Say “Oh Hell No” to the Dress!

Some observations on an episode of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress.

1.  Biker chic bride is proud of her arm tats and doesn’t want to cover them up.  Good for her.  Then she tells a little anecdote:

“My fiance asked if he could come [to Kleinfeld's for wedding dress shopping], he was all worried because it’s not traditional, and I was like, Well honey we’re not traditional.”

Right.  You are soooo anti-establishment.  You and your arm tattoos are just bucking the system left and right!  That’s why you went to Kleinfeld’s and appeared on a TLC reality show to purchase your $6500 strapless white beaded gown!

Dress by Pnina Tornai

2. Skankiest bride ever.  Had designed Pnina custom-make a dress for her with a completely sheer bodice, hitting below her belly button, and then flaring out in tulle so that the width of the dress was about 5 times the height of the girl wearing it.  She was not satisfied with the dress because the material covering her breasts was too thick.  It was supposed to be sheer.  Oh, and it cost $18,700.  It looked something along the lines of this:

The bride is upset.  “I have no gown,” she says.  “I’m going to go nude to my wedding.”  Um, okay.  THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE PLANNING ANYWAY WITH YOUR SEE-THROUGH GOWN.

Instead of accepting the dress she custom-designed, this little princess decides she wants another dress by Pnina Tornai, which is almost identical except it’s a bit less slutty.  This one costs $27,000, and even though she’s told there’s no time for alterations, she insists that the top layer of lace be removed so that it’s just the underlying tulle.  “I like clean and simple,” she says.  Simplicity costs upwards of $20 grand these days, apparently.

3. Passive aggressive sourpuss mom accompanies woman who looks very much like Mary Louise Parker.  Mom makes cracks about gowns resembling vegetables and how old her daughter is, saying, “They expect me to be here with my tissues, oh my little girl is getting married.  No way.”  Precious.  She continues to belittle her daughter’s choices in perfectly beautiful dresses (“If you want to look like an artichoke that’s fine.”), until finally the consultant asks her what she would like to see her daughter in.

“I don’t really have a preference because we don’t have the same taste,” she says.  Translation: I’m so bitter that I won’t even outline my preferences because whatever she puts on I’m going to hate.”

Lactose Intolerant Weddings

The other day, TheKnot.com dropped this little gem in my inbox: 15 Cheese-Free Wedding Ideas.

While some of these suggestions could be considered useful and original, such as the “Un-Vegas” bachelorette party, some of them are laughably ill-advised.

For example, guest book mad libs?  If you spend untold amounts of money getting custom made mad libs (“Jeremy and Jen should always _____ when they want to _____ each other, in order to have a ______ marriage forever!”), two things will happen.  The first is that your relatives will be confused, and if they manage to fill them out properly, you’ll just get stupid and boring answers that will make you feel embarrassed you asked your Aunt Sally to fill in a verb for the sentence “You should ______ your new husband.”  The other obvious result will be that your friends will fill in obscene words, because that’s what mad libs are for anyway.

Another not-awesome idea is the “day after” wedding photos, in which you dress up in your wedding dress again and pay a photographer for a whole extra day, because you’ll be just too exhausted and stressed to worry about getting some nice artificially posed shots on your actual wedding day.  What is that about?  Aren’t pictures supposed to be of a memorable event?  It’s the exact same thing as when girls bring their tiny cameras to bars and spend the entire night tilting their heads together and making sexy lips so that they’ll have great Facebook pics the next day.

Sites like The Knot can be great, but they all feed into the same methodology: You can create a unique wedding by following the guidelines the industry lays out for you.  It’s intrinsically illogical, but it still sucks us in.

Seriously: Best Bridal Pose Ever

The bride and the journalist in me are both happy to bring you a series we would like to christen “Seriously.”  Here’s the first installment.

I mean, I sit like this all the time. To me, this pose says “I’m so sloshed from those makeup session mimosas that I can’t even pronounce my new last name!” or “I’m so high on mushrooms that I think I’m a snake, slithering out of this dastardly chair and onto the floor to terrify unsuspecting guests.  Or maybe I’m a weirdo version of Barbie with poseable arms.” Either way, this lady is on something.

Another item we would like to file under the “Seriously” category: this suggestion, found on Brides.com under the heading “How to Propose: A Groom’s Guide”:

“Hiring a videographer to secretly catch the proposal on film is an increasingly popular route guys are going these days. This is also a great way to test-drive a videographer you might want to consider for the big day. If you’re on a tight budget, however, why not call in an early favor from a groomsman-to-be?”

What a way to multi-task! Creep out your girlfriend by having some stranger film your proposal, and you get the added bonus of showing her that you’re thinking ahead to the truly important stuff: a stable marriage, lifetime partnership, the beginning of a new family, hiring just the right videographer for your wedding!

Wow.  Seriously?

The votes are in…

…and eight of the whopping twelve people who voted on awesome vs. atrocious chose…AWESOME.  A friend pointed out, however, that I did not include a choice for simultaneously awesome and atrocious.  Hm…

While some people are probably rolling in laughter and too busy mocking me to vote, I would point out that marriage musings are everywhere.  The Daily Beast recently hosted a blog post by journalist Hannah Seligson on “Why We’re Not Getting Married.” Seligson’s book, “A Little Bit Married,” just came out.  The “we” to which she refers is my peer group of 20- and 30- somethings who are delaying the trip down the aisle, or around the moonstone commitment pond, or whatever.  It’s an interesting study, I’m sure, and I’d like to pick up her book.

What bothers me, though, is the general premise implied in the title – that it’s possible to be any degree of “married,” rather than fall into the IRS categories of “single” or “married.”  You’re not a little bit married if you aren’t married, and here you say, How dare I, the annoyingly engaged and self-centered tart of a so-called “blogger,” insult the serious and committed unions of those who choose to cohabit and share a life, children and bank account, just because I feel the need to conform to society’s expectations! Nay.  I merely assert this: if you don’t want to get married, why denigrate the legitimate life choice you have made by placing it in some weird relationship to marriage?  But there are many variations on the theme, and I should read the book before making any further assertions.

Diamonds, dresses and hypocrisy

I promised all of my friends that I would not create a “wedding website.”  I would argue that this blog doesn’t fall under that heading, but I’m sure that they will all make fun of me mercilessly anyway.  So be it.

I’m starting this blog because all the sudden I became two people.  I was already a journalist, but as soon as my boyfriend shoved a diamond ring over the abnormally large knuckle of my left ring finger (once broken in gym class), I became a bride-to-be.

The ring

The engaged version of myself just smiled at that phrase, and then ran to get a plastic bag so that the journalist version of myself could throw up.

A journalist is critical.  She never accepts things at face value.  She understands, first hand and painfully,  how influential advertising can be over editorial content.  She is skeptical of the status quo and the mainstream media (even as she works to be a part of it).  Her job is to uncover the reasons people act they way they do, to gather facts and analyze them, to base her opinions on what she can tangibly know.  She is smart, savvy and sarcastic.  Her feet remain on the ground, and she laughs at those who see the world in black and white, right and wrong, or any simplistic dichotomy, as she takes a swig of Jack (or Bud Light with Lime, as the case may be) and turns back to her typewriter (or Mac).

A bride is elated.  She is hungry.  She devours any content that contains the following phrases:  Wedding Tips; Your Big day; How to Spend $10,000 and Look Like You Spent $100,000; What Does a Girl Have to do to Get on ‘Say Yes to the Dress;’ Don’t Hire a Wedding Planner Unless You Want Your Life to End Up Like That J-Lo and Matthew McConaughey Movie.   She follows the pack.  She thinks that she will have a “unique” wedding.  She thinks that her bridesmaids will love their dresses because they can “totally wear them again.”  She spends most of her budget on magazines in which advertisers dictate what she should do.  She starts saying “we” instead of “I.”  She starts ranking her friends according to “must invite, maybe invite, probably won’t invite.”  She slowly becomes an intolerable person who no longer focuses on her career or friends or even her fiance but on WEDDINGS WEDDINGS WEDDINGS PRETTY WHITE DRESS WEDDINGS!!!

I am now both of these people.  I am a hypocrite.  I laughed in scorn at those who post wedding planning updates on Facebook, but jumped at the chance to change my “status” to “engaged” as soon as possible.