Hiring a hairstylist and a makeup artist used to be sufficient for the big day, but not anymore. Brides are increasingly demanding or strongly suggesting their bridesmaids, mothers and mothers-in-law get all types of cosmetic enhancements, like Botox, Restylane, and even breast implants. In most cases, the brides are replacing the customary mani/pedi bonding session with trips to an aesthetician, where she foots the bill, but some bridesmaids are actually willing to pay for these treatments themselves. I can understand a bride wanting everything to be perfect on her wedding day, but perfect to me means showing loved ones as themselves. The bride has the right to choose the bridesmaids’ dress, but she has no right to demand cosmetic enhancements. Why risk a friendship over a wrinkle, an acne scar or sun damage? The only way I’d get Botox for a demanding bride is if she paid for it and I could get it in my armpits, which I imagine is extremely painful, but I hate sweat stains. [New York Times]

No Kids Allowed! That is what many couples are saying on their wedding invitations. Ten years ago, this wasn’t common, according to U.K. wedding planner Barry Long, but now, he said, about half of the weddings he does have that policy. People haven’t necessarily become child-haters, but brides have become a little more anal about controlling every single aspect of their wedding. Screaming children ruin videos of the momentous event, and they cost just as much to feed as adults, as caterers typically charge per head, even if a few of the heads are only chewing on chicken fingers. But excluding kids can cause rifts between friends, especially if a babysitter cancels, leaving parents with only two choices: bring the kids to the wedding or don’t go. Rhonda Williams, who has two children, refused to go to a friends wedding when this happened and the bride wouldn’t make an exception. Now the two don’t even talk. Even stranger than the wedding couple deciding to leave children out of their big day is when the church decides for them. One couple in England have complained to the Church of England after a vicar ordered a toddler’s removal from their ceremony—he was the bride and groom’s child. [BBC]