Aug 11, 2008

The Accidental Bridezilla

The invitations went out last week, and suddenly everyone seems to have entered panic mode. The Fiancé, who typically keeps his cool under even the most strenuous circumstances, had to take a walk last Monday after I mentioned that some of our guests had already received their invites. It seems our pending nuptials are making even him a little nervous. Meanwhile my mom, who's in charge of collecting the 300 response cards, is providing regular RSVP updates: "We've gotten dozens of responses, and only two people have declined," she told me yesterday. Like I said: panic.

The next six weeks will be plenty stressful, but at least The Fiancé and I tend to agree on most wedding decisions—well, maybe not so much "agree" as he doesn't care about many of the finer points. That's one of the benefits of marrying a guy whose biggest wedding-day concern is making sure the Bears game will be on somewhere. It also helps that the planning process has been a team effort. The stuff he doesn't have an opinion about he defers to me; the stuff I don't have an opinion about I defer to my mother. She always has an opinion.

"I stressed out about not having chair covers because I thought the hotel chairs were ugly," one married friend told me about her own nuptials a few years back. Chair covers may sound trivial, but they can add up to a major expense. "This caused several arguments, which I eventually lost. But I showed up on the day of the wedding, and my parents surprised me with them anyway." Looking back, she says, those covers were a silly thing to get upset about. Easy for her to say now. She didn't have to live with ugly chairs.

Another point of contention for some folks is the guest list. "We were totally cool with a mid-size wedding, but once we got into the details of who was in and who was out, we really struggled," a married guy friend told me. "It didn't help that my father thought he needed to invite every friend, business associate, and general acquaintance. At the last minute, we cut a couple we were friends with, whose wedding and bachelor/bachelorette parties we had attended only six months earlier." He says they still regret that decision to this day—10 years later.

The guest list is one thing I'm done belaboring. Now it's onto seating arrangements, my speech, and, of course, the booze. The Fiancé and I both feel strongly about keeping the bar open during dinner, something we've been cautioned against at The Drake; some people claim it interferes with the flow of dinner. "Stand firm on this one," a newly married friend advised. "I haven't been to many weddings where there wasn't an open bar during dinner." She had two bars at their dinner in the ballroom of The Intercontinental, and it worked out well because her guests stayed put—and sufficiently lubricated—all night.

There are areas in which I defer to my mother, and then there are areas not up for debate. Booze is one of them. I'm starting to see where this bridezilla complex comes from.

Posted at 02:58 PM in Relationships | Permalink

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