AisleDash

Kate Moss is busy getting ready for her impending nuptials to her rocker fiance Jamie Hince. They are slated to get married this September in a power station, and the supermodel is apparently trying to shape up.

She has joined pal Sadie Frost in a detox this spring, giving up her favorite fried foods and agreeing to cut back on the booze. Plus, she has incorporated yoga into her routine in an effort to tone up her slight frame.

While this is all fine and well, we're actually a little more excited about some other news -- she's getting to work on her wedding dress, and girlfriend is going gothic. She is said to be working with a designer friend (Who, you ask? We don't know yet!) on a full-skirted gown "either in purple or black" with "vintage rock 'n' roll charms as the trimming." We cannot wait to see what Miss Moss wears, and how else she incorporates this rock 'n' roll/gothic theme!

If you want your wedding to truly feel French you have to focus on one thing: Food. Delicious, fabulous, French food.

The French are deservedly proud of their gastronomic heritage, and a wedding is the perfect place to indulge. If you and your partner love food, consider throwing a gourmet reception at an authentic French restaurant; instead of blowing your budget on a band, you and your guests could celebrate your marriage with a meal you'll never forget.

The French take the enjoyment of food seriously, so think fresh ingredients of the highest quality possible and divide the meal into various courses (keep the portions small). The traditional courses are:

1. Apéritif - A pre-dinner drink to "stimulate" the appetitte.
   
2. Amuse-bouche - A small (just one or two bites) savory snack meant to introduce you to the meal you're about to enjoy
   
3. Entrée - We tend to use the French entrée when we mean "main dish" but to the French, it's more of an appetizer - something to keep you happy while you wait for your main dish.
   
4. Plat principal - The main course.
   
5. Fromage - cheese
   
6. Dessert - Need we say more?
   
7. Café - Coffee, to keep you alert
   
8. Digestif - An after-dinner drink meant to aid digestion and conversation

If you agree with Kristen that you can't drink champagne all the time, and you've decided to choose yourself some nice French wines for your wedding ... Well, they're French wines, aren't they? They'll need to be presented with style!
There are all sorts of ways to accessorize your wine. The most obvious is wine charms. You can buy them in just about any theme you can think of -- wedding, of course!, but also any hobby or interest the two of you have, or simple beads to match your color scheme. You can purchase them or, using a few simple items from the jewelry section of a craft store, make your own. There are cork place cards, decorative wine stoppers, elegant wine bags, and many more.

We're kind of partial to these wine cork candles. It looks like you're burning the corks, but you're not! Available from Beau-coup, each candle can be put into an empty wine bottle, and burns for two hours. Of course, you could always use the standard fall-back of real, actual candles (in your wedding colors!), popped into real, actual bottles, as well.

If you've chosen Paris as your wedding destination, you are in for quite a romantic backdrop. There are few -- if any -- places more romantic than "The City of Light." Paris is obviously known for the romance it evokes, but it's also known for a few other things: culture, terrace cafes and art (just to name a few).

If your wedding day will be held in Paris, France, your romantic theme (thankfully!) can also extend to your invitations. You can choose a simple, classic invite or something with a French toile pattern or, even, one with the Eiffel Tower accenting it.

For a few more Parisian invitation style suggestions, take a look at the gallery below.

Once you've picked the best champagne to serve at your Paris-themed wedding, it's time to shift your focus to the glasses you'll use to toast it with. Many venues offer flutes for your guests to use during the first toasts, but it's sometimes nice to hand-pick the flutes you and yours will use for your first sip of champagne as husband and wife. You can pick a personalized set or funkier glasses to match your colors or even Parisian flutes to accent your Paris-perfect wedding.

The benefit of purchasing your own toasting flutes (with your own tastes in mind) is you are able to take the glasses home with you and toast your marriage as often as possible, especially on each and every wedding anniversary.

Check out the gallery for even more styles of fun, funky and classic champagne flutes to fill up with the perfect bottle of champagne.

We would be remiss to host Paris week at AisleDash and not mention one of the best French exports since torn baguettes -- champagne! As you may know, champagne is actually sparkling wine that stems from the champagne valley of France and come in many varieties -- brut, extra dry, demi-sec, etc.

If your dream wedding theme consists of all things Parisian, you can't keep a bottle of proper bubbly away from your guests. But how do you decide on what, exactly, to serve? Here are a handful of bottles of champagne that you can't go wrong with, and you can also purchase any of these in many other places beside France's champagne region.

We've already mentioned that we think a fun purse is a great gift for bridesmaids, and if you're having a Parisian-themed wedding, we still think it's a great idea. Of course, you also need a fabulous bag for yourself ...

We've got it right here -- the Eiffel Tower Bag by Timmy Woods. Granted, they're $375 a pop, so, even if you won't be able to give one to each of your bridesmaids, you might be able to splurge and get one for yourself! There are always other Parisian gifts to give your girls.

This purse isn't only good for your wedding, either. It's one of the bags being featured in the Sex and the City movie, carried by none other than Miss Carrie Bradshaw herself. So not only will you be a beautiful bride, you'll also be a serious fashionista any time you carry it!

Italy has pasta and wine, England has fish and chips, and Spain has tapas, but no country comes closer to decadent dessert heaven than France with their impossibly gorgeous pastries.

Just allow your eyes to gaze upon the wondrous delights showcased in the gallery and you'll soon see why France holds the prize for pastries. Whether or not you're having a Paris-inspired wedding, treating your guests to delicate petit fours or divine cream puffs is sure to garner plenty of smiles.

Also, if you're adhering to a vegan lifestyle and feel like baking, you can find a yummy vegan petit four recipe here. Très bon!

Planning a Paris-theme wedding? You can choose the very chic and urban Paris decor, and focus on the landmarks and monuments, or you could turn your focus to the sophisticated and urbane Parisian parks. Parks in Paris tend to be fairly formal, organized affairs. They have immaculate gardens, and lawns more often for gazing upon than racing over; often there are ponds, for gazing upon, yes, but also for sailing model boats.

Want to conjure up the ambiance of a Parisian park? This Paris Garden kit provides inspiration for your decor: sculpted hedges, topiary trees, a fountain. You may not may not opt to include a model of the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, but some artfully placed flowering plants and a (chocolate?!) fountain could be used to good effect. Perhaps seating at the wedding, or around the dance floor, could be rented park benches rather than chairs.

Take the elements that appeal to you, and see how you can make them work for your celebration!

This "Springtime in Paris" kit is a quick and easy way to create a Parisian ambiance to your gathering. We tend to think these items would work best for a shower, but if you think you could make it work for your reception, go for it!

The entire kit contains a 3D Eiffel Tower, a pair of boulevard lamp posts, two topiary trees, four boulevard wall sections, a 2D Paris skyline and a 4' x 50' roll of cobblestone flat paper. If you're not confident of your creative abilities and have lots of money to invest, the kit is a good way to go. If, however, you think you can manage to create your own roll-out cobblestone path and Paris skyline, maybe you can afford a few more lamp posts or trees!

Even if you don't use the kit at all, there's plenty of inspiration for elements that will create the mood you're after!

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!

Here at AisleDash, we spend a lot of time thinking about fabulous places to get married, and we can't think of a more romantic spot than Paris. But we also know that most of you won't be jetting off to Paris to tie the knot, and so this week we're going to show you how to bring Paris home. We'll help you plan your own Paris wedding, with suggestions for food and drink and music -- and of course gowns and favors. Everything you need to fall in love with Paris!

And keep in mind that should you find yourself really planning to be married in Paris, we know a great wedding planner!

This week we're thrilled to be chatting to Kimberley Petyt, of Parisian Events, a first class American wedding consultancy in Paris.

How did you come to be a wedding planner in France?

Eight years ago I married a French man and after planning my own wedding in France, long-distance from San Francisco, I decided to start a wedding planning agency. I already had years of event planning experience in the USA, and I had also learnt so much about the differences between French weddings and American weddings through my own experiences, so it was almost a natural progression.

What are the major challenges of planning a wedding in Paris?

The biggest challenge for any couple is the long list of legal requirements. The main requirement is that one of the couple needs to have been a legal resident in the district in which they plan to marry for 30 – 40 consecutive days prior to their requested wedding date. And that means really living there, and being able to provide proof of residency (such as a utility bill) and not just bunking down in a hotel and being a tourist for a month!

If a couple wants a full wedding, with the civil ceremony followed by a church blessing, do you sort all the paperwork out?

I provide clients with a global road map of the documents that are needed for a civil ceremony, and the overall timing for submitting the documents. I'll also give them direction as to where they can find additional assistance, but I always recommend that a client contact their local embassy as well as the city hall in which they wish to marry directly for more information.

I provide the same type of assistance to those clients who are marrying in a religious ceremony. A lot of people in the U.S. don't realize that in order to have a wedding in a church in France, you first HAVE to have had a French civil ceremony.

Because there are SO many restrictions here in France, the majority of our clients who come from out of the country do choose to marry legally in their home country and have a symbolic ceremony or a religious blessing here in Paris.

There are wedding dresses that make you feel like a princess and then there are dresses that magically turn you into a princess. If you prefer the latter (who doesn't?), then wedding gowns by Uptight Clothing, a UK-based dress and accessory designer that's been around for years, is perfect for making your faerie-tale dreams come true.

The focus with Uptight Clothing is rich, saturated colors like royal purples and turquoise and form-fitting corsets with either billowing gowns or curve-hugging A-line skirts. As you can see from the gallery, the styles range from whimsical to more traditional with a twist. So, if you're the kind of bride who turns a nose up to white or sneers at big designer labels, this boutique-style dressmaker may be the faerie godmother you've been searching high and low outside your window.

Keep in mind, due to the high demand for these handmade dresses, you'll need to order at least a year in advance. Oh, but the wait is sure to be worth it once you transform into a princess who'll make your prince's jaw drop!

You've weighed the pros and cons of getting married at home or away and away won. So, it's now time to decide where exactly to go? Some couples who opt for a destination wedding have a specific location in mind when they begin planning but others only know they want a sandy beach or somewhere near a lake or a picturesque mountain scene. How do you decide the exact place then?

Here are a few things to consider:

• What time of year do you want to get married? Are you set on a holiday wedding? Or, perhaps, springtime nuptials? Do you want to get married outside or do you envision a church setting? These are all questions to ask yourself right before you spend a nice afternoon with Google to make sure the location in your head is compatible with the other criteria you've laid out for your wedding day.
• What's the weather like? If you're planning a destination wedding, it's likely the setting is just as important as any other detail. Meaning, if you want a Mexican beach wedding, the weather will be crucial to a happy day. If you want an Irish celebration you'll want to avoid getting married in April -- an unpredictable time of year there. Weather.com is a fantastic resource for all brides-to-be and the site offers regular e-mail updates for the location of your choice.
• How easy will your wedding be to plan? The Internet has made planning a destination wedding much easier these days, but you still want to be sure the place you have chosen has a variety of things you will need for a destination wedding: local and professional vendors, accommodations (hotels, lodges, etc), a nearby airport. You not only want your wedding planning to be as stress-free as possible but you want your guests to enjoy their time there with few headaches.

Before you can dive into the joy of planning your dream wedding away from home, you want to pick the perfect spot. Is it a ranch in Santa Fe or a hilltop in British Columbia? Regardless, you want it to be right for you and your needs. Think it through before you dish out deposits, and you're sure to have a magical (and picture-perfect!) wedding day.