No Picture
Lifestyle

Mellie Stanley is back in TLC’s “Gypsy Sisters”

Mellie Stanley is back! The beautiful, brawling breakout star of TLC’s My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding — plus her mother-hen older sister Nettie, domestic goddess cousin Kayla and Kayla’s sister-in-law Laura (best known for conditioning her tresses with mayo and whitening her teeth with Clorox) have scored their own TLC series Gypsy Sisters, which premieres Feb. 10 at 9/8CT. When we last left the ladies after their hit summertime special The Stanley Sisters, wild-child Mellie had taken up — then sworn she’d sworn off — stripping. She even told Channel Guide that she was considering marriage with her “musker” (that’s gypsy-speak for […]

No Picture
Lifestyle

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

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 […]

No Picture
Interview

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

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 […]

Interview

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

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 […]

No Picture
Lifestyle

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

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 […]

No Picture
Lifestyle

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

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 […]

Lifestyle

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

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 […]

Lifestyle

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

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 […]

No Picture
Lifestyle

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

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 […]

Lifestyle

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

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 […]