Thursday, November 5, 2009

Bride's Special Day

I just encountered the following description on the site of a wedding organizer:

Thank You for looking me up. Hopefully this site will answer some of your questions about what I offer, rates and what other people have thought about my work. I love this job ~ Helping a bride organize her most special day is what I do. I have also done many wedding ceremonies. So if you're not having a traditional church ceremony let me know.

Get it? Helping a BRIDE organize HER special day. Evidently, there are people who do not find this weird, perplexing, or offensive. I mean, why is the bride organizing this on her own? is she getting married to herself? Or is this supposed to be a woman's job somehow? And why is it HER special day? What kind of day is is supposed to be for the groom? Non-special? Routine? Why on earth would anybody want to participate in a marriage ceremony that is special to only one of the people?


Every day we are bombarded by TV shows, movies, websites, articles, etc. that tell us how women are desperate to get married and men are either reluctant or, at best, indifferent. So many women start believing this unhealthy hype and become convinced that it is their sacred obligation to hunt for a proposal, kill herself organizing an elaborate wedding, and tolerate a man who is not all that invested into this whole thing. My question is why don't more people find all this profoundly humiliating?

5 comments:

V said...

Linking this post to the previous one, I see an interesting contradiction: although the wedding is supposed to be (according to traditionalist view) the most important day first for the bride, the groom is the first to be mentioned in all those license documents...

Clarissa said...

Maybe that's why the wedding is the bride's most special day. Just because after the wedding she will stop mattering and her life will be worthless. It's like "enjoy it today because you will not get any attention ever again."

I'm kind of pessimistic today.

Amanda said...

My fiance and I have started discussing our wedding, even though we don't want to get deep into the wedding planning until we've both passed the bar, or at least one of us has found a post-graduation job. But it's sickening and insulting that so many wedding-oriented sites assume that grooms aren't involved in planning the wedding. It's going to be the most important day in either of our lives up until we have children (we are both more family oriented than career oriented-- for both of us, career is a means to have a happy family), and as such, we're both going to be equally involved in deciding what we want.

Anonymous said...

I still don't understand why it is the most important or special day for anyone - bride or groom. It is certainly an event to remember but what makes that day the MOST anything?

I had a couples' counselling session as part of my pregnancy course and we were asked to share what our most special and happy day as a couple had been until then. I couldn't believe how quickly people started answering - the day we met / they day we got married / the day we found out we were pregnant. I struggled for 15 minutes and couldn't come up with just one day - a true relationship consists of millions of happy moments (not to minimize the challenges every relationship has). Why do we need to be so focused on choosing A (or should I say 'THE') day and putting so much emphasis on it?

M.

Clarissa said...

Dear M.,

you and I have so much in common. Why is that? :-)

Love you!!