Page Tags: 0 35 carats diamond wedding band l k gold jewelry , here, costume and vintage jewelry

THE ADVICE; A WEDDING GUIDE.(The Good Life Central New York)

…photographer, maybe four hours instead of six hours.

BEAUTY

Brides should meet with an image/beauty consultant for a dress rehearsal long before the Big Day. The consultant can make suggestions that in turn will make the photography more flattering. This also avoids the risk of allergic reactions to cosmetics on the wedding day.

PLANNING

To get the most out of a bridal show, do some pre-planning. Know your budget, so you can connect with the service providers you need. Remember, some wedding professionals can only do one or two weddings a day. They will be the ones who will fill up their date books first.

THE DRESS

If keeping a wedding dress forever isn't important to you, consider renting one. Some bridal shops carry a wide variety of dresses and sizes and will even make alterations. For the best selection, go shopping as soon as possible and put a deposit down to reserve your gown.

DECORATIONS

Complement your floral arrangements by renting potted trees from a local nursery for your reception venue. The nursery should deliver and set up the trees before the wedding and pick them up the next day. For a dramatic look, wrap…

…the league always will have Vlade Divac.

News Flash: Taking its cue from new NBA rules, Las Vegas now restricts contact on drive-thru weddings.

I love Las Vegas. Like 7-Eleven, it never closes. Like Deadwood, it tolerates anything. And like my prostate, it gets larger every year.

(I am proud to call three places "home": My actual hometown of Washington, D.C., my current home of Los Angeles and my adopted hometown of Las Vegas. I am equally at ease in all three cities, each of which has more sinners per capita than anywhere in the United States.)

Plus, another hidden pleasure of Las Vegas -- it's tattoo heaven. Tattoo parlors, tattoo cover-up, tattoo removal; body piercing, body jewelry, body art; Celtic tattoos, phoenix tattoos, sun tattoos. Where else would an NBA All-Star want to spend his down time? Heck, Allen Iverson could plaster his back with a reconfigured map of Eastern Europe and still make it to the final 20 minutes of practice!

News Flash: If the NBA had been in town in 1999, the tiger attack on Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy would have been ruled a "flagrant 2."

Ah, but some people wonder what larger-than-life, outlandish-and- outlaw NBA players will do to Las Vegas this weekend, and vice versa. But the Professional Bowlers Association Tour just came through town last month -- hey, you give those guys a beer and a shot, and they'll turn Caesars into "Roadhouse" -- and, frankly, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and Co. left The Strip bare and beaten.

Anyway, as the marketing mantra goes: What happens here,…

… the Stanley K. Tanger Breast Cancer Fund.

Hot toys make up last push

It wasn't a coincidence that some of the hottest holiday gifts suddenly showed up on Triad store shelves last week. Retailers, in an end-of-season push, magicked top sellers including the Nintendo Wii and T.M.X. Elmo back into stores.

But none of them wanted to talk about it.

Local Target managers acknowledged that they brought in shipments of Wiis Dec. 17, but they wouldn't discuss the timing or why Wiis were rarely available during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Other area stores, including Gamestop, briefly had the much-sought system last weekend.

And the elusive Elmos arrived again at local Toys 'R' Us stores last week, appealing to last-minute shoppers looking to put toys under the tree. It was all part of the final holiday crunch, which included extended hours and last-minute sales at stores including J.C. Penney and Macy's.

As of Dec. 13, more than 17 percent of men and 13 percent of women had not begun their holiday buying, according to the National Retail Federation.

Party for mothers-to-be

Babies 'R' Us, at 1214 Bridford Parkway, has planned a party for expectant…

…Highland Park.

"To me, the difference between something that is a collectible and plain old jewelry is it has a story to it," she says. "I think my customers come in looking for that story, rather than just go into a department store to buy a new piece."

As an example, she brought out a painted-eye brooch. To the uninformed, it is a pin with an eye painted on it. But there is a story.

In the late 18th Century, Rosenbloom explains, King George of England fell in love with a widow_and married her secretly_but was later forced into an arranged marriage. George and his secret wife had portraits painted of each other's eyes, which they would wear as brooches. People would see the mysterious eyes, but no one knew whose they were. Soon the eye brooches caught on.

"You could have a secret lover and carry a picture of them," Rosenbloom says.

The eye brooches, dating from the 1780s to around 1820, now can command prices of $3,000 to $4,000.

"I love the connection of history and jewelry," she says.

She has several other tips:

_Know terminology. "Antique" implies that a piece is 100 years old or…

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