The Great Sucking Sound

There is nothing quite like the thought of a wedding to turn rational people right 'round and pushed into the land of the unreasonable. As you can see by additions to my sidebar, I am referring to myself. The sucking lure of dresses, shoes and funky cakes has been affecting me. Rather badly, I'll admit. No, I am not going to play princess, but I would like a nice dress and a cool pair of shoes, and it would be nice if we had a little nod to tradition in the form of something approximating a cake. I don't really want a wedding ceremony; I just want a party with some of the wedding trappings. The cool wedding trappings, not wedding kitsch. No limos, no color coordinated wedding favors, no muscle shirt tanks for me and the girls with "bride" and "maid of honor" and "bridesmaid" rhinestoned across the front to wear at my shower, no maid of honor, no bridesmaids, no shower.

As for the rest of it, as Ms K notes about the dress shopping scheme, at what other point in my life would it make sense to sit around fantasizing about even just the cool stuff, even if I don't ultimately do anything about any of it? It would be a little peculiar if I kept a running blog with pictures of Fabulous 50's dresses suitable for getting married in, if I were not, in fact, getting married. But I am feeling rather puerile here with my online 'scrapbooking' of shoes and cupcake wedding cakes and old pictures of Audrey Hepburn. Lahk, o mah gawd... it's all so kew-aht.

But I won't feel too very bad about it, because even David says -- perhaps jokingly, but only just jokingly jokingly -- that he'd like to wear a tux. He'd be happy going to the justice 'o the peace and having a quiet little informal supper with immediate family members, full stop, but he wants to wear a tux? See, now that I consider pretty irrational. What's the point of a tux if you don't strut it out there a bit for the viewing pleasure of the many-headed?

Speaking of wedding kitsch, Ms K and I stumbled across a wedding gifts, accessories and supply store down in the Pearl the other day. I've seen all that stuff on the various wedding sites populating the web such as weddingchannel.com and theknot.com. It was kind of stomach turning to see so much of it in an actual enclosed space. The layout was all very tastefully done and all that, as much as you can layout polyester satin garters, decks of love cards and sports-themed invitations to bachelor parties in a tasteful manner, but it really drove home the fact that this is a bona fide industry, complete with captains and marketing departments breathing down the necks of graphic artists as they toil to pull out every possible wedding trope they can come up with to package in a thousand different kitschy ways.

I'm trying to imagine what my friends, family and colleagues would think (because they would say nothing at all...) if I pulled out on them heart-shaped bottle openers ("He unlocked the key to your heart! Celebrate your love with these charming key bottle openers....")

...or "The Perfect Pair" candle favors

... or "Love Beyond Measure" souvenir measuring spoons



... or "The Perfect Blend" mug and coffee packet sets.

There's little doubt in my mind what David's reaction would be. He'd call the whole thing off and have a new ad up in the personals on Craig's List before the day was over.

You know what this stuff is, of course, or at least those of you familiar with the corporate world do. It's the marketing through trade show give-aways of the couple as corporate entity. It's branding. Oh, I need to chew on that one some more... link it to the ubiquitousness of corporate entities in our everyday lives and all that... deconstruct, deconstruct, deconstruct.

The Industry

For the past several days, I've been scouring the Internets for wedding related stuff. It seems appropriate enough that I do so, given that I scoured the Internets for the groom. I found the groom, miracle of miracles, but good ideas for a second wedding in my middle years seem somewhat less likely to pop up via online mediated methods for coming up with ideas.

The wedding industry these days is huge. Enormous. Obscene. I haven't fact-checked these stats, so until I do, take them with a certain amount of healthy skepticism, but one source I've found claims that the average price of a wedding these days is $20,000. One of my students last term did her paper on weddings and the processes people go through to decide what they are going to do. One couple she interviewed was given $12,000 by the bride's parents, then took out a loan themselves for another $15,000. The most elaborate wedding I've ever attended cost about $12,000. I cannot imagine what $27,000 might bring to the whole affair to make it worth going into the same amount of debt as a Honda Fit. The whole package would buy a Mini Cooper S convertible. Can I have the really cute car, please? I mean, if I'm going to be all materialistic and all that....

But this is what I find the really big, confusing mystery; the average honeymoon only costs $3,800. What's wrong with these people? I could put on a really rockin' party for $3,800, and use that $27,000 for one heck of a great trip. I mean one HECK of a great trip, lasting several months and covering several countries. Who on earth in their right minds would do it the other way around?

In an unthinking, impetuous moment, I subscribed to a site called "WeddingChannel.com" and am now inundated with daily emails about reception sites in my area, great deals on wedding favors and the latest news on the latest bridal trends. Short veils and bird's nests are apparently all the rage.

Bird's nests?

In an effort to get outside the proverbial bridal box, I googled "alternative wedding gowns." No. No goths, no saucy wench dresses, thank you. How about "nontraditional weddings?" No. Washing of feet will not be done. "Offbeat weddings?" No. No clown themes, pirate themes, circus themes, biker themes, marriage ceremonies performed in hot air balloons or vows recited while bungee jumping off bridges in New Zealand. No, no, no, no, no and no. No.

This afternoon I went up to Portland to tell one of my bestest friends the news. After the requisite gasps and hugs, she took me by the shoulders and said, "You HAVE to go dress shopping, and I HAVE to go with you." Ms K and I go back a ways with the whole fascination over clothing thing, so it's not as funny as some of you might think. Besides, that was the advice that one of her friends gave to her upon the announcement of her engagement, and she acknowledged that it was a remarkable experience. I am not going to buy the traditional wedding dress, and certainly won't be spending $10,000 on a Vera Wang, but at what other point in my life will I ever have a legitimate excuse to go into high end bridal shops and be waited on hand and foot as I try on clothes priced in the multi-thousands of dollars? I don't have a daughter, and never will, so I can't hope to one day live vicariously through her while she fantasy shops for a wedding dress she would never in a million years buy, so why the heck not do it myself when I have the opportunity to walk into those shops and say with a straight face that I'm getting married and need to see about a dress?

I told David about this Grand Idea this evening. He sounded slightly anxious, like perhaps I might actually decide to plunk down that $10,000, or worse, that I might want him to tag along on my shopping trips. No, darling... it was kind and sweet of you to offer to go see the 'Sex and the City' movie with me, but that's as far as I would ever expect you to go to indulge whatever gurlie tendencies I might have, and even that was above and beyond the call of duty. (He did not actually go to see 'Sex and the City' with me; I went with Ms K and her mom, and he went to 'Hellboy2' with my son and nephew.)

Bird's nests?