Wednesday wedding day: Judgy McJudgerson

Confession time: I read about other people's weddings on the internets. People I don't know and will never meet. People who have weddings very different than the one we're going to have. A lot of the time, it's because I like seeing photos of other people's weddings, and I like seeing the different crafty DIY-type stuff that can really make a wedding feel personalized. Many times I've read about weddings with budgets 10 or 20 times what ours will be, but never have I seen one before today that made me throw up in my mouth a little.

On a shall-be-unnamed website, they feature a number of brides writing about their own wedding preparations. Each of these women writes under a pseudonym, and each seems to have things like theme and colors and personalized details down to a T. I've been reading this site for quite a while now, so I've seen many of the bloggers go through the entire wedding planning process, and many of them stick around afterward to tell how it went and to contribute to the community. Another thing this site features is, occasionally, photos and a description of a wedding not that of one of the bloggers, but someone else. Most of the time the photos are nice and the description is interesting enough to read, and usually, even if it's obvious that it was a big-budget wedding, it's heartfelt and classy and the bride is excited to be married and be able to share with the internets how she(or they, but usually she) did it.

Today was an exception to that. The site featured a "real wedding" of a couple who met and married all within the same six months. Unusual, but fine. Right, Will/Nina? It's clear from the kind of wedding they had (white tie) and the venue/place (San Diego) that it was super-spendy. OK, not everyone has to price match everything to find the best deal, and some people are willing to go into lots of debt (or maybe they have generous and wealthy parents footing the bill). Not my money, not my wedding. No big deal. But what really got to me was that this bride went out of her way to BRAG about everything in each of her photos. How expensive things were, how holier-than-thou the couple was about various elements of their wedding (and relationship).

Their first kiss? WAS their FIRST kiss. Apparently, they never even kissed each other before saying I Do. Their entire relationship up to that point was long distance, so they saw each other a few times a month and DIDN'T EVEN KISS. We can only assume from the whole no-kissing thing that there was no-anything else either. Which, OK, but why is that important to tell the world? You're so uptight and want to feel so superior to other people that you don't even KISS the person you're going to marry until you're ALREADY MARRIED. OK, maybe 200 years ago. In this day and age? Uh, what? There's no way in hell I'd marry someone without at least finding out if they're a GOOD KISSER! Because that, to me, is an important thing to know. And as far as I know, Jesus didn't say anything about not kissing people. You're only making things difficult on yourselves.

The bride also went out of her way to mention that she maintained a long-distance relationship, planned a long-distance wedding, and studied/passed for the bar exam, all in six months. You know what, honey? Good for you. Lots of other people do far more stressful things in shorter amounts of time. It was YOUR CHOICE to plan a wedding so quickly, to spend oodles of money on things that ultimately seem like you put on an expensive show for your guests. If all you focus on is the pricey details, making sure everything matches perfectly and that your cake topper looks exactly like you and Mr. Right, how much work are you putting into your actual relationship? You know, with your husband? Who you didn't kiss until you were pronounced Man and Wife? Why do I somehow get the feeling that this marriage won't last more than a year, if you've never even lived in the same state, let alone in the same town or the same house and you're so bizarrely proud of your extreme prudishness that you have to tell the whole internets about it?

I think the part that bothered me the most was that they had a DRESS CODE for their guests. Maybe I'm just a stickler for etiquette, but I think you can put "black tie" or "white tie" on an invite. I don't think it's OK to put "Guests may only dress in black or white, men must wear tuxedos." Hey, people who are coming to our wedding: You can wear whatever you like. I sugest clothing; it might be cold.

Obviously, I don't know this woman, I don't know her husband, and I know nothing about their relationship (or their wedding) other than what she wrote in her photo captions. It's really not my place to judge or to tell other people how to run their lives. But for cripes sake, can you not have just a modicum of humility, or class, Mrs. I-spent-50+K-on-my-wedding-and-look-how-awesome-I-am. This wedding recap made me remember why I've never gone to The Knot (website for non-indie-types) because I'm too afraid to see every recap post look just like this. I have no interest in looking at photos or reading recaps that essentially boil down to "Look how wonderful and perfect I am!" Because, I'm sorry, but no person and no event, no matter how much money you spend or how well-orchestrated it is, is perfect.