Manolo for the Brides

As most of our loyal readers know, I tend to subject myself to unholy amounts of bridal reality television to parse out the messages being sent and hopefully help brides to be and those who love them to defuse the ticking time bombs with which they are so generously filled.

For the most part, I find the messages in these shows either bewildering (at best) or toxic (at worst). I don’t expect to find anything resembling wisdom, and most of the time I am remarkably lucky that isn’t what I’m looking for because, honey, it just ain’t there.

Then yesterday I was watching an episode of Whose Wedding Is It, Anyway?, that ode to heroic wedding planners, without whom no woman could ever hope to have a halfway decent wedding, even when the planner is flat-out incompetent. I expect wisdom to fall from the lips of participants of this show about as often as I would expect it from anyone on Bridezillas.
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Sometimes I just don’t know what the world is coming to.

In hunting for just the right subject for today’s article, I came across this article published in late August in the Huffington Post on the do’s and don’ts of tweeting your wedding.

That’s right, I said tweeting your wedding.

Seriously, does anyone actually think this is a good idea?

Apparently some do. Here’s what two brides-to-be had to say on the subject:

“There are so many details that happen during weddings that it is impossible to remember it all. By opening an online discussion, you’re sharing your big day with everyone and they help you collect and immortalize all of the moments from multiple angles. When you think of it, it’s very intimate.”

I’ve got a better suggestion for both remembering your wedding and getting a feeling of intimacy: spend your time interacting with your guests instead of interacting with the virtual world.

And:

“It’s okay to be bold about who you are and what you do. This is an opt-in world, so you don’t need to worry too much about people being disinterested.”

How nice. You don’t have to worry about boring people with your wedding. That’s lovely. But what about what this says to the people you invited? And what about the people who aren’t bored by your wedding details because they’re too busy resenting the fact that you’re rubbing their noses in the fact that you didn’t invite them to be there?

Trust me, tweeting at the altar or in the middle of your reception dinner is every bit as rude as calling someone on your cell phone under the same circumstances.

I think this lady summed up my feelings perfectly:

“Tweeting won’t be allowed at my wedding. I frown upon people telling others (who weren’t invited and perhaps are resentful) how much fun they are having! I think it’s snobby — ‘I’m here and you weren’t invited!’ How rude. Plus — live in the moment, don’t try to be elsewhere.”

Spend your wedding at your wedding with your new spouse and the people you invited. You can always send out a brief tweet before you retire for the night, if you really must.

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.

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Bridezilla is a term that’s always annoyed me, not so much because it exists, but because it gets used as a bludgeon against women who don’t necessarily fit the definition at all. It gets pulled out to shame women who just want people to show up on time, and it gets used to trivialize truly reprehensible behavior.

There’s one thing, however, that’s clear about the term: bridezilla is an attitude of entitlement. Period. That’s what it’s about.

And so I have to kind of wonder at this article by Lauren Beckham Falcone for the Boston Herald. Her claim is that falling budgets for weddings equal an end to bridezilla.

Really?

Look, I know that we here at Manolo for the Brides are all about keeping to budgets and keeping the wedding day in perspective. We remind people often that there are alternatives to nearly everything expected in a wedding, that just because it’s expected doesn’t obligate you to have most wedding items, and that a little imagination can work wonders on the smallest budget. We’re fond of reminding you that things like ice luges, reception gowns, and live orchestras are not necessary for a nice wedding.

But there’s one thing we’ve never done, and that’s conflate a large budget with bad behavior.

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I don’t often watch Say Yes to the Dress. It’s not out of hatred, either. It’s more that I tend to forget it’s on at all. On it, women shop for wedding gowns at Kleinfeld Bridal in New York.

We watch the process as consultants work with brides – some of whom have flown in from all over the country – to find the right gown for the right woman. In general, it’s actually not bad. Yes, I think it’s a bit much for a woman who lives in Seattle and has just been laid off her job to fly all the way to New York for a wedding gown…but I can’t magically see into her bank account, either. And yes, that actually happened in an episode shown last night.

In fact, the episode was about women who fell in love with gowns well out of their price range. It happens. You see something gorgeous, try it on, fall in love, and then see what it will cost you. OUCH!

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Choosing not to listen to lyrics when choosing wedding reception music is a dangerous game in this humble blogger’s opinion. And it seems a lot of folks agree with me. All Things Considered recently asked its listeners and commenters to send in stories about the worst choices for wedding songs they’ve ever encountered and then chose the worst five. The least appropriate wedding songs were:

Send in the Clowns (as sung by Judy Collins) is a ballad from Act II of A Little Night Music. In it, the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Uplifting!

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(Note: this was meant to go up on saturday, but clearly I am made of fail and hit the wrong button, because I found it this morning lurking in the depths of the saved drafts. Sorry.)

So.

We’re two weeks into a new series of Bridezillas over on WETV. So far the horror entertainment has included a bride choosing to believe that the groom’s concerns about people not wanting to wander from table to table searching for clues in the reception game of Clue meant that his family was far to stupid to follow the directions; a bride who demanded that all her bridesmaids weigh a minimum of 200 pounds in hopes that this would make her (the bride) the only pretty woman in the wedding party (no hope there, because mean is the ugliest thing on any person); and a psychobunny from the depths of perdition who crashed the bachelor party, socked a woman outside the club in the head because she just felt like hitting someone, is willing to change lanes into one going the wrong direction in order to avoid a) traffic and b) a bridesmaid trying to have a serious conversation with her, and will tomorrow night throw a hissey fit about chocolate cake that may put last season’s veil-ripping drama junkie to shame. Seriously, she’s going into her third week on the show while the other brides profiled thus far have only lasted one ep each. The standard is two episodes. I’m beginning to think Valerie may wind up being in every episode this season.

These people are making my hair itch.

There is, however, one WETV wedding-related show that I’m seriously enjoying. Amazing Wedding Cakes is a fun look behind the scenes at several different wedding cake designers/bakers across the US. Each week the viewer gets taken through the steps from initial client consultation to delivery of the finished product.

The fun is what happens in between. You get to see how the design is developed, how many hands get involved in creating each cake masterpiece, and sometimes even the fun of getting a multi-tier cake to the venue on time in a taxicab.

As a longtime cake junkie who makes ‘em tasty, but not that pretty, I’m fascinated by this show. I love watching the cakes come together, the in-jokes, the meltdowns in both buttercream and emotion, the pride taken in a job well done, and the frustrations when things don’t work out as planned.

Also, seriously, if you’ve hired someone to make an elaborate wedding cake for you, don’t try to change the design a couple days before the event. One bride called the bakery two days before her wedding just as the head designer was smoothing that gorgeous terra cotta colored fondant over the second tier of her cake to say she’d decided she wanted white instead.

Don’t do that to your baker. It’s Just Not Nice.

If you haven’t watched Amazing Wedding Cakes, be sure to check it out. It’s a lot of fun! (WETV Sunday, 10pm/9 Central). As they say: No guts, no ganache!

The other day, my good friend and compatriot, Fabrisse, brought something hideous to my attention. It’s an upcoming reality show on the CW charmingly entitled ‘Hitched or Ditched.’

Yes, it’s more or less what you would expect: a couple is ‘nominated’ by a fiend…er, friend or relative. Said Nosy Parker has decided that the couple in question is taking too long to march to the altar and needs to be hurried up. The show then badgers the couple, I mean offers them an ultimatum: plan and carry out your dreams for a wedding in one week while subjecting yourself to a series of (most likely extremely humiliating) public personalized tests designed to ‘help’ the couple decide whether they are truly ready to marry. At the end of the week, in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance of their dream wedding, they must decide at the altar whether to marry in that instant, or go their separate ways forever.

Yeah. No pressure there.

Okay, I could barely tolerate this concept in theory if the demand for instant lifelong commitment came from one member of the couple. I would still consider the whole thing manipulative and skeevy in the extreme, but at least I could see some small excuse.

My biggest problem is with the fact that the couple is nominated (read: publicly shamed) into this circus by someone who isn’t one of them. There may be an issue involved that a third party isn’t aware of. After all, pretty much nobody around me and Mr. Twistie had any idea why we waited seven years to get married. There were reasons, and they were good ones, but we didn’t feel like sharing them with the world. I’ve even known couples who adore one another but have realized that sharing a roof and a checking account and a kitchen just isn’t for them.

The fact is, each couple is different. They have to take their relationship at the pace their priorities, circumstances, and needs dictate. It wasn’t anyone else’s decision when it was right for me and Mr. Twistie to marry; it was ours. We made that decision when we were good and ready. You should do the same.

Remember, you and your significant other are the ones having the relationship. You need to tailor it to you. And yes, that includes deciding for yourselves when (or whether) you’re ready to get married.