Sometimes it pays to run
Remember Georgia runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks? A year after she faked her own kidnapping to escape the rigors of wedding planning, she has sold her story for a whopping $500,000! Of the wedding, she said:
“It was stressful because I am a perfectionist, and I want everything perfect. And that was the hard part for me.”
In the past year, she has paid Duluth $13,249, to compensate the city for the overtime paid to the police officers who searched for her and $2,650 in restitution to the state.
That leaves her with plenty of money to put up an ad on Match.com.
Honestly, I hope that she puts some of that money towards good counseling…
The lengths some people go to. It reminds of bollywood films or indian serials (not that I watch the latter, more am forced to endure them), where when the intended bride doesn’t want to get married/runs away with her boyfriend/threatens suicide, the bride’s family, in order to prevent shaming the family name, substitute the bride’s sister in her place. The convenient heavily embroidered veil of the wedding outfit concealing her true identity until after the wedding night. Okay so not exactly the same…but just as over the top.
This whole situation is just ridiculous. The combined forces of ‘bigger is better’ and ‘if any tiny thing goes wrong at your wedding, the entire marriage is ruined’ meet a pitifully unstable young woman who doesn’t know her own mind and end in her getting a whole huge mass of money just for being unable to properly cope with reality.
(shakes head)
I just don’t get it.
I look at it this way, a wedding is like putting on a theatre production, where opening night happens once, but the show continues on for a lifetime. When you’re putting your wedding together, it’s going to look like things are never going to get done and come wedding day, somehow, everything seems to come together. Yes there are a few problems with opening night, but the cast looks back on them as stories to rehash later.
One of the things I often find myself doing is reminding myself, that my wedding is not about my future-in-laws, their friends, my parents, their friends, or the friends of my fiance and me. All in all – it’s about us and celebrating our love for one another. That is the most important thing of the “big” day.
At my parents’ reception, the roof of their reception site collapsed and everyone danced in their winter coats (gotta love RI winters). But those are the stories you remember. Everything is out of my control come mid-August and maybe I’ll have some good stories of my own.
Exactly, Twistie. I mean, if it’s that easy, can we all just do something selfish and silly and get huge movie deals?
That’s a great attitude, SJ. I bet your wedding will rock!
Exactly, SJ. I’ve been going to wedding since before I could walk. I’m a happily married wedding junkie. I must have attended more than fifty wedding so far, I’ve been a bridesmaid three times, a bride once, and I’ve been known to spend hours at a time trolling people’s personal wedding sites on the net. Know what they all have in common? Something went wrong. Most of the time, it was something little, like my friend who ended up with the wrong cake being delivered to her reception, or the one whose boombox gave out during the ceremony, which resulted in a recessional to the sound of the bride, the groom, and all the guests laughing. A couple have been big, like the way my brother and his bride had to scramble for an officient just days before their big day because the Rabbi died.
The great thing about these goofs, gaffes, snafus and facepalming moments is that they become the moments that set one wedding apart from another, and develop into family legend.
Comparing the whole process to a theatrical production is actually very close to the mark. I used to do a lot of amatuer theater, and if there was one thing we could guarantee it was that at some point during the run, something would go wrong. It was the saves that made those performances more memorable, and in an odd way almost more satisfying.
As NtB says, you’ve got the right attitude, and it will show in your wedding.
Now excuse me. I’m off to find something massively selfish, annoying, and unnecessary to do so I, too, can get half a million for being flaky. Hell, I’d settle for half that, really. I’m not proud.
Oh God. Why is this woman getting this much attention? Modern American society really worries me.
I’d be more worried if “runaway briding” was such an everyday occurance that we didn’t hear about it at all.
Well, the $500,000 thing does worry me. All one has to do to make money these days is to act like a complete ass.
Maybe Wilbanks will get Kaavya Viswanathan to ghostwrite for her?
Twistie, where do you usually look for and find this kind of info? *is curious*
But still, $500,000.00?! I can understand $50,000.00 but $500,000.00? Then again, I don’t know if other people have been paid more for their stories.