Special Snowflake in a Mason Jar

There have been many ups and downs in the process of planning this crazy wedding shindig. Many. The important thing is that I have people to share it with. And even more importantly, people to snark it with.

For ages now (possibly before the ring was even on it, but I'm not saying), I have adored snarking wedding media. It’s inherently snarkable - the entire industry takes itself way too seriously. And I’m not just talking about the David Tuteras of the world, or the magazines or websites that push the wedding industrial complex and the idea of the special daaaaaay.

When J and I got engaged I headed to the "non-typical" bride side of the aisle, seeing as I didn't want the big-haired, spray-tanned, rhinestone jewelried, dj-with-smoke-machine, cake-that-looks-like-Tiffany-Box wedding details that are so pervasive in the part of Brooklyn I grew up in (and in the places where the people I grew up with have moved to or have relatives). A friend refers to it as the "LI Weddings" crowd, but it's not just Lawn Guyland that rolls this way. Too my surprise, what I'm finding is that the so-called "offbeat" brides are even more precious about meaningless details. (Not to mention more prone to fits of bawling and hand wringing). I like the fact that A Practical Wedding deals with issues outside of chair covers and etiquette, but if I read one more Wedding recap where the bride drones on about the “deep emotions of the day causing tears to well up in her eyes”, mine are going to roll right out of my head. I’m an emotional person, but reading about how these people started bawling at the drop of a hand-made doily because they saw the ring pillow their Great Aunt Gertie made coming up the aisle started to make me wonder if I'm some kind of robot. I don't cry. I cringe, I snark, I shut down, but I’m not a bawler. And what’s more, I was having a hard time getting worked up about the teeny tiny details of weddings. Reading all of the Indie Bride blogs (Offbeat Bride, APW, DIY Bride and a billion others), every recap I read talks about how important it was that they have an emotional connection to the detail of the wedding. Every last detail. I’ve joked with friends IRL about how these posts read about how they grew the cotton to weave into table cloths and raised cows for the buttercream on the handmade cake the baked with the flour they milled with their own hands, while their beloved blew the glass for the Edison bulb lights that would hang meaningfully over the reception. Oh, and the only vessel for either drinking or holding flowers or collecting the meaningful thoughts and prayers and hopes for the couple on paper handmade by the couple on a meaningful, sun-dappled day together.

Now, if any of you know me at all, this is not me. I appreciate the craftiness of others, but my own craft skills are limited. What’s more, I don’t mind things that are ready made. I found a lovely venue with nice chairs and tables and a nice view that is going to be doing the lion’s share of the work for me. I’m not excited at the idea of staying up until all hours of the night hand-crafting centerpieces or escort cards or meaningful touches that most of the guests will either ignore or smile at for a moment and promptly forget. In fact, I was having an even harder time trying to parse out why exactly some of this dumb shit was meaningful - I hate that I even know what escort cards are. In my mind, the only part of the wedding that should be super-meaningful is the ceremony. And only to a certain line (the part where it doesn’t turn cloying). In fact, all of the posts I read were about how these brides managed to have fun somehow despite nearly driving everyone in their wake positively barmy about the minutiae leading up to the day itself.

It seems that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, though! I was reading the bulletin boards on Offbeat Bride last night and found a delicious wank that helped me have a marvelous moment of clarity.

The wank began sometime yesterday when someone posted that she was worried that her photographer (a big name wedding photog in Australia) was inspired by her wedding to write this rant. The rant didn't seem to be directed at anyone in particular, but at a symptom that has been running amok through weddings lately - frippery run amok; details and decor standing in for actual emotion; that sort of thing.

Naturally, the bride’s reaction to this rant completely missed the point the photographer was trying to make and completely proved him right. This line in particular crystalized a huge issue I’ve been having in the planning of my own day:

“Everything had meaning, the venue itself was an organic farm, without airs and graces - I planted hundreds of bulbs there six months ago that I only told a few people about. So yeah, for us, the 'details' were private demonstrations of emotion and the values embedded in our lives. ”

Am I the only fucking one here who is absolutely fucking bewildered about how bulbs or tablecloths or mason jars or fucking fairy lights in the trees are supposed to be ‘private demonstrations of emotion and the values embedded in our lives’? And more than that - how in blue blazes am I supposed to infuse everything from the dress to the dinner napkins with this all-important ‘meaning’, especially when I have no idea what in hell the kind of meaning I’m supposed to put in them? If everything has meaning, then nothing has meaning. And the whole exercise is fruitless. I've long suspected that all of the bloviating about the importance and hidden meaning of details was a way to justify the fact that you went insane over some trifle that no one gives a shit about but you. So, I found it really hard to get excited about any of it.

Maybe I’m not like some of these people planning weddings in that I’ve thrown some parties in my time, all varied in scale. And I’ve even been told that said parties were pretty damn awesome. Halloween parties that were discussed all year. A birthday party so epic it spawned a sequel a few days later (also equally epic). Good times. And you know what I learned? While a little detail can go a long way (some tablecloths and wall hangings and some halloween music to get in the spirit, perhaps), the real trick is to figure out a good mix of people who mingle and mix and make their own fun. Keep the drinks (boozy and non-boozy) flowing, serve some reasonably tasty food and give people an icebreaker, and all sorts of fun things can happen.

Look, I’m not laboring under any delusions of grandeur here - a wedding may be an important party, but in the end? It’s just a fucking party. Hopefully a good party. But still. A party. That’s what I want - a good party with good music where people are comfortable with each other and have a good time. No one is going to remember the centerpieces unless they: A) Fall over
B) are so bizarre that they impede conversation.

Few will care what the escort cards/poster looks like past the “Where are we sitting?” part.

No one will even look at the tablecloth, except when they spill something on it. No one will give a damn about the chairs unless there are none. I don’t want to run around with my hair on fire running about stupid details. I do that every day at my job and it sucks.

I already know that I’m a unique and special snowflake. I don’t need to do something that I perceive to be “totally original and unique and special” to feel like it. After years months of reading wedding media, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing that hasn’t been done before. It’s all been done. So there’s not a reason on this blue globe why I should work myself into a lather trying to do the impossible and find something supposedly unique. I burned out on that trope years ago - it's like running to the horizon: impossible, frustrating and fruitless.

I’m just going to do the easy part where I marry this guy I love a lot. And then we take some pictures, I eat the expensive food and drink the expensive drinks I paid for, I punch a few people who are clinking glasses trying to make us kiss, we take more pictures, and I dance until I fall over. There will be a few personal touches that I hope make my guests chuckle. But that’s as far as this bus will go.

Hail to thee, Jonas Peterson. Your exasperated outburst made me feel so much better. I know more than ever that I don’t have to feel bad because my wedding doesn’t look like an Anthropologie catalog had a baby with a Pottery Barn catalog and the kid puked all over my wedding. Let someone else do that. I’m going to make a kick-ass playlist and a few phone calls and leave it at that.