Weddingbee Blog

I wrote this post a long time ago but thought it was too controversial to post. But Mrs. Bee says that we should publish it anyway, so I am publishing it here under protest. I hope that you all don’t hate me after reading this.

I have enjoyed reading about wedding planning from a female perspective. I have to admit, it is very different from the traditional male perspective. So I thought I’d share how one man (me) experienced the wedding planning process.

Men are very different. For most men, we don’t really care very much about the wedding in and of itself. Well actually when Mrs. Bee and I first started planning the wedding, I was pretty excited to plan out a nice day. However, the number of decisions and details required quickly overwhelmed me - and I realized that I didn’t care enough to make the effort to plan out the sort of wedding that I had visualized. So in my mind’s eye, I started fantasizing about a ceremony at City Hall followed by a small intimate dinner (something along the lines of what ended up being our Rehearsal Dinner). I had the good sense not to suggest this as an option.

We men end up caring about the wedding of course, but for very different reasons than you women. We don’t really care about the details of the wedding. But we end up caring, for three very specific reasons:

• We care about your happiness. Because it is so important to you, it is important to us.
• We care that our friends and family will be there. So it’s important not to be embarrassed or look bad.
• We care how much this will all cost. Nuff said.

I’m pretty sure it bothered Mrs. Bee that I didn’t care enough about these details. I thought I gave a lot of mindshare overall though, relative to how much I actually cared in general. I am good at making decisions, so after Mrs. Bee would do the research, I Would help her make the final call. I know that didn’t make up for my lack of interest though. Over time, I got less and less involved and Mrs. Bee just made all the decisions herself.

Overall, I give myself a C- for my wedding involvement. My grade would be lower, but I was very supportive overall - which I define as not objecting too much over the cost of the wedding (I can not stress enough how shocking the cost of everything was. It’s been over a year, and I am still in shock!). But Mrs. Bee just enjoyed wedding planning so much, it was clear that she had found one of her life passions (which turned into a career, much to our mutual delight!). But when it came to the little todos, I learned that I should either be totally involved or not at all. Too often, Mrs. Bee felt she had to run decisions by me and I ended up as yet another obstacle in the decision making process.

Maybe this is just how me and my guy friends think about weddings. Is your future husband truly into the wedding planning process?

Mrs. Bee and I are here out in LA visiting her family (aka my in-laws).

I talked with her dad earlier this year about calling him “Dad”, but I haven’t done it yet this trip (OK, ever). I am sure it will pop out some time naturally. But so far, it has been great to spend time with Papa Bee and Mama Bee. I got really lucky: I like my in-laws a lot, and enjoy visiting LA and spending time with Bee’s fam.

The hardest part of the trip actually has been Mrs. Bee’s blogger’s block. We are sitting in a Starbucks in Rowland Heights CA (paying $10 a day for wifi!!!), and Bee hasn’t been able to get in a groove. We came out to California for my business trip, so I must apologize to Weddingbee readers for the reduced bloggage!

Anyway on the subject of in-laws, I think parents/in-laws are one of the single biggest factors in wedding stress. If you get along with them, than wedding planning is tough but doable. But if you don’t, then wedding planning can explode into something horrifically stressful.

Are your in-laws affecting your wedding planning?

Hello this is Mr. Bee. Weddingbee HQ has been knocked out by a renegade electrical outage!

Mrs. Bee contacted me from her Sidekick with this emergency message. She is currently relocating to a cafe, at which point regular updates will resume.

~~~

Phew ok I’m in a Starbucks now enjoying a chai tea latte and some crumb cake. The weather has been crazy this past week in New York, and this is the second time the power has gone out on our block.

And now Mr. Bee has his own character. Yay for Mr. Bee!

Hello ladies, Mr. Bee here. Some of our bees recently asked about the legal risk of posting vendor rants and raves. Some of these issues have come up in my day job, so I thought I’d comment a bit.

Basically, “C” is absolutely right when she says:

As for the Knot, under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (safe harbor for ISPs and forum operators), they are not liable for comments posted by users of their site, even if the comments do end up being defamatory. They might be more worried about loss in potential ad revenue/sponsorship by vendors rather than lawsuits.

One caveat though. From what I understand (and IANAL), this broad liability exception applies nicely to message boards; however, it would not necessarily apply to sites with an editorial process. For example, the New York Times couldn’t use Section 230 to claim that they are immune to defamation claims.

So which one is Weddingbee? I would have to ask an attorney to be sure, but my general sense is:

• The Weddingbee posts themselves probably do create liability for Weddingbee, since they are approved by hand
• Any comments probably do not

That said, every post and comment in Weddingbee should be as truthful as possible. As someone said in the comments, the greatest defense against defamation is the truth. Weddingbee will never publish something it knows to be untrue. Our reputation is what’s most important to us, and so we will continue to champion the rights of brides.