Toolbag Wednesday #20: Recession-Be-Damned Brides
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Rrrrrrrraaaarr.........
Wedding season is once again upon us and lucky me, I’m in the thick of it. No, I’m not a bridesmaid again. And no, I don’t have a series of weddings to attend this year, though there are one or two on the horizon. I’m in a calligraphy class. Platinum Weddings edition.
I promise you, I’m not completely delusional. I knew going into it that there would be a large contingent of brides. In fact, the bride to jaded singleton ratio is 2 to 1 (if you include the instructor who is married, and for an added bonus, also expecting). That said, of the three of us who aren’t affianced, one might as well be because she’s already got her whole wedding planned out to her boyfriend of eight months. I shit you not.
So here’s the thing….yes, I knew what I was walking into. I knew there would be much ballyhooed talk of duchess satin gowns with cathedral trains. Knew there would be thorough discussion of caterers, reception venues, string quartets, roses vs. peonies (peonies), and the merits of fall weddings over spring. But the play-by-play is astounding. These brides are swirling in their own worlds right now, seemingly oblivious to the recession and the threat of job loss (I don’t even know if any of them are employed because apparently their sole identity is BRIDE).
Take Gold Coast Princess for example. She was on a particularly engaging tear last night, describing her two-years-in-the-works fall wedding extravaganza. We’re talking the works…Holy Name Cathedral and the Palmer House, she currently has two wedding dresses, plans to invite 465 of her closest friends and family, and has 12 bridesmaids and 3 flower girls. Aghast, she of course will not be using the calligraphy she’s learning to address her own invitations (she’ll just pay someone to do it). Tell me again why you’re here?
Then there’s Prim and Proper Bride who opted instead for a “Destination Wedding.” Now, I can totally get behind that, but her version involves going to Florida with a current invitee list of 88. Maybe it’s just me, but destination wedding, to me, equals 10-20 people max.
Needless to say, I don’t talk much during class. I can’t even bring myself to care about any of their plans, to ask follow up questions, pipe up with my own ideas and opinions. I pretty much just keep my head down and focus on the angle of my pen as I curve the tale of my lower case “P”s. My inner monologue, however, ranges from “girls are stupid” to “you’re a spoiled whore.” It’s obviously best that I hold my tongue.
I just think it’s incredibly stupid to drop 25-50K on one day of your life. ONE. That’s a down payment on a home. That you can live in when the wedding is over; tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Whatever happened to simple, elegant, and to the point? Whatever happened to a wedding being about the beginning of a marriage, about two people and the start of their new life together? Why do so many weddings take on a momentum of their own, losing track of the catalyst for the event in the process? Why is it more often than not merely a blow out party?
I can’t help but wonder about the men marrying these women. If I were one of those dudes, I would totally call the whole thing off. I’ve spent four hours with these women so far, and not one of them has spoken their fiancé’s name. Not even Down-to-Earth-Thirty-Something-Schaumburg Bride.
I have given my mother permission to smack me if I ever become bridezilla-ish when my time comes, and also if I send mass e-mails of ultrasound photos when I get knocked up.
Would you expect anything less vain as the culmination of a process that begins with someone giving something as banal as a piece of a rock to someone else as a symbol of the profoundest love, with the implicit understanding that the bigger the rock is, the bigger the love must be?
I am so with you on this. I am surrounded by no less than 5 brides right now and it’s driving me insane. One spent $4,500 on the dress that she’ll spend less than 12 hours in…WHAT THE?
I have more appointments than the bride does for the wedding I’m a bridesmaid in, in a few weeks time. It just gets completely out of control.
If I hear the phrase ‘…and then I thought you only do this once so what the hell…’ or ‘It’s my day’ again I will impale myself on my pen….
Dude. I’m with you on this. The craziest thing has happened to me lately was a woman called me (knowing that I house sat for friends of hers) and booked me to house sit for her next March. For her daughters wedding.
Her daughter isn’t even engaged yet but this mom ‘has a feeling it’s got to happen. They’ve been dating foooooorever’.
In a word? Yikes.
Women are crazy! Oh wait, my daughter is turning two maybe I should start saving now.
You know, I think the same thing of the indian weddings my parents have told me about. Weddings are a HUGE deal in india, it’s basically a “I hand my daughter over to you, take care of her” in the FAREWELL sense. Naturally that means that a collosal amount of money is spent on them, to the point that some families (one whom I’m directly related to, others I’ve just heard of.) even go into bankruptcy because of the cost (uhm. talking around 100,000$+ for a wedding). It’s really sad, and a huge waste.
Why would anyone want 2000 people at their wedding?!?! To say a ‘hi/thanks/bye’ which lasts a minute to each of them? (yeah. the weddings go on for more than a day.)
Ah madness. I’m glad times are changing now
Down with the 3-day weddings, and in with the 5-hour weddings instead 
Dear god, I might have dropped out of that class already if I were you, except I can never stop watching a good train wreck. Weddings like the ones those women are planning are the reason Brian and I got married in Vegas by ourselves. For like $300. The reception? Starbucks, baby. Starbucks.
I’ll admit, we spent a lot of money on our wedding. But, I promise you I was nothing like *those* brides. We spent money where we felt it appropriate (food, venue) and looked for deals where we didn’t (invitations, dress). I think there are ways to spend very little and still come off a whore. And there are ways to spend a lot of money and do so with a sense of humiliation. I think it has more to do with the person behind the money than the money itself.
And the man who would marry *that* kind of woman? He lives in Lincoln Park. =)
Nilsa- I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking that approach….if you go down the road of having a reception at all (especially in Chicago where weddings average about 20K these days), you’re going to wind up spending a lot. But I think it’s important to gauge what’s really important to a couple and that it isn’t necessarily everything about the event itself.
I think for me, if I were to ever get married, the big party aspect would definitely be out, but I’d want to have a small intimate dinner and a great photographer to capture the candid moments with the few people I would want to share it with.