WEdding Myths and Realities
You know, every twice in a while it’s a good thing to dust off the cultural assumptions, take a long, hard look at them, and then have a good laugh. I do this pretty much every sunday afternoon/evening while sitting down with WETV’s WE Go Bridal Sunday.
Why do I subject myself to so many hours of Bridezillas, Platinum Weddings, My Fair Wedding (though in truth I find it extremely difficult to stomach much of that one), and all the rest? Because they are rich in the unspoken mythos of weddings and marriage.
So what are some of the top wedding/marriage myths dished out? What’s the reality behind them? Take a look beyond the cut to see.
1: All brides become completely insane. In fact, that’s the entire point of Bridezillas, but it’s also lurking in the background of many other reality shows about weddings. This buys completely into the outdated cultural script that all women are basically irrational creatures, but takes it to eleven. This pernicious concept means that a) nobody has to listen to a bride because she is acting from a place of deep insanity anyway, and b) however she behaves during the wedding process can be safely ignored since she’ll be a completely different person once the processional music begins.
The truth is that while planning a wedding can be stressful, it’s not usually enough to turn an otherwise rational person into a raving lunatic. It’s mostly a party. True, that party has huge emotional and legal consequences, and comes with more cultural baggage than most, but it’s far from impossible to stay sane while planning it. Besides, how a woman acts while getting married is generally more or less how she acts the rest of the time. If she’s generally rational, she’ll be rational in planning her wedding. If she’s thoughtful of others most of the time, chances are she’ll be concerned with the comfort of her guests and wedding party while getting married. By the same token, if she behaves horribly toward people while getting married, chances are she never was a particularly nice person to being with.
Who you see is probably who you’re getting. Who you are is who you are. A wedding may exaggerate, but doesn’t create a personality.
2: Money = Taste. It’s most explicitly stated in Platinum Weddings and My Fair Wedding, but it’s hiding in the background of nearly every wedding reality show produced. Bride after bride bemoans her tiny budget because she wants a ‘nice wedding.’ Low budgets are sniggered at. David Tutera swoops in and announces that his design is far better because he has good taste…and entirely sweeps under the rug how much more money his design cost than the bride could originally have budgeted.
The reality is that the things that matter most about having a good wedding aren’t necessarily about money. Thoughtfulness, consideration, good will…these cost nothing at all. A bit of imagination and native good taste can make a tiny budget more than enough. And just because you spent a hundred thousand dollars doesn’t mean it isn’t tacky. Taste is taste. Budget is budget. Don’t confuse the two.
3: Budgets are made to be broken. No matter how big the original budget, there’s almost always a scene in every bridal reality show where the bride goes ridiculously over budget because she wants a ‘nice’ or a ‘pretty’ wedding or because someone else had some extravagant detail that she’s decided is necessary to her happiness. In the end, it’s always just fine to have gone five, ten, even fifty thousand dollars over the budget, because no price is too great for a ‘nice’ wedding.
In truth, starting married life with a huge debt you don’t know how you’re going to pay off is a terrible way to begin. Assuming there will always be more money pouring in from someone or somewhere else magically is not a mature way of approaching any budget.
The fact is, you can get married for the price of a marriage license and an officiant’s fee. If you have more money to work with, that’s great. Have fun with it. Just remember it doesn’t grow on trees.
4: No woman is capable of planning her own wedding by herself. She may run a multinational corporation by day, create gourmet meals for one hundred by night, and build Habitat for Humanity houses by herself on the weekends, but when it comes to weddings just look how adorably befuddled she suddenly becomes! Weddings are just too complex for a bride to wrap her head around. Don’t think about planning a wedding without an army of planners, designers, and professionals…all of whom are worth whatever they cost no matter how little they do and none of whom are actually required to listen to that irrational, incompetent bride person over there drooling in the corner.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think planning a party is exactly rocket science. It’s a party. Yes, there are logistics to be handled and work to be organized. Yes, a great many brides find professional planning helpful, and more power to them. But if you do hire a planner, that planner had darn well better be willing to pay attention to your needs and desires. And if you don’t hire a planner, chances are you’ll do just fine by yourself. Women have been throwing weddings with just the help of their families for centuries.
After all, as I said before, it’s hardly rocket science.
5: DIY is always doomed. It feeds into the irrational idiot bride myth to assume that she can’t make her own gown, bouquets, aisle runners, ring bearer pillows, invitations, or favors. When a woman starts to do something on her own, the goofy music of undoubted failure begins, the planner screws up his/her face in horror, and the voiceover artist chuckles indulgently. After all, we know this is bound to end in disaster.
Of course not every bride is a DIY diva, nor does she need to be one. Nevertheless many a bride manages many a project without any difficulty. It’s mostly a matter of knowing what you are and aren’t good at, and keeping time well in mind. If you’re going to self-cater, for instance, rely on things that can be made well in advance instead of trying to do all the cooking in the one hour you’ve got before your hair and makeup appointment.
Bridal reality shows gain viewers by reinforcing what ‘everybody knows’ about weddings. The thing is, sometimes what ‘everybody knows’ is wrong. Be aware of what’s propaganda.
Yeah, I may have to disagree to some extent here. You CAN plan a wedding on your own, but you can’t pull it off by yourself by any stretch of the imagination. Don’t think that an Ipod wedding is going to be okay. It won’t be and it will fail miserably. Don’t plan on decorating your reception by yourself. It will look like a backyard picnic gone bad. But in reality, it’s all about how large the wedding is. Most brides aren’t planning elaborate weddings of 100+ guests. Most want the wedding ceremony, but only plan to invite 25 or so people outside of general family. But with all of the free wedding planning tools out there, how-to’s and guides, she better set aside some time to take it all in. But it can be done for smaller weddings, but even smaller weddings will need a small army of friends and family to help (and they will love to help), the bride needs to focus on her Big Day and not become a Bridezilla, which is bound to happen if she tries to become a control freak.
No woman is capable of planning her own wedding by herself.
My friend Ilene is a doctor. Not exactly a low-stress, low-hours profession. Yet she managed to pull off an exquisite wedding without a planner. Beautiful decorations, great food, cool cake (looked like a cheese board: http://class-factotum.blogspot.com/2009/03/say-it-aint-so.html) — all of it her ideas. How did she do it? She was excruciatingly organized — she had two binders, tabbed, color-coded, full of magazine cutouts, sketches, and spreadsheets. It can be done, regardless of what The Experts say.
You might be surprised to know, Wedding Planning, that a lot of our readers here have already planned and executed their own weddings, some with iPods, many doing the decorating themselves, and most with more than 25 guests outside of family. I’ve been lucky enough to have attended or seen plenty of pictures from these weddings and I’m happy to report than none “failed miserably” or looked like a “backyard picnic gone bad.” I’m not disagreeing that help is usually needed (from loved ones, not necessarily pros), but please give brides and grooms some credit. Planning and executing a successful and elegant wedding yourself is not impossible.
Wedding Planning, my wedding to Mr. Twistie involved nearly a hundred people between the guests and wedding party. I did most of the work myself. I planned every aspect, wrote the ceremony, and even made the lace for my own wedding gown. I did hire precisely three professionals: an officiant, a photographer (who I already knew), and a live band (iPods hadn’t been invented yet [IIRC] and we were out in the woods with no source of electricity, so they weren’t an option even if they did exist). Everything else was done either by me or by a good friend/family member who volunteered to execute my directions.
Sixteen years later, people who were there still tell me it was one of the nicest weddings they’ve ever attended.
I, too, have attended a lot of weddings of a lot of different sizes (including ones bigger than mine) created by the bride and groom with a bit of help from family and/or friends. Not one has ‘failed miserably.’
In fact, one bride of my acquaintance did all the following herself: designed and made the gown and veil, grew the flowers, arranged the flowers including bouquets, cooked the entire wedding meal, baked the wedding cake (homemade cheesecake, yum!), designed and printed the invitations, wrote the ceremony, dyed the fabric for the bridesmaids dresses, helped her groom design their wedding rings and her own engagement ring, put together favors, did her own hair and makeup. She used even less professionals than Mr. Twistie and I did in that the photography was volunteered by a talented friend as a gift. It was a gorgeous wedding with over a hundred guests. I was proud to stand up as her MOH.
Yes, you do need a hand in carrying out the practical aspects of a wedding. You can’t be in three or more places at once. But those hands don’t have to be professional to be good, and you may not need that many once you really look at what you want done. And really, it’s more than possible to plan things yourself and do a good job.
Planners can be great. I love that they’re available to help those who prefer a hand in working out the details. I just haven’t seen any evidence to convince me that a wedding can’t be pulled off nicely without one.
Isn’t it interesting that when you click on Wedding Planning’s ID and the link, it takes you to a website both times. Sing along with me, “spam, spam, spam.”
Seriously, in academia we have a name for that: “conflict of interest.” Someone who wants to sell me wedding planning is going to have to tell me that I can’t do it on my own, regardless of whether or not that’s a stupid, obvious lie.
What I’m not going to do: try to both bake my own cake and sew my own dress. I’m pretty sure I can do one of them, but both would be a bit much. But the stereotypes around brides infuriate me, especially as I start mentioning possible wedding-ness to my relatives–mostly rural, all certain that I am going to immediately vanish into hetero bliss and shut up about queer rights, waving a diamond ring around like the size of the diamond is equal to the amount of love in our relationship. Bah, I say. Bah.
Don’t think that an Ipod wedding is going to be okay. It won’t be and it will fail miserably. Don’t plan on decorating your reception by yourself. It will look like a backyard picnic gone bad.
Wedding Planning, I completely disagree. I’ve seen tons of couples use their iPod for a DJ and never once has it backfired. You do have to think ahead about what sound system you’re going to hook it up to, and make sure you have all of the proper equipment, but I’ve never seen an iPod wedding “fail miserably” as you claim. Ditto doing your own reception decorations. I’ve seen it done, and done well.
I should disclose that I was a bride who hired a day-of coordinator to run things on the day of the wedding; it was absolutely the right choice for us and made our day so much better. So I am in no way denigrating the usefulness of a professional coordinator or wedding planner. But scare tactics (e.g., “if you try to do anything yourself without paying a professional you’ll RUIN YOUR SPECIAL DAY”) in advertising drive me crazy.
While Wedding Planning is certainly entitled to his/her own opinion, I have to say that I disagree mightily with it. My experience with my own wedding, and my experience of other people’s weddings, directly contradicts his/her assertions. And since s/he is professionally involved in wedding planning, I call a big ol’ Conflict of Interest, per Kristen. Using the term “Bridezilla” to try to frighten someone out of trying to do it on her own without the services of a wedding professional disgusts me. Your attitude is offensive and it SUCKS, Wedding Planner, and your assertions are insulting to the majority of the people who come to this blog.