wedding dresses

With the average wedding ringing up at more than $28,000 in 2010, brides want advice, advice and more advice.

So when over-the-top wedding planner David Tutera came to the Mall of Louisiana, the brides couldn’t ask enough questions.

Tutera, host of WE tv’s “My Fair Wedding,” worked the crowd like a game show host. He was up on the stage and down in the aisle, sweating in his suit, gray with a faint wedding dresswhite stripe, under the 90-plus degree sun streaming in through the mall’s windowed roof.

“Isn’t it warm in here? It’s like 1,000 percent humidity,” said Tutera, mopping his brow and shedding his suit coat.

With humor and just a touch of cattiness, Tutera made snap recommendations to anyone who asked.

“Your colors are turquoise and orange? Sounds like school colors to me,” he told one bride, before offering some advice: “You need a third color in the brown or khaki family to break up those colors.”

Should the groom wear all white?

“Is he delivering ice cream?” Tutera asked. “I like a white dinner jacket, but I don’t like all white.”

And, he added, grooms should never, ever take off their jackets during the reception.

“Once the jacket comes off, it’s downhill from there,” Tutera said.

To keep guests engaged, he suggested “doing something different” every 30 minutes or so.

“You might change the music or the food, or move locations,” said Tutera. “Give them (guests) something to look forward to.”

Is there anything too big when it comes to creating an anniversary celebration?

And drama is certainly something Tutera knows. On his show, Tutera swoops in three weeks before a couple’s wedding and changes everything a bride might have planned for her pirate or cowboy wedding.

Of course, he always gives her the wedding of her dreams.

WEDDING TIPS
In addition to hosting “My Fair Wedding” on WE tv, David Tutera also has written “The Big White Book of Weddings; The How-To Guide for the Savvy, Stylish Bride.”