drying my tears with the pages of a book

Last week I cried nearly every time I thought about the wedding. It started with a fairly benign if slightly pushy email from the best man, which G. forwarded to me. It continued with a discussion between me and my supremely supportive MOH regarding bridesmaids' shoes. The reason I didn't cry these two times is because I was at work, and I have a no crying at work policy, which has only been broken once when I was a waittress and someone stole $80 off a table of mine, which I then had to pay myself.

Anyhow.

Finally, on Sunday, I did cry, and that was because I was having a nice day at home alone with G. and I had the time and space. I heard once, I think on Oprah, that people tend to cry when they feel safe. Interesting!

I realized that I am having some very mixed feelings about the wedding, which could be identified as below:

1.) I am pretty Type B, meaning I don't care if stuff is perfect, I just want it to be good.
2.) Although most brides are obsessed with details, there are a lot of details about which I really don't give a fig, such as bridesmaids' shoes.
3.) I have difficulty comprimising, if I am not the person who suggested comprimise.
4.) I hate being told that I have to do something, or made to feel like I don't have a choice.
5.) Even though I am Type B, I do worry about the pressure to have a totally awesome wedding that is creative and original and totally expresses exactly what G. and I are about.
6.) I worry about spending too much money.
7.) I worry about feeling/acting/appearing greedy.

I think this may have been bridal meltdown #1. Of how many, we'll see.

I went straight to my local bookstore that I love, McNally Jackson Books. I bought two books that I hope would bring me back from the edge, and so far so good.

The first is Altared (edited by Colleen Curran) has a very satisfying picture of a bride in a fabulous dress tearing her hair out. The book is a collection of essays about the tumult of wedding planning, and are decidedly not of the fairy-tale wedding variety. They are honest and touching and made me feel better. I especially liked Amy Sohn's and Dani Shapiro's essays.

I also bought Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides (Ariel Meadow Stallings). I haven't started it yet, but I read the Offbeat Bride blog and although I am not a goth or Ren-Fair bride, I appreciate the blog's committment to freedom and indepence and feeling like you can get away from the Knot if you want.

Having finished Altared, I am already feeling a lot better. I can't wait to start the Offbeat Bride book. I also feel a lot better being honest that I don't give a rat's ass about bridesmaids' shoes! It's the dirty truth.

dramarama

If one more person sends me this video ... I think I am going to scream!

It started on Facebook, people sent it to me, "Hey! Did you and G. ever think about this?;)"


Again and again and again. And then, in true fashion, my mom sent it to be about a week after the phenomenon hit the internet (or Good Morning America, where I also saw it). I don't want to sound cranky, I know people are well-intentioned and just making a joke. Hey, I like jokes! A lot!

But it makes me wonder: why is there this insidious competition happening among couples getting married, where it's as if your wedding is really the best wedding ever!!!! only if it is Youtube-worthy.

At our college, the theater majors were known as "dramaramas," which was not exactly a compliment. It had nothing to do with the theater, everyone liked that! It was that the actors at our school had a general tendency towards performance and attention-seeking all the time, not just on stage.

G. and I are not dramaramas. We are quiet, kind of shy. We feel uncomfortable with the idea of performing for our guests, or like they are secretly hoping we'll do something funny and awesome and get 11 million hits on Youtube.

We just want to get married. I don't want to overthink this, and I do think the video is funny. But doesn't it kind of seem like weddings are starting to become more of a performance or media event? It's exhausting!

style me...similar

I have some anxiety about individuality. When I was in high school, my sense of self was directly -- and militantly -- linked to the kind of clothes I wore, the kind of music I listened to, and the kind of people I hung out with. This is the case for lots of high school kids, I know. It is the essence of high school! And like most people, I discovered when I went to college and generally wised up that this approach is really limiting. I also realized that it is totally exhausting.

I felt all this pressure to express myself through my clothes and accessories, especially. If I were to categorize myself in a nutshell (which, let's face it, is also what high school's all about), I was one of those early 90s girls who wore combat boots, black eyeliner, dyed my hair red, was super into Courtney Love, Jane's Addiction and Nirvana. I hung around with people who threw around terrible words like "poser." God, it was tedious!

Ever since then, I have really resisted expressing myself through anything but my personality. I am not a particularly avant-garde dresser: I like to look cute, but I am not pushing the envelope. I shop at chain stores, cuz that's where the sales are.

And while most 31-year-olds have graduated high school, in some senses I have not, because I work in SoHo. For those of you outside of New York City, Soho is like high school all over again, except instead of cheerleaders you have models (everywhere!) you have dandy men, fashion people, media people, rich people, who are definitely thin, fabulous, original, avant-garde, exotic... and all checking each other out. Usually I don't give a fig what anyone thinks about how I look, but there are the occasional days (oh, about twice a week) when I have cobbled together my crappiest un-ironed Old Navy outfit from three years ago. And then I see some 16 year old in hot pants with a fabulous tan and just the right haircut and aviator glasses, and I think, "For the love of god, what a-hole invented this neighborhood? And why didn't I have those thighs when I was 16?!"

What does this have to do with weddings?

I have the same kind of anxiety about expressing myself through my wedding. I feel this push-and-pull between creating a wonderful event where we manage to both meaningfully celebrate our love and committment, share this intimacy somehow with 100 people (also in meaningful ways), create a fun event where people have a great time and say to me later "your wedding was so awesome!" And I have details, but not too many details, and things that are planned just enough to reflect my aesthetic (do I have an aesthetic?) but not over-planned, because I am not channeling the opulent bat mitzvahs of my youth.

And then I am like, how do I come up with the ideas to make it just so? And well, one thing I do is read a lot of Weddingbee. The bees are so diverse that I rarely feel like I am reading the same thing over and over again.

But on the other hand, when I read some other wedding blogs (and okay, occasionally on W'bee, not gone lie), I think, how can I have this at my wedding when I have seen this 6,000 other places? Even if it is something I like so much. I still think that.

I guess it comes back to the adage from Offbeat Bride that I already mentioned: your wedding is not a competition. I am not a competitive girl, nor a perfectionist, so I don't think I am really at risk of falling prey to wanting the best, most fabulous, memorable, full-of-firsts wedding. But I also don't one where everyone's all, "Oh, yeah. I saw that on the wedding blogs," or "So-and-so had that at her wedding. Two years ago."

How do you strike a balance? Should I just let go and, you know, que sera sera? Do you guys ever worry about this kind of stuff?

Sigh.

my bridal style. sigh.

One of the first wedding blogs I looked at regularly was Offbeat Bride. I really like the motto of the site's creator Ariel: your wedding is not a competition. My main motto is it's a celebration, not an event, but I really respond to the competition idea, too.

When I was in middle school, I went to a lot of really, really opulent and pull-out-the-stops bar mitzvahs (as well as a couple totally nice and tasteful ones). These were my first introduction to celebratory events where there is a ceremonial component and a celebratory component. I wish Ariel was there to counsel these parents, but she was probably also in middle school at the time.

Anyhow, I remember, even at the relatively ding-dong dense age of 12, that some of the solemnity of the ceremony was overshadowed by the gumball-machine favors and karaoke machines. It all seemed kind of desperate and gauche to me. (No, I did not use words like gauche when I was 12.)

Planning my wedding now, I am trying to strike a balance between
a) having a fun and memorable and wonderful and awesome wedding
b) resisting the desire to "entertain" my guests

I want my wedding to stand out, but I don't want my wedding to stand out. I want it to be special, but I want it to be special because it's me and G. (hello, ego), not because we busted our asses trying to think up the most clever party tricks. I don't want to feel like a dog and pony show. I don't want to feel like our wedding will only be awesome with a photobooth. I don't want to verge on tacky, 1990 bar mitzvah territory.

Anyone else out there feel me on this? Do you feel pressure to "entertain" your guests?

I don't think I even have a regular style, much less a bridal style.

A friend at work gave me a book about finding my bridal style. I looked at the book and there are a LOT of quizzes, and I think I am supposed to sit down with G. and have meaningful conversations about color schemes. Which reminds me: we don't have a color scheme. I was having a conversation about this color scheme issue lately, and my friend said, "Well, what colors are your bridesmaids wearing?"

"They're wearing black. And one of them's my friend Bill. He'll be wearing a black suit."

"Huh."

Yeah. So, no color scheme. And no theme, really. Unless our theme is "getting married."

Early on, I read the following phrase: my wedding is a celebration, not an event. I think that is my bridal style. I realized quickly that I would have to develop an easy-to-remember motto to help me keep my head.

I am in this weird place, six months out, where a lot of the major decisions have been made. We have the date, the venue, the wedding party, dress, shoes, photographer, officiant, hotel. People (especially at work) keep asking me why I am not going totally bananas. I don't know! Should I be? I don't carry around a binder with ideas or anything.

I think I am just trying to make a celebration, not an event. Not a big freaking to-do. Part of this has to do with the fact that parts of our wedding will be pretty non-traditional (see again: Bill the bridesdude). Also, I don't obsess over details. And I like being really decisive. There is nothing that drives me more nuts than to endlessly research, compare, haggle, worry. I like to pick something and move on. I don't often second-guess myself (which, to be sure, has drawbacks!).

I guess I am trying to figure out have a superfantastic wedding without being ALL ABOUT MY WEDDING all the time. Or without spending 5 hours at a time on Etsy choosing the perfect this or that.

Do you have any misgivings about how you are "supposed" to feel about your wedding?