I Would Like to Be A Conformist Lemming, Please!

[ladysprite]

I love my fiance with a deep and abiding passion. I love my friends and family, and I love the fact that I'm getting married. I love my pretty wedding gown, and the ceremony writing is actually starting to fall into place, and the chance to celebrate with several dozen of my nearest and dearest is just marvelous.

That said, this entire wedding rigmarole is starting to annoy the bejeezus out of me. Here is an entire industry bent upon making you realize that you're broke, worthless, and all of your friends will hate you forever if you can't afford an open bar and a rehearsal dinner at La Expensiva.

I honestly wish I had a small fortune to fund this one day of my life. I wish I could afford to feed everyone I've ever met bottomless booze and lobster risotto and an entire raw cow apiece, with live music and free pony rides. Or, barring that, I wish I was cool enough and talented enough to just find an empty hall somewhere and sew my own dress and grow my own flowers and bake my own cake and weave tiny handmade baskets and fill them with tiny homemade chocolates for all my guests. But I'm not that rich, and I'm not that talented, and so I'm stuck with a wedding that is going to scream 'frugal' to everyone I know who was lucky enough to have family with money. And it just makes it worse every time my mother cries because she's going to have to live with her daughter having a wedding that's "good enough" instead of Storybook Perfect, because she keeps insisting that it's her fault for being a bad mother and refusing to believe me when I say that I'm happy with chicken for dinner and bagels for the rehearsal breakfast, which makes me feel like I'm a cheap bitch for being happy with that.

Stupid wedding. Stupid social pressure. Stupid inferiority complex. Stupid student loans and stupid low-paying job. Blah.

Comments

[siderea]

All the money in the world can't buy magic.

Money can buy lobster risotto, but, you know, I can't think of a single fairy tale which mentions lobster risotto. Money can buy you a rehearsal dinner at La Expensiva, but, rack my brains as I might, I can't think of a single rehearsal dinner mentioned in all the Brothers Grimm, to say nothing of holding it one at an expensive restaurant.

I'm pretty sure I've read about flowers at weddings, but I can't think of a work of fantasy which involves florists. By way of contrast, I can think of any number of myths and legends which held that the flowers took care of themselves.

Knowing you, I don't think your heart is set on a middle-class conformity. What you want is the "Storybook" part, not the "Perfect" part. I'm pretty well convinced that one can manage the "Storybook" part with all of a spouse, a clean dress in your choice of colors, a handful of fresh-picked wildflowers, a public park, an officient, a Commonwealth of Massachusetts marriage license, and a sense of dignity. Everything additional is gravy.

So cling to your values and your aesthetics. If you want a Storybook Perfect wedding, you have to keep track of which storybook. But if you know which is your story, bemusedly blowing off trappings-pushers who are trying to sell you things which aren't in your story is much easier.

Ï

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

If you want a Storybook Perfect wedding, you have to keep track of which storybook. But if you know which is your story, bemusedly blowing off trappings-pushers who are trying to sell you things which aren't in your story is much easier.

This is both brilliant and beautifully said. May I add it to my quote file, and if so, how would you like to be attributed?

[siderea]

Why, thank you! Of course; just attribute it to Siderea on live journal. Or the same at "mixolydian.org"