Laila Ali, daughter of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali (pictured together at right), got married is a sensational wedding on Sunday in Los Angeles. She tied the knot with the retired NFL receiver Curtis Conway, who has played for Chicago, San Diego and the New York Jets.

Muhammad Ali, now 65 years old, attended the wedding and is still the most celebrated athlete in the world. Laila is an amazing boxer, with a 24 -0 record and 21 knockouts. Witnesses say she looked like a knockout bride herself in a champagne colored wedding gown in front of the 200 guests.  

Conway is 36 and Ali is 29 , and they first met two years ago at a party in the groom’s home. He proposed in November. Celebrity weddings are always fun to follow, mainly because it’s great to see all the fancy decor and planning that goes into it.

It’s possible, however for the average couple to feel like a famous bride and groom with simple decoration choices like flowers and the color scheme of the bridemaids’ dresses. You can also combine the theme of the ceremony with the reception through your choice of elegant wedding favors. You can also have wonderful wedding shower favors to kick off all the ceremonies on the right foot for your visiting family and friends.

It’s one of the biggest wedding fears for all brides and grooms…getting cold feet on your big day. After all the money and planning has been put into decorations, location and personalized wedding favors for all the guests at the reception, that last thing you want is to have to call it off. Ever since the movie Runaway Bride came out and then actual runaway brides popped up on the news all over the country, many grooms have been sweating bullets as they stand at the altar waiting for their future wife to walk down the aisle. I remember the few terrifying moments that I stood waiting for my bride. I thought for a brief moment that she was having second thoughts, but it just turned out to be a dress malfuntion. There are many things that a bride has to worry about other than her bridesmaids gifts.

There are several things that a couple can do to decrease the chances of one of them making a mad dash on the wedding day. First, premarital counseling can be very helpful to clarify if and why a man and woman actually want to get married. I think it’s great that many churhes actually require the counseling before they perform the ceremony. Secondly, the bride and groom should talk to a lot of marriage veterans and learn from their wisdom. By seeing how a successful marriage works, a couple will increase their own chances and will calm their fears for tying the knot.   

Omar bin Laden, son of the infamous terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, was recently wed to Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year old grandmother from England that has been married five times before. Omar is only 27, so there has been a flurry of media attention over the union.

Of course, Omar is outraged. Jane’s new name is Zaina Bint Mohamad Al-Sabah. Omar bin Laden has been quoted as saying that polygamy is not unusual in his culture and that his first wife agreed to the second marriage. Zaina said that her husband left his father’s social circle in Afghanistan when he was 19 because he didn’t want to fight and die young. It sounds like he made the right choice.

Of all the ”celebrity weddings” I’ve read about, this one is the most unique. I realize that polygamy is part of Arabic culture, but I don’t understand why bin Laden is so surprised at the media attention. His father is a wanted terrorist that’s killed thousands of people, of course his life is going to be under a microscope.

If you’re looking to travel somewhere exotic like the middle east for your nuptials, then perhaps some destination favors are in order. Or, you could just go for some wine wedding favors at your reception to get the party started without traveling halfway around the world. 

Kim Clijsters, the beloved retired tennis star wed her fiancee, the american Brian Lynch, at 6 a.m. on Friday morning. Clijsters said she wanted to “keep the ceremony as low key as possible”. The civil ceremony was performed by the local town mayor, but a church ceremony and reception are also  scheduled for Saturday.

Clijster and Lynch have been together since 2005, a great year for the tennis star. She broke her grand slam duck in the US Open, broke up with her former fiancee and then hooked up with Lynch. Brian Lynch plays professional basketball in the Belgian League.

Clijster had said originally that she was going to retire at the end of 2007, but instead opted to bow out in May of this year, citing multiple injuries leading to fatigue and lack of play.

The announcement of their nuptials comes just days after the couple also announced that Kim is pregnant with their first baby. Clijsters has said many times that she deeply desires to leave the world of tennis and live the life of a housewife. Now it looks like she’s going to get what she wants.

If you too are looking to have a simple wedding and reception without all the big bells and whistles, then you are definitely going to save some money. You can get many beautiful yet practical wedding favors for the perfect celebration.

Any bride, tennis star or not, deserves to get a cheap wedding favor that doesn’t look like it’s cheap. There are many elegant wedding favors available onthe market that won’t bust a couple’s budget wide open. It’s important for newlyweds to start off on the right foot financially, so try not to spend too much even though it’s a big day. 

Let’s face it, a lot of times at a wedding the bride or groom are going to be introduced to someone that they don’t know at all, yet are about to be related to. It’s a strange feeling, I know, but what makes it even stranger is that as the newlywed couple receiving all this wonderful support, you have to give all your guests some sort of nice little gift.

Usually, the two lovebirds can help each other out on what presents each person would like, but sometimes people getting married don’t even know all their own family members that well that show up to the wedding. This is especially true of big families. In my experience, sticking to the gifts that generally everyone likes is a safe bet. For example, everyone likes candles these days, so candle wedding favors are an easy choice. The candle favor pictured at left is good for a man or woman because of the unisex color.

Another safe gift group I’ve found is coffee tea favors. Thanks to the high demand of caffeine, most people will enjoy either a coffee or tea themed present.

We all know that fighting is a normal part of marriage, but this particular couple from the UK really dove into that part of matrimony early, as in during the reception. Teresea Brown, the bride, was arrested and spent time in jail for assaulting her newlywed husband, Mark Allerton, with the heel of her stiletto shoe during a very physical fight in their hotel room while the wedding guests partied on downstairs.

When questioned about the incident, Brown admitted that the fight began with the two of them accusing each other of many things, and then escalated into a physical fight. She said she only hit her husband after he grabbed her arm. Police found a broken lamp, wires pulled out of the wall and smashed glass all over the hotel room, totaling about 500 pounds ($1,015.48 USD) worth of damage!

On the plus side, the couple is still together and Brown is now in counseling as she was on antidepressant at the time of the fight. This woman definitely takes the term bridezilla to a new level. If you’re a stressed out bride shopping for your wedding favors and need something affordable yet elegant, there are some great coaster wedding favors and other elegant wedding favors that you’re sure to love from My Love Wedding Favors.com. Let us take some strain off your shoulders.  

Nartis Adeiel Fadhil (bride) and Kadhim Qasim Mohammed were just one of many couples that celebrated their nuptials on the famous wedding date of 7/7/07. What was different is that they were married with a mass of other couples from Baghdad in an anonymous hotel as an effort to keep the ceremonies secure. There was very tight security, and the event was hosted and paid for by the minister of youth and sports from the Iraq government. Each groom recieved one million dinars ($800) stuffed in an envelope and each bride received shawls bearing a map of Iraq. There was no room or money at this reception for any kind of personalized wedding favors or even all of the guests.

Normally, an Iraqi wedding consists of a celebratory march throught the streets with horns honking, loud cheers and held up traffic. With all the recent car bombs, this has become too dangerous of a tradition. As recently as last Thursday night, a car bom in a souther Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad killed 17 people at a wedding reception in front of a restaurant that was hosting the party.

The couples were happy for a safe wedding rather than no wedding at all, but it’s sad that terrorist groups like al Qadea have stolen the joy of life for so many innocent people. Those of us getting married in America and other secure countries should be thankful. Show your appreciation to your guests for supporting your union by giving them elegant wedding favors and lots of thanks at the reception.    

David Beckstead, the photographer who shot the unique picture here, knows how much brides usually value their dresses. Wedding dresses are usually one of the most important things that brides have as a keepsake from their big day. They are usually quite expensive, elegant and represent hours or days of shopping for the perfect dress. Most married women, like my wife, are determined to save their gowns for someone else to use, for renewing vows or just for posterity. Now, though, a new trend is emerging among newlyweds…it’s the “trashing the weddng dress after the weddng” photo shoot.

Now, after you get all the shots of the bride and groom and all of the new family, the couple can blow off steam and stress with a fun and mucky set of photographs. For example, if you have an oceanside ceremony and reception you could get some great shots at the end of a bride posed in the sand with her beautiful dress. Maybe one of the beach weddng favors you give away to guests could be a disposable camera for everyone to join in the fun.

Of course, like every trend, not everyone’s a fan. Many women think that these brides are just nuts. Trashing a gown that you spent several hundred and even thousands of dollars on is more than wasteful, it’s a sin. I can see their point of view. Wedding gowns carry so much significance with them that they become much more that clothing.

Still, I can’t deny the fact that many of the shots I see from these photo shoots are amazing work. They really are a unique piece of art that each newlywed couple can cherish for the rest of their marriage. If you know of or are a bride and groom that could be into the idea of traveling to an exotic, dirty location for a fun after-wedding shoot, then get everyone in on it with some cool destination favors.