Newsflash: Budget, Taste Not the Same Thing
By TwistieI’ve only seen two episodes of WETV’s My Fair Wedding with David Tutera. I don’t think I’ll be watching more. Here’s the description on the official website:
Our all-new original series, My Fair Wedding, brings in a dream team, led by celebrity party planner David Tutera, on behalf of beleaguered friends and family members, to transform what could be a disaster wedding into a platinum style affair.
In other words, this party planner and his team swoop down at the last minute to inform brides that their plans make less sense than Ozzie Osborne attempting to read James Joyce aloud to a roomful of otters on speed, changes everything about the wedding (gown, cake, bridesmaid’s dresses, flowers, catering menu, music, yes, even the location) to make it more tasteful. Possibilities are dangled before the bride, but on her wedding day she wakes up not even knowing where she’s getting married, let alone any of the other minor details. You know, like whether David picked the gown she really loved or one that she didn’t particularly like.
And in the tradition of makeover shows that seriously steam my corn, it appears to be the case that it’s a friend or family member who has ratted out the tasteless bride. I’m fine with shows like Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style where the makeover-ee has personally requested the help and is given tools that will aid her in making more flattering style choices that fit her life and personal tastes. My fury knows no bounds over shows like What Not to Wear and How Do I Look? wherein the person being made over is hijacked into the experience, given little - if any - control over the process, and then released into the wild knowing mostly that she needs to pay more attention to someone else’s sense of style than her own.
Guess which sort of show I think My Fair Wedding more closely resembles?
The thing I think I hate most, though, isn’t the hijacking, the lack of control, or even the ritual humiliation of the silly bride who thinks that it’s possible to plan a wedding by herself because she’s laboring under the sad delusion that women do this every day and hey, it’s not exactly rocket science. Don’t get me wrong. I detest all these things with the flaming fury of a thousand avenging vengeance weasels.
So what annoys me most about My Fair Wedding? You’ll have to follow the cut to find out.
It’s the conflation of taste and budget.
In one of the two episodes I saw, the bride had a princess vision for her wedding. She really did want to be Cinderella. Okay, I’m down with that. Not my thing, but I had my wedding and this is her wedding. If she wants pink and tulle and to feel like she’s dancing with Prince Charming, I have absolutely no problem with that. Neither did Mr. Tutera. I think. He rolled his eyes a lot, but I think it was mostly because of the way the bride was going about achieving her dream.
For one thing, she was going to scatter faux rose petals on the tables as her centerpiece. I’ll agree with Mr. Tutera that as centerpieces for a fairy princess go, that could leave something to be desired. It’s primary advantage, however, is obvious to the meanest intelligence and even the meanest person: it doesn’t cost much to do.
Come the wedding day, the bride was led into her reception hall. It was much larger and much fancier than the place she’d originally booked for her big day. It was also filled with thousands upon thousands of pink roses and white candles in hugely tall golden candlesticks. Mr. Tutera chided her again about her pitiful handful of fake petals and informed her that this is what a little taste can do.
He’s wrong. Taste might have improved upon the fake petals, but it doesn’t pay for three foot tall golden candlesticks and massive clusters of perfect pink roses. Taste does not pay for fancy halls or designer dresses. Taste does not pay for the difference between rubber chicken and perfectly seared filet mignon served with tiger prawns. Taste doesn’t pay for a live band or a cake designed by a famous name baker covered in pink fondant and gold dust. It doesn’t pay for dance lessons or Jimmy Choo shoes.
Taste is something you cannot buy. It also does not require a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Obviously a big part of the charm of this show for the bride is the fact that between the show’s budget and the product placements, she’s going to be getting a much fancier wedding than she’d originally expected. Going from that budget line bargain gown and a reception dinner consisting of the least expensive items off the low-end caterer’s menu to a fabulous designer gown and caviar apps followed by an elegant meal by a fabulous chef is a pretty tempting proposition. And to the show’s credit, they do follow the original theme of the wedding, whether it’s Disney princess or South Beach.
What I would really prefer to see, though, is a show where the bride calls in the helpful team herself, gives the planners the same budget she had to work with, and can nix any ideas the planners come up with that she dislikes, no matter what her reason. Oh wait! That’s how weddings are done every day. Silly me.
Good taste can, indeed, work miracles. It just can’t make the budget fifty times what it was in the beginning. I’d really love to see someone out there acknowledge that fact when it comes to weddings.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Props for this post. I’m glad someone else sees a difference between taste and budget. Thank you!
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I am reminded of an old show called $5,000 wedding where the couple calls in their friends and family and they have to plan a wedding that comes in under $5000. That one had a lot of interesting tips and ideas on how to do something quick and nice but also cheap.
I don’t get the real point of the big flashy ooh look at how much this caught aside from that’s all the WE network knows, wedding rubber necking.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Amen, Twistie. The wedding industry loves to conflate “taste” with “most expensive option,” and it drives me up the wall. The reason we’re serving chicken and not lamb and hiring a DJ instead of a live band has nothing to do with our taste and everything to do with our budget. Would I love to serve our guests a choice of the most expensive entrees and hire the best band in the city for the dancing? Of course. But we can’t afford it, and Mr. Tutera will be shocked to know that “a little taste” does nothing to grow our bank accounts!
You know what I would *love* to see? A wedding show where a famous planner is asked to plan a wedding on a budget of $5,000 or $10,000. Now that, I’d watch!
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Oh Melissa B., how I would love to see that show! If David Tutera had $5,000 to plan a wedding, I think his head might explode. Call me evil, but that’s a show I would pay to watch.
There was an episode of Whose Wedding Is It, Anyway? where one of the couples had a budget of something like $6,000 and they called the planner in at the last minute. Even pulling in huge favors that got the couple nicer tablecloths, better food, and more decorations than they normally could have afforded, the wedding was still definitely low budget. That one really was a good example of what can be done with some imagination and careful thought about what unexpected resources you might have. No, they didn’t have thousands of roses or golden candlesticks, but those surprisingly fabulous clouds of baby’s breath in borrowed urns and a few panels of fabric really added a special touch to the converted warehouse church/reception hall.
Oh, and the whole thing was done without chastising the bride for being tasteless or thinking she could plan her own wedding when everyone knows that’s impossible, you silly thing.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:24 am
My mom and I were watching (and bitching about) this show when I opened MFTB. What really got us was the quote he gave straight to camera, “Even in my outside planned weddings, I would never give the bride and groom the final choice for any part of their wedding. They would end up disappointed and hate me in the end.”
Seriously? You think I’d hate the flowers I picked out? You think I wouldn’t want to wear the dress I already picked out?
At least What Not to Wear participants do their own shopping.
Of course, my mom and I could plan a wedding for well under $5,000. We are artistic and creative people so it would be tres chic and quite tasteful, too (we’re also a humble people; can you tell? ;D).
November 24th, 2008 at 10:01 am
When I tell people my wedding budget ($6000) I get one of two reponses.
A “good for you/we did that too/damn straight/allow me to recommend said vendor”….which I appreciate or
“Going cheap huh?/Not much money?/Why so little?”….which I DO NOT appreciate.
There is nothing wrong with me because I don’t have $30K to spend on a wedding, and there is nothing wrong with me for not wanting to go out and borrow said $30k to do it.
And my wedding WILL be nice, and not ‘ragtag’ as one girl put it.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:26 am
De, I hope you at least considered pushing the girl who called your wedding “ragtag” into a nearby body of water.
A good friend of mine from college had an absolutely wonderful wedding for $7,000. Her parents are quite affluent and would have given her anything she wanted, but she was in med school and didn’t want to spend a pile of money on her wedding in addition to that. Her wedding gown was a white mother of the bride dress that she got for $250; they served a nice lunch buffet on the lawn of the church and danced to a playlist they put together on their iPod. The whole thing ended with a water balloon fight!
The best part? At age 26 she was already a cancer survivor; her devoted college boyfriend had been there through her surgery and radiation treatment. Trust me, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when they said their vows. Improve on THAT, David Tutera!
November 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I would pay so much money to see that….
November 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Emi!ly: Ye gods and little purple fishes! No wonder he has no problem doing this show! I’ll have him and the rest of the world know that I chose everything but everything about my wedding to Mr. Twistie. We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary in June, and I can’t think or more than two minor tweaks I would make if I had the chance…and they had to do with other people doing things I didn’t want done. David Tutera can blow that ‘tude right out his lower digestive system, as far as I’m concerned.
De: It’s been a while and inflation would probably make my wedding cost roughly your budget today. If there’s one thing my wedding wasn’t, that would be ‘ragtag.’ It was simple, but pretty and fun for everyone who came. I’m still getting compliments on that wedding. My guess is that yours will turn out the same, since taste does not have a specific price tag.
Melissa B.: How cool! I love the idea of the water balloon fight. One guest at my wedding to Mr. Twistie pounced on me at the reception with a can of Silly String. I got it from him and attacked him back. We still laugh about that one. And yes, a couple who has been through that kind of testing cannot fail to move others with their committment. All the golden candlesticks in the world can’t buy that.
La Petite Acadienne: It’s a mighty amusing image in my head, I can tell you that.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I’ll admit to liking What Not To Wear. The main reasons I’m ok with it are that they really try to take into account the subject’s lifestyle, and that they bestow so many compliments that the subject always seems to feel like a million bucks at the end of the episode. Plus, they at least give a nod to reasonable prices, having the people offset the boutique shopping with H&M and Old Navy.
I’ll admit the show is much better when TiVO’ed and blatantly fast-forwarded through.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
There used to be a post above this one about bouquets for men, right? Am I going crazy?
November 24th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
It’s back, Toni. I have no clue what happened — it was there when I left the house!
December 1st, 2008 at 8:17 pm
RAGtag? RAGTAG???? How’d she like a gown that featured a TOE tag!?
My compliments to you, De, for not bludgeoning her, and for remaining calm enough to know you might get caught.
I managed to put my wedding together for $1,000 - INCLUDING the bride’s AND the groom’s outfits, which included, inter alia, twenty yards of white velvet and ten yards of white brocade, gold embroidery and lace, silver braid and pearls, re-embroidered Alencon lace and a couple of ostriches’ worth of feathers.
You could always tell her that you opted for low-budget, De, in preference to her choice, which was low class.
Grrr. And I have plenty of leftover indignant, if you should happen to need some.
December 13th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
The Washington Post’s website has a story on this show from the Dec. 14 print edition. The writer talks about it as part of our fascination with celebrity, and thinking its better to emulate the rich, even at their worst behaved, than to be ourselves.