Before I was engaged, I heard of a bride who was rebelling against the, “wedding industrial complex” – sending out evites rather than actual invitations, having her reception at a brewery, passing out drink tokens rather than having an open bar, registering at Amazon.com rather than a brick and mortar store, etc.  I didn’t really understand her point of view until I planned my own wedding and began coming into contact with more brides.

It is true – little girls dream of their wedding day from an early age, wearing pillow cases as veils and their mothers’ shoes in mock weddings.  The commercial world knows this, and has capitalized on it – BIG TIME.  Everything is more expensive when a wedding is involved.  If you call a reception hall and tell them you’re having a retirement party, you’ll be quoted one price – if it is a wedding, it is another price which is much  higher.  Invitations for a housewarming party are twenty cents a piece, but invitations for a wedding are a dollar a piece.

And brides have taken it – hook, line and sinker.  Media tells us that we need to have a “Platinum Wedding” and that we should “Say Yes to the Dress.”  You are the princess for the day, and you are the only one who matters.  As long as THE BRIDE feels beautiful and everything is as THE BRIDE would want it, it is perfect.  What does this result in?  The bride spending much more money on things that she cares about, and others get the shaft.

What about the groom?  What about the guests?  Our society is experiencing a wave of women who don’t care about anyone but themselves on their wedding day.  What a great way to start a marriage – selfishly planning a huge wedding which will cost over $20K and ONLY thinking of yourself.  It is NOT just your day – it is the groom’s day as well.  And the guests deserve consideration, after all, they are giving you gifts and some have even traveled long distances to be there.

Brides need to get back to what really matters – at the end of the day, whether she was wearing a $5,000 dress or a $500 dress, whether the invitations had gold leaf or were printed at Kinkos, whether you spent $20,000 or $2,000, you are married to the man of your dreams and you can begin your life together.  Don’t begin your marriage by being a bridezilla and putting yourself into debt because you had to have your “platinum wedding.”

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

The Wedding Industrial Complex

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There’s a reason why they call a date with someone you don’t know a Blind Date.  You really have no idea what you’re going to get.  Hopefully, if you were set up by a friend, you can have a little confidence that it won’t be a disaster, but too often you don’t even have a smidge of assurance to go on that this won’t be a complete disaster.

I went on a few blind dates in my single days – from Andy the normal accountant who was also quite boring, to Hyman (yes, that’s his real name) the gorgeous Puerto Rican who had amazing salsa moves, but pretty much no conversation skills, to Ernie the illegal Mexican immigrant who ate my dessert at dinner.

Some were successes, some were disasters.  Below are my words of advice for those who are going to venture into the blind date world.

1. Be careful who you let set you up.  Ernie was my friend’s husband’s idea, and clearly he found humor more important in the match up than actually compatibility – or even a common language.
2. Meet in a public area.  This goes more for women, but you guys also never know what kind of creeps are out there.  Telling someone you don’t know where you live is a BIG mistake.
3. Keep it simple.  Coffee is best.  Maybe dinner, but definitely not dinner and a movie or anything which requires the whole evening.  If it is good, you can always extend the date.  If it is bad, you don’t want to have obligations.
4. Always have an out.  You’ve seen it on TV, and it works.  Your date supposed to start at 7:00, so you arrange to have a friend call at 7:45.  When that friend calls, you can either ignore the call or use it as an opportunity to get the heck out of dodge.  Susie’s grandmother died.  Dave broke up with his girlfriend.  Whatever.   There is a crisis and you are needed anywhere but on your date right now.  Get off the phone and politely explain to your date that you have to go.  And, no, it isn’t cruel – having to go through a mismatched date is bad for both of you.  This works for men and women – I’ve been out with a guy who clearly had an out, too.
5. Don’t expect anything.  You don’t know what you’re going to get, so keep your expectations low.  If it is really bad, you aren’t too disappointed, and you’ll survive the event.  If it is good, you’ll be pleasantly surprise.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

The Art of the Blind Date

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1. I Got Scrabbled…

I’m serious.  I’m aware that every woman reading this probably wants to deck me right now, but there is one particular instance when my husband ignores me, and it works like a charm.  When, you ask?  When I want him to yell at me – seriously.

Growing up I learned to argue and argue well – and when someone had the audacity to disagree with me, you had better believe that people two houses down would hear me.  My parents came to be the main targets of my arguments, and they had no idea what to do with me.

Then I met Jason.  He works with folks who are mentally ill.  In order to get into his program, an individual has to have a recommendation from someone highly qualified, had x number of psychiatric hospital stays in the last year, x number of visits to the ER in a month, etc.  It’s pretty intense.  As you can imagine, Jason’s skills for dealing with people have – shall we say evolved over time?  One thing that he has learned is that yelling in argument never solves anything – it just creates more problems.  As a result, when I’m yelling and being unreasonable, he ignores me.  He lets me know that when I’m willing to talk about the situation like a rational human being, that he’ll talk to me.  Until then, the Orioles game is on, and he’ll be watching that.

At first – it made me even more mad.  How can he ignore me when clearly he has made the world fall apart by doing x, y or z?  But after time I learned that yelling at him and getting all worked up wasn’t going to do a thing, so I started to bring up my issues like a rational human being and we’d talk them out.

So now we’re the couple who never argues.  We’ve only been married for 2 months, so that might change, but even while we were engaged – the last time I think we had an argument was about a year ago.  In Katrina arguing years – that’s forever.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

Ignore Your Wife

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My name is Josh, and I am single. I like being single. That doesn’t mean I want to be single my whole life, just right now. I’m happy having no responsibilities and being able to make decisions with only me in mind and not a significant other. No kids in the picture either. I’m 25, own my house, have my own consulting business on the side, and make a pretty good salary that I get to spend any way I want.

But I’m not gonna talk about the sweet life I live buying big screen TVs, fast cars, and…waking up alone every morning. I’m gonna talk about the rejection. Rejection comes in a lot of different forms when you’re single.

First is what I call the Prejection. It comes before you even say a word to a girl. You see the cute, petite brunette across the bar and your eyes meet. You smile at her with the hope that she’ll flash a shy grin back, and all you get are rolled eyes, a disgusted look, or sometimes a middle finger. A part of you thinks, “…Who wants to meet a girl at a bar anyway? I want to meet a girl at church…” and brush it off. But inside you’re disappointed. You’ve just been rejected based completely on your looks. Or you had a booger. Either way, you’ll spend hours in the mirror trying to convince yourself you’re not a troll, even though deep down…you know.

The next form of rejection hurts deep. This is the Gut-Wrench Rejection. About a year ago, a buddy of mine was in town with a group of his friends. I didn’t know any of them, but we met up at a country-western bar. Immediately I gravitated toward Sarah. She was blonde, beautiful, and had the cutest face I’d ever seen. We started talking and soon we were sitting in a booth by ourselves, finishing each others’ sentences. We both liked the same music, movies, and TV shows. The conversation flowed with no awkward pauses. We had just met, but it felt like we had known each other for years. “I think I just found my soul-mate” I started thinking, when less than a minute later the words, “My daughter…” came out of her mouth. Immediately, my eyes shot down to her left hand, and the wedding ring was laughing at me. The intense disappointment sets in, but you can’t let it show. She’s in the middle of talking about her kids now, and her wonderful husband. You start getting a little angry. Why couldn’t she mention them, oh, an hour ago when we first started talking??

The final single-guy rejection is what I like to called Getting Scrabbled. This is when the girl gives you the strangest, mind-boggling, and sometimes the most clever rejection line you’ve ever heard. I went on a few “fake dates” with a girl named Becky in college. Fake dates mean working out together at the gym, studying in the library, eating in the cafeteria together, etc. After about 3 weeks of this I asked her out to dinner on Friday night. A real date. Her response: “I can’t, I’m playing Scrabble with my roommate Friday night.” I had heard them all up to this point. I’ve gotten the, “I think we’d be better as friends”, and the “I’m not ready to date anyone right now”, and every other standard, generic rejection line out there. But Scrabble? That was a new low…

The key to dealing with all forms of rejection is laughing at it. Tell the story to a friend and laugh about it. Make fun of yourself. The quicker you can do that, the easier it will be to accept the next board game that comes between you and a hot date.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

I Got Scrabbled…

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