I will say that although I did not fantasize about my own wedding, I did play “wedding” with my Barbies all the time, and my favorite set of paper dolls was my Princess Diana set that had her giant wedding dress. I just never envisioned myself in the scenario, is all.
I think I felt compelled to post this because of the amount of wedding hate I am seeing in this thread.
Heh, thanks for reaffirming my long-held (well, since October) belief that Dopers think more like me than anyone else and that they’re cool to boot.
Before I say the following, I’ll start by pointing out that I love my wife immensely even though she doesn’t have a geekly bone in her body (she even thinks the word “geek” is a grave insult that shouldn’t be said about anyone (and I should stop calling myself one)) - yes there are days I wonder how we got together or how we make such a good team, but I’m glad we do - anyways my wife has the notion that all women are girly-girls and like girl things and all women prefer romance in the bedroom to straight out and out fucking (and "why aren’t you more romantic in the bedroom? … ") I’ll bet she also not only fantasized about her wedding as a child but thinks all women did as well - I’ll ask her when I’m home from work, but I’m almost willing to put money on it.
(Strangely, I distinctly remember thinking about my future wedding a time or two when I was a kid - I still remember bits and pieces of a dream I had when I was 10 (28 years ago now) about my future wedding - two things, actually, the bride was a girl in my class I had a crush on (that I hadn’t seen pretty much since the dream) and one of the songs from the wedding (whcih kind of freaked me out as I heard the same song in my church a few years ago - and the copyright notice on the song was “©2001” - I’m still freaked out that I dreamed about a song that wouldn’t be written for another 20 years!)
dhkendall, I didn’t mean to imply that it’s uncool or bad in any way to fantasize about weddings. Just trying to make sure that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t, since the idea that all women have this fantasy is so prevalent in the media.
Huzah. Another Dope anomaly has been identified.
Another “no” from me.
However, when I actually did have a wedding, I really enjoyed it. Even the planning. Partly this may be to do with the fact that I’d never really internalized that I was supposed to care about place settings and flowers and colour schemes, so I didn’t. We just planned a nice party, with food and dancing, and a special church service tacked on the front. Also, we only had three months to plan the wedding, have it, buy a house and move in, so we really had to just hop to it, and not stress about the details.
Chalk me up as another one who’s never thought much about weddings or getting married. Perhaps in the sense of thinking that I wouldn’t want a frilly dress, Mendelsohn, or an over-the-top cake, but since it’s unlikely to ever come up, why bother?
Fewer than they used to. Conde Nast discontinued Modern Bride and Elegant Bride last year.
I didn’t, but I knew that was one of the zillion things that made me weird. My classmates didn’t seem to fantasize a lot about the wedding itself, but they did want to dress “like little princesses” for their First Communion (Mom reports feeling highly relieved when I approached her and said “uh… do I have to dress like a wedding cake? :(”) and they had their wedded life very much planned up.
One of Lilbro’s classmates announced that she was going to marry him, he would make lots of money and she’d spend it. This was at age 3 :smack: and no, they’re not married.
Well, yes, I and pretty much every girl I knew had similar fantasies. I’m not quite sure what any of that has to do with whether or not you fantasized about weddings, though. It’s not an either/or proposition between action and frilliness–the great grief of my young life was that I couldn’t wedge a Barbie into the cab of a Tonka truck.
I don’t think I thought about it in terms of my wedding, but I do remember playing “wedding” as a kid. And being fascinated with the wedding episodes of tv shows and the coverage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding. That tapered off as I got closer to double digits. Then in high school, as people I knew started getting married (or at least taking the advanced home ec course where you planned a mock wedding), it became the sort of thing I thought about in terms of idle speculation or occasionally thinking “ooh, that would be cool, I should do that if the time ever comes.” You know, the same way I think about the house I would build if we ever built a house.
This is very much true. While I didn’t fantasize about my wedding, I spent plenty of time pretending my dolls were MY babies.
I also spent at least that much time leaping off the top bunk with a bath towel wrapped around my shoulders trying to fly.
Yup, I sure did. I grew up with 3 older brothers and was fascinated by girly things. I loved looking at my mom’s wedding album - wanted one of my own. I loved fantasizing about all kind of things - princesses and dragons and men in plaid shirts with steel wire-rimmed glasses, etc. And weddings.
In high school, I was in dorms full of girls who were all giggly and girly and bought issues of Bride magazines and so I did too. I would look at plate patterns and read about traditions and look at dresses. But I was a girl of the 70s in the 80s. I totally wanted a bohemian wedding - with the flower wreaths in the hair and the simply white dress that wasn’t all flouncy and Princess Di. Think the wedding scene in *Forrest Gump *and you’ve got me pegged.
Course, when I got married it was all very practical and as economical as possible. Not a dream wedding or marriage by any stretch of the imagination.
Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a real wedding - that meant something. But I figure that ship has sailed and it’s no use crying over spilled milk.
I wouldn’t say “wedding hate” it was more the kind of child’s disgust comparable to what you’d expect from say a little kid finding out about French kissing. “Her tongue in your mouth??? :eek::eek::eek: EEEEWWW that’s SO GROSS!”
I found anything bride-like, fairy-like, or ballerina-like to be no less than horrifically froo-froo. Cinderella’s glass slippers were a terrible idea! How could she run around in those? A white dress? You can’t play soccer in it or you’d get dirty and besides, long skirts would get in the way when you were climbing trees! I think I was put off by the limitations the frilly stuff seemed to present, and the idea that I was expected to indulge in the froo was practically upsetting.
Edit: See above. I could not imagine fighting a dragon while wearing a wedding gown, so I wanted none of it.
Not as a kid, no. I did fantasize about having children, though. Usually in my games, my husband would die or something so that I wouldn’t have to include him anymore and could just have the kids.
I did like beautiful ballgowns, but associated them more with The King and I than with weddings. We had a ballgown type thing for dress-up (it had been a neighbor’s prom dress a looooong time ago- it even had hoops underneath like the ones in The King and I) and I loved re-enacting the “Getting to Know You” scene where all the kids come and sit on her dress.
We did play wedding very occasionally. It was just boring- like, you walk down the aisle and make a little speech and that’s it. There’s not much of a game to actually PLAY.
I still fantasize more about having babies, though. I flip through Parents magazine in the doctor’s office, I pause in front of the baby furniture section in Target, and I’d rather go to a baby shower than a bridal shower any day. I think WAY more about how I want to raise my kids than I do about my wedding. Honestly, the wedding (well, and the part about finding a groom and ending up married to him when it’s over) is more of an obstacle to my goal than anything else. I want to be married when I have kids, but the wedding is like the part I have to get over with so I can get to the good part.
You know, your post here just made me wonder something: I wonder if my lack of interest in weddings comes from a bad experience at one when I was little. One of my mom’s cousins got married and a nosy old lady from the groom’s side at the reception yelled at me for using the wrong fork. Who the hell berates a seven-year-old for not knowing which fork to use?
This cracks me up. My mom was raised Catholic, but she stopped practicing when she grew up, and I was raised atheist. However, I saw her First Communion pictures when I was small and absolutely burned with jealousy that I never got to dress up like that.
Ah, heck no, never thought that. Just putting out there (as a male, can’t contribute much else to this) that my wife is of the mindset that every girl wants romance, and pink satin dresses, etc. etc. etc. all the time, and I’m as relieved as you are to find Teeming Millions that say “heck no!” Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum, What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
…
gotta cut back on the TV …
I never did. I used to have a bride dress from a doll (one of those big dolls) but I don’t remember any wedding fantasies, just fancy dress play.
What’choo talkin’ 'bout, Willis?
No, I never did.
As an adult, I was in a long term relationship, and had a few ideas about what we’d do if we got married. But we never did.
Then I met my husband. We went from “courthouse” to “courthouse and a party later” to “small wedding at the house” to “we don’t want drunk people sleeping on our floors… lets rent a place” to “may as well invite everybody”. We kept it simple though… an ordained friend did a five-minute ceremony, then we fed everybody barbecue and catfish. Yay.
I never really did when I was little, but I kinda do now. Maybe it’s because I’ve been engaged before, but never actually got to the planning stage before we broke up, or maybe it’s because I’ve been a bridesmaid twice. Or because my parents are wedding photographers so I grew up surrounded by wedding pictures.
I must say, I do watch an inordinate amount of the “we” channel. I think my SO is getting nervous… 