Manolo for the Brides

We don’t talk a great deal around here about what comes after the wedding. Heck, we don’t even discuss honeymoons very often! It’s not that we don’t care or don’t think about it. We’re just usually more focused on the actual wedding, what with being a wedding planning blog.

But the fact is that while it’s fun and easy to talk about flowers and dresses and menus and jewelry, there’s an entire marriage after the wedding, and we do think it’s important to consider that marriage.

If you’re old enough to even be thinking about getting married, chances are you’ve learned somewhere along the line that compromise is important. If you haven’t learned it by the time you start planning, chances are you’ll have a better understanding of the concept at the end of the process. No matter what your budget or how mellow all the players involved happen to be, a wedding will entail some compromises in some area.

But what about your happily ever after?

Marriage entails a lot of compromise on a daily basis. What to eat and who cooks it, which movie to see, whether to save first for his big priority or yours, who takes out the garbage vs who scrubs the bathroom…you’re going to wind up making deals about a lot of things.

Some of these choices are easy. I do the cooking, because Mr. Twistie only knows two settings on the burners: high and off. Also, I’m home when it’s time to start cooking far more consistently and I love to cook. I also do the dishes because I actually like that part. Call me freaky, but I do. Mr. Twistie may think that bit was a compromise, but really it was a matter of personal preference as much as self-preservation.

Some are harder. I moved to a new city. I’d lived in my hometown literally as long as I could remember. I’d lived in the same house since I was two years old, and I got married at thirty. Yeah, I tend to stay where I’m put. By contrast, Mr. Twistie had only lived in his hometown since he was nine, and could remember living in two other cities. So why was I the one to move?
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It’s that time of year again, by which I mean that very special time of year in which I, Never teh Bride, clears out my e-mail inbox. As you can probably imagine, it can get pretty clogged, what with letters from readers (which I can never, ever get enough of), pitches from PR people, and owners of blogs writing to request link exchanges. Sometimes good stuff can get lost in the fray — if I don’t respond to a letter or get to a pitch right away, it doesn’t mean I don’t love ya — which is why once or twice a year I gather my inspiration at Never.teh.Bride@gmail.com.

One interesting PR pitch I received a long while back comes from AreYouRomantic.com. Caesars Pocono Resorts commissioned the site’s creators to conduct a survey all about, you guessed it, honeymoons. Specifically how brides and grooms approach the honeymoon. Basically, AreYouRomantic.com found that more couples are paying for the honeymoon themselves, yet they still want to incorporate tradition into their weddings. Boooooring!

What got my attention, though, was the part of the survey dealing with the wedding night. The poll found that almost 20 percent of newly married couples don’t actually consummate their marriage on their wedding night. Frankly, I’m not surprised. Indeed I am more surprised that 80 percent actually do! I’ll just come right out with the TMI and say that The Beard and I were way too tired to do anything other than fall asleep since my mom hosted an after-the-wedding dinner at a nearby restaurant and we made the mistake of attending. Then I think we went swimming in the hotel pool with a bunch of our friends. When we got upstairs, consummation was just about the last thing on our minds.

And we’re not alone. Of the 20 percent who didn’t do the deed on the wedding night, 32 percent said that they (or their partner) were too tired. Another 14 percent said that they (or their partner) had too much to drink. Apparently women chose this answer more than men, but I’m not sure if they meant they drank too much or their partner drank too much. Roughly 11 percent said that family and friends were still around. More men chose that option. Finally, 10 percent said that it wasn’t important to them.

In the interest of finding out if the AreYouRomantic.com people got it right, I thought I’d conduct my own poll right here on Manolo for the Brides. Brides-to-be and former brides (as well as their grooms) are welcome to answer. If you’re married and open to sharing, tell us what you did or didn’t do. And if you’re going to be married soon, tell us what you plan to do or think you’ll do. Feel free to elaborate — though, please, not too much! — in the comments.

I was thinking the other day about a post from quite a while ago. You may remember the story of the bride who sued her wedding florist, Posy Floral Design, for $400,000 after they substituted pastel pink and green hydrangeas for dark rust and green hydrangeas in the reception centerpieces, ruining her wedding. While I understand that Elana Glatt was angry and disappointed that she didn’t get the wedding flowers she really wanted, I have to wonder if a lawsuit was the right way to handle her feelings.

I won’t argue that it’s a bride’s right to seek compensation when a vendor contract is breached. Glatt asked for one thing and received another. But I can’t help but ask what she’ll remember when she looks back on her wedding day, say, twenty years from now. Will it be the gorgeous kiss she shared with her spouse at the climax of her wedding ceremony? Perhaps the delicious cake that was served at the reception? Or will Glatt look back and find that what comes to mind is both feelings of anger and visions of spending time in court?

There is, as both Twistie and I have asserted on many occasions, no such thing as a truly perfect wedding. Then again, maybe there is. If you can look back on your wedding day and remember all the good things that happened while putting all the annoyances out of your thoughts, then that sounds pretty perfect to me. Yes, the cat walked on your train with his little muddy paws while you were posing for photographs. And your FIL got a little too drunk and broke his wrist trying to breakdance at the reception. But you got married. Successfully, I might add. What some brides and grooms call catastrophes can even make for some funny anecdotes years later.

Yes, I lied a little in the title of this post — there are indeed ways a wedding can be truly ruined. Wedding guests and participants can get sick or even die. Natural disasters or man-made disasters can interfere. The bride or groom not showing up certainly applies. But I know from personal experience that many of the disappointments or situations that have the potential to ruin a wedding only actually do so when the bride or the groom can’t let go of them after the fact. Instead of recalling the ninety-nine good things that happened, they remember the one bad thing, and it colors their remembrances forevermore.

If one of those circumstances mentioned at the start of the previous paragraph happen to you, I give you full license to call your wedding ruined. But if it’s something else, like your wedding gown not shipping forcing you to choose an alternate dress or a misspelling of your new name on your last-minute programs, I’d ask you to think carefully before making such a pronouncement. Did you get married? Did your guests congratulate you on a beautiful ceremony? Did you dance and kiss and smile at the reception? Was the champagne delicious? Were the bouquets beautiful?

I bet the answer to those and most similar questions would be a resounding yes. So seek out financial compensation if you really need to because a contract hasn’t been fulfilled, but please, please don’t let one detail ruin your wedding in your mind. As goofy as it sounds, you have the power to have that so-called perfect wedding, but only if you allow yourself to think of it as perfect, flaws and all.

We all know that divorce isn’t funny. You can bake and consume (or smash) all the divorce cakes you want. You can even buy a little casket for your wedding rings. But the reality is that divorce is still a costly and sad process that ends up hurting a lot of people one way or another.

Divorce parodies, on the other hand? They’re still pretty funny, even if a tad mean spirited. Let’s say that laughing at this send-up of the dancing processional video is a guilty pleasure, even though I’m sure the creators don’t harbor any actual ill will toward Jill and Kevin.

The amazing A.J. (yes, that A.J.) writes:

I think I’m finally ready to sell my wedding dress. I think. I don’t feel a need to clutter up stuff with a dress I’ll never wear again. And I highly doubt my daughter(s) would want to wear it. It’ll probably be very out of style by then…

So I was wondering, what is the best way to sell my dress? Is Craigslist fine, or would a consignment shop have a better return? What is a proper price to ask for it? I was thinking half of what I paid, not counting alterations and cleaning. Is that too much? Anything else I should consider?

Great question! I was lucky in that I had a vehicle through which I could safely donate my dress on short notice — the family church — which meant I didn’t have to haul it all the way from Florida to Mass or worry about selling it. I just took it off after the reception ended and left it on my gram’s couch for her to deal with. I’ll probably never find out who it went to (the whole left-hand, right-hand thing) but I can be sure it went to someone who really needed it.

But getting back to the question at hand…there are so many ways to sell one’s dress nowadays. Once upon a time, Craigslist, eBay, neighborhood consignment shops, and the local classifieds would have been your only options, but in recent years, a bunch of interesting bridal consignment web sites have sprung up. These include:

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