<p>The Daily Mail piece says the performance was a complete surprise. Maybe the bride was crying because the priest hijacked their carefully planned ceremony…</p>
<p>To me, strapless dresses only look good on those with small bosoms whose shoulders and upper arms are toned a la Michelle Obama. Unfortunately few brides and bridesmaids have those attributes. And even when the dress looks okay, you’ll see so many brides or bridesmaids yanking up a strapless bodice all night, because it’s either heading south or feels like it is. When it comes to the bridesmaids, I think it’s downright mean to force women with a variety of body types into a dress that will only flatter some. (On the other hand, back in the day I had to wear a bridesmaid dress that wasn’t strapless, but had ruffles cascading over my backside. I guess each era has its own horrors.)</p>
<p>I liked my DIL’s ideas about her bridesmaids dresses. They were to pick a style of their choosing within a certain color scheme (wedding colors) and length. Each young woman found something flattering to her figure that coordinated but didn’t “match.” It was lovely.</p>
<p>One of my SILs dis-invited me as a bridesmaid. When I saw the dresses, I was VERY thankful. Flame red strapless with a huge skirt. I would have looked like a huge tomato. The other bridesmaids struggled with those dresses all night.</p>
<p>DIL’s bridesmaids did strapless, but it worked for both of them, as the dress was not low cut. No wardrobe malfunctions there.</p>
<p>I am doing the let the brides maids pick their own dresses thing. I think it’s becoming more and more popular and I honestly think it’s quite beautiful when people get dresses that look good on them as opposed to a metaphorical one size fits all. </p>
<p>Video has been removed but I found it at Huffington Post UK. Lovely but I am a bit surprised because I consider that version of the song to be secular and wouldn’t expect a Priest to sing it during a formal wedding mass. </p>
<p>I know a woman whose daughter (mid 40s) got married a couple of weeks ago - the groom’s father arranged for a ‘Love Actually’ performance, where four different musicians, strategically placed in the church and church balcony with their instruments surprised everyone with All You Need is Love at the very end of the ceremony. Evidently, when the groom’s father found these four musicians willing to do it, none of them knew each other prior to the ceremony, so they arrived early to rehearse, but one of the vendors was still in the church setting things up (not knowing that someone else needed to get in there to rehearse), so they had to rehearse out in one of the musician’s cars a couple of hours prior to the service. The woman I know said it was really well-received and by the end, all the guests in the church were singing along.</p>