Slate's Dear Prudence posted a letter one week with the most God-Awful bridezilla I have heard about to date (second letter after the "Dirty Talk Husband.")
Now, granted, I've read a lot of bridezilla-type letters on Dear Prudence because I've been a Dear Prudence fan from the Emily Yoffe days, but this one especially took the cake.
I kind of hope it was a fake letter.
I kind of hope it wasn't.
I mean, do people like this actually exist?
In this particular letter, the letter writer wrote that she had been shamed, admonished, and ridiculed by a bride whose wedding she attended, accidentally wearing a dress in the same shade of blue as the wedding party.
Horror upon horrors.
It really is just the end of the world when some upstart has the nerve to wear a bride's colors when she hasn't been formally invited to join the wedding party. It's on par with the world ending by Mordor exploding.
I honestly had no idea what "wedding colors" even were until I was sitting around with some random girls one day, discussing their wedding days and what their "colors" would be.
I asked if any of them had boyfriends yet and they all looked at me like they wanted what I was smoking and said of course not, they were discussing their FUTURE weddings.
Oh, I see.
I have never been that little girl who envisioned her wedding day from the moment she turned four and watched Cinderella walk down the aisle with Prince Charming. My favorite Disney movie was Dumbo. I liked his big ears, and possibly the fact that he was ostracized by his peers for something he had absolutely no control over.
Something I relate to.
I hate weddings. Other than absolutely loving the movie 27 Dresses (which has more to do with loving Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, and the fact that I watched it with one of my dear friends and ex-coworkers who I severely miss even though I am thrilled for her and her life choices), I think weddings are stupid. And as we move into wedding season, I'm here to tell you, I dread it with the fiery passion of a thousand Hells.
I believe the precedent of weddings (and I have zero proof to back this up) was back in the day, when everyone lived in small communities and worked their asses off just to get food produced, harvested, cooked, and on the table, there was very little time for leisure. So the villagers wanted to party whenever they got the chance. Key celebrations like weddings. Back then it was happy when two people found love and it was an excuse to party. Back then people wanted to go to the wedding because they wanted an excuse to party. The wedding was the big party of the year or the social event of the season and people were thrilled to go. The couple was also extremely grateful to everyone wanting to share in their happiness.
Nowadays we no longer need excuses to party; we party whenever we want. We don't get all excited and happy about young lovers falling in love; they will fall out of love within three to five years. Couples are no longer humble and grateful; they are entitled (it's "My Day!" or in some cases, "My Week!" or "My YEAR!").
Weddings are no longer a fun party for the entire town to celebrate, they are an obligation and a burden that infringe on other people's time, money, and goodwill.
I come from a small family so I wasn't invited to a lot of weddings (thank the Lord and Savior), but I have been to a few, and part of me feels I could have done without. There is always drama at a wedding. Even if the bride is not Bridezilla, there is always some asshole who is slighted by the fact that the day is about someone else and how dare they. I've been a bridesmaid enough now that my closet is packed with dresses I will never wear again, and now that I'm gluten intolerant I can't even go to these things just for the cake.
The nicest thing anyone ever did for me was the aforementioned friend and coworker who apologetically told me that she had no room to invite me to her wedding because her groom's family took up ninety of the 100 seats available in the church. I said I was thrilled for her and not hurt at all. She said she assumed so, but she still felt bad for leaving me out. I threw her a bachelorette party and we moved on with our lives.
It has never occurred to me to be offended NOT to be invited to a wedding. But there are those who are.
I missed my brother's wedding unfortunately because the wedding got moved to three weeks after I returned from a pre-planned trip to Texas and there was no way I could get more time off, because my boss at the time was a harpy. I would have liked to have been there, but life got in the way.
When my best friend got married, I had a blast. But as in any wedding, someone had to go and make drama and it wasn't even anyone she cared for. Her brother in law was dating a gal who was a pill at every turn, and she was seriously offended and miffed that I as the maid of honor was to walk down the aisle with her boyfriend, the best man. She thought she should have been the maid of honor because it would be "appropriate." My best friend privately told me that it would be a cold day in hell when she would have asked that chit to be her maid of honor, but that didn't stop the drama queen from sulking, throwing a fit, and making the reception utterly miserable for her boyfriend the whole night long.
Incidentally her brother in law is now married to someone much nicer. Good thing his ex hadn't been allowed to mess up the pictures.
Other things that went wrong: the church my friend and her husband were married in treated them horrifically. Among other slights, they told them they could dance for the wedding and four days before the wedding, changed their minds and said dancing was forbidden in their church, something they could have mentioned months ago so that my friend go find a new venue.
My friend sent an extremely scathing letter to the church after the honeymoon. She is a great talent at scathing letters.
My college roommate had a lovely Catholic wedding except for her maid of honor who emailed all the wedding party weeks before, demanding fifty dollars from each of us to go in for "the gift." I declined, preferring to bring my own gift and was still solicited for the fifty dollars because I guess I had no choice. The maid of honor in question then made such of a pill and bitch of herself at the reception that one of the groomsmen finally turned around at the bridal table and demanded to know why she always had to be such a bitch.
That did not go over well and started a small fight.
After the wedding I got yet another email demanding the fifty dollars I owed her. There were ten people in the wedding party and enough money had been contributed to total five hundred dollars. I think the bridal couple only saw about two hundred. Hmmmmmm.
Another wedding I attended was okay except that I learned after the fact that several of the brides' cousins had been mean and condescending to one of the bridesmaids and a friend of mine, had bossed my escort and boyfriend at the time around like it was his job to follow orders when he had been kind enough to fill in as usher, and had generally had such big mouths that my ex-boyfriend had dragged me slightly drunk and exhausted beyond belief from the reception to cover two hundred miles home in order to get enough distance between us and the harpies in question as possible.
My other best friend got married in Vegas. Her sister and husband caused enough drama to last all of us a lifetime and I wonder how she managed to go through with the wedding without burying both of them in the desert somewhere instead. And as her best friend it would have been my duty to not question why, but grab a shovel and ask where I should start digging.
The weddings I've been involved in, the brides have been absolutely lovely. Not a single issue or bitchy moment. It seems though that in the lack of a Bridezilla there ends up being a Bridesmaidzilla, or a Guestzilla, or a Family-Memberzilla, or even a Groomzilla (in the case of my childhood friend and her first wedding - thank God she has a much nicer husband and life now). Weddings demand drama. They yearn for it. They thrive on it. This is why we have shows like Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress. I don't think a wedding can happen without someone losing their marbles to the point where they need to either be slapped back into reality or committed involuntarily to the funny farm. Even my mother's wedding was drama. She wanted her best friend as her one attendant, but my grandmother made such a fuss about everything and threw such a fit that my parents attendants were chosen for them, as well, as many other things about the wedding. It was one day so my mom didn't care too much, but she's told me before that she'd have preferred the wedding SHE wanted because after all, she was the one getting married.
I have been invited to a wedding this summer. Probably my last as I'm getting older and most of my friends are happily (or not so happily) settled down, at least for now. After this one, I'm the last one, as I have never been married.
I have never wanted a wedding. Sure, there is a part of me that wants to wear that beautiful white dress, drink champagne, dance and laugh and eat cake (ah, yes, the cake). But let's be real. I have a very small family and few friends left, especially close by. No one will come to my wedding, as everyone has moved on with their lives and nobody has time, energy, or money to travel just to see me walk down the aisle with someone. It suits me just fine really, as if life and fate have worked together to ensure that I get what I may not know I want. Girls are trained to want a wedding, to demand it, to expect it. I think it might be best if I run away and elope, wear that dress just because I can, and party on the beach until two in the morning with strangers. I don't like drama, I don't like weddings, I don't like party planning, and I don't like drunken fiascos. I do like to dance, I do like spontaneity, I do like wine, and I do like California Guy.
That's probably all I need at my wedding.
I've decided to get married looking like a big cupcake. What do you think?
I want to fly like an eagle.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.