Now, I guess I can understand not wanting to lose the deposit. And I also know that you're planning for forever--you don't hold back on what you're spending because the wedding might not happen; you do that, and you're hedging your bets, which just isn't the way to enter a marriage. At the same time, though, I have to wonder why her fiance called it off. Part of me wants to say because she spent $11K on the dress, and goodness-knows how much on the rest.
With all of these shows--the Say Yeses and the Platinum Weddings and Bridezillas--we as a society have decided that the wedding is almost as important as the marriage, and I don't blame people for freaking out. If you're spending $25K, or half of your annual salary, on a wedding, then sure--you want everything to be perfect, because that's an awfully big investment in a day. And that's what we're forgetting: the wedding is a DAY. One 24-hour period. And yet women drive their friends insane over it. The become their own evil twins over it. And an entire industry has sprung up over this pursuit of the perfect wedding, as though having the perfect wedding will guarantee the perfect marriage.
How many people spend the same kind of effort planning their marriage as they do planning their wedding? How much better could married life be if they did? If, say, instead of spending three hours harping over seating arrangements with the in-laws, you spend that three hours getting to know the in-laws, and screw the seating chart? If instead of freaking out about your friends' impressions of your wedding, you concern yourself with how to get your friends involved, so that you can start to create that group of "our friends" from "his" and "my" friends? If instead of racking up debt for the wedding you pay off debt for the marriage? What is wrong with that?
Why is it that when I say I don't want to spend more than $500 on a dress, and I'd like to get more than one wear out of it, half of my female friends act as though I am insane? I hear some women comparing the size of their engagement rings, and the cost, and I have to shake my head. I don't even want to know. I don't want a number attached to that ring, and the size of the rock is not representative of how loved I am. There's no rock big enough for that. The only thing that ring says to anyone is that someone loves me enough to ask me to hang out with him every day for the rest of his life, and I love him enough to say "I'd love to." Too often, I think, we spend more time convince other people how much we love our spouse/spouse-to-be, and not enough time letting him/her know, and I guess that's how I see the whole ballooning wedding thing.
So back to the Say Yes. The bride was completely surprised; didn't see it coming when her fiance cancelled. And maybe it wasn't the dress. Maybe it wasn't the cost. Maybe it was completely different, and maybe she just didn't want to share with the camera. But I can't imagine that it came out of nowhere, unless she had such wedding blinders on that she forgot to see the man she was about to marry and make sure he was still right there with her. I can't help but think that maybe she saw some things going wrong, but her investment trumped her worry that this wasn't right for either of them. Wonder if maybe he saw that she was all about the wedding, and he was all about the marriage, and that just wasn't good enough. I know it wouldn't satisfy me.
I'll attempt to post a full-length pic tomorrow, but this is the best I can do today. It was one of those "I'll wear X.
Right: new bathroom at other office. Much better mirror.
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