• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, May 8, 2007

Every person I know decided to get married during the last month, thus requiring me to spend my past few weekends festooned in a suit-like apparatus. I consumed several prime ribs, the textural consistency of which ranged from "moist" to "industrial-grade." I partook in many an enthusiastic hora, half of them approaching "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" in length. I listened raptly as partygoers explained the profound difference between a vodka tonic and a GREY GOOSE and tonic, only to be rebuffed when I demanded a tonic-'n'-Popov (Hoboken's third-finest vodka, and one of the few where you can actually taste the potato).

By way of revenge, I'm going to start leaving all the bridal magazines that come my way in my friends' domiciles, appending them with wife-baiting notes like "Wow, too bad we didn't think of this idea!" and "Honey, here's why we didn't realize this dress is the same as yours: the woman wearing it is thinner!" I do not like tucking in my shirt; I will wreak havoc upon anyone who creates a circumstance in which I am forced to do so. You've been warned.

Generally, I find it difficult to evaluate bridal/wedding magazines, as each resembles the next topically (prepping, primping, preening) and design-wise (lotsa pix of chicks in dresses). I'm sure there's a reason that brides-to-be and their style deputies prefer one title over another, but let's be frank: All of them are more or less shiny picture books, prized less for the way they convey information than for the sheer volume of photos they present.

Imagine my astonishment, then, when I came across Wedding Dresses, perhaps the only bridal title on the planet with a true editorial hook. The mag emphasizes multicultural weddings and the way brides with a strong ethnic identity can showcase it in their wedding-day regalia. It's a smart hook and one largely ignored by other titles.

It figures, then, that Wedding Dresses would dilute this differentiation in about 35 different ways, starting with its blander-than-bread title. Why not just call the thing Multicultural Weddings? The idea, as I understand it, is to showcase one's strengths, especially when you're lumped on the newsstand with 72 indistinguishable competitors. Wedding Dresses teases its differentiation on the cover of its Spring/Summer issue, but not in a way that immediately catches the casual peruser's eye.

Wedding Dresses would also benefit from hiring a few wordsmiths, as vast stretches of the mag simply don't make sense ("improve your lashes by a dramatic 160 percent," "High Recharge your man"). The mag uses the same unimaginative subhead twice in "Real Life Wedding" ("They had many personal touches!") and litters its table of contents with generic blurbs ("our top picks for unique products with amazing results"). Within another story, the subhead of "What Made It Unique" is followed immediately thereafter by the sentence, "It was all very unique." Thanks for clearing that up.

Wedding Dresses also repeatedly violates the cardinal commandment for bridey mags: Thou shalt blow up thy pictures to the size of the Goodyear Blimp. The "In the Spotlight" piece on gown makers whose ethnicity is reflected in their work barely affords a glimpse of the dresses in question, plus it wastes space on the designers' head shots. One of the "Real Life Wedding" spreads features a dance-floor shot from way above -- traffic-copter-hovering-over-the-building way above. The mag's unfortunate habit of cramming as many as five featured dresses onto a single page means that the reader gets a good look at none of them.

Factor in a few other froufrou touches, like the borderline-unreadable script font that the mag employs repeatedly, and Wedding Dresses almost entirely neutralizes its unique editorial thrust. When the mag hews to its strengths -- the pieces on customizing favors and invitations with ethnic symbols and colors, the stories on Indian-, African-American- and Latin-inspired weddings -- it's a diverting and distinct read. When it doesn't, yeeesh.

Larry@mediapost.com

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