Keeping up with the Aislings.

My mother has "fascinator fear" with regards to our upcoming Irish wedding. She knows that all the Irish ladies are going to be wearing massive topiaries on their heads, kind of a requirement for an Irish wedding. But as American women, we neither 1) get it, nor 2) have the slightest clue where to start.

My recommendation to her was JUST DON'T DO IT. Somehow I think it's like western men wearing ties, or Scots wearing kilts. It's culturally specific, and where we think they all look the same, only an insider would be able to detect the subtleties of how we'd gotten it completely wrong.

But as mother of the bride, I don't think she wants to be upstaged by everyone else's massive headgear (she's the type of woman that would never admit to something so vain. But I can read between the lines.) I suggested a little tiara? A big bow?

What's a woman to do?

Pictured headpiece by Vera Wang, via The Weekly Edit.