AisleDash

Islamic men seeking a divorce from their wives should take note -- the Islamic practice of talaq has been ruled invalid in the United States, as it deprives women of their right to due process.

Wondering what talaq is and what the big deal about it is? Well, it's an Islamic practice in which men can divorce their wives by saying "I divorce thee" three times. And, in 2003, when an Islamic woman living with her husband and their family in Maryland filed for divorce, the husband went to the Pakistani embassy, performed the talaq, and left the country, leaving her with only a $2500 divorce settlement to which she had agreed (under Pakistani law) at the age of 18 in 1980.

Recently, the Maryland courts ruled in her favor, and she'll receive half the proceeds from the sale of their home and she will likely receive half his pension.

What's the mystique of French women and their scarves? The carefully-chosen square of silk, folded just so, twisted like this, knotted like that -- and, voilà! Perfectly casual, utterly sophisticated fashion.

If you want a French look to your wedding, put your bridesmaid in simple and sophisticated sheath dresses, and accessorize with a beautiful silk scarf. Each woman can choose her own scarf, each tied the same, or all tied differently. If you haven't the first clue how to tie a scarf, this site has several options. Experiment a bit! There's no one right way to wear a scarf. See what you come up with!

We took a peek at super-luxury weddings to create this inspiration board: From record-breaking bouquets to Indian weddings that are truly over the top, we found that you don't have to be an LVMH heiress to add a few luxurious touches to your real life wedding.

However, it doesn't hurt to dream, does it? So let's get to it!

When an Indian-born billionaire steel tycoon's only daughter marries, you can expect nothing but the best. And then some. Vanisha Mittal, daughter of tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, married Amit Bhatia, an investment banker, in a lavish ceremony in Paris.

Like most Indian weddings, nearly a week of festivities and parties preceded the wedding. A modest thousand guests -- the weddings of Indian mega-rich are usually 10,000 -- were flown in to Paris from India on 12 Boeing jets, where they were put up at a 5-star hotel in Paris. Sources weren't clear on which hotel, but since the George Cinq was one of the party venues, we suspect that's where they were housed. Not too shabby...

Here, a wedding is a day. Sure, there might be showers, but as far as extended wedding partying goes, we're small potatoes. You want wild wedding partying? Head to India.

Indian tradition dictates that in the days leading up to a wedding, there be parties for the bride, the groom, the families and friends. A family might throw five parties in a week, each of them as opulent as the family can afford. Or more. Families have been known to go bankrupt financing a wedding. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent, more if you have them -- and that's before the wedding even happens!

Many Indian wedding are planned according to the bride and groom's astrological signs. There will be auspicious and inauspicious days. Add to that India's super-hot summer weather, and what you get are quite literally thousands of wedding happening on an auspicious day at a cool time of year. In Delhi, a city of 14 million, there can be as many as 15,000 weddings happening on certain days, causing "dusk-to-dawn gridlock". Fifteen THOUSAND weddings in one city on one day? Now that's over-the-top wedding mayhem!

A little while back, we discussed a few ideas which would make a wedding more accessible to members of the Deaf community. A very helpful Deaf interpreter at the Roanoke Deaf Fellowship church read the post and made a few more suggestion. (Thank you, Traci!)

If there will be any Deaf in attendance at the wedding, be aware that, unless you take their needs into account, they will be largely isolated from the festivities, just as you would be were you to attend a wedding conducted in an unfamiliar language. Traci Carr, a Deaf interpreter at the Roanoke Deaf Fellowship, had the following suggestions to make:

1. Use professional, qualified interpreters. Yes, it would cost less to can get someone from a community college with a couple of ASL courses to do it, but really -- do you want people to be getting the full version of your wedding, or the grade school version?

Planning a western-theme shower for the bride (and groom)? Or maybe you're a genuine western bride! Perhaps you're even planning a horseback wedding.

Before you ride off into the sunset with your beloved, you'll want to make sure everyone knows who's who. How better to identify the main players and stay with the theme than these his'n'hers -- er, bride'n'groom -- cowboy hats?

The white hat is the bride's (of course!), labeled in "diamanette" studs, while the manly black hat declares "groom" on a suitably masculine leather plate. Happy Western Wedding, you two!

It depends on your expectations -- and your budget. An article in the New York Times discussed weddings on a budget, and commented that a planner can save you thousands of dollars. A Brooklyn couple planning their truly budget wedding had a thought or two on that notion:

But if you are considering the category of things that a wedding planner can save you "thousands of dollars" on for your wedding, you are not having a wedding on a budget. You are having a wedding with a budget.

See the point? There are people planning weddings who would not dream of spending thousands of dollars in the first place -- and thus there are no thousands to "save". Though I guess you could argue that if the average American wedding costs $28,000 (and it does), and yours only cost $1500, then you saved $26,500... It's all in your perspective, right?

Where there are animals used in the patterns, they also are symbolic. The dog is not pictured because the artist happened to like dogs. Rather, the Irish wolfhound (the dog in the rings) symbolizes loyalty, love, faithfulness, and strength.

Love, faithfulness, harmony, balance, interdependence, strength: jewelry so rich in symbols like this is a natural for a wedding! Doesn't hurt that it's beautiful, too.

Monograms these days are a classic way to personalize your home and accessories. Your initials, or your initials entwined with your partner's. Simple! No one has someone else's initials on their stuff. How weird would that be?

Actually, once upon a time, that was normal. No, more than normal, it was a sign of class. See, you would only have silver, crystal and linens to monogram if your family had money. You would have a monogram because you had a Name that socially-aware people would recognize. And of course the silver, etc., was quality stuff, so it would last a lifetime -- and beyond -- to be it would be passed down to the next generation, even bequeathed. Generation after generation. This proved your family not only had wealth, it also had history.

If your family had lots of wealth and lots of history, virtually everything you owned would be monogrammed with the initials of your illustrious ancestors. So now you know: Having monograms that are not your very own initials is not weird. It is a sign of social class, distinction, and history. Just so long as those initials really are great-great gramma's, not some you picked up at a garage sale down the street.

In North American, if we think of elephants at all, they're associated with children -- the circus, the zoo. In India, however, elephants are associated with ceremony and celebration. We've all seen pictures of elephants with the luxuriant tapestries hanging on them, and topped by the howdah, carrying some dignitary. They are also symbols of strength, long life, wisdom, and good fortune.

What better favor for your guests, then, than this carved wooden elephant? This lucky elephant can decorate the place setting, then be slipping into pocket or purse as a good luck token, and a remembrance of your happy day!

Yesterday, Kristen wrote about Michelle Singletary's financial advice for engaged couples. (Speed recap: Singletary advises saving first and then spending on the wedding.) I'm not going to dispute the advice, but I am curious about what parts of a wedding are really expendable and what parts are not.

Singletary starts her essay by saying that one of the first recommendations she makes for cutting the budget is to cut the guest list. "It all started," she writes, "when someone on a tight budget asked: 'How do I find a place and feed 100 people?' I responded that the best solution is to stick to your budget and cut the guest list.

"Well, you would have thought I had attacked the very institution of family."

Commenters argued that weddings aren't about just the bride and groom, but about the joining of two families, and to cut the guest list would be to exclude family members from this celebration of -- well, of family.

And so I started thinking: how many of the guests on YOUR list are actually FAMILY? Not sorority sisters or those girls from high school who were LIKE sisters to you -- people who are related to you by blood or marriage. Is your family half the list? A quarter? Ninety percent? And could you cut the guest list to JUST family? Or will you find a way to pay for it all so that you can have your friends with you on your wedding day?

AisleDash wants to know.

China is an enormous country with diverse cultures. The north is different than the south, the cities are different to the much-poorer countryside. Though women and men have equal rights, and though many young people choose their own partners and marry in their own way, there are still areas of the country where traditional weddings and even arranged marriages take place.

Traditional Chinese weddings include: The Three Letters -- betrothal, gift, and wedding; and The Six Etiquettes -- the betrothal, birthday matching, the betrothal gifts, wedding gifts, picking the date, and finally, the wedding itself.

The closer my wedding gets, the more those "don't worry about it" details start becoming sources of chaos. Guest lists and address-wrangling and invitation finalization start taking center stage. Arguments over seating charts and wedding registries become frequent and irritating. And let's not forget the financial factor, where we are desperately trying to keep our budget balanced while planning our "dream wedding."

This is all without mentioning the regular stuff: life, house, jobs, cats, etc.

With barely 68 days left to go in our dash for the aisle, the strain of wedding planning is starting to take its toll. We're battling with each other. We're hashing out dodgy details on the phone with our parents. We're trying to be everything to everyone, and the pressure is tremendous. Yes, we'll call the reception hall. Yes, we still need to get bridal party gifts. No, we haven't given the DJ our song list. Yes, we're losing our minds, thanks for asking.

Yeah, there are some dumb laws floating around, but I hate to admit that I actually live in the state of a completely moronic statute that was upheld.

Yes, I'm talking about the state where the waving wheat sure smells sweet and Peeping Toms can look under 16-year-old girls' dresses. Got it yet?