Tag Archives: wedding

Saying “Yes” to the Dress and “No” to Reason

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I’m perfectly willing to admit that, in a lot of ways, I’m not your typical twenty-something female. I guess I missed the memo on how to be a 21st century woman. I can completely understand why men are so frequently baffled by their counterparts.

This afternoon I was watching “Say Yes to the Dress” on TLC. If you’re not familiar, this is a show that documents women shopping for their wedding dresses. Although I generally don’t understand the hype that goes along with wedding-related affairs, I actually enjoy this show. I would describe it as an entertaining documentary… and who doesn’t love a good documentary?? (Answer: people who hate knowledge and learning).

It occurred to me that this show highlights several of the reasons I find many girls to be annoying. I want to say ahead of time that I’m aware I might offend some of my readers (the female half). So, here’s my disclaimer: Even if I disagree with your beliefs about weddings, that does not mean I don’t like you; it just means I would probably make different choices. I also don’t have anything against marriage or weddings. However, I do have a problem with women who talk about how much they want to be married, when clearly they care more about the wedding itself than their future husband.

Anyway, here are a few examples of the comments you might hear one of the show’s featured brides say:

“I know that this dress is really expensive, but I can’t help it…I have expensive taste.”

Umm…who doesn’t have expensive taste?? Given the choice between a low-priced good and a high-priced good, we all want the latter. That doesn’t mean it’s our right to have it. I mean, since when does wanting something mean that you’re automatically entitled to have it? This is where self-control comes into play. I hear girls use the term “expensive taste” often, and not just related to weddings. Most of the time, it’s obvious that their parents have brainwashed them into believing that they deserve the best of the best. Shame on them! I bet you’re wondering how to identify this type of woman.  Here are some clues:

  • her family calls her “princess.”
  • her parents wouldn’t let her work during high school or college (which means she has no concept of the value of a dollar).
  • when she was 16, she couldn’t understand why all of her friends didn’t get a $45,000 sports car for their birthdays like she did.  She wonders if this is considered child abuse.

Good luck to the man who will have to support this type of lifestyle for the rest of his life.

“This dress is what I’ve been looking for my whole life. I know it’s ‘the one!’”

Shouldn’t you be making those types of comments about your fiancé? You do realize you’ll be wearing your dress for a day, right? I hope your husband is “the one,” too, although I’m not entirely sure you’ve contemplated that quite yet.

“My budget is $7,000.”

I understand that some people have great riches that they can spend on a grand, over-the-top wedding, but… seriously? I can tell from having watched the show for so long that a lot of people wouldn’t bat an eye at dropping this kind of money on a dress. I’m not one of them. I know that having a nice wedding is important to many families and cultures, and I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, assuming they can afford it.* The part I take issue with is when women say this and then explain that their parents are taking out a second mortgage on their home or selling their body parts on the black market to cover the cost. When I think of all the things I could pay for instead, I simply can’t imagine being able to justify shelling out so much cash for colorless cloth (and perhaps some shiny beads), even if I was loaded.

“I brought my husband along to look at dresses because we do everything together.”

Gag.

“I won’t buy a dress that my kids don’t approve of.”

It’s not difficult to see who’s in charge in that family. My guess is that this type of woman also refers to her kids as “her best friends” and doesn’t believe in discipline.

“I have to get a dress that’s super sexy!”

It seems to me that the first message you communicate on the day you’re committing to someone for the rest of your life should not be “look how hot I am!” Is that really the type of attention you want as a married woman? The typical defense to this would be “but I want to look beautiful for my husband!” Ok, first of all, ‘hot’ and ‘beautiful’ are two completely different adjectives. Second of all, why does everyone else have to see that? Save it for the honeymoon.

“I’m here today to buy a second dress, because I’ve decided the first one I bought isn’t just right.”

What?? I can barely fathom the idea of buying a wedding dress that costs half of what most people pay, and you’re buying two?? Ok, princess.

*We’ll talk about the definition of “afford” in a future post.

A Kardashian Katastrophe

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So…did you hear??  Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from Kris Humphries!  Ok, I know this is old news by now, but still, it’s worth discussing.

I used to watch “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” when it first began. If you haven’t seen it, don’t.  Once you start, it’s hard to turn back.  Even though you know it’s harmful to your mental health, you’ll continue to watch.  It’ll suck you in.  After a while, you’ll start to think that Kardashian-like behavior is normal.   Oh, you say you need examples?  Here you go:

  • Speaking with a painfully obvious fake voice
  • Wearing unreal amounts of make-up
  • Talking about an event that happened in the past as if it’s currently happening

Even if you want to quit, it’ll be close to impossible because they are everywhere.  And they’re like roaches- there’s a million of them, they come out at night and I wouldn’t be surprised if they carry disease.

Anyway, I say all this so that you’ll understand why I’m familiar with their show.  Even though I pretty much can’t stand them, I’ve watched my fair share of episodes. 

Once they started getting engaged, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I refused to watch anything related to Kim’s or Khloe’s weddings.  I knew it would be the epitome of annoying girly stuff.

After Kim got engaged, I found out the basics of her relationship:

  • She and Kris got engaged after knowing each other for almost no time at all.
  • Kris was quite a bit younger than her.
  • Kris was a professional athlete.  Of course.
  • Kris had the same name as Kim’s mom, Kris.  How convenient.  And how convenient that his name started with a “K.”  She probably picked him out of the “Professional Athlete” phonebook based on the compatibility of his name with the Kardashian Empire’s naming convention.

Even though I went out of my way to avoid hearing/watching/reading about Kim’s whole shebang, I was still exposed to it.  I had to listen to this garbage for months.  I was successful in my efforts to not watch the FOUR HOUR long wedding special, but somehow I still knew that Kim and Kris didn’t have any chemistry, talked to each other with a complete lack of respect and that Kim’s sisters yelled at him frequently.  The one thread of hope I held onto was the fact that we would all have at least a few years of peace and quiet once the wedding was over.

Wrong.  A mere 72 days after the wedding, the “marriage” was over.  I feel uncomfortable even calling it a marriage.  They didn’t even try.  Most 8th graders have relationships that last longer than that (I didn’t).  And even if they did have “irreconcilable differences,” could they not have just faked it for a little while longer?  I mean, people invested a lot of time in this ridiculous circus.  The least they could do is act like it was time well-spent. 

The rumor is that it was all a sham for publicity.  I can definitely see that being the case.  If that is true, I wish they would’ve thought of our feelings before pulling a stunt like that.

I can’t imagine what could have possibly happened to make them call it quits so soon.  Perhaps one of the following:

  • Kris found a loop-hole in the pre-nup. and decided it was time to cash out
  • There wasn’t room for Kris on the Kardashians’ 17th reality show
  • Producers feared Kris and Kim would take the attention away from their efforts to exploit the two youngest Kardashian sisters (they’ve already started doing this)
  • Kris realized how annoying Kim and her family are

As usual, I’ve done my best to see the silver lining in all of this.  There are a number of lessons we can learn from this tragedy:

  • Celebrities probably shouldn’t get married.
  • If you’d like to have a big party, but can’t justify the cost, call it a wedding.
  • Sometimes people will surprise you (i.e., Khloe’s marriage lasting longer than Kim’s).
  • The more you spend on your wedding, the less likely your marriage is to succeed (I’ve always believed this- no, this isn’t based on any kind of statistic, just observation) .
  • Always keep a divorce attorney on retainer.
  • Kardashians are like dogs that do tricks over and over…if you reward them by watching their four-hour long wedding specials, they’re just gonna keep getting married.