Bridal Skank

Ms K and I went to the Rose City Bridal Show this Sunday. It was interesting, perhaps even fascinating, but in a way that left us feeling like we had slummed just a little too long amongst a crowd just a little too questionable. Having worked at the Chamber, to say nothing of hob-nobbing with video producers, I've seen my share of trade shows, but I don't think I've ever been to one populated with vendors quite so aggressive. It was rather like tales I've heard of the souk, and reminded me of the 'craft market' gauntlet I ran at Quilatoa in Ecuador this summer.... only substantially creepier. Large men loomed out at us, stepping outside the confines of their booths to challenge us, coming darn near close to blocking our progress: "Have you thought about your honeymoon yet," they rumbled suggestively. "You got your venue yet," they sleazily crooned. Heavily made-up women with clouds of stiff hair larger than I've seen for years outside of beauty supply stores in Dallas, pitched laser hair removal at us and, unbelievably, make up and hair consultations.

The fashion show was narrated by an MC whose oily suggestions of "dream days" and floating off into the fairy dust of "happily ever after" had my married friend barely able to contain herself. I think I'm just about fed up with hearing or reading this stuff and nonsense about "what every little girl dreams of," as if the greatest wish and goal of females is - naturally - pretending to be a princess bride for one day of their lives. At least this guy suggested that Wedding Day Bliss is what all little boys dream of, too: "All little boys dream one day of being just like their dads." That may well be so in many cases, but this is the first I've heard that dressing up in an ill-fitting tux to play court jester with his buddies at his wedding was a part of that future dreaming. I've kind of gotten the impression that men, as a general rule, would just as soon skulk off somewhere and get it all over with quickly, maybe followed by a round of beers at the pub down the street.

But that's a stereotype, too, as is whatever motivated the event organizers to set up a playpen (a.k.a. "groom's lounge") for male attendees complete with "leather couches and sports." Leather couches and sports. I left my groom at home where he spent the day sitting on his son to get homework done, grading papers, mowing the lawn, trimming some bushes, and, it has to be said, sitting on leather furniture watching sports. I'm marrying a male stereotype, apparently. The difference is that when he does accompany me shopping, I don't have to stick him in the adult male version of the Ikea ball-room. Come to think of it, when we "go shopping," it's usually me accompanying him. So there.

"Groom's Lounge," with one lone, camoclad, [presumed] groom sitting on a leather couch and looking listlessly at the big screen TV that was not working.

But back to the fashion show. There were dancing grooms -- insert Jets and Sharks imagery here... just picture them in tuxes from Mr. Formal -- most of whom carried themselves in a way strongly suggesting gay. I will have to say, though, that one can never know, or at least I can't. My groom has been mistaken for gay on more than one occasion because of the way he talks. Fifteen years of spending one's days surrounded by ten year olds and women will do that to a guy's vocal inflections, I suspect. He does not, however, snap and prance down runways.

There were cute flower girls and an impish ring bearer and prancing, jesting groomsmen and brides trying to maintain some semblance of dignity until they got to the "older brides" bit. "Forty is the new 20," the MC unctuously oiled, "and 50 is the new 30." They then sent out onto the runway the grooms in their Mr. Formal and Mens Wearhouse tuxes, stringing them out in a line. And out come three women, dressed in costumes ranging from reasonably tasteful if one squinted one's eyes, to downright desperate. The gal in the electric lime green mini sheath and jacked up on Lucite platform heels was perplexing. I'm going to be a 47 year old bride. This is how I'm supposed to dress? Heck, why didn't someone tell me? I can get a polyester skank dress from Fredericks of Hollywood for under $70, and I can get a pair of Lucite platforms for under $25.

The "older brides" came out in full "cougar" mode, toying with the young grooms, pushing them to their knees, leaving them quaking. And then comes the eight year old ring bearer. These "older brides" leave off stroking and teasing the too-young-but-at-least-adult grooms, and chase the poor child down the runway. Ms. K exclaimed loud enough for a woman of a certain age sitting next to us to hear, "You mean they're so desperate, they'll sleep with children?!" I pondered out loud, "What do you suppose would happen if they sent a bunch of adult male models chasing after one of the flower girls that way...?"

And as the ring bearer played at skittering away in escape, the MC oozed, "He's running now, but someday, he'll love it."

Other highlights:


Ridiculous get-away cars, one of which we might win, because I entered into just about every drawing I came across, short of the Sandals honeymoon package.


Gangster grooms.


Men in male lingerie.

And of the possible door prizes I could win, I doubt it will be the ridiculous "get-away car." I'm making book on the towel wedding cake.

Go Towel Wedding Cake!

More Stuff to Buy

I followed the groom to one of the larger chain purveyors of books yesterday, and noticed the ubiquity of "scrapbooking" paraphernalia. What was once a fairly simple and organic method of personal archiving has become commodified to the point of practically selling folks the very mementos that go into the archive. The hyper commodification of this practice is not exactly new, I know. I had a colleague seven or eight years ago who was obsessed with it, and it was then that I became introduced to the phenomenon of scrapbooking for scrapbooking's sake. She would have "scrapbooking parties," and kept inviting me, but I never could stomach the thought. I realize now that I should have gone to at least one in the name of ethnography, but as is frequently the case for even professional anthropologists, one so often fails to see ethnographic significance when it's staring one in the face in the course of everyday life, even when it's doing so with much fanfare, waving around ribbons and rubber stamps and bits of colored paper and scissors that will cut it into decorative edging.

At the time of those many enthusiastic exhortations to come get in on all the cuttin' 'n pastin' fun, it struck me as peculiar, this hoopla over the new thing to do. My mother has some old scrapbooks up in the attic full of detritus accumulated mostly during her stint as a stewardess flying the New York-South America route for Pan American in the mid-1950's, back in the old propeller Constellation and Stratocruiser days: cocktail napkins from hotels in Caracas, concert programs, notes from suitors in her various ports of call, etc. (hmmm, she thinks to herself.... I ought to dig those up and do some preservation work). I've always associated this collecting of bits and pieces of this and that specifically with travel. The old family Christmas tree is a "scrapbook" of sorts, full of souvenirs from various wanderings, and the guest bathroom in my parents' house is a veritable museum of Mini Soaps of Many Nations, squirreled away from hotels all over the world. My parents (and I think it's specifically my mother) are hotel mini soap magpies.

It's not scrapbooking, itself, that bugs me. Anyone with a modicum of archivist tendencies does it, and my guess is that the practice dates back centuries. I found some examples of cool "scrapbooking" in Latacunga in Ecuador associated with the La Mama Negra festival. Part of the costuming involves elaborate headdresses and chest pieces embroidered with bits and pieces of everyday life: buttons, coins, little toy airplanes, flashlight bulbs, doll body parts, etc. Below is a sadly not very sharp picture, but you get the idea.
I'm going to make one of those one of these days. It's a great use of all those little pieces of junk filling up that one drawer in the kitchen, suitable for framing. But I'm "scrapbooking" here, aren't I? I'm just doing it online, ostensibly in connection with nuptials.

But, back to the large, chain purveyor of books. I could choose between any number of wedding planners/organizers with scrapbooking features, I could buy The Book of Us: A Journal of Your Love Story in Fifty Questions, and I could buy a journal/scrapbook for just about every aspect of my life. In fact, the scrapbook, journal and personal organizer seem to have melded into one massive industry of paper and glue and scissors and ribbons and stickers and rubber stamps and glitter ink and stuff, stuff and more stuff to stuff into pre-themed books in a frenzy of crafty documentation of the mundane. Not that there's anything wrong with that, except when one starts to wrap one's head around the massive scale of the commodification of archival documentation. The sheer volume of stuff that's sold to stuff into those books would seem to leave little room for personal mementos. It's as if what's being pedaled is the archival documentation of scrapbooking paraphernalia.

On a different note, while at the mall where said large purveyor of books was located, we wandered past a wedding/prom dress store called Emporio Bridal and Formal. Now, before I go any further, I think you can pretty much guess what sort of concoctions might be found at a place called Emporio Bridal and Formal located at the Clackamas Town Center. CTC may be more 'upscale' these days since the departure of Tanya Harding's practice rink and the arrival of REI, but this store had enough polyester to critically affect the ambiance of the whole complex. Between Emporio and Frederick's of Hollywood just down the mall a few steps, no amount of REI-ness can exorcise the ghost of dear Tanya.

The place was full (and I do mean full... those dresses take up a lot of room) of things like these prom/quinceanera dresses from online retailer BargainWeddingGowns.com:

Lots and lots of tulle, super saturated primary and almost day-glo colors, sequins, and glitter galore. The wedding dresses were along the same lines, but in various renderings of white. They even had this exact wedding dress:

Imagine me in that, folks.

David looked at the price tag on one of the dresses and just about choked. "A thousand dollars...!"

Oh, honey, you're so naive and such a charming little doodle in your wide-eyed naivete, but $1,000 is cheap. I do have to admit, however, that it seems like an awful lot of money for fabric I could easily get for under $5 per yard, and that manufacturers can buy wholesale for less than a dollar per yard. Let's see... a manufacturer could buy a shipment of polyester crepe back satin wholesale for about 59 cents per yard, using approximately nine or ten yards, which comes out to about $6 in fabric per dress. Add stuff like lining, notions and embellishments, and we can estimate it at an even $10. Let's just say for the sake of yucks that this manufacturer pays his or her garment workers $13 per hour (the average wage of American Apparel workers, according to the San Francisco Chronicle). Skilled garment workers producing dresses in a Fordist fashion could easily churn out one of those Emporio off-the-rack numbers (we're clearly not talking couture here) within eight hours. That's $104 for the labor. The reality is that garment workers in countries like Bangladesh, where a lot of these dresses are made, make under $100 per month, so the labor might actually be costing somewhere around $3.50 for that dress, tops. Looked at in that light, $1,000 does seem like a lot of money to pay for a dress that cost under $15.00 to make, even accounting for "shipping and handling." I can see why David was shocked, but he hasn't seen the $10,000+ specimens that are out there. Emporio Bridal and Formal was not going to provide quite that kind of shopping experience.

No, I did not try anything on, just for fun. The place was a madhouse of women with their daughters (some accompanied by a male figure skulking in a corner with a look of terror on his face) flinging vast amounts of hot orange and lime green tulle around in an orgy of fashion hysteria. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much. It was busy. Besides, I've never had any real desire to dress up in Barbie doll clothes, even just for laughs. David and I came to the conclusion that the manufacturers of these dresses go straight to Princess Barbie for inspiration, which seems reasonable enough, given that so many little girls grow up with her as their most formative fashion icon. When they reach prom or bride age, they have in their heads an image of themselves looking just like their Barbie doll in her finest. Back in the old days, when Barbie first came out, that phenomenon of giving little girls ideas wasn't quite such a taste disaster in the making as it has become.

Wedding Invitation Wording Grouch

I've been putting off class syllabi, the tanking banking system, lipstick, pigs, pitbulls, hockey moms, the thought of Todd Palin with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office, and other Issues of Great Significance the past couple of days by distracting myself with the concept of the Wedding Invitation. Today I ran across a Land 'o Blog's post titled "Wedding invitation wording that won't make you barf."

The draw to that title was powerful. Many of the ideas floating around out there are, indeed, barf-worthy. Examples of suggested wording I found in my wanderings include the following:

Because you have shared in
our lives
by your friendship and love, we
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
together with our parents
invite you to share
the beginning of our new life
together
when we exchange marriage
vows ....


Something borrowed and
something blue
some things are old, some
things are new
Someone to care and share
your life
the dream of every husband
and wife
Please join us
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
as we are married
on ....


You work, you play
and then, one day...
love just happens!
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
invite you to be a witness
to one of life's loveliest
surprises
as they are joined together in
matrimony
on...


Friends forever we will be
whether walking on the beach
or sailing on the sea...
Please be our guest as we,
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
join together
on ....


He asked, and she said yes...
or was it the other way around?
However it happened
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
are getting married
and they ask you to join them
on ....


He proposed to her on bended
knee,
He asked "Will you travel
through life with me?"
Mary Nolan
said "Yes!" to
David Muñoz
You're invited to their wedding
on.....


Just like a page our of a
fairy tale the storybook romance
comes true...
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and David Antonio Muñoz
invite you to share in the joy
when they exchange
marriage vows on ....


Like the leaves on an
Autumn breeze, our hearts are
uplifted by love...
It is with great joy that we
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and
David Antonio Muñoz
will pledge our love as one
on...


From the first Tee
we knew we Wood spend
the Course of our lives together
We,
Mary Nolan
and
David Muñoz
Wood be delighted if you'd join
us
at our wedding
on ...


We found the days were much
too short for all the dreams we
wanted to share and all the love
we wanted to give
Mary Kathryn Nolan
and David Antonio Muñoz
request the honor of your
presence as we begin a life of
dreaming loving and sharing
together on...

ad nauseum.

How about something along the lines of XXX and XXX invite you to their wedding party on such-&-such a date at this location...?

Doesn't that do it? I mean, doesn't the fact that we're marrying each other come with all the bromides already embedded? Must they be ink-jetted onto lokta and stuffed into a hundred 100% recycled/30% post-consumer waste, green certified envelopes?

The 'wording that won't make you barf', by the way, isn't really any better. I eschew all adverbs. I won't "joyfully" request anyone's presence. It's a party. I'm not qualifying it as a pity party, so I think "joy" is already implied.

And I just have to say about that one about the lovely surprise; "...invite you to be a witness to one of life's loveliest surprises as they are joined together in matrimony...," if one is standing at the altar in a state of shock, completely surprised to find oneself in such a position, it may not be a good sign, no matter how "lovely" the surprise might be. I think I recall feeling numb at my first one, probably because I was repressing the shock.

On a somewhat related note, because it's about invitations, I recall as a youth my mother telling me of the day when people (that would be women) would run their fingers over received wedding invites to see whether or not they were engraved, and that the social standing of the bride's family was ultimately determined by the presence or absence of this quality marker. Today the ultimate marker is letterpress. I would have to expect to spend a bare minimum of about $500 for my invitations if I were to have them letterpressed. They could easily get upwards of $2000. Expect homemade jobs, my friends, and damn my reputation.

Wedding Excess

I'm trying to imagine what this might cost. I would say that if you have started dreaming about marching down a long, thick carpet of rose petals, your fantasies have gotten the best of you.

Parties and Their Favors

Beyond a nine year old's birthday party, I'm not sure I get the fascination with party favors. I suppose when there is a gift exchange involved, which there frequently is at a wedding, it's not totally nonsensical. It's a reciprocity thing, wrapped up into the feasting that you lavish on your guests. They bring you prezzies and provide an audience so you feel like what you're doing is really important in the grand scheme of things, and you give them food, drink, and matchbooks with your name on them in ornate silver lettering.

Poking around the "blogosphere" today, I did a search for "bitching brides," hoping to find examples of nuptial grousing about the process, still on something of a 'bridal disasters and tantrums' kick. As it happens, there is a team blog called exactly that: "Bitching Brides." All told, it's really not that interesting, but that may just be because it seems to be a recent addition to the Land 'o Blogs. There is one reference to the doubtful wisdom of having a "chocolate fountain" in your wedding buffet when your bridal party includes six flower girls. Never mind the obvious imagery. Who does chocolate fountains anymore? And six flower girls? Isn't there a point when you are 'low' enough down in the social hierarchy that this sort of ostentation starts to smell like posing? It seems that anything ranking below a baronet should probably tone it down with the petal stewing cherubim. Three tops, people.

Anyway, what did catch my eye somewhat more profoundly -- if one can call it that -- in this Bitching Brides blog was a post by a woman who made her own bath salt party favors. She mixed up the blue-dyed ingredients, put them into glass soda bottles with tight fitting caps, and labeled them with a picture of her and her groom. Bath salts? Okay, whatever, as they say, but here's the thing; her concoction was a mixture of Epsom salts, bright blue dye, scented oil and baking soda, and the containers were airtight. Before too many days, this Molotov mixture was going off all over town and beyond in the homes of her guests. I would consider exploding party favors a portent. Mount St. Helen's blew her top the morning after my first wedding. Whatever happens, if any sort of explosions are associated with this next one, I'm going to stew.

Speaking of parties, today is this groom's 50th birthday. ¡Feliz cumpleaños, Senor Peligroso!