Dear Fuckwits Who Can’t Find Anything More Interesting to Talk About other than Your Impending Nuptials:
Yes, I’m excited for you. Yes, I want you to be happy. No, I don’t want to talk about the wedding over and over a million times over the course of the next year as I wait impatiently for your engagement to be over and for you to get freaking married, already. Thus, I’d appreciate your attention to the following:
I do not want sit with you and thumb through countless pages of bridal magazines thicker than my dick is long. Even if I did want to, I certainly wouldn’t want to pause on every page to hear “This is my 35th choice for how I’d like to do my hair,” or “If the first six designs for bridesmaid dresses fall through, this would be my next choice.” I am a guy. If I’m thumbing through magazines, they had better be about cars, sports or heavy metal rock music.
I don’t want to hear about fights between the groom’s family and the bride’s family about minute details of the wedding that shouldn’t matter to anyone with enough intelligence to understand the concept of “compromise.” I don’t care if the mother of the bride tried to strangle the mother of the groom because they couldn’t agree on whether or not the centerpieces should contain yellow roses. This isn’t something to brag about. It’s something to be embarrassed about.
Don’t tell me all about the reasoning behind who made the invite list and who didn’t. Same goes for bridesmaid and groomsman selection. I don’t give a shit that you HAD to pick Jane over Jen because otherwise Jane wouldn’t let you be a bridesmaid in her wedding. Why do I need to know this stuff? So I can get drunk at the reception and tell Julie that “You would have been picked to be a bridesmaid, but the bride thinks you would have looked too fat in the dress” and get the shit slapped out of me?
The meal plan is not all that interesting to me. Frankly, I don’t care if you serve beef jerky and cotton candy at the reception. The only detail that I might be even remotely interested in is whether or not you’re having an open bar, so I’ll know whether or not to bring money.
If I hear any of the following statements out of your mouths again, I’m not showing up:
“This is supposed to be MY SPECIAL DAY.”
“All eyes are going to be on ME.”
“None for me, thanks. I have to lose weight to fit into my dress.”
I’m not impressed by the “bold political statements” you’re making with your wedding arrangements. I don’t care that you stood up to your mom and dictated that you’re not getting married in a church. I don’t care that you’re hiring a reggae band to increase awareness of the Rastafarian religion. I don’t care that you’ve rewritten your vows 100 times to eradicate any hint of gender bias. It’s not like you go out and make political statements in your everyday life, so it’s likely that your wedding guests are just going to think you’re silly.
If you’re not interested in hanging out and doing cool stuff like we used to do before you got engaged, instead of talking about the wedding every goddamn second until everybody’s sick of hearing your gums flap, then don’t call me until the wedding’s over and you’re ready to act like a normal person again.
Not to mention if/when they decide to have a kid, all you’ll hear about for nine months is the pregnancy. Then the kid is born, and the nightmare has just begun.
My husband just went through this with his assistant at work. She stopped finally when he said “You know, I hear a lot about your wedding, but you never talk about Frank and how glad you are that you’re going to be husband and wife.”
She apparently gave that some thought and stopped with the incessant details.
This is why I got married at a JP and had a small party afterwards. “All eyes on me?” Give me a break.
If I want “All eyes on me”, I’ll sing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” at Kareoke.
Suggest that she go to Nevada in the best dress she already owns and go to one of the mid-level chapels and it’ll all be over in a day for less than $200 and that will include the “reception” at her casino buffet of choice.
When she protests, say “That’s too bad, because I become bored giving even that level of detail.”
By the way, it really is a good suggestion that’s how my wife and I did it and it was the best wedding we’d ever had.
Carolyn Hax, the very funny advice columnist from the Washington Post refers to these freakish individuals as Bridezilla. They will override all possible standards of politeness, friendship, taste, and goodwill in pursuit of “their special day.”
THespos, you’ve got to tell her. Maybe not with the incisive elegance that obfusciatrist suggested, but a simple “I’m very happy for you but I really don’t want to hear any more details about your wedding. Can’t we just go see a movie or something?”
We’re going through a “wave” of weddings right now, and while it’s really fun to see old friends and hang out, the whole thing is getting to be a little much.
For every wedding there is a shower, a couples shower, a bachelor party (likely out of town, with golfing and airfare and such), and that’s even before you fly to some city and get a hotel room and buy a gift, etc.
I think people forget that just because it’s the most important day in their life, it’s not the most important day in everyone else’s life. You will be married, and that will be great, and I’m very happy for you. But I can’t make it to every party and I really don’t want to talk about the minutiae of the wedding all the time, and I think it’s a bit of a stretch for you to take that as a personal insult. Also I think it’s kind of unhealthy to put so much pressure on one day and one event- what if it gets screwed up? Shit happens, are you going to let it screw up a marriage? These are the same people that have a week-long celebration of their own birthday. I love you to pieces, but I’m going to reserve the right to ignore you when you get all dopey over things like this. ::sigh::
Sing it my brother! Why don’t women get the idea that weddings should be a celebration of marriage rather than the best display of greed, pettiness, and deceit that the little princess can dredge up from the annals of her spirit.
This is one area that we can put the radical feminists to good use. I say we get them to start a campaign showing how traditional weddings are “demeaning” to women and make women subservient to there husbands by displaying them as delicate objects whose only responsibilities should be to choose decor and entertain. This is one fight that men and the feminists can fight side by side in the trenches together to work towards the common good of the world.
I agree. Honestly, I wasn’t that interested in my OWN wedding, much less others. I felt like we were spending an inordinate amount of time on this one day. My wife was actually pretty sane about it, we had few problems, and had a small service and I STILL felt like it was a bit much.
Bravo! I hope he doesn’t mind if I borrow his line.
Incidentally, I found that for the entire period of my engagement, many people only wanted to talk about the wedding with me–and they were appalled when I had interests other than the wedding arrangements!! Example:
Family Friend: Oh, congratulations. I am so happy for you!
Green Bean: Thanks!
FF: So, are you exciiiiiited?
GB: Oh yes. I just got the spring schedule of classes, and I am so happy to be studying with Professor Welter.
FF: [confusion] What are you talking about?
GB: My acceptance to the doctoral program–didn’t you just congratulate me on it?
FF: [Look of shock] Noooo! I meant congratulations on your coming wedding!!
GB: Oh, thank you…So I guess you didn’t hear that I was accepted into a doctoral program in history? I start in September, and I can’t wait…
FF: So, what’s your dress like?
GB: Well, it’s white.
FF: But what’s the style? Strapless? Backless?
GB: [fighting the urge to say “frontless”] It’s silk and has short sleeves.
FF: And the skirt? Floor length? Tea length? Does it have a train?
GB: I dunno. It comes down to my ankles. And how are you doing?
FF: And what color tablecloths are you using?
GB: So, how 'bout them Yankees? You think they’re gonna go all the way this year?
(Okay, I made that last line up.)
It was funny to see their faces, though, when I told them where we were honeymooning. I guess McCall, Idaho is not a common honeymoon destination for New Jerseyans.
Please stop deluding yourself that your wedding is going to be any different from the hundreds of millions that have gone on before yours. Lavendar centerpieces or taupe bridesmaid dresses or changing the wedding march or any other little detail you change to “break tradition” won’t be noticed by anyone… except you. No, your wedding is going to be exacty the same as every other wedding I’ve ever been to, with the exception of who is standing at the altar (and even then after a while the couples start to blur). Accept the fact that nothing you do will make your wedding any different from any other and get over it. (The only exceptions to this rule are weddings which actually are different - skydiving, married by an Elvis impersonator, whatever, but the weddings I’ve been to the bride has been too chickenshit to actually do something different, even though she delusionally believes she is by changing “obey” to “cherish” in the wedding vows or some such nonsense.)
A week? Ha! Lightweights. Hallowe’en to Thanksgiving, now that’s how I celebrate mine.
THespos: Amen! Any life event that has even one catalog-sized magazine devoted to it is now an industry rather than a celebration. *Valkyrie and I got hitched at the JP the next town over and had a snack at a coffee shop. Then the next summer we all went up to Mamma O’s house and had a right proper celebration there with both sides of the family and guests. Worked out nicely, didn’t cause anybody any stress, and didn’t cost us a fistload of money either.
Zette - Wow, that’s amazing - I never would have thought about that kind of approach. Will have to remember that one.
I would also like to add this. Don’t be surprised if your elaborate plans turn off potential guests. A friend of mine and his fiancee decided to have a Civil War themed wedding, where all the bridal party would be in Confederate uniforms. THey were having ten bridesmaids and groomsmen, so pretty much everyone I know was going to be in the wedding party. It probably goes without saying that our black friend wasn’t too keen on this idea, but he went along anyway. However, not just any uniform would do, so they finally went with a place that cost a FORTUNE to rent them. So this invite was going to cost us airfare, lodging, and the cost of two rentals. We had to decline - this was simply economically unfeasable to us.
We tried to say “Look, we’ll be happy to come, but he have to decline on the bridal party invite” but that wasn’t flying, for some reason. I finally said, look, it’s clear we’re only cast members in this fantasy, otherwise simply attending would be good enough. We ended up not going at all.
I did offer to come in on a stretcher with a bandaged bleeding stump for a leg, drinking whisky to kill the pain, but that idea was rejected.
I can’t believe the psychic energy that goes into planning every little detail only to have the end result be THE EXACT SAME WEDDING EVERYONE ELSE IS HAVING. Jesus Christ.
And god forbid you try to anything different. All the cookie-cutter people look aghast at your sacrilege and crassness.
“What, you want to wear something other than a wedding dress on Your Big Day?”
“But I’ve never heard of a wedding where you don’t have a reception!”
“Why the hell are you getting in that place?”
“What, no attendants?!?”
“You don’t have wedding “colors”?!”
A couple who wants to do something different better lay in a supply of smelling salts for all the shock they’ll send people into.
:drumming fingers, patiently waiting for the first idiot to come along and try to tell Esprix why his/her wedding was so very special and different:
A good wedding is one where the couple is happy about being married. Hopefully the families and friends are happy too, and if the couple hosts a reception or party, hopefully everyone will have a good time celebrating.
Well, I’ll just jump in and say that I was probably guilty of talking about my wedding too much. But, it was a very exciting time. I’d found the man of my dreams and my parents had come into a lot of money so they could splurge for me on the reception. I love planning parties. My mom and I would talk about the wedding all day.
I have two friends who are getting married right now and I love hearing about it, but what I do to keep it all sane is get it out of the way the minute I see them.
“Hey! How’s the wedding planning going?” After a few minutes I’ll say, “that’s great, now about the Cubs game…”
If you give them a few minutes of venting, I find it’s easier to cut them off.
I’ve heard stories about horror weddings and even had some limited experience participating in one. But when I got married I have to admit that the whole thing was pretty much stress free. Here’s what went right.
Me bride-to-be and a friend of hers was put in charge of making the wedding arrangements. I had maybe one or two minor things that I wanted and the rest was up to her. Sometimes she’d ask me about certain choices such as which invitations to use and more important things such as vows. I simply picked from a list of what she liked.
It was my job to arrange the tuxedo rentals and I made a good selection.
I arranged the catering for the rehersal dinner and everyone was pleased.
All the in-laws got along without any petty bickering. It helps that all the in-laws like each other.
Here’s what went wrong.
Brides mother was concerned about champagne that would be served at the wedding. Some family members are shi’ite baptist who have a real problem with alcohol of any kind. The rest are the kind of baptist that drink anyway. Mrs. Gibson put her foot down and said champagne will be served. End of story and it wasn’t turned into a big emotional piss fest.
I wanted to take the wedding participants to a fancy restaurant for the rehersal dinner. Mrs. Gibson didn’t want ignore the rest of the family members all of whom came from out of state. I compromised and instead had BBQ catered to the hotel they were staying at so the whole family could enjoy. A reasonable request was made and an agreement was reached.
I honestly don’t understand why so many people can get petty during weddings. I understand there’s a lot of different emotions during an event such as a wedding but that doesn’t excuse petty bickering. The whole reason for inviting family members and friends is that we think they’re important and we’d like them to be there. Anything that makes it more difficult for them or, or the bride and groom, from enjoying the wedding is a big no no.
Heck, my best man asked me what I wanted for a bachelor party. I told him that I didn’t want a big expensive to do I just want to hang out with a lot of my old friends. So we went to Dave & Busters for dinner and arcade games, went home to play cards, and they had a stripper come over. No big deal.
It’s the “my special day” thing that gets me most, stress on the “my.” My best friend got married a couple years ago and it pissed her off too; she made a joke out of it but never once said it seriously.
“Your” special day, eh? See that guy there, the groom? Is he just an accessory to your special day or do you actually have some feelings for him? I’ve known too many people (all female in my case, but most of my friends are women) who care more about weddings than marriages. I think it’s understandable to get overwhelmed when you’re actually planning your own wedding, but the women I’m thinking of were wedding-obsessed long before they met the guys they married. In some cases they remained wedding-obsessed even when they weren’t dating anyone.
I just don’t get the popular concentration on the bride, as if the groom’s just a prop for her.
