There goes this future bride

If conventional wisdom is to be believed, every little girl dreams of her wedding day with the same raptness devoted to wanting to be a princess or ballerina, only unlike these dreams, this one never dies.

These little girls clearly never watched television.

There are tons and tons of shows dedicated to every aspect of the wedding day, and most of them are on TLC or Lifetime. I’ve always had a sort of sick fascination with them. They’re good for watching when my sister’s around or I’ve got a mindless chore to do, like cleaning stringbeans. As I get older, though, and marriage becomes, well, not a looming possibility — because I’m only in my early twenties — but something that’s suddenly actually an option instead of a far-away fairy tale, the idea of engaging in these bridezilla wars or going to these ridiculous lengths for the perfect gown, the more these shows make me want to take my stringbean knife and impale myself upon it.

And then there are the scripted weddings in television, like last week’s Office, which comes in the grand tradition of Friends and especially How I Met Your Mother (which Pam and Jim’s wedding stole quite liberally from). Don’t get me wrong, I love these episodes. They’re funny, heartfelt, sweet, wonderful looks at weddings. They make me yearn for my mythical Jim Halpert or Marshall Erikson (like, more than usual). It’s not that they don’t make me want to get married, they just make me think that weddings are the worst idea of all time.

First of all, there are all those dinners you have to plan around weddings. The rehearsal dinner, the bachelor and bachelorette parties (dear future wedding party: no and no and no freaking way), and the reception. All that stuff adds up, and it adds up to a lot. And what are you paying for? Something Michael Scott-ian to happen with awkward toasts? Stuffing a lot of people in a fancy room and being unable to enjoy the food because, holy crap, you’re getting married and have a million things to plan?

And weddings like Jim and Pam’s have taught me that there will always be people at weddings who you have to invite, like your Meemaw or co-workers who, if you had your way, totally wouldn’t come. Sorry, Meemaws of my life, I don’t want to spend that much money on you. If I continue down this career path of writing, I won’t have that much money to spend on myself unless I marry some sort of major shareholder in, like, pork bellies or whatever is the only thing not tanking on Wall Street right now.

And things go wrong. I know, for comedic effect, these things are exaggerated on television shows. Unlike Monica and Chandler, I doubt my church (or synagogue, or wherever) will be in the process of being knocked down. My groom will hopefully not, unlike Marshall, shave off half of his hair. Heaven forbid I spend the night before with a member of the wedding party because he tore his scrotum.

More and more, I can’t help but think that there’s a reason Jim and Pam, like Lily and Marshall of yore, ran away and did the real wedding on their own, in private, with only the people important to them there, if anyone was there at all. It seems ingenious. Why even go through the fuss of having a crazy wedding when you can do something like that, which saves money, stress, and my sanity?

I’m not saying that there should be no party where shenanigans can happen, but maybe that should take place, like, later that weekend. I’m all for shenanigans. The aisle dance during this week’s Office, for instance, was when I burst into happy tears. That was great. Excellent. Amazing. (And, strangely, I totally disliked the exact same thing when it was on YouTube. Weird.) If I — like Jim and Pam and Marshall and Lily — knew that this was not really my wedding but merely a chance for my friends and family to celebrate, I, too, could be cool with anything and everything that went down. That’s what having a nice reception is for. But having an actual wedding ceremony along with that? I will be running for the nearest fire exit, and no one can stop me.

After this wedding episode of The Office, I sighed, wiped my tears, and changed to this week’s Project Runway, where they were re-working bridal gowns from divorcees. These woman spent all this time and money on these giant (or, in some cases, not-so-giant) monstrosities only to end up here, divorced and on a catwalk for Heidi Klum.

So I’m taking it as an omen. Weddings are not worth it. And I’m never, ever, ever letting myself be sucked into them. Thank you, Thursday night television, for teaching me this valuable life lesson.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Oct 12, 2009 @ 15:05 EST5EDT