(I don’t know why that site won’t let me do a direct link. Click on “Wedding Etiquette”, then scroll down to TTWD.)
Okay, so a former co-worker is getting married, and it’s still in the early stages of planning, so I figured she’d have time to read, and be amused by, that story. She emails back and says, paraphrased, “I can’t believe the bride’s mother in that! Who you have in the wedding party is SO much more important than what the gowns look like!”
:smack: Now, that’s the third time I’ve heard such a reaction; the first two were on this board. So that’s the third misinterpretation.
The bride’s mother is not the bad guy in that story! Nor is the bride. What happened was this:
—Bride wants her bridesmaids’ gowns to look like the dinner dress in Titanic.
—Groom’s mother, a seamstress who has outfitted wedding parties in the past, offers to make the gowns.
—Bride and her mother become somewhat apprehensive that the gowns might not be ready on time, though groom’s mother assures them they will be. Bride’s mother sees half-completed gowns and realizes that they’re not going to look like the dress in the movie. However, bride and her mother are resigned to that, as long as they look okay.
—On the morning of the wedding, bride and her mother go to collect gowns.
—The gowns look like a chimp sewed them. They are not wearable. There is a photo on the site to confirm this.
—Bride’s mother mobilizes as many members of the wedding party as are available, and herds them off to the mall, to find something, anything, as long as it’s blue and fits, for each member of the wedding party, even those who aren’t there to try theirs on.
—Miraculously, this is done, and no one is left out of the wedding party. The mall gowns look perfectly fine; there is also a photo of this on the site.
But now my former co-worker thinks, as others have before, that the bride’s mother was being snobbish and demanding, and for no good reason.
I think I finally understand why people react this way. Many people who read TTWD story do so after having already read anecdote after anecdote about true Bridezillas, the kind who declare that the wedding cannot go on because the maid of honor’s pantyhose are taupe instead of tan. (Former c/w admitted in her second email that she’d gotten sidetracked reading other “tacky gown” anecdote on EH.)
So by the time they see TTWD, the first thing they notice is the length of it. “Oh crap, I’m not reading this whole thing,” they say to themselves. They gloss over the opening, and their attention is not fully caught until they get to the bride’s mother repeatedly insisting, “THEY ARE NOT WEARING THAT!” So the impression is, “Oh, the groom’s mother busted her butt to make Titanic gowns, but the bride and her mother didn’t like them. Well, phooey.”
Then they skim or skip over the bride’s mother’s efforts to find appropriate gowns for everyone, and catch up again at the point when the mall gowns are being tried on. “OMIGOD! The bride’s mother is going to EXCLUDE people if their gowns don’t fit! Well, now I’ve heard EVERYTHING!”
Indeed you have…but not in the matter of Bridezillas. It was the groom’s mother who put the wedding in jeopardy, and the bride’s mother who did everything humanly possible to salvage the situation, and succeeded. It’s not a story about the bride having to have every detail just right; it’s a story about a last-minute crisis, the same way having the cake fall over an hour before the reception is a last-minute crisis.
Um…That’s all. Thanks for reading this, if you still are.
