Day: November 16, 2013
Note: Fighting the Bridezilla inside
Dear Reader,
I’ve done a lot of things people said I couldn’t do. I have stared into the eyes of death while jumping (being pushed) from a moving plane. I’ve taken pictures with paint cans, written novels and band scores and painted a hideous flower mural on my mother’s kitchen wall. And yet, I have never faced anything more challenging than planning a wedding.
I would like to submit that no bride becomes a bridezilla out of choice. She is forced to turn from a sweet, excited girl with a diamond ring into a raging, wild-haired woman who both frightens and bores everyone she meets with her impending wedding plans. Even the groom looks on in horror as his future unfolds before him— an avalanche of hormones, tears and certain death if he suggests “a night off” from wedding planning.
But you can hardly blame her. The pressures of decisions and cost turn her into bridezilla.
As I recently began wedding planning, my own simple dreams of “rustic” and “simple” were crushed by the costly reality that “wedding” in front of any other word means you will pay the price of a well-cooked steak even though you’re actually getting a burger that is home to a flesh-eating fungus that was recently rejected by a homeless person.
It turns out “rustic” and “simple” are the most expensive words in the wedding industry.
The minute you approach someone about a wedding, people pull out their old dishes and call them fine china. Plots trampled in cow manure are marketed as prime historical grounds for a ceremony. The cost to breathe the air at a horse farm is only $3,000. Clean air is extra. Barns that are missing roofs are now high-end reception locations that unfortunately have no more “openings” until 2015.
The ridiculousness goes on. The view of the river behind the barn is not included in the package price. If you do not pay a 200 dollar river-viewing fee, your guests will be requested to avert their eyes. The wedding party is required to build their own tables and chairs, materials not provided. In order to embrace historic roots, random and highly offensive Indian and Cowboy reenactments may interrupt the ceremony. This alternates with reenactments of the Old Yeller movie. Dog not included.
Wedding venues also like to say they have amazing original features that are included in their outrageous fees. But it’s really all in how you spin it. For instance, some seem to charge you more for their picket fences and chipped paint. You find yourself waiting to hear offers like, “Brides may enter the wedding ceremony on the back of our lovely black bull.” Or better yet, “For couples that wish to forego the typical lighting of unity candles, we offer a professional branding of the bride with a hot iron that says “his” (or choice of cow tag but branding is really our more popular option).”
The weather clauses take the cake. “In case of inclement weather (because it never rains in S.C.), the venue will need to cancel the wedding with a 75 percent refund.” In other words, rain may cost me 25 percent of 35,000 dollars, not to mention all my planning would be for nothing.
As a result of my frustrations, I have begun looking at churches that preach heresy, empty warehouses and funeral homes for cheaper wedding alternatives. Suddenly, I’m so far away from where I started with my planning that I have to ask myself – why bother?
But then I remember the adrenaline of skydiving for the first (and last) time. I remember the excitement of finally developing my first paint can picture, hearing my band play through a very rough score and hearing my mother’s stifled scream as she met the mural on her kitchen wall. And I know that my challenging moments add up to be some of the most defining and interesting things about me. They are stories I will tell for the rest of my life.
I’m comforted to realize that in 50 years these details will all fade. The sun will shine again, because ultimately I’ll have spent the last 50 years with the man I love. Now that’s a story worth celebrating. Spontaneous celebration that requires no planning whatsoever, of course.
Sincerely,
Andrea
Letters Change Lives 