My Take On Weddings

Being husband and wife should be good.

I will admit I am terrified of divorce rates, and how many friends of ours have already split/divorced, but I know I want to spend my life with Feyoncé.

Now, my take on the wedding machine in general is this:

The general price tag? Exorbitant.
The typical lead time you need to book the venue and reception hall you need? Ridonkulous.
The overwhelming and ridiculous precedent that websites like TheKnot.com and OurWeddingDay.com set? Enough to make me curl into the fetal position, weeping, after learning I have to:

A) Tip everyone, their brother, their third cousin, and the janitor 22% (on top of the whack-job prices that are out there).

B) Import flowers from Fiji, Timbuktu and Alaska for my bouquet, in order to feel pretty and not have a laughable pack of stems (that will die in a few hours).

C) Ask 14 women to buy overpriced, hideous dresses to have a typical "bridal party" (I have seen many photographers' websites, and the average seems to be 7-8. For reals).

D) Pay $70 for a child's meal. (I kind of hope for underage drinking at that rate).

E) Realize I will ONLY be a beautiful bride with a designer dream dress worth $2,000+ (or be left treated like garbage at most bridal stores for looking for off-the-rack dresses that don't require ordering and are usually cheaper).

F) Be pressured to spend almost $200 on a piece of "bridal illusion tulle" (basically white or ivory screen door material with some beads) for a bloody veil! And what's that you say? Tiara? Oh, that small one there is $175. (*choke, gag*)

G) Spend hundreds of dollars on custom invitations and ornate centrepieces (who bases their enjoyment of a wedding based on the price tag of an invitation or centrepiece? Really?)

Okay, I could go on forever, but I'll cut to the chase.

We want a day to celebrate our love. We want a reasonable wedding. We want our family and friends to be a part of our union, have a great meal, drink their faces off, dance, and experience a great party.

I don't want all the frivolous extras. Neither does Feyoncé. They add up so FAST, but they are also more details to worry about.

I worry enough.
I obsess enough.

I just want nice.

Nice and simple, and a loving environment with our friends and family.

Not feeling forced into assimilating and following traditions. We aren't traditional. Shouldn't it be about love and fun and great memories? Not a second mortgage?

Societal pressure can be so bloody intense. And, by the way, A through G will NOT be happening.


p.s. To those of you out there that have, or will, or plan to have ginormous huge $$$ blingy weddings, and WANT them, all the power to you. I am sure you will blow everyone away.

middle child - I will not be spending even a fraction of that on a flower girl basket, you can be damn sure, as I’ve mentioned before.

Tom G. - I damn well better only get married once. I couldn't handle the planning of a SECOND wedding! ;-)


You're Lucky I Don't Have a Gun... - I REFUSE to be jaded. I refuse to spend like crazy. I have to have a lame vegetarian gluten-free meal, lest I be a farty bride, but I get your point.

Yandie, Goddess of Pickles. - As I said, I did get one, at "Impression Bridal" in Mississauga, thanks to advice from a friend (thanks A!)

Storm. Kat Storm.- Don't be fooled, I come with a toolbox of fear as well. Also? I don't compute "upscale". lol.


V-Tom - Good luck getting married inexpensively ANYWHERE, even if it is simple. I understand your sentiment, but wedding costs for ANYTHING are insane. INSANE, I SAY!

becca, myjoyproject, Angie and Jumble Mash - Thanks for your congratulations, I appreciate the support.

The Empress - That is SO the mentality. Just make it bigger! Better! Grandiose! Charlie Sheen-esque (with less crazy). It's friggin' nuts.

steph c - Are you budget-less? Unlimited? We don't have a set budget, but we don't want to be suckers, or overpay where we don't have to.

Oilfield Trash  - We're trying to keep it small. We are.

steph gas - Thanks steph. We know it's our day. Just gotta stay focused on the end goal! And you should totally look into wedding planning as a career again if you love it!

 

 jess - That would be the most awesome bachelorette party ever, but I don't think I would have any takers.

 Chris - Meh... I hate saying Feyoncé. I just want to enjoy things, but feel like I need to plan it all NOW, FIRST so I can then relax (ha ha).


On My Soapbox - It's true, even hairstyle "Updos" are $15+ more to start simply because it is for a bride and they know you will pay!

bruce  - I'm with ya man. It's a rip off!

hed - These are the main details. Otherwise my friends who lurk and read this will see things before the wedding, and I don't want that! lol.


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Am I Engaging? I'd Like To Think So...

So if you missed the second to last post, I'm engaged y'all.

And not in that Britney-Spears-55-hour-long-marriage kind of engaged. It's taken us 6 and 1/2 years to get here.

This is what I actually did, right after Feyoncé proposed:



Fucking Awesome, right?

Okay, not really... but that IS me and I actually did that in Jamaica a few years ago, and it was the most fun I had had (had had?) in years.

Also? I look terribly sexy in shorts and black sport socks.

It's okay to feel a little jealous inside. (Go ahead, watch it again, you know you want to)

Now... I am not, by any means, planning to turn this into a wedding blog, but let me tell you there is some seriously effed up shizz in the wedding world. I will be touching on some of what I have already experienced in my quest to find an affordable dress, and all that jazz.

When searching for a veil online, I came across this photo of "flower girls"

The left flower "girl" looks like she could be a dude... and the one on the right, well... I just don't know.

The "girl" on the right should maybe not be wearing the cleavage-displaying, pedophiliac delight as she appears to be. Tell me I am not the only person troubled by that photo? And lefty seriously looks like s/he could be a dude with waxed arms. Just sayin'.

I searched Kijiji for wedding dresses. (Kijiji is the cheap bastard's eBay - it's free to list and so people will list just about anything).

Found this gem, posted for you ladies out there in need of a throwback to 1982:

You might have had better luck selling this dress about 30 years ago (you know, despite it's seasonal versatility and pet-free home and everything).

I know, awesome right? You're welcome. All for the low price of $75. I think the sales pitch should have been "awesome costume for 80s-themed Halloween party!!".

One additional note. I went into Heirlooms Bridal Shoppe in Dundas, Ontario, just to see what they had in store. I asked the sales associate what, if anything, they had in my price range.

She literally looked at me like I had just shat in the front doorway. And she turned her nose up, as if it smelled like I had just shat in the doorway. She then had the nerve to SCOFF at me, and say:

"Well, we have some very PLAIN dresses here. They are about (twice your budget)" as she lazily sifted through a few "destination" dresses at the front of the store.

Wow.

Haughty, snotty bitch.

The wedding industry is like the rich girl/cool kid club, and I am SO NOT ONE OF THOSE.

I promptly told her I would look elsewhere. GAH.

p.s. I did find a dress somewhere else, within my budget.

p.p.s. Trying to find a wedding dress when suffering extreme fatigue is not fun, time consuming, and exhausting. Just letting you know.
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F-cked Up Letters: Walmart Edition

If you'd like to, check out EDITION 2 HERE, and wayback to EDITION numero 1 HERE.

Dear Walmart Bananas,

Why do you tease me so? You never, ever, ever ripen. You appear to be on the cusp of maturity, with your green tips and banana bum, convincing me that this time will be different. THIS TIME, I promise, I will ripen to yellowness and prevent the gut pain and unpleasantness that come with eating still-partly-green bananas. I won't just pretend to ripen like last time.

And the time before that.

I won't somehow still turn brown without ripening like all of the other times before.

Oh Walmart bananas, you suck. You are consistently terrible. You know what else that indicates? That *I* suck, because I fall for you every time and end up with this:

Ever-green Walmart ninja bananas turn brown without ever ripening. Well played, ninja bananas. Well played.

Screw you, evergeen bananas.

Signed,
Me



Dear Walmart Employees on Smoke Break BESIDE THE EFFING PROPANE DISPENSER,

I understand winter sucks. I feel for you (sort of... I mean, I hate being cold). I understand you have a nicotine addiction that must be fed. I understand you are cold outside.

However, it has come to my attention that your preferred smoking corner at the local Walmart is beside the wind protection of the mother-effing propane fueling station.

Hey! Walmart smokers! This is not what Aerosmith meant when they were singing "Livin' on the edge"!!

Last time I checked, propane was flammable, people. FLAMMABLE. I've heard it's even been used in crazy scenarios where it IGNITES and cooks mother-effing FOOD. The key word here people is "ignites". You use open flames beside this machine FILLED WITH IGNITABLE GAS. The goddamn DOOR is even open, further tempting fate with escaping fumes.

Every time I walk by I feel terror in my gut that you are going to blow not only yourselves up, but the mother-effing store and all the mother-effing shoppers (and that poor mother-effing Greeter).

Please stop terrifying me.

Signed,
Me


Dear Walmart Greeter,

Are you happy with your job? And that one female Greeter with the really wide eyes - are you sane? Do you truly enjoy saying hello to people and dispensing shopping carts in the cold doorway during the day to (mostly) thankless shoppers? I want to think you enjoy the social part of the job, but I would have to guess most customers are assholes.

Or, if not assholes, they are like me. Feeling weird saying hello, feeling weird being offered a cart, feeling like I am not sure if you like your job or absolutely hate it and need the money because retirement didn't work out as planned.

Do enough people smile back? If they don't, I apologize. This letter isn't meant to be funny Walmart Greeter. But I hope you really do enjoy what you do. Otherwise I feel like and even BIGGER asshole than I already am for shopping at Walmart and exploiting workers in China who ultimately give us these "rollbacks" and low prices.

Signed,
Me


Dear Walmart Snowbank I Threw Up In Last Week,

Sorry about that. I couldn't resist the urge of half-priced danishes at the grocery store and ate two faster than a slimy dude can pick off a vulnerable single woman in a dance class.

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes ≠ Proper Digestion

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes ≠ Just a hop off the bandwagon, then back to regularly scheduled programming

Me + wheaty, fatty, sugary danishes = Quick, violent upheaval of danishes onto the nearest/closest surface outside of my car.

Sorry 'bout that.

Signed,
Me

p.s. Follow up apology to snowbank beside my garage door for the same reason.


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