Wedding hesitations

I said wedding hesitations, which is quite different from marriage hesitations. You can breathe again, John! ;-) Of all the things that I could write about (packing, celebrating, graduating, moving), I am going to talk about weddings and the ridiculous industry it is. I went to David's Bridal today to look around, and was almost immediately put off. I was greeted by two fairly young ladies (early 20s at the oldest) who took my information. They asked me about the groom's first name and then instead of asking for his last name (this is where I was put off) said, "And your future last name?" To which I curtly replied, "I'll be keeping my last name, but his is Appert. A-P-P-E-R-T." The first thing that bothered me was the assumption that I would just throw out my last name. I know it's tradition, but I am not a traditional girl. I'm the girl who has sported a hair style that was 3/4 an inch long and wore it proudly.

But beyond the obvious assumption was an underlying excitement--of romance, of sweet promises, and of happily every afters. And that bothered me too because we all know that that is not what marriage is about. It is about partnership, patience, persistence, and hard work.

I wanted to leave almost immediately, but I stayed and tried on, oh I don't know, 7 or 8 dresses? At least. There was one dress that I liked. The price, not so much. $500 for a dress that I'll wear once. My mom, who I got my financial sensibility from, stressed the importance of being able to wear the dress more than once. That dress, with a bustle in the back and lace and sequins all over, probably not wearable to other functions. And while I was there, the sales lady asked me twice about the colors of my wedding, whether I wanted to wear a veil, how I liked the shoes that were made exclusively for them.

And sometime during this afternoon, I became --disgusted?--with the wedding industry and the pressure to have a "proper" wedding. The invitations, the colors, the flowers, the location, the decor, the food, the booze, the DJ... In fact, I told one friend that we may not have a DJ and I think she was appalled. "Really?" she said. And where in all of those details is the marriage?

The track that we are on is for a wedding that is anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000. With that money, I could pay off a 1/3 of my graduate school debt, travel the world once over, buy a new-to-me car, feed many hungry families or one family for a very long time. In fact, were I to still live in the area, I would bake all the cupcakes myself. I wanted a small, intimate wedding--getting married at sunrise on a beach at Tahoe or a dock at Donner with a meal shared together with only family and our closest friends afterward--but now it seems to have become something else entirely.