I know. It’s been awhile, and I feel sheepish. But I swear up and down, it was not all out of sight, out of mind. I’ll save the ’splaining for later though.

In the meantime, a Dress Sample Sale that I had to share. It’s happening over at I Do Bridal in White Rock this Saturday and Sunday (Sept 13/14). Could be worth checking out.

Who knew? A Flickr pool devoted solely to those funky sugary wedding cake concoctions…passed out groom and mad bride is a funny one. Feast your eyes on more cakes at the regular ole wedding cake pool and then some random more general cakes at the fantasy cake pool.

Vancouver School Board Continuing Education has a new class this October all about sewing strapless evening dresses. Perfect for wedding dresses, no? For the DIY kinda gal (or guy), it’s probably a lot less frustrating than shaking your fist at a McCalls dress pattern. It’s only one five-hour session, but at minimum, it probably will help inform your Dressew excursion and fabric selection.

Well, here’s an idea. If you’re racking your brains for an public space to hold a wedding, why not a cemetery? Apparently it’s a growing trend in the past two years - who knew? Betcha Mountain View wouldn’t be a bad spot…if you do a search on Flickr, there are several beautiful ones over at Victoria’s Ross Bay.

It was only recently (and thanks mostly to Google News showing this story) that I discovered that Quebec law does not allow women to take their husband’s last name. Whoa. The accompanying comments to this article is particularly interesting.

Some interesting wedding shots over at Trash The Dress. The premise of “trashing” is that you arrange a post-wedding photoshoot where you’re allowed free reign to destroy (errr…expose to natural elements?) your dress/tux/wedding attire, which seems to range from anything to immersing yourself in a mud bath, flicking paint at each other, submerging the dress underwater or rolling around in a bed of ivy or a postmodern industrial wasteland (okay, there weren’t any photos of that, but wouldn’t it be the ultimate in juxtaposition?).

Okay, okay, I know I have been terribly remiss here, apologies abound. I have a boatload of email reminders to myself about things that I really should post about here, but they are buried in my inbox. What can I say? Moving is a big project and I’ll just stop babbling my excuses.

Onto more fun stuff! I was geeking out on some vectorized maps of the world (don’t ask) and came across a quick little tutorial about screenprinting armbands for the groomsmen, ushers and grooms. Screenprinting really isn’t that tough (though it is certainly messy)…but there are possibilities abound for fun projects you could do around the same idea…wedding party shirts, ribbons, tableclothes, hell, even napkins (uhm, okay, I confess I saw something this anal-retentive in Martha Stewart I think).

I’m a chronic list-maker, I’ll confess. The problem is, the lists never seem to happen on the same sheet of paper because it gets compiled a little asynchronously. Lists can be in the making for weeks, months, yes even years (in this case it is years, since some of these books first came across my radar years ago!). While cleaning this weekend–why yes, I spent my long weekend cleaning, sigh–I came across several of my little scraps of paper that were beginnings of a wedding books list. So before they go awol again, I will hereby jot them down in no particular order (pardon the use of amazon links, I don’t financially benefit from them, it just seemed like the easiest way to keep track of them all)…

Not Your Usual Wedding Planning Books
Eco-Chic Weddings

Anti-Bride Wedding Planner

Offbeat Bride

Relationship-y Books
The Conscious Bride

1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married

Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Weddings on a Budget
Bridal Bargains

1000 Best Wedding Bargains

DIY, Crafty Weddings
Wedding Knits (for those who purl)

Wedding Invitations

Somerset Wedding (some good card ideas)

Artful Bride: Simple, Handmade Wedding Projects

Sarah Lugg’s The Handcrafted Wedding

The DIY Wedding (not quite out yet, but will be in August)

Wedding Flowers and Bouquets
Simply Stunning Wedding Flowers

Creative Wedding Flowers You Can Make

Bouquet: A Year of Flowers for the Bride
- - - - -

If this wasn’t enough to sate you, try Find That Wedding Book for pretty much every wedding book under the sun.

With weddings comes shacking up, which segues nicely into my plug for an interesting looking interior show happening this weekend, the quasi-upscale (yet with a perplexing element of DIY tossed in) DV Interior Design and Urban Living Expo (phew, what a mouthful) at Canada Place.

And while we’re on the topic of setting up house, Swell Future Friendly Design, might give you some ideas if you’re grooving on the green vibe lately. It’s a free exhibition featuring eco-friendly lifestyle/home related products (environmentally friendly toothbrushes, cutlery and diapers happening until May 12th at 885 W Georgia St (address near impossible to find on their site!)…it looks like some of the products are more on the conceptual side, but fun to see nonetheless.

Gotta ‘fess up, I’ve been swamped lately, but lest you think I’ve forgotten you all…here’s some indie(ish) wedding products over at Indiefixx to sate you for a bit. Unfortunately, they are US based but I suppose there’s always mail-order or the inspiration factor.