/ravrage

Warning: Swearing is involved. So there.

So last night I had a small meltdown. In the course of said meltdown, Pixie got stepped on, the kitchen was completely rummaged to death, missing item from the Kitchenaid grider attachment is still missing, Jared got growled at, Kika got snarled at, and a hood from a kitty litter box which had been no where near said box at the time might have been thrown down some stairs.

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.

A bunch of stresses all caught up with me at once, with an end result of the above, and then me stomping upstairs to hide in the bedroom, not from anger, but terminal embarrassment from having said meltdown. Jared came up after a while to check on me, and ended up pulling me out of my funk in less than 60 seconds, just by being himself. Yeah, there’s a reason I’m marrying him.

But I found myself talking to Breana today, and experiencing one of those stressors all over again, which cued up /ravrage. No, she didn’t do anything. She was just listening and being a wonderful friend as I was going on about what had happened last night. It was left up to me to get worked up all on my own.

See, I love Offbeat Bride, The Practical Bride, Style Me Pretty and a bunch of other wedding blogs. They all have stunning, fun weddings, beautiful pictures, and some good insights on how to make your wedding personalized to really reflect you and your spouse-to-be. They even have advice on how to avoid wedding envy, deal with family and friends, and be realistic to what YOU want, not what everyone else wants.

When I first started looking at this wedding, the last thing I thought I’d have was stress. I mean, Jared and I aren’t exactly the “50 people in the wedding party” types, with all of it’s attendant stress. Just me, him, someone standing up with each of us, and boom, off to a friendly get-together where friends and family could meet up, laugh, and have a good time. Jared was all for a small wedding, and no organized dancing? Sounds great!. He’s not a “spotlight” person, and that was fine with him. Me? Same thing. I feel uncomfortable with the light pointed at me in a party situation. Instead, I’m happier making sure everyone else is having a good time.

But the stress popped up, from where I least expected it. One large hit pretty early on soured all the plans and hopes for a good week before I could start to shake it off. The end of January came, and I made a trip to Oxford to talk to vendors for the wedding, and had a great time. The lady making the cake is wonderful, the photographer is simply amazing, and the seamstress is perfect. The woman doing my hair and makeup is someone I’ve gone to for a while, and is wonderful as well. But then I got back, and things started to stress out again.

While I was looking at these wedding websites for ideas and advice, something started to happen. I started to, well, not second-guess our choices, cos I’m happy with those choices. I’m not sure what you’d call it. I’d read an article on how the average wedding has gone down from $21,000 to $18,000, and think “Yep, sign of the economy.” It had no relation to MY wedding. We’re doing it for $7k or less, with grateful assistance from my Mom, Dad and stepmother.

But what were the first comments to that article? “Wow! that’s ridiculous! I could never spend that much on our wedding!” “Omg, tell me about it! We’re spending $5k and that’s way too much still!” “You’re spending that much? Wow, that’s unreal. We’re getting friends and family to make most of ours and we’ve only spent $50!” “Well ours is free!”

/cue ravrage (bad words, ahoy!)

Okay, seriously? Fuck you all. This “I’m better than you cos we’re doing [insert gloating item here]” shit has got to friggen stop. I don’t care if you’re not seeing the gloating and smugness. You are coming off as gloating and smug. Your wedding is your wedding. Not mine, not the second person to the right of Detroit, not anyone else’s. How you do your thing is up to you. So if someone has a $50 wedding, if it’s what they want, fantastic. If someone else has a $50,000 wedding, if it’s what THEY want, great! When did it become a fucking competition to be weirder than everyone else, cooler than everyone else, hipper than everyone else, greener than everyone else, AND have the entire thing for LESS than everyone else? That’s great that YOU had soooo many cool and hip people come to your wedding that the photobooth that someone made for you guys was a fucking blast and the internet sees how great it was. And I’m amused that the “in” thing to have at weddings these days is a photobooth. Oh look, you’re so original and hip! Just like the other 400,000 people before you!

HEY INTERNET! YOU ARE NOT A BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE! SO GET OVER IT!

/fume

Now then, since that’s out of my system, am I going to continue to look at wedding websites? Sure. I’ve found some cool stuff and had some great ideas from it. Case in point, our wedding rings. I’d have never thought titanium/tungsten if it wasn’t for some couples on Offbeat Bride. Awesome. And the sites as a whole have been great reassuring me that Jared and I -aren’t- weird for wanting something that’s not “traditional” in the strictest sense. Church wedding? So not us. JP? Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Backyard wedding? Hey cool, they had one too. Looks like people had fun at theirs. Awesome. Postcards instead of printed Save The Date cards? Woot! That’s great!

So pictures and a few articles will get looked at. Comments? Not so much. Is it wedding envy? Nope. I’m happy with what Jared and I are doing. It’s what’s right for us. And anyone that wants to sniff and say “Oh, you’re doing -that-?” can go taking a flying leap off a very tall cliff. So there.