a wedding dress worn by a fictional character should be recognized as full-fledged adults) who buy the Bella dress. Either we’ll need to revamp our polygamy laws, or they’ll have to agree to marry rabid fans of other, manlier fictional characters. I foresee more than a few marriages between Twilight wedding dresses and full-on Batman regalia.

In the meantime, I might have to pick one up. I think I look pretty good in it, right?

[Photo from Alfred Angelo via MSN]

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The Royal Wedding In Review

Every once in awhile, there are those special events that the whole world tunes in for. Events so memorable or rare that people get up at 3 am to watch, or travel halfway around the world to witness. A royal wedding, particularly a British royal wedding, is definitely one of these events. This morning at Westminster Abbey, in a classic and beautiful ceremony, Prince William and Catherine Middleton said “I will” (not “I do”), while an estimated two billion people around the globe looked on. With such an anticipated event, the ceremony had to be perfect, and I think it was pretty close to it.

The Venue. Initially, there was much debate over which venue the royal couple would choose – St. Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey. Eventually, they decided on Westminster in spite of the fact, or perhaps because, it was the location of Diana’s funeral. Today, the church looked beautiful. The red carpeted aisle was lined with maple trees, which signify stability and humility in the Victorian language of flowers.

The Guests. The guest list for the wedding was long, of course, and included everyone from Will and Kate’s college friends to royalty from all over the world. Members of the Spencer family were also in attendance, and Will made a particular point of chatting with them in the church before the ceremony. And, of course, Elton John was there.

The Dress. The most anticipated aspect of the wedding was undeniably Kate’s dress. When she stepped out of the Rolls Royce that escorted her to the church, the world got its first full look at the gown – a gorgeous and classic piece designed by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen. Immediately, Kate’s dress was cited as Grace Kelly-esque with full-length light lace sleeves, a high collar, and modest v-neckline. The dress perfectly combined the traditional and stately atmosphere of the wedding with the bride’s more modern tastes. The groom wore the crimson uniform of Colonel of the Irish Guards, which was a significant gesture in and of itself.

The Service. The lovely maple trees set the tone for the whole service, which was simple and traditional with humble, organic elements worked in. The procession was small, including only the bride, her father, and her sister Philippa leading the way for the adorable bridesmaid girls in pleated cream dresses and two boys dressed in a classic military uniform style.

The vows were quite traditional, but it is notable that, much like Diana, Kate chose not to include “obey” in her vows. When the royal couple was pronounced husband and wife by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a great cheer erupted from the crowd outside, which could be heard inside Westminster.

The music was largely light choral pieces with a focus on love and charity handpicked by the bride and groom. Toward the end, particularly when the Prince and Princess processed out of Westminster, the music became more grandiose and I couldn’t help but think it sounded like something composed by John Williams or the score to a Disney movie. It was a little too much fairy tale for me at that point.

The Kiss. After the ceremony, both the wedding party and the crowd moved to Buckingham Palace for “the kiss” – when the bride and groom go out on the balcony and share their “first” kiss as husband and wife. After about a half hour ensconced inside the palace, the whole wedding party emerged on the balcony, and Kate and Will shared a kiss. Twice! The media providing royal wedding coverage made a huge deal about there being two kisses, and I get why people were really excited about this moment, but I personally felt it was kind of weird. Regardless, Will and Kate looked ecstatic and seemed quite happy to indulge the crowd, albeit shyly. But Grace Van Cutsem, Prince William’s goddaughter and one of the bridesmaids on the balcony, stole the show with her “over it” expression:

The wedding celebrations will continue with a formal reception during the day, and then a more intimate one tonight thrown by the groom’s father, the Prince of Wales.

Photo credits

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Oh To Be Mindless… Falling for the Royal Wedding

I’m not stupid. So, naturally, I expected to find this morning’s Royal Wedding ceremony a scoff-able ordeal ripe for mockery. I didn’t expect for it to reawaken latent someday-love-will-save-me-because-I’m-special fantasies.

Huddled over my laptop in my ‘jammies,’ I was seduced with surprising ease by the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony. Somewhere in the middle of Kate’s drive to the chapel I forgot to think it all a silly ordeal, and bought into the fanfare. The idea that I was witness to a momentous occasion hijacked my critical sensibility. As ABC’s Barbra Wahwah’s familiar voice led the commentary, I was transported into the drama of the moment. I imagined that I was “Commoner Kate,” my father holding my massive train, all of the world watching as I entered into my new, fairy-tale life.

‘Commoner’ is the perfect epithet  for a Princess-to-be today. This tag to Kate’s otherwise polished persona brought the ‘people’ to an event that might have alienated an economically struggling populous.  It creates the illusion that Kate Middleton is our friend. If our friend can marry a Prince and have all her problems made forever extinct, then we can too. With this Dicksonian and demeaning little word, the marriage of two fortunate people was made every woman’s marriage to their prince-charming savior. After the balcony kiss, I found myself mirroring Kate’s somewhat apologetic smile-shrug.  It was all too much for us to take in.

As much as we prize our sense of ‘authenticity,’ we Americans love us some British pomposity. We are like Britain’s rebellious friend. Sure, we’re way cooler, setting all the pop-culture trends and speaking with disregard to grammar. Yet, sometimes we like to be invited over for dinner with Britain, where everyone knows correct table manners and prays with pious restraint. Sometimes it’s less scary than our house where it’s like ‘an experiment’ and everyone has an opinion and our parents are like, divided ideologically. Today’s ceremony was such an occasion. Yes, the Constitutional Monarch is a waste of Britain’s tax money with no real political power, but watching them do their regal thing gave me the comforting, albeit ridiculous, sense that humanity is after all in good hands. If watching a promenade of WASPs pretend it’s the olden-times is the opiate of the masses, then I smoked that sh*t.

The ceremony proved a splendid vacation from the knowledge that there is more to life than waiting for a rich man. And, with flowers in the trees and Springtime hormones abounding, today was the perfect day to get sucked into the magical delusion of living vicariously through someone else’s romance. In this fuzzy haze I’ve had the most unproductive of days, entertaining idle thoughts of pretty things I want to wear… Sometimes we all need a Royal holiday.

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