Weddings are expensive, amiright? You know I am!
Flowers, dresses, food, rings, invitations, linens, transportation… it all adds up quickly. It’s not surprising that some people do begin to ask whether it’s all worth it.
In fact, a recent article on The Huffington Post Canada asked just that question. Is a wedding worth the expense?
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This May will mark the twentieth anniversary of the day Mary Jo Buttafuoco opened her front door, had a brief conversation with a teenaged girl she’d never met before, and wound up shot in the head by her husband’s underaged lover, Amy Fisher.
Fisher spent seven years in prison for the crime, and then became a stripper. Joey Buttafuoco spent four months in prison for statutory rape since Fisher was only sixteen at the time of their affair. Mary Jo underwent multiple surgeries to repair some of the damage Fisher did to her. The shooting had left her face partially paralyzed and she was deaf in one ear.
In short, this woman has been through some relationship hell the like of which I hope and pray nobody else ever goes through.
Still, Mary Jo has faced it all with pretty amazing fortitude. She eventually divorced Buttafuoco and has been going by her birth name of Connery. She wrote a book about her experiences. And while she’s been open, given interviews, and willingly discussing the details of the crime committed against her, she has not turned herself into a media circus star or spent a lot of time being publicly bitter.
So I’m happy to announce that on sunday, Mary Jo Connery took another chance and tied the knot with Stu Tendler, a print shop manager, in Las Vegas at the Always and Forever chapel.
Here’s hoping that always and forever is how long the happiness lasts this time.
I think the lady’s earned it.
When you’re getting married, there are so many questions to ask yourself, so many options… and yet people tend to assume two things about how you’ll dress: that you’ll wear some version of a long, white dress, and you’ll wear a veil.
I did wear the dress, but I ditched the veil. I’m just not a veil kind of woman. Besides, the woods are not the kindest venue to tulle. No, I wore a snood and topped it with a big silver straw bow. It took me all of five minutes to work out on my wedding day (when I woke up and realized I still hadn’t figured out what I was doing with my dome!), and when I look at the pictures today, I still like the effect.
It still amuses me that on my wedding day of all days I – Hat Woman – didn’t wear a hat, either. Still, I knew from day one that a veil was not for me. I’m betting you knew pretty quickly whether or not it was for you.
So, to veil or not to veil, that is the question. What did you decide, and why?
Hey there campers!
It’s time once again to play Twistie’s Sunday Caption Madness. You all know how this works. I find an image that’s sobbing all over its pretzels for a funny caption. You provide said captions via the comments function. Next week I declare a winner who goes out and purchases wedding finery at her own expense.
This week’s image comes to you from the extreme trashing the dress file, and it looks a little like this:
Ready… set… snark!
(Illustration via The Titanic Gazette of a plate used on the Titanic)
There’s a little known fact about me that might intrigue you all: I am not the first wedding professional in my family. My mother was the bridal consultant at a department store in San Francisco long before I was so much as a gleam in my father’s eye. It was her job to help brides-to-be choose their china patterns and cookware and household linens and then organize the list so that her friends and family members had only to go to the store and choose something off the list.
In order to do her job well, Mom had to learn a lot about china and cookware and linens and so on, of course, so as to help those blushing brides make good choices. And eventually she gave me quite a bit of good advice for making those same sorts of decisions when it came my time.
I realize that many brides now already own china, glassware, cookware, etc. well before they either say yes or pop the question themselves. Still, there are those who haven’t got anything, those who want an upgrade, and those who decide that a wedding is a great time to replace all those broken and mis-matched things. So I’m going to pass on a couple of Mom’s favorite tips for picking a china pattern you’ll love.
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For the past couple of decades, it’s been nearly impossible to walk into a bridal salon and find a gown with sleeves. No matter the season, no matter the preference of the bride, sleeves have been a dirty word in bridal couture for some fifteen to twenty years.
Then, last year, something happened.
Kate Middleton wore a wedding gown with sleeves, and the world stood up and cheered at the style.
Cries went up for copies. And then the last Twilight film came out and Bella wore long sleeves, too. The knockoffs started hitting the markets nearly immediately.
So one popular royal bride and one pop culture fictional bride made headlines for wearing sleeves… and suddenly they’re starting to show up on the bridal couture runways again.
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(Illustration via Delightfully Engaged)
If you listen to conventional wisdom, you’ll learn that you won’t remember a single moment of your wedding. It will all be a blur. And that is true for some brides. I’ve known several of them myself. I’ve known women who spent the entire day in a fog, or in tears, or stressing out over minute details nobody else noticed who missed their entire weddings.
Me? I wasn’t like that. I’ve known a lot of other brides who were more like me. They spent their wedding days really at their weddings and remember them clearly years later.
You may simply be the sort of person who gets caught up in emotions and forgets the details. It happens. But if your fog or forgetfulness springs from another source, there are ways to get more in touch with the moment and truly enjoy yourself at your wedding.
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