Weddingbee Blog

Color me surprised! I never thought my post from yesterday would get so much attention! Thank you for all of your comments–I really think this is an interesting discussion and definitely worth a follow-up post. I’m taking a break from work in order to write it.

In addition to your current 78 comments, our discussion has inspired an entire blog post. Take a moment to read it–I’ll wait. Okay, are you back? Good. Some of you might be offended by what the author is insinuating–basically that we’re all kind of lame for caring about our weddings. I, for one, am not offended. On the contrary, I’m kind of intrigued. The entire post supports my musing from yesterday–which is that the judgment truly is there, and there is apparently a backlash. My confusion (and I am, honestly, totally confused), however, comes from the question of why. Why weddings?

It seems like there are a few arguments here. First, the idea that we are spending too much money on our weddings. Second, that we are spending too much time. Third, that we are feeding into an industry that tells us what to want, and we can’t help but do what they say. Fourth, that we are being socially inconsiderate by having weddings (impact on the environment, etc). Let’s start at number four and work backwards, shall we?

Reader livvie was the first one to bring up the idea of being socially conscious while planning your wedding. I think this is very important. In fact, I think I may start blogging on this subject every once in awhile. A wedding can definitely be a time to be socially conscious. I try to make socially conscious decisions on a daily basis (for example, Mr. Cream Puff and I share a car for conservation purposes–that car is a Prius), and I have brought my values to the wedding planning (my engagement ring was my grandmother’s–had we not had her ring, we would have picked another type of stone). I was made fun of at work for being a tyrant about recycling. So I’m with you on that, livvie.

However, I’m not really sure that it’s all that feasible for every aspect of a wedding to be socially conscious. I’ve made sure to ask important questions (for example, “is this chicken farm raised?” to my caterer) and I would never make the decision to haul my bridal party around in a stretch Hummer. But being totally socially conscious can be very expensive. I don’t have enough money to hire an organic caterer at $175/person (but believe me, I asked!), and I would venture to say that most people don’t. If I took all environmental factors to heart when planning our wedding, we would be spending a minimum of $50k, which might put me into the “spending too much money” category.

So yes, a wedding can be a great opportunity to be socially conscious. But it shouldn’t be the only time you make an effort to be socially conscious, nor should it be a reason not to have a wedding at all. To me, being socially conscious is about making the best decisions I can– not having a wedding celebration at all because I don’t want to have my rentals trucked 20 miles to my venue would be really sad to me. I don’t think that means I am a socially unconscious person.

Now, moving onto the “wedding industrial complex.” I’ve been engaged for over a year now. I can honestly say that during this year, I have not met one vendor–not one–who tried to pressure me into anything. And this is not because I am choosing the biggest package and therefore there’s nothing to talk me into. Most of the time, I’m trying to talk a vendor down in price on their absolute lowest package. The vendors usually say something like, “Weddings cost a lot of money, I totally understand…I can do X amount of money, but I gotta pay my bills.” Which, if you think about your wedding vendors as actual people who have actual bills to pay, is a pretty good argument. A videographer doesn’t just charge $2k to spend 12 hours with you on one day–they’re charging you for the hours and hours of work they put into editing the video after the wedding. If you assume that they spend another 40 hours editing (which is a LOW estimate of the amount of editing work, I think), they’re making less than $40/hour before taxes and overhead. That’s not exactly a ridiculous amount of money to be charging. I’m not saying that this “wedding industrial complex” doesn’t exist, but I just haven’t seen it. Maybe that kind of pressure is reserved for the insanely rich. I wouldn’t know.

As for the wedding industry telling me what to want? I resent the implication that I can’t think for myself. Furthermore, who cares what the wedding industry tells people to want? The nicotine industry tells people to buy cigarettes, the automobile industry tells people to buy Hummers and Mercedes and the fast food industry tells people to buy deep fried tacos. Who cares? This is something we deal with in all aspects of our lives, and we’re all grown-ups. I think we can handle the big, bad capitalistic “industries.”

Now…I will admit that I am spending a lot of time on my wedding. And maybe I’m a huge dork for wanting to blog about it on a national website. But you know what? I’m having a great time. For me, planning this wedding isn’t about having “the perfect day.” It’s about having a chance to be super creative. I live for DIY projects. Before the wedding, I would knit a bunch of scarves and then look at them and think, “now what?” Now I have a place to channel my creativity: “YAY! I can do this for my programs!” Gone are the days of pointless crafting. I have honest-to-god loved every second of every creative aspect of this wedding. That might not be everyone’s motivation for spending time on their wedding, but I know that it’s the reason for a lot of the Bees. I don’t think it’s right to assume that every bride is obsessing over her wedding because she wants it to be “perfect.” I totally don’t care if my wedding is perfect or not–what I do care about? The process of making all of my fun projects, and making sure that my efforts have culminated into a really fun day for me, Mr. Cream Puff, and our friends & family.

The money factor seems to be the issue that most people bring up. I find this confusing too. If it’s the lavishness (and of course, not all weddings are lavish) of weddings in a time of economic downturn that’s causing this, why is the focus only on weddings? As missrae pointed out, people who aren’t spending money on a wedding may be spending it on something like a giant gas-guzzling SUV or a huge lavish house, which they will then redecorate. Those things are very expensive.

Someone my mom knows is pretty judgmental about weddings in general. His take on it is this: weddings are frivolous because they are not tangible things. If you don’t have something tangible to show for your money, it was a waste. Personally, I think that’s a sad outlook. I don’t have anything but memories to show for my trips to Italy, Mexico and Israel, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world. If people want to spend money to enjoy their lives, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, so long as they aren’t hurting people or animals in doing so. As Mr. Cream Puff said, “what’s wrong with enjoying life and spending money that you’ve earned, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone? A wedding is a celebration and a joyous occasion shared by you and your loved ones. If you’re not going to spend money on that, I sure as hell don’t know what you should be spending your money on.”

So at the end of all this, I am still totally confused. I could go on and on and on (and I think I already have!), but at the end of the day I’m not really sure WeddingBee is the right forum for debating how people should be spending their money. I can, however, say this: I am an intelligent woman (I even studied Women’s Studies in college, gasp!) and still, I care about my wedding. I don’t think that by nature of being intelligent (or being a lawyer, livvie, sunflowers and Heather, haha) you can’t have any fun. To each his or her own. As long as it doesn’t hurt me, my fuzzy children or the environment, do what you want with your money and time. I’m not going to judge you for it.