My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding | 2/3 | Channel Guide Magazine

Thelma Madine is back in “Little Shop of Gypsies” Thursdays on TLC

October 9, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

Good news My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding fans — British dressmaker Thelma Madine and her loyal clientele of gypsy and traveller women are back in the four-episode TLC series Little Shop of Gypsies, once again narrated by Ellen K. And this time, Madine is teaching the ladies to make the dresses themselves. Having built her business from scratch following the collapse of her first marriage, Madine is an ardent supporter of a woman’s right to manage her own life. With that in mind, she decides to expand the Nico staff by adding ten new employees with no resumes or employment [...]

Sondra Celli tells us about her new TLC series “Bling It On”

September 20, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding fans, if you’re finding the stretch between seasons agonizing, TLC has good news — the Romany’s go-to designer, Boston-based Sondra Celli, is back with a special three-episode series called Bling It On, premiering Thursday night at 10/9CT. The series features Celli and her crack team of rhinestone cowgirls (affectionately known as the “blingettes”) and seamstresses creating outfits and accessories for a lively mix of non-gypsy clients who email her and frequent her shop — from a drag queen to a pet shop owner looking for a tasteful “mommy and me” ensemble for her and her [...]

Channel Guide interviews Mellie Stanley of “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding: The Stanley Sisters”

June 30, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

If you couldn’t get enough of Mellie Stanley and her sisters — the beautiful breakout stars of TLC’s My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding — you’ll love Sunday’s special episode devoted exclusively to the ladies themselves. My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding: The Stanley Sisters follows black-sheep Mellie and her sisters Nettie, the volatile mother hen, and quiet, calm and comical Laura plus their high-maintenance, fashion-obsessed cousin Kayla as they deal with two family crises that test the boundaries of their gypsy beliefs and iron-clad family bonds. • UPDATE: Mellie Stanley’s back in TLC’s new Gypsy Sisters! Further bucking the strict [...]

“My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” finale: JR and Nettie

June 16, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

Having featured teen brides, virgin brides, non-gypsy brides, brawling brides, lesbian brides and more, TLC’s My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding ends its first season in Hagerstown, Md., with a bride who actually tied the knot 14 years back. Sweet-natured gypsy beauty Nettie, 30, and her handsome husband JR, 31, eloped as teens after JR convinced Nettie to climb out her bedroom window and run off with him. Still madly in love after many years and three children, Nettie and JR are finally in a financial position to throw themselves the wedding of their dreams. For Nettie, this entails a [...]

Mellie Stanley’s back in a pair of “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” specials on TLC

June 15, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

They’re the breakout stars of TLC’s My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, which concludes its first season Sunday. Now West Virginia’s Stanley sisters — Nettie, Laura, Kayla and wild, wild gypsy girl Mellie — have scored an upcoming special of their own. • UPDATE: Mellie Stanley returns February 10 on TLC’s Gypsy Sisters In My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding: The Stanley Sisters, premiering July 1 at 9/8CT, we find the Stanley women caught up in multiple family dramas. • Read Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Mellie Stanley! Mellie has found an even more brazen way to thumb her nose at [...]

“My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” preview: Girl fight!

June 2, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

Well, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding fans, like the ads are promising, this is the episode we’ve been waiting for. At long last, we’ll get the story behind the infamous chick fight in the series’ opening credits. And — of course — it involves everybody’s favorite gypsy wild child Mellie Stanley. • UPDATE: Read Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Mellie Stanley! This time around, it’s her 20-year-old nephew Heath — eldest son of Mellie’s sister Nettie — who is planning the wedding, an event with which everyone in the clan is delighted. At first. Then Nettie gets wind that her live-in [...]

“My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” preview: Murphy’s Laws

May 25, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

The first time American television audiences were introduced to Murphy Village in North Augusta, S.C., it was via the news and a young woman who was part of the culture, but not the community. Madelyne Gorman Toogood, an Irish Traveller like the residents of the village (of which she was never a resident), was caught by security cameras savagely beating her 4-year-old daughter in the parking lot of an Indiana department store in late 2002. And suddenly every major news outlet wanted to know what went on inside this highly secretive society that — contrary to Toogood’s actions — prides [...]

“My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” preview: Girl Gone Wild

May 17, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

In Sunday’s upcoming episode of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, the actual wedding takes a back seat to the myriad ways women adapt to — and sometime rebel against — their role in Romanichal culture. • UPDATE: Read Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Mellie Stanley! If you watched last week’s episode, you’ll recognize Martinsburg, W.Va., Romany Laura as the one-woman cavalry called in to teach teen gorger bride Amber proper gypsy-missus ways before she married Laura’s cousin Tommy. This week, you get to meet the rest of Laura’s family. Or at least a couple hundred of them. Laura’s cousin Kayla [...]

“My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” preview: It’s a Man’s World

May 11, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

Gypsy wedding fans, prepare yourself for some days of Amber and roses (and another quick but delightful glimpse at Pat Baby) when My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding airs its third episode — “It’s a Man’s World” — Sunday night on TLC. The ep spotlights the strict division of freedoms, duties and expectations between the genders — and the challenges women from outside the gypsy culture sometimes face when they fall in love with gypsy men. At the center of the hour is 23-year-old Romany Tommy, a traveling paver and construction worker, who is headed home to West Virginia celebrate his traditional [...]

CGM interviews “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” designer Sondra Celli!

May 8, 2012 | By Lori Acken
Follow @ChannelGuideLLA

Boston clothing designer Sondra Celli is catching her breath between prepping 30-plus blinged-out bikinis and an army of matching accessories for an upcoming gypsy luau and waiting for the UPS guy to arrive. “Thursdays are a little suicidal,” she chuckles. But it’s now 4pm and most of her loyal contingent of Traveller customers is in church, so I’m the only person calling. At least for the moment. As the longtime couturier of choice for America’s widespread gypsy and Traveller communities — and the unflappable star of TLC’s new Sunday night hit, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding — Celli finds [...]