You think the wedding is bad, just wait until these “Bridezilla” types (LOVE that name, BTW) have their first house ape.
It will, of course, be the MOST beautiful, MOST intelligent, MOST interesting baby ever. Of course, that is only natural since the pregnancy was the MOST eventful, MOST interesting, MOST remarkable gestational period ever.
CrazyCatLady, I hear and understand.
I like being over there for the creativity, the cute stuff, the happy people. But occassionally…just sometimes…I want to haul about half a dozen of them over here and beat the shit out of them.
The one who didn’t want to spend money on decent recpetion food, saying that her guests could head for Mcdonalds if they were hungry, but they better leave a good gift. The one who was bitching that when she got married she made her maid of honor leave her child at home, but now when her maid of honor was having a no children wedding she HAD to bring her little darling who would not make a peep the whole time.
The whole issue of children at weddings. I can see both sides, but in my personal view, its a ceremony to recognise the joining of two families, ergo, children should be there. However, if you have decided that its going to be an ultra-formal affair at 10pm, hire a couple of sitters and make a kiddie room and shut up. Parents have to be parents first, its part of the job. They don’t love you any less because they refuse to lock their child in a closet for the whole weekend.
Sigh.
But OF COURSE! How could you let people shop for the shower otherwise? 
Although to be fair, I’ve never heard of someone registering at one place for the shower, and at another place for the wedding - it’s usually just been one place for both events.
I actually don’t mind being told that the bride is registered somewhere. It does help in deciding on a gift when you’re not certain what it is that someone might need, and you always have the option of giving a cash gift if you don’t care to shell out for anything on the list. I remember well the shower of a friend who decided not to register, relying upon her mother to make suggestions… huge mistake, because all momma said was, “Oh, get her whatever you like, I’m sure she’ll like it.” She got at least 5 coffee pots, three blenders, and several other items in multiple quantities that folks normally have just one of, nearly all from relatives who wanted to know that she wasn’t going to exchange THEIR gift for something else. Can we say “catfighting that got way out of hand”? :rolleyes:
Personally, if I ever tie the knot, I would like it to be a quiet ceremony with just a handful of friends. Afterwards, I’ll throw a party for everyone else on some other pretext and only then tell them what’s happened. Because in my view, the only thing worse than Bridezilla is the Mother of Bridezilla, and my sister’s wedding gave me more than an eyeful.
I agree that a registry can be a good and helpful thing, especially for a larger wedding where the guests may have no idea what to get and don’t want to be the one towing in the proverbial 5th toaster.
But isn’t a bridal shower supposed to be a more intimate affiar? Very close friends? I can see having a theme and “suggestions” of what types of gifts might be appropriate, but to me, choosing a gift under these circumstances would be a lot more fun and meaningful if someone didn’t thrust the list at you and say “pick one.”
I just love Momzilla stories. Has anyone else read the one in Robert Fulgham’s It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It? One of the funniest damn things I’ve ever read, and one of those mental images I’ll never get rid of.
Anyone else got Momzilla or Bridula stories? (Bridula is the bride who sucks her friends, family, and casual acquaintances dry with constant demands for gifts, parties, etc.)
Ah, BibloCat, the “but I got in line first and no one I know can get engaged until I get married after my extraodinarily long engagement” tantrum. A classic of self centered brides everywhere.
I also enjoy the classic “pregnant bridesmaid” tantrum. I’ll hum a few bars - although I’m not sure I can hit the right screetching key. “I asked my best friend to be my bridesmaid. She accepted. Her and her husband have been trying to concieve for years and haven’t had any luck. Now she announces she is going to be six months pregnant at MY WEDDING! I’m happy for her, of course, but couldn’t they have waited until MY WEDDING was over. She is going to JUST RUIN every picture she is in. And would you believe when I asked if she would mind if I picked someone else, she was offended! You would think a BEST FRIEND would be more considerate and understanding of MY FEELINGS.”
Other top ten hits include:
-
“I can’t believe my bridesmaids won’t wear lavendar and yellow hoop skirts (they can always shorten them and wear them again!)”
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“My fiancee insists his sister be a bridesmaid - and she’s FAT!”
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“Tragedy strikes: I broke a nail.”
and
- “My bridemaids won’t cut their hair to match”
Finally, my favorite (from real life): “I don’t like my fiancee’s mother, do I have to invite her?”
You want to know how many “You can shorten it and wear it again!” dresses I have in my closet right now? With dyed-to-match shoes?
(Well, okay, to be honest, none. I shortened them and let my daughter play dress-up in them. I certainly wasn’t going to wear them again.)
divemaster, showers can be smallish, more intimate affairs… but there are some people who feel that a shower thrown by the maid of honor and/or the mother of the bride (as opposed to co-workers, say) should include ALL the female relatives on both sides of the family (aunts, cousins, cousins’ spouses, girl children over the age of 12, etc.) that are also being invited to the wedding, in addition to any of the bride’s friends. Big families = big showers, unless you want to risk WWIII. At my friend’s shower, there were 50+ people there in the restaurant… and there were more that couldn’t make it.
And again, if you don’t like what’s on the list, you are always free to do something else. I’ve certainly skipped the registry when all that was left were things I couldn’t afford, or thought were inappropriate. BTW, anyone else have the experience of seeing a previously sensible friend apparently go nuts in picking out items for the registry? “Sure, I have no problem picking up that Lenox sugar & creamer set for $140.”
Momzilla… ah, my mom is one of those folks for whom everything has to look “just so,” so that everyone will shake their heads in wonder for years to come at the memory of the event. :rolleyes: My sister and brother-in-law had decided to pay for the wedding themselves, in large part because they wanted control over the proceedings. That didn’t save them, though, from tears and haranguing over just about every aspect of the wedding, from the guest list (“You MUST invite these people! Your father and I have been to the weddings of each of their 5 kids, and it’s time we got something back from them!”), to my sister’s dress, which was very pale pink in keeping withher life-long love affair with that color (“People will think… you know… if your dress isn’t white”), and so on down to the little things (“How can you have matchbooks and swizzle sticks with your names on them, but no wedding favors?”). I heard the ranting and the raving from both sides, until I was heartily wishing my sister would just elope. So in the interests of self-preservation of sanity, I think I would do just that. 
As usual, The Onion has something appropriate for this topic here (I was looking for an article they had a couple weeks ago called “Wedding Enjoyed by No One But Bride”, but I can’t find it, dang it all anyway). I just wanted to say that yes, it is the bride’s special day (and the groom’s too, lest we forget), but that doesn’t mean that you can just forget about everyone else’s feelings and needs and expect everyone to worship at the altar of your love. Where do women get this idea, anyway?
(BTW, I’ll stop saying “Breeders” when I stop hearing D.I.N.K.s - Dual Income, No Kids.)
Hey, I LIKE “DINKs.” I AM one, and I use the term all the time!
Ah, nuts. different strokes and all that.
I don’t use the term DINK, but I call myself a breeder. (or a wannabe anyway.) Because damnit, I want kids!
I don’t use the term DINK, but I call myself a breeder. (or a wannabe anyway.) Because damnit, I want kids!
I was in a wedding this year. It was the first wedding I’d been to since I was four. I am a student and was trying to save up money for the bachlorette party. I had a lot of expenses and it didn’t go too well. The bride in question had the First Bank of Mommy and Daddy to tap. $30,000 for the wedding and a trip to some tropical getaway.
The bachelorette party was a bust. Just the bride, who never looked happy, and us bridesmaids and the maid of honor. I was sick and had asked not to go for fear of ruining the trip, but they wouldn’t let me be. I knew that the bride would blame me if I “ruined” her bachelorette party, so I wanted to avoid that. She made it seem like I was betraying her by being sick and asking not to go. Screw it, I went.
The bride kept calling her fiance throughout the trip. I wanted to yank her cell phone away from her ear and throw it out into the desert. Then we wen’t out to party, and got nice and drunk. The club had just exploded to mythic proportions (we were in the city of sin, after all) and I was so going to enjoy it. And then… the bride didn’t want to stay. She told us that she didn’t like the music and wanted to leave. I was crushed. The whole club was having fun except for her, so the whole night had to stop. They of course wouldn’t let me stay by myself because I was a bridesmaid and thus owned by her until the wedding was over. After a certain point, I wanted to yell at her: “If you really don’t want to be here, WHY DON’T WE FUCKING TAKE YOU HOME?”
Then, the wedding came around. I got to her parent’s house early, as I was requested to do in order to get ready. Guess what? Nobody was there. Not one person was left in that house to let anyone in. A good deal of the reason that we were late was because of that. So the bride comes in, and she looks… well… she looks awful. Her face is so gaudily made up that at first glance I didn’t recognize her. Her hair, which had been so pretty the night before, was done up in ugly, tight curls. I bit my tongue and continued dressing. When her mother saw her, though, her mother actually forgot to bite her tongue. She actually told the bride that something was wrong with her makeup. You could hear the bride yelling at the other end of the house, where I was. For once, her mother and I agreed on something.
I remember that she wanted all of the bridal party to write stuff for their little handout. I never wrote anything and she kept bugging me. What the hell could I say about a couple I hardly knew? I didn’t know her husband much, and I hadn’t seen her much in the last two years. She wanted me to write something nice and inspirational… riiiiight. What I really wanted to write about was her nagging habit, spurred by being Queen of the World for a day. I began to loathe weddings. I began to find her attitude downright offensive, but my dress had already been bought.
I remember her bridal shower. She never showed one real smile that day. She got some nice gifts and everyone was enthusiastic… except for her. My mother and I both gave her one gift and it was nice. I could tell she didn’t like it. More importantly, so could my mother, who meant well and couldn’t afford more. Our gift, you see, wasn’t on the All-Important List. I saw that fucking list, and not one affordable thing was on it. Everything had a nice, big price. I wanted to take it back when my mother expressed her doubt. I wanted to take it back and give it to my mother, who would have at least appreciated it. The bride was so used to being given everything, and I had never realized how spoiled she was until that moment.
The wedding reception was nice, although the expensive buffet sucked. I couldn’t believe it. Thousands of dollars for a big room and dishes of food that just wasn’t very good. The real mercy was the open bar, at which I took shots with the groomsmen, the groom, and my boyfriend. We were all drinking like sailors, and I could feel this vibe through us: we were damned glad the wedding was over, because we were tired of it. Just us guys, glad to be free of the women’s puppet-strings.
My boyfriend drank to keep up with me and got pretty sick. We had to leave the wedding early (my mother driving). I think the bride just hasn’t liked me as much since. I know that I haven’t liked what I’ve seen of her since she became bridezilla.
I had been invited to a wedding once before, and the bride had become such a godsforsaken bitch that I backed the hell out before any money had been spent. She was always nagging, crying and whining about her wedding. She acted like she owned my time. I remember that I felt very close to her husband-to-be during the planning stage; he was the only person involved who, like me, really didn’t give a damn how the wedding looked. She was a nut trying to pay for the wedding, and she didn’t pay attention to the fact that her relationship was already failing. She got pretty nasty with me, and I didn’t go to the wedding.
I will never be in another wedding in the forseeable future. Should I have a wedding, it will be simple and fun. My boyfriend mentioned a Renaissance-style wedding in which folks just wore their best Ren Faire costumes, the bride and groom wore smashing good costumes, and the wedding was held in a park. After the wedding, at the same park, there was a huge barbeque, with some of the best cuts of meat in creation. That sounds like the best kind of wedding to have, paying for meat instead of trinkets.
Count me as one of those people who can’t stand the greedy bride and groom. I thought people got married to share their love blah blah, not for the cash and prizes.
Some friends of mine eloped to Las Vegas and then sent an e-mail announcement to everyone. That was fine but most of the announcement contained links to several of their gift registries. I didn’t send them anything.
Now they are expecting a baby and with that e-mail announcement came the registry list for Babys R Us.
If (and that’s a big if) I decide to give them a present, it’s going to be something that I want to give them. I’m sure they’d be pissed about that, though, because (whiny tone) they already told me what they wanted. Annoying.
*KismetRose, that sounds wonderful.
Hmm, do I want to register at AultimateWedding? Sounds interesting and funny. My maid of honour suggested we release live monarch butterflies after the ceremony. Which is in December. She told me she though it would be romantic to have a swirling shower of dying butterflies around us as we left.
I also thought of giving live carp out as wedding favours. It would be different!
All I’m hoping for is no blizzards, so everyone who’s coming actually gets there.
I am aware that I’ve been boring some people, but I’m trying very hard not to turn neurotic. If anything gets me, it’ll be the stupid details that I don’t care about!, like flowers or what I wear on my feet. Marriage planning is like a whole weird intensely female-dominated world. It’s scary.
I didn’t even know until a few weeks ago that I was supposed to care if my Mum’s outfit and my other half’s Mum’s outfit clashed with anything. I don’t. They can wear tiger-print for all I care. Sheesh.
Damn. Someone fix the coding. Please. Oh wandering moderator? Pretty please?
You sound like a fun person and I hope you do this. Or you could get fish-on-a-stick citronella candles to pass out (sorry no links, I’ve only seen them once).
I was thinking about giving out the little fighting fish in jars as favors. (Actually I’m looking forward to my wedding as an opportunity to give presents to all of my favorite people. The scale I’m thinking of seems a bit more than “favor” status.)
And Lissla, please register. If we scare away all thye cool people only the Bridezillas would be left. Like the island in Jurassic Park. And its not all that bad, I only find a rant that makes me see red over there about once a week.
Medea’s right. If we don’t get some normal people on there, there’ll be only the whiners left. I will give you a bit of advice, though Lisslar. If you aren’t willing to pat someone on the back and say, “Oh, you’re right, that person was so awful to you,” or don’t have a factual answer for someone, don’t waste your time responding to someone. If you even hint that someone may have possibly been partially in the wrong, you’ll get your ass jumped. At the very least, people will tell you how harsh and mean and unsupportive you are.
Hmm. I have registered. Watch for Rothwindle. I already posted in the How often do you look at your dress thread about stuffing my dress into a plastic bag and dragging it around with me. I’ll be lynched.
A lot of the women there seem deeply intimidated by their wedding outfits. It’s weird.