What has made me sit there and go "WTF?"
Planning a wedding naturally introduces you to all sorts of weird and wonderful things, so my WTF quotient has been more than met this year. I'd like to share with you some of the delightful things I've discovered that make me a little bit sad for the world.
2013's Countdown of Wedding WTF-ery
10) Butlers in the Buff
Apparently having your food and drinks served by semi-naked or entirely naked men is a must-have Hen Party thing now. In fact, there are several companies which offer such a delectable service. Oh, but they are not just there to be looked at, oh no!
If that doesn't look like a headline from a Carry On film, I don't know what does.
My main concerns regarding naked men in a hospitality role are very much hygiene-based (do they have to wear hairnets?), but additionally I find myself wondering if they have to specify the types of food they won't serve. I can't imagine flaming Christmas pudding or Chinese Sizzling Beef going down particularly well.
9) Custom-written wedding songs
Are you worried that your first dance song isn't personal enough, because it's written by a stranger? Well, worry no more! Now you can get a completely personal unique-to-you first dance song, and whilst it's still written by a stranger, now you can pay them for it! And because you've paid them to do it, it's super personal and special to you, even though you haven't put any more thought or effort into it whatsoever than if you had just used the song you'd played in the first place, but it cost you more, and that's all that counts! Getting someone else to do things for you is the most personal thing ever.
Alternatively, you can provide them with some lyrical suggestions of your own, because of course the only reason you haven't become an award-winning lyricist yourself already is just because of lack of interest on your part, and not at all because every time you try to write lyrics they sound totally lame. Because if it were lame, no-one would be making a song out of it right? Even if you did pay them.
8) Gyms advertising at Wedding Shows
"Excuse me, miss, we can give you a discount today if you join us to get into shape for your wedding!"
Excuse you, are you trying to say I'm not in shape already? Are you trying to say I'm not thin enough to get married the way I am?
That said, it is fun watching them try to quickly backpedal when you put them on the spot like that.
But regardless, I'm in a room full of people trying to sell me stuff on the basis that I'm a beautiful princess and I deserve the best, and thus should immediately buy whatever it is they are selling, and you're going to be the one guy who stands there and tells me I need to work out? And you expect to not come across as a total jerk? And then you want me to give you money?
Good luck with that one.
7) Sweets, sweets and more sweets
When it comes to wedding favours, diabetes seems to be the token of choice, with options ranging from sweetie trees, personalised chocolate bars and even full on candy buffets for people to gorge themselves on. Well, insulin resistance is the gift that stays with you forever.
I love sweets as much as the next girl, but when I'm sober I have the self-control of a stoned gerbil if there are sweets in front of me. When drink is involved, naturally this control drops even lower, to the point where in the middle of the night I'm eating ready-made frosting out of the tub.
This just generally seems like a really bad idea. But perhaps because I'm assuming that everyone has such terrible discipline and low sugar tolerance as me, and thus will end up both drunk and utterly hopped up on sugar.
But regardless, I'm in a room full of people trying to sell me stuff on the basis that I'm a beautiful princess and I deserve the best, and thus should immediately buy whatever it is they are selling, and you're going to be the one guy who stands there and tells me I need to work out? And you expect to not come across as a total jerk? And then you want me to give you money?
Good luck with that one.
7) Sweets, sweets and more sweets
When it comes to wedding favours, diabetes seems to be the token of choice, with options ranging from sweetie trees, personalised chocolate bars and even full on candy buffets for people to gorge themselves on. Well, insulin resistance is the gift that stays with you forever.
I love sweets as much as the next girl, but when I'm sober I have the self-control of a stoned gerbil if there are sweets in front of me. When drink is involved, naturally this control drops even lower, to the point where in the middle of the night I'm eating ready-made frosting out of the tub.
This just generally seems like a really bad idea. But perhaps because I'm assuming that everyone has such terrible discipline and low sugar tolerance as me, and thus will end up both drunk and utterly hopped up on sugar.
6) The Garter Toss
Now, obviously I'd heard of the garter toss. I knew it was like the male equivalent of the bouquet toss. And whilst all the images of a dude with his head right up his wife's dress in front of everyone they know made me uncomfortable, I was like, that's cool, if they wanna do that.
But then I discovered that there is a second part of the garter toss. In that the guy who catches the garter then has to put said garter onto the leg of the poor woman who caught the bouquet.
This seems to me to be a thing you do if you have only invited people you deeply deeply dislike to your wedding and want to make them feel as awkward and uncomfortable as possible, in front of everyone they know, and then never speak to them again ever.
5) When DIY-ing to save money costs more than just getting someone else to do it.
There was someone on a wedding website who was detailing how she made her own custom letterpress invitations. When you totted up the total price, it actually cost more than just getting a professional to do it. Now, fair enough if you are DIY-ing for the love, or to make things more personal, that is a legitimate reason for doing it, and mad props to you.
But when you're explicitly doing it yourself to keep it cheap, and still manage to go over your extremely generous budget, maybe you need to reconsider your options. Like one bride who was featured in a wedding magazine, who cheerfully told everyone that she "did a lot of DIY which kept costs down," followed by the revelation that she'd 'blown' her £25,000 budget. This must be some new and exciting definition of cost-cutting which I was previously unaware of.
4) The phrase 'Say Yes to the Dress'.
Whilst a dazzling piece of marketing, in that it has permeated just about every online corner of wedding planning, but it is irritating as all hell. And there's something bizarrely smug about such an irritatingly simplistic little rhyme, possibly because in the show it's from, it's always said over some tense swelling music to try and build a sense of excitement.
But let's be real, it's a trite phrase from a show about women with waaaay too much money, filmed in a store that is so expensive that the consultants pull faces if the budget the bride gives is under $2000, and who seem to specialise in dresses by a designer who apparently almost exclusively makes dresses with see through bodices. The brides don't even get to pick their dresses out on that show. The consultants usher them into a little room and bring them dresses based on their budget and the results of some cryptic interview. And everyone just repeats it, like buying a dress doesn't count if you don't whip out that saying. Does everything have to have a catchphrase now?
That gif makes me go WHAT.
3) There is a significant difference between 'ivory' and 'light ivory'.
I didn't even know 'light ivory' was a colour until July. But apparently it is, and apparently it is a significantly different from plain old 'ivory' that I can't borrow my cousin's veil because people will notice.
2) No free wine at the National Wedding Show.
I paid £15 to get into this shindig, and now you're trying to convince me to hire out a photobooth that also doubles as a teeth whitener, but you want me to do it sober? The free shows I've been to give out free wine, and free cake, or nibbles! How is it that this is the biggest and most expensive one to go to, but I get a grand total of nothing to eat or drink. That is BAD MARKETING.
Seriously though, if you are trying to convince me that what I really really need at my wedding is a masseuse in each toilet to leap out at unsuspecting guests when they go for a comfort break, you may find that I'm a little more open to suggestion if I am a little more drunk. I mean, no, I'm not going to buy it, but at least this way I'll pretend to be interested.
1) You can now hire people to plan your proposal for you.
That's right, in the theme which we began earlier, we know that you don't really need to put any thought into stuff if you can pay someone else to do it for you. Why take the time and effort into thinking of a really personal way to ask what will probably be the most important question of your life, when you can pay £500 to have a stranger arrange a picnic for you. Hell, even if you just decide that you don't want anything too public or fancy, they can just make a scrap book for you, using all your personal photographs.
Awww. How terribly thoughtful with conveniently minimal effort.
I wonder what new and exciting WTFery I will come across next year.
Now, obviously I'd heard of the garter toss. I knew it was like the male equivalent of the bouquet toss. And whilst all the images of a dude with his head right up his wife's dress in front of everyone they know made me uncomfortable, I was like, that's cool, if they wanna do that.
But then I discovered that there is a second part of the garter toss. In that the guy who catches the garter then has to put said garter onto the leg of the poor woman who caught the bouquet.
This seems to me to be a thing you do if you have only invited people you deeply deeply dislike to your wedding and want to make them feel as awkward and uncomfortable as possible, in front of everyone they know, and then never speak to them again ever.
5) When DIY-ing to save money costs more than just getting someone else to do it.
There was someone on a wedding website who was detailing how she made her own custom letterpress invitations. When you totted up the total price, it actually cost more than just getting a professional to do it. Now, fair enough if you are DIY-ing for the love, or to make things more personal, that is a legitimate reason for doing it, and mad props to you.
But when you're explicitly doing it yourself to keep it cheap, and still manage to go over your extremely generous budget, maybe you need to reconsider your options. Like one bride who was featured in a wedding magazine, who cheerfully told everyone that she "did a lot of DIY which kept costs down," followed by the revelation that she'd 'blown' her £25,000 budget. This must be some new and exciting definition of cost-cutting which I was previously unaware of.
4) The phrase 'Say Yes to the Dress'.
Whilst a dazzling piece of marketing, in that it has permeated just about every online corner of wedding planning, but it is irritating as all hell. And there's something bizarrely smug about such an irritatingly simplistic little rhyme, possibly because in the show it's from, it's always said over some tense swelling music to try and build a sense of excitement.
But let's be real, it's a trite phrase from a show about women with waaaay too much money, filmed in a store that is so expensive that the consultants pull faces if the budget the bride gives is under $2000, and who seem to specialise in dresses by a designer who apparently almost exclusively makes dresses with see through bodices. The brides don't even get to pick their dresses out on that show. The consultants usher them into a little room and bring them dresses based on their budget and the results of some cryptic interview. And everyone just repeats it, like buying a dress doesn't count if you don't whip out that saying. Does everything have to have a catchphrase now?
That gif makes me go WHAT.
3) There is a significant difference between 'ivory' and 'light ivory'.
I didn't even know 'light ivory' was a colour until July. But apparently it is, and apparently it is a significantly different from plain old 'ivory' that I can't borrow my cousin's veil because people will notice.
2) No free wine at the National Wedding Show.
I paid £15 to get into this shindig, and now you're trying to convince me to hire out a photobooth that also doubles as a teeth whitener, but you want me to do it sober? The free shows I've been to give out free wine, and free cake, or nibbles! How is it that this is the biggest and most expensive one to go to, but I get a grand total of nothing to eat or drink. That is BAD MARKETING.
Seriously though, if you are trying to convince me that what I really really need at my wedding is a masseuse in each toilet to leap out at unsuspecting guests when they go for a comfort break, you may find that I'm a little more open to suggestion if I am a little more drunk. I mean, no, I'm not going to buy it, but at least this way I'll pretend to be interested.
1) You can now hire people to plan your proposal for you.
That's right, in the theme which we began earlier, we know that you don't really need to put any thought into stuff if you can pay someone else to do it for you. Why take the time and effort into thinking of a really personal way to ask what will probably be the most important question of your life, when you can pay £500 to have a stranger arrange a picnic for you. Hell, even if you just decide that you don't want anything too public or fancy, they can just make a scrap book for you, using all your personal photographs.
Awww. How terribly thoughtful with conveniently minimal effort.
I wonder what new and exciting WTFery I will come across next year.
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