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Effing Terrible

Holding your wedding day on the most romantic day of the year sounds like a wonderful idea. Afterall, love is in the air, right? WRONG.

The absolute height of selfish tackiness is to get married on Valentine’s Day and then have every detail be…wait for it…lemme guess… PINK AND RED!!

Listen, we are not trying to encourage you to worry too much about the needs and feelings of your friends and family. We aren’t trying to argue that you should leave holidays alone so that people can celebrate these special occasions in their own personal ways.

However, getting married on a day that is supposed to be romantic for everyone, and not just you and your man, isn’t a good idea for a lot of reasons. 1) Pink and red look like shit together. Don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise. 2) Cupid is a fat creep with his arrow. He has absolutely no business being naked, specifically not at your wedding. 3) Everyone feels amorous and sexy on this day. Don’t let the love spread around the room and cloud everyone’s understanding about what your wedding day is about. And 4) a lot of people have “valentines.” Even middle-aged and old people have significant others and stories of good times they’ve shared on this day. Eff that! Getting married on this day will kick their selfish memories into high gear. They’ll pack the dance floor and want to feed each other cake. Is that really what you want? No, I didn’t think so.

Some Tasteful Valentine’s Wedding Cakes

I like this one because it’s so understated and elegant.

I hate you. Also, does that say “the veil”???

I love it when I think something is a stack of shiny Valentine’s presents and it turns out to be a fucking cake. That’s my favorite.

Don’ts

Don’t use the least common denominator approach: choosing the cheapest dress that your poorest friend can afford, or the sleeved monstrosity that your most self-conscious maid will feel comfortable in is a bad precedent to set. Be democratic and pick the gown that almost everyone will be happy in.  (And if all of your maids are poor and/or fat, go ahead and pick the one that you wish they would look good in.)

Don’t let your bridesmaids choose their own gowns. If they ever get married, they’ll be in a position to start making decisions. Uniformity is best. You clearly know what looks good, that why you are the one getting married.

Uniformity is always best when it comes to bridesmaid dresses. At a glance, you should not be able to tell one from the other.

Don’t choose a color and then let the maids choose the style. This practice promotes individuality. And this is neither the time nor the place for the maids to be “expressing themselves.”

Don’t let pale bridesmaids get away with ruining your wedding photos or embarrassing you with their napkin-white legs in the cute, raspberry, tea-length frocks you so carefully selected. Remind maids that their appearance reflects on you and repeatedly praise the beautiful skin tone of tanner maids.

Dos

Do keep in mind that completely alienating all bridesmaids and having them leave your wedding party will make it look to your guests like you have no friends. This means retaining your power with a smile and letting maids think you care what they think (i.e. sending them two gorgeous dresses, either of which you’d be happy to choose, and soliciting opinions.) Also, having fewer bridesmaids because of such disputes will make the wedding party uneven. Uneven wedding parties are wholly unacceptable and will make you look like a frigid, friendless bitch. Avoid this.

Do encourage larger maids to hit the gym. As a kind gesture, offer to go with her to whip her fat ass into shape before your big day. Act as if you too would like to “tone up”… a euphemism for, “I’m already skinny, which is why I’m engaged, but I’ll come with you if it’ll make you more inclined to go.”

Do encourage maids to order their dresses one full size smaller than they actually are as motivation to get into wedding-ready shape. Remind forgetful or lazy maids that the dresses are not returnable and non-alterable in case someone starts to think that they look good the way they are. Girdles and Spanks are acceptable, even for maids who did what they were supposed to.

Do encourage maids with less-than-stellar smiles to seek professional whitening solutions. Do this gently by saying that you are going to have your own teeth bleached. If they do not take the hint, start telling her that she looks gorgeous when she smiles with her mouth closed. Enough compliments about her toothless grin will condition your Pavlovian maid into using her closed-mouth smile exclusively and thus, saving your photos from certain disaster.

Your Wedding Month Decoded

January Bride: committing your friends and family to one more month of gift-giving!

Face it, January weddings couldn’t come at a worse time. Regardless of how thrilled you think your friends and family are about your nuptials, no one wants to be celebrating anything in January, least of all you and your in-public, tongue-kissing future husband.

We’re assuming your January wedding has given you the unique opportunity to sicken everyone around you with details of your nuptials for the few months preceding the actual event. Thanksgiving and Christmas aren’t safe from you! There are clearly no limits to your need to interject, with nauseating detail, the topic of your wedding into every conversation. “Hey, Aunt Gladice, could you please pass the potatoes? Oh, that reminds me baby, did we decide on the rosemary roasted red bliss or the mushroom demi-glaze mashers for the starch at our wedding?”

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s… by the time folks get to your wedding, they’ll be burnt out and broke (so forget those envelopes full of cash and think shit you didn’t register for from Bed, Bath, and Beyond). You’ve got enough to worry about (i.e. your appearance), do you really need to toss in those few extra holiday pounds and tired puffy eyes? We thought not.

It’s probably best for you to hold out until February and have that equally tacky pink-and-red Valentine’s Day wedding you were thinking about.

1) Taking time for YOU- Of course there is the traditional spa-day-with-the-girls routine. This is a great idea. The smartest way to go about your day of pampering and beauty is to somehow attach it to the bachelorette party so that your maids are obligated to pay for you. Those 90-minute, hot river stone massages sure can get expensive!! But you deserve it after all the stress of planning.

Let your Maid-of-honor know that you’d like to do something like this on your “bachelorette weekend.” Refer to it as a “weekend” whenever possible. That way, you still get the fun night out on the town, and can detox and relax the next day too on someone else’s dime!

2) Laugh away the tension!- Everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine. A great way to use humor therapy is to set up a “bridesmaid roast” to giggle those worry lines away! Let your maids know what you’re doing and have them prepare a hysterical roast for one another, pointing out one another’s flaws (both in appearance and personality). It’s best not to have only one bridesmaid get roasted, as this will only make her feel as though she is being attacked and could prompt her to peace-out of your wedding party. (YIKES!)

Instead, let the girls know that they are all fair game and remind them that the reason you love them so much is for their senses of humor and not to take themselves too seriously. It would be best to keep this a girls-only affair, where they can really feel free to be themselves—having your fiancé or other groomsman there will only make them more self conscious when the jokes turn to such topics as: weight and self esteem, tally of sexual partners and/or sexually transmitted diseases, or jokes about the dysfunctionality of the maids’ families. Other suggested topics include how much your maids’ boyfriends suck, and how they had such high hopes for their careers in college and now they are administrative assistants. Be creative!!

In the end, declare a winner and a loser—the person whose jokes were the funniest and most biting, and the one who can’t take a joke, respectively.

3) Get Rid of the Stressor- Rather than trying to DEstress, why not eliminate what is causing the stress in the first place. You guessed it ladies—hit the goddamn gym!! If your arms are more toned (and yes, they can always get more toned) and your ass is up where it should be, the lingering anxiety caused by worrying about what you’ll look like on your wedding day will vanish.

All eyes will be on you the entire day, and keep in mind that as soon as all your guests leave, your appearance will be their first topic of discussion. Even kind and older folks will pass judgment on a bride, politely saying how “nice” she looked. Eliminate this worry so you can concentrate on your man!

4) Money Worries- Worrying about money is an enormous stressor for brides. As the cost of weddings continues to climb, brides find themselves scrambling to pay for their dream weddings with less and less help from increasingly stingy parents and in-laws. The best way to handle this is to head it off in the beginning. Have your fiancé tell his parents that your folks refuse to help out. He should act despondent and say things like, “we may have to elope” and “it looks like you won’t be able to invite most of your friends.”

Likewise, tell your parents the same thing about the in-laws and how miserly and spiteful they are. Your parents are sure to cough up something. Remind them that their names don’t just go on the invitations as a formality; they have to earn it.

When you have money in hand from both families with agreements that the money comes with no strings (we don’t need the mother of the groom telling us what kind of corsage she would like, do we?), go ahead and start planning your dream day.

Q. My fiancé asked me to have a female friend of his be one of my bridesmaids. I don’t know her very well but it doesn’t bother me because she seems nice. Who should ask her? I would feel weird calling her out of the blue since we’ve only met a handful of times.

A. There are so many things wrong with this question!

1)  If you are too uncomfortable to even speak to this girl on the phone, then she has no business being one of your ‘maids.

2)  Bridesmaids are friends of the bride: emphasis on of the bride.* Not only shouldn’t the groom even have close female friends at this point, but he definitely shouldn’t be asking for them to be part of the wedding; these are YOUR attendants!  If he is this close to another woman, you haven’t done a good job as a girlfriend. Let’s hope you do better as a wife.

3)  While nixing the little arrangement your darling has dreamed up may make you look like a controlling and psychotic bitch, the alternative is to pretend to be “the cool girlfriend.” This behavior puts women back about fifty years. Pretending to approve of the female friends of your fiancé makes a girl look weak and silly, and you aren’t fooling anyone. Everyone knows you’re seething inside and that’s lame.

4)  If she is attractive, you may want to disinvite her altogether, as they most likely “had a thing” going on before you met him. If she’s ugly or large, continue to hate her secretly, but don’t allow yourself to seem jealous. If she’s fat and you’re jealous, it makes you seem insecure!

5)  Whose idea was this—your husband-to-be or the ballsy cow? Either way it’s an outrage and shouldn’t be tolerated. My advice is to make it clear to your fiancé that he must chose between his friendship with this meaningless piece of trash and you, his beloved. When you pose this to him, make sure you look your very best. Sex strikes work well too.

(*Similarly, if the groom has a spinster sister, it is up to the discretion of the bride whether she is included or not. If there is more than one obese or unattached soon-to-be sister-in-law, the bride is off the hook as far as having them be bridesmaids: one unappealing sister is a kind gesture of the coming together of families, two or more is ruining the wedding photos and having the guests think you only have fat friends.)

I’m sure this little setback is no indication of how your marriage will turn out (fingers crossed)!

Dos and Don’ts for Your Wedding Announcement

(aka the inflated, picturesque version of your blissful courtship intended for the cheerleading squad of your high school…and the valedictorian)

• Do be picture perfect. I don’t care if it takes 30 rolls of film and an airbrushing army. Remember high school? Yeah, you weren’t that great. But look at you now! You’re getting married, and nothing looks better in a picture than a bitter woman secretly rubbing her happiness in the face of her graduating class, even if that was 20 years ago.
• Do include, with nauseating detail, the events of your engagement. Were you vacationing in Paris, Naples, Spain? If this was not a destination engagement, feel free to improvise. People want a story; give it to them.
• Do inflate job titles. I’m talking throw in an Executive here and there, not a President, less someone see you driving around in your Hyundai and connect the dots.
• Do use your thesaurus. Townies scour these announcements searching for a good one to shock ex-classmates with. Don’t blend in with the same old. Be articulate, but don’t oversell it. You’re happy, not elated. Be careful not to border on desperate.
• Do remember your audience. Most likely this is going in the local paper, meaning the town you grew up in. Chances are, this announcement will circulate thanks to nosy mothers, jealous ex-friends, etc. to almost every person you went to high school with. You are not above sneaking in a slight or two, just be tactful.
• Do be mindful of timing. Your worries are over, you’ve actually found someone to marry you! Don’t get so caught up in the excitement of rubbing this in that you rush getting the announcement in the paper. Not getting married for a few years? No one needs to know that you’re too poor to have the wedding of your dreams now. Show some restraint: we recommend a gleeful announcement 6 months to a year out.
• Don’t overstate future goals. If you truly have no intention of studying under the Dalai Lama, I wouldn’t go there. Save yourself the embarrassment of running into some bubbly, pregnant blonde from 11^th grade homeroom who happened to see your announcement and asks how your time in India was. A bride-to-be stumbling for words is never an attractive bride.

In the spirit of the holiday, BridesWhoMeanBusiness would like to give thanks for the following:

• couples who incorporate their pets into their weddings and assign them tasks that would otherwise be performed by actual people
• awkward, choreographed dances to Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be”
• brides who change into chunky white flip-flops or better yet, no shoes at all
• large groups of 40-year-old women performing the electric slide
• jealous, single bridesmaids wanting to be “paired” with handsome groomsman, as if the act of walking into the reception together means something
• brides with baby bumps wearing white
• tiny, plastic, silver picture frames that double as a place-card holder and a favor
• blood relatives that still dive to catch the garter even though they know it involves going up your dress
• the results of an open bar
• brides who one-up the traditional spa day with the emerging trend of Botox and laser-treatment parties
• guests who mistake your wedding for a singles mixer
• tiaras

Have a great Thanksgiving with your friends and family! But keep in mind that gorgeous, strapless Amsale hanging in your closet when you’re reaching for the pumpkin pie!

FLOWERS:

Emerging floral trends that you should avoid at all costs.

Carrying a single red rose. This is not pretty. It’s embarrassing. Why don’t you just carry a pay stub instead so everyone can see that your new husband doesn’t make enough money to let you have a real bouquet?

Carrying three, foot-long calla lilies up your arm, instead of a pretty, tight, hand-tied bouquet. People who carry these say that they are “simple and elegant.” They are. But only if “simple and elegant” means “boring and fucking awful.” Calla lilies look like a big, non-symmetric cup. Flowers should not be cradled; they are not your baby.

[BrideWhoMeansBusiness]: “Hey, is that your baby?”

[Bride]: “Yes, that’s why I’m carrying it like this.”

[BrideWhoMeansBusiness]: “Man, she’s tall and thin.”

[Bride] “Yeah, she’s simple yet elegant.”

[BrideWhoMeansBusiness]: “Good for you, keeping your baby on a diet.”

Babies breath in the hair. This isn’t prom and it isn’t 1994.

Messy, cascading, bouquets, with lots of filler and greens. Anything that could be described as “wild,” “countryish,” or “free form” when it comes to bouquets and centerpieces makes you look trashy and uninformed.

Gerber daisies. You know how red roses means love and pansy means sweet? Yeah. Gerber daisy is English for “childish.” Pick something else.

Flower girls. We hate flower girls, but if you insist, please do not include any of the following that normally accompany them. We hate: hair wreaths (horrendous); anything white and wicker that could hold flower petals; having them toss a messy array of petals on your crisp, white runner; alternately, not having them toss petals and instead having them carry one of those purses or pompoms made of flowers (equally terrible); their white dresses (this isn’t First Communion and it’s not their wedding… inappropriate).

Boutonnieres. Less is always more. The worst thing you can do is to try and incorporate too much of your theme into a boutonniere, which is meant to be a simple splash of color on your man’s lapel. This means no feathers, seashells, or berries. Also, please don’t castrate your man: if he agrees to wearing a pale pink baby rose or lily-of-the-valley, be prepared to explain to your friends and family for the next ten years why your hubby doesn’t want kids. (He does want them. He just wants to adopt Asian babies with his “friend” Chad.)

Although the flowers and place settings are important, none of these details would mean anything without your guests there to be impressed by all of your choices and ideas. But guests can be a massive pain in the ass as well. Like anything else, there are good ones and bad ones. Learn to recognize a relative or friend who is becoming a bad guest. It will become clearer over time who should have been left off the list. But if the creamy, beautiful letter-pressed invites are already in the mail, here are a few tips for dealing with those guests who you’d love to uninvite.

THE GUEST:

The late RSVPer- This is the most common of all tacky wedding guests. People who you thought were on top of their shit, people who you thought gave a damn about you, will reveal their true selves, disregarding the RSVP date altogether. The time has come to retire the polite phone calls requesting an RSVP. Create a Do Not Admit list and hire a bouncer. Do not buy dinners for ingrates.

The Plus 1-ers- In some ways, this is worse than the previous pain-in-the-ass guest because it is more pathetic. When people attempt to bring dates to a wedding, it is a red flag for desperation and low self-esteem. They are afraid people will judge them during slow songs, as they awkwardly creep off the dance floor to make room for couples. Their embarrassment is compounded by the fact that even middle-aged and old people are coupled off for some close body swaying, while they try to find a table and act nonchalant. These are the people that should receive a phone call explaining to them that only people in serious relationships are allowed a date. Your wedding is not a singles bar for permed 30-somethings looking for love of their own, it is an opulent and joyous celebration of your new life with your soul mate. (*When it happens that someone tries to add uninvited children to the RSVP card, explain to them that although you adore Cody, that this is an adult-only event, and that however “under control” his ADHD seems to be, that you’d rather not risk it.)

The Creative Buyer- There’s always one aunt or friend who thinks that buying you something “off of the registry” will make the gift more personal and meaningful (usually something “handmade”). “Dear Aunt Claire, Thanks so much for the afghan you knitted that doesn’t match anything in my whole effing house. I’m sure it took a very long time to make and that it’s very warm!! But meanwhile all of my gorgeous plate settings are still sitting over at Crate and Barrel waiting to be purchased. Thanks again!” Although it would be rude to tell guests yourself, feel free to have your mother and ‘maids spread the word that if you wanted “meaning” and “sentiment,” you would have registered for them.

The Glass Clinker- One round of clinking is nice. A little peck for your fiancé and everyone is happy. Show them your happinessJ Two rounds is funny. Haha, everyone wants to see the newlyweds kiss, as if they’ve never done it until today. But you laugh and oblige. By rounds three, four, and beyond, when it’s the same fat, jolly, half drunk uncle-by-marriage with his fork in hand, its too much. The noise is annoying and loud and more than two rounds begins to cheapen the kisses. Why does he want to see you two kiss so much anyways? Because he’s fucking creepy, that’s why.

This is when you ask the waitress to remove his silverware. If he continues his clink with his wife’s silverware, get your bridal party involved. Test your bridesmaids’ loyalty by seeing which one is willing to ask your uncle to leave. Two birds with one stone- creepy, hypersexual uncle ejected, bridesmaids tested one last time!

The Big Drinker- Everyone has a few alcoholics on their family tree. A cousin or two who drink on Christmas morning, at children’s birthday parties, an aunt who washes down the Thanksgiving turkey with beer. Provide the bartender at your reception site with photographs including height, weight, hair and eye color information of the guests who you know will destroy your day if they have more than a few drinks. Instruct the barman not to serve these guests more than two drinks. This isn’t Studio 54, assholes.

Group Dancers- These are the least offensive of all of the aforementioned guests, although they can still pose a threat to your wedding if they are left to their own whims. Group Dancers are people who like the Chicken Dance, Macarena, Electric Slide etc. at large events. They stand in a line and perform similar (though never quite identical) movements to one another. Each one thinks that their version of “The Dance” is the best and purest, the original, from which all other dancers are deviating. These people are often unattractive and are always terrible dancers, which is why they must memorize a series of steps and repeat them incessantly until the awful sugary song comes to an end, a signal for them to start thinking of their next request. Advise your band or DJ that none of these are acceptable and such requests should be declined, but that a record be kept as to who did the requesting, so that they can be spoken to.

Remember, this day is about orchestrating every little detail to your satisfaction. Keep those relatives in line and don’t be afraid to delegate this task to others!