I'm a bad girl

By which I mean, not that I am a bad person who is female, but that I'm bad at being a Girl.

Exhibit A: I hate wedding planning.

I mean, truly and deeply hate it.


I resent the notion that I should care about what kind of flowers will be in season, or that I should concentrate on a theme that ties the wedding together, or that I'm supposed to have some kind of magical epiphany when I try on The Dress.  I don't feel all of these things, and I don't like being told that I'm supposed to feel something that I don't.

I'm excited about the food and the open bar.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of our guests -- and no, I won't pretend that I wanted to invite all of them -- and I'm looking forward to the honeymoon.  I'm trying to starve myself so I don't spend too much time obsessing over that hint of a double chin in the expensive wedding photos.  As much as he doesn't want to acknowledge it, this is just as much for my fiance's benefit as for mine; he would get so sick, so quickly, of me making faces at every picture, so I'm just trying to save him the frustration.  But GOD I want to eat.

I'm tired of being asked questions about the wedding.  No, we don't have a registry.  Not because we don't want stuff, but... well, because we don't want stuff so much as money.  It's a Uniquely American Thing, this insistence on a registry.  I think it's a combination of narcissism -- look at this special gift I got you -- and laziness -- returning thing is just too much trouble.  My brother got married recently in another country where they have this absolutely lovely and downright sensible tradition: instead of a gift table, you have a money table, where you literally go and write a check to the couple and turn it in to a couple of their friends (obviously they must be trustworthy), who are charged with making sure the money gets to the couple.  For all of our being-a-superpower-ness, there are a few things we do simply wrong in Amurica.

And I'm tired of being asked if people can bring guests.  Live-in partners or serious relationships are one thing (we tried to account for most of these in the invitations, but slip-ups and knowledge gaps happen).  But asking if you can bring a random date strikes me as rude and presumptuous.  That random date of yours -- someone we have never met and have zero connection to, even through you, since this person isn't critical enough in your life that you're in a serious relationship with him or her -- is eating our $100-a-head meal-plus-open-bar, and taking up a seat that could have been given to one of our friends.  When you have a venue with hard space limits, a budget you've broken multiple times, and a B list of people you really wish you could invite instead of, say, that distant relative who drives you nuts, you start to resent these random dates really goddamn quickly.

And and AND.  I am tired.  Of people.  Thinking MY wedding.  Is about them.

Other than the fiance, of course.  He's allowed to think that every so often.