As a researcher for a wedding company, I literally look at hundreds of websites a week that are wedding related. Some websites are shockingly beautiful (mostly photographers) and some are shockingly bad (djs). Some offer a lot of good ideas and advice (wedding planners) and some offer nothing but their services (bakeries). Wading through the bull, what has stood out to me with weddings are, they’re a big ‘ol mess and up to anyone’s interpretation.
To me a wedding is a big celebration regarding the joining of two lives because of the bonds of love. You want to be with this person, you want to grow old with this person, support this person, be proud of this person, maybe start a family and create new life, together. Your personalities should be reflected in your celebration whether it’s 20 guests or 200. Finding a leg to stand on or where to start is hard.
I remember buying three wedding magazines that looked interesting to me. When I flipped through the almost catalogue sized magazines, I was only able to find one, ONE, image worth tearing out of the “books” to add to my wedding portfolio. All the pictures were gorgeous but all the weddings featured were the same. They all seemed to fall into one of these categories- fancy dress/high fashion wedding, relaxed dress/country wedding, interesting dress/hipster wedding or flowing dress/beach wedding. They all had detail pictures some neat but mostly they were all things I had seen before. The same checklist of what to do and when to do it. It was, to be honest, boring. All the brides were these thin, waifs of a girl in white dresses and the men were rough and handsome. I began to doubt these were even real weddings. It seemed like an elaborate stage set in glossy, high resolution. Where is the magazine to help brides plan on a budget? Or plan from out of state? Or plan a unique wedding? Have we lost all use for being individuals and unique? Where are the glamorous bigger girls? The sassy mixed breeds? Have weddings too become so mainstream there is no river of diversion? Every magazine was telling me – this is a once in a lifetime event you should splurge, but I didn’t want to, I wanted to be thrifty and fun and smart about it.
Everyone seems to mention offbeatbiride.com, which is a great site, but it too hyper focuses on a certain type of wedding – everyone is tattoo’d, goth, punk, rockabilly, psychobilly, zombies. It’s the exact opposite, but that’s it. It too lax diversity. It has great ideas and suggestions but lacks the traditional influence. Also, while the internet is grand, I really just want something concrete, in my hands to flip through. I don’t want to pay a small fortune for a book I will use for six months and then try to resell on Amazon. I sit in a chair all day and surf the internet for work, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a chair in front of my computer at home and research wedding tips, ideas, timelines, etc.
Most of what I came up with for my wedding was just things that came to me and some suggestions from friends – a futurama wedding cake, a photobooth with a cheesy Tiki theme, Tiki magnets as favors to go with the photobooth pictures, my dress was bought from a consignment bridal shop… I mean it wasn’t like I needed to research a lot but I wanted to because this is the one day you can make it all about you. If you want pies instead of a wedding cake, go for it, if you want a skull covered alter instead of a marble one, have at it, if you want a black dress instead of white, enjoy.
I just want all brides to know it’s not easy, being green (eco-friendly) or finding your own groove. You get a lot of sometimes unwanted input from people on what your wedding should be and it’s easy to lose sight of what your day is … It’s YOUR day. I loved my wedding I just wish there was some magazine out there that I could buy in the local grocery store (without having to research on the internet where to buy it) that spans the grander spectrum of weddings – from the weird to the unique to the traditional with advice on transplanting weddings, saving money and loving the process. I want it all and I want it now.
