Tag Archives: bridal

August 13, 2015 · 9:57 am

The Weirdness of Weddings

wedding paper flowersLast year, just after I got married, I was lonely, depressed, and trying to come to terms with what had happened in the wedding planning: two of my three bridesmaids dropped out of the wedding and stopped talking to me. I wrote up a piece about it, framing it not as a explanation (because I’m honestly not completely sure), but as a “how to” craft piece. The step-by-step craft process gave me a little emotional distance, and I thought it was kinda poetic.

I submitted it to APracticalWedding.com, a site upon which I’d relied heavily during wedding planning. This summer, they decided to publish it, which was pretty cool. Then it was republished by Refinery29—bonus cool!
But I’ve noticed something. Women, online and in person, respond a few typical ways:
  • “Well, at least you know who your friends are now?” or “Well, they just weren’t very good friends, were they?”
    I’ve gotten this from several commenters, as well as my mom and the therapist I briefly visited. You know how helpful this response is? Not at all. Because they were my closest friends, and their absence meant the utter dissolution of my friend circle. So, sure, I knew who my friends were: older friends, from college, who I rarely get to see. I had no “Let’s go see a movie” friends left.
  • “You shouldn’t have wanted such a hard craft project! Some people aren’t crafty!”
    Mostly received online, from people I think who didn’t understand that the craft was just a way to talk about it. For the record, they didn’t leave just over the craft. They ignored me about the craft, then were dismissive about it, didn’t offer ideas on dresses or like any of the ones I picked, and didn’t bother to RSVP to any shower invitations, didn’t come to my birthday party, weren’t available to meet for dinner, and then were upset when I asked for more support. I even said that if I was asking too much of them, I’d understand if they didn’t want to do the bridesmaid thing and they could just come to the wedding if that was easier. They, apparently, didn’t think so.
  • “I think we’re only getting one side of the story here.”
    Another from the commenters, and—well yeah, of course you are. That’s how a narrative works. This comment has a little added zing of implying I’m lying or manipulating the story. But, if it helps, I don’t know any more, really. They never said why, exactly, they were dropping out. They never said anything at all, except one half-hearted “I’m sorry things turned out this way” a week later, before dropping off my Facebook friends list and not talking to me again. One changed her username so I can’t search for her.
And that would be it, except a few men I know read my article, too, because I forgot who can see things I post to my personal Facebook page. And this is what they said:
  • “Wow, did that really happen? I’m sorry. That’s really shitty.”
    And that was amazing. Because the majority of the women who responded hadn’t given me that kind of empathy. These men validated my experience and just let me say, yes, that was a thing that happened. It was shitty. They didn’t blame me or accuse me of being a “bridezilla” (more than one woman has made that suggestion—including the therapist). They didn’t tell me they weren’t crafty. They didn’t try to play it off as no big deal.
I think it says a lot about women and weddings. The women are afraid to admit that something like this could happen to them, that weddings aren’t always the Hollywood ideal of being so popular you have to be in 27 weddings. So they look for “if only’s”—”if only I don’t do that, it won’t happen to me.”
I didn’t have a Hollywood wedding experience. Parts of wedding planning were really, really shitty. I don’t think I “deserved” what happened, and it’s taken me a long while to stop feeling as hurt about it; it was hard to mourn those friendships. But I did have a lovely event, in the end, with lots of dancing and happy people. I married a really amazing man, and we’re building a solid life together.
Plus I have this kickass wreath, so that’s cool.
paper flower wreath

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June 10, 2014 · 10:28 am

Let’s Talk About Bridezillas

Let’s talk about the concept of “bridezilla.”

It’s the idea that weddings inherently turn perfectly nice young women into some sort of fire-breathing, plate-throwing, tantrum-screaming monsters. That women develop this malady through their own lack of character, a high budget and the desire to achieve a selfish fantasy in which their every whim must be met.

I hate this concept. It needs to go.

First, as Slate so humorously describes, it is a really bad portmanteau. “Godzilla” and “bridezilla” don’t even sound alike, so it doesn’t make sense from a language standpoint.

Second, it is a term used to judge, cut-down, and control others. “Bridezilla” is a term that comes out when a woman–only a woman, you never hear about “groomzilla,” do you?–doesn’t perform to your expectations. It is a weapon.

Personally, I have heard it several ways.

  • “Oh, don’t worry about it! I’m sure that Major Wedding Problem will work out! You don’t want to be a bridezilla now, do you?”
  • “Don’t get all bridezilla about it, but I need you to…”
  • “You’re really acting like a bridezilla now.”

Every time, it came up–sometimes “jokingly”–as a way to brush off my genuine concerns, to minimize my experiences and stress, and to manipulate me into being something else.

Okay, by now you may be rolling your eyes and saying, “Geeze, she must really be a bridezilla if this is going on!”

And maybe someone objective would say that–but I really don’t think so. All throughout wedding planning, this term has been hanging over my head: don’t be “like that.” I’ve tried to be accommodating wherever possible, and I truly don’t care about things like what color napkins we use or if we use live flowers or not.

Now, will I agree that there are women who do go overboard? Absolutely! But we already have words for unreasonable people, tons of them, and the act of being unreasonable is really not limited to women in this situation. The truth is, some people are bitches all the time.

The other truth is, weddings are extremely stressful and there are a lot of competing values at stake: what you want, what you have money for, what your parents want, what your SO’s parents want, what your neighbor who isn’t even invited to the wedding thinks a wedding should be like, etc etc. (Seriously, I had a family friend call to ask me the color of my guest book, because this was apparently critical to her preparations. Really?!)

I mean, how often do you plan an expensive multi-hour event for hundreds of people? It’s not like you know how to plan a wedding going into it; you’re stuck browsing Pinterest and getting sucked into the DIY rabbithole as you try to navigate all this.

And the wedding industry is literally built on people telling you you are not good enough, that if you don’t have XYZ, your wedding will be the worst and you’ll ruin “the memories.” I am shocked by the mountain of pressure that gets dropped on women when we get engaged (and on the men, but to a lesser degree, in my experience). (This article in The New Yorker does a good job analyzing this.)

In my own circumstance, the accusation of bridezilla-dom came from the then-maid-of-honor. What had I done? I told her I was upset that she went dress shopping without inviting me. Without even telling me. I felt left out of my own wedding, and when I told her–honestly–about my feelings, she came back with that. “You’re really acting like a bridezilla.”

It hurt. It hurt deeply, and I cried. It was an insult from someone dear to me, and I didn’t feel like I’d deserved it (particularly because the dress I was suggesting she wear cost all of $50).

That was a low moment. But it wasn’t the worst thing to come from wedding planning. There have been a lot of stress-tears, and grief-tears (which came when she decided to drop out of the wedding rather than wear said $50 dress). Wedding planning is hard, but, really, it’s just a party. And I’m not a monster for feeling hurt.

I’m looking forward to the marriage, and an end to this madness.

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