Manolo for the Brides

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 have to ask: Have you seen The Plunge? Yet another wedding planning site for grooms has emerged, and this one is pretty flashy compared to its peers. Unlike most wedding sites geared toward dudes, this one has actual written content that goes beyond a hundred incarnations of “Stand back, and shut up.” Then again, a lot of that content reads like this:

There’s a new piece of furniture in your bedroom: a stack of magazines, books, and articles that could double as a side-table. It’s your fiancée’s “wedding porn.” And unlike actual porn, this isn’t harmless. It’s putting ideas in her head. Poisonous ideas. Thoughts about how you, as a groom, should be “behaving.” This is where it gets dangerous.

A few things irk me about this snippet from one of The Plunge’s intro pages. First, I don’t buy into the idea that the WIC can turn regular chicks into screaming harpies. A true bridezilla was probably already kind of a bitch, and no magazine or book is going to turn a regular chick into a bitch. Second, it stands to reason that there are behavioral (and dress and etiquette) guidelines for weddings, the same way there are behavior guidelines for any party. It’s a formal function, jeez. If it’s mantime to complain about wedding planning, can we at least get some fresh and original complaints?

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When putting together a wedding reception timeline — i.e., a simple schedule that lets the major players in the wedding and the emcee know when the first dance will go down and the cake will be cut — many brides- and grooms-to-be neglect one important detail. Namely, for all the time spent thinking about when they’ll get to the reception, they never consider when they’ll leave the reception. Whoops! Look at enough wedding photos, and you’ll see that the big exit makes for some great snapshots of the newlyweds. That is, of course, if the newlyweds take steps to plan that big exit ahead of time. Here are six tips that will ensure your grand exit lives up to its name:

Don’t tarry
You can always have an after-party if you’re not going directly from the wedding reception to your honeymoon destination. Unless you actually have to stick around to clean up — and some brides and grooms do — don’t feel obligated to wait around until your last wedding guest has said goodnight. People will actually expect you to cut out before the last dance, so you won’t be offending anyone.

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I’ve talked very briefly about pre-nups before, but I tend to avoid the topic because I think the whole idea is a little weird. To me, working out a pre-nuptial agreement is like saying, “We’ll be together forever, of course, BUUUUT just in case we’re not, I want to make sure I get what I deserve/you don’t get more than you deserve.”

Not being overly moneyed myself, the only comparable thing I could have said to The Beard would have been, “We’ll be together forever, of course, BUUUUT just in case we’re not, I’m going to want my William Shatner records and that $4,000 I brought into the marriage back.” Sounds silly, right?

It’s not the silliest idea for a pre-nup out there, however. LegalZoom published a short list of crazy clauses that brides- and grooms-to-be agreed were fair. Pool boys and pets play a larger role in pre-nuptial agreements than you might have imagined. Yes, sometimes it’s not enough to divide assets…domestic help gets shuffled around in the fray. The “no diaper” clause is apparently popular among those looking to avoid children, and some couples even stipulate how (and how often) they’ll have sex.

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