The color of passion, fire, and burlesque shows the world over

Let's put aside for a moment my astonishment that I knew how to spell the word "burlesque," and have a little chat about the color red.

I am in awe of red brides. The confidence! The style! The unadulterated panache! It is oh-so desirable. I also love the way that red can be either an offbeat or traditional choice depending on how you use it.

I hinted at my love of red with two of my previous boards, but they only just scratched the surface of the obsession.

I had two red prom dresses. One of them I am still very much in love with. It was a bright crimson with orange crinoline that peeked out from under the hem. What a dress. Shame about the date, but the dress... heaven.

So here is a formal red board for you this lovely Wednesday morning:

A few of the items here need special attention.

That tux! Oh sweet lord, that tux. Without a doubt, it is my favorite wedding menswear so far. I am sure that it costs oodles of money and would be a ridiculous expense for any groomsman, but seriously- look how pretty it is. Boys in tuxedos are magical things. Dapper, sweep you off your feet things. One of the things that I was so taken by at the fantastic wedding of Crys to her boy was the transformation of the groomsmen. These boys looked like men! Handsome men! None of them, of course, compared to Boy, but I'm biased.

The favor boxes and invitations come from this post over on Brides.com. While I don't want to encourage any gratuitous feeding of the wedding industry beast, I have no problem stealing good ideas and repurposing them. What I am calling a favor box appears to be an invitation in a box filled with red hots. I love the red hot box, but I'm not sure why you would put an invitation in a box with candy. That seems a bit too expensive and annoying. If you head over to the original post, you'll also see that the box lid is covered with a sheet of white paper with "love" written all over it. Gag. I'd rather a plain red top with a logo or monogram in black, please. All in all, its a great idea that seems simple to DIY.

Don't even get me started on that bridesmaid dress. I know I said that I have been leaning towards non-matchy dresses, but red is just too hard to find a perfect shade match and I promise you that it would annoy me for decades if I had 2 cranberry maids and 3 crimson maids. I shudder at the thought.

So, red. I love it so. As usual, however, there are problems. It is almost impossible to match the exact shade throughout the entire wedding, which leads to shuddering and overall bridezilla behavior. There are possible harlot implications, and since we've already covered that I live in sin, perhaps I should stay away from those. Oh, and one of my possible maids is a redhead, and I'm just not that mean. Sigh.