Hello? People? It's Just One Day out of your whole life

[oursin]

Really, really creepy article in today's Guardian Women's Page on women gearing up for Their Big Day, i.e. wedding.

Okay, given my own marriage issues (I didn't even play weddings or lust for bride dolls as a child), perhaps I am never going to Get It on this kind of thing, but how spooky is it to make all this insane effort for something that is

Comments

[hafren]

God help us. We spent something well under £50, back in 1977, on getting wed. It was at the local register office, with a do at the pub after; my mum made the dress (long, but not white) and my granny made the cake.

As a day, it was fine except we were both so nervous we couldn't eat. (This apparently happens more often than one might think and is one reason for not blowing good money on what you may well not be in a fit state to enjoy). But I don't recall ever thinking "I wish we'd spent a fortune".

We had our 30th anniversary last year.

[heleninwales]

I don't think there's any correlation at all, either positive or negative, regarding the amount spent on the wedding and the success or otherwise of the ensuing marriage. :)

[oursin]

Or whether there's a wedding at all...

[redbird]

I walked past yet another ad for yet another stupid program whose them, as far as I can tell, is "these women are getting married, therefore they must obsess and compete to lose weight first" and found myself thinking that there is something very wrong with that focus on the signs to the extent of the reality. And that I don't think I'm the one being dismissive of marriage, that thinking and telling people that they must stress out about changing their bodies for one stressful day before embarking on what is intended to be a long-term relationship is missing the point. And that if weighing x pounds instead of x-15 or whatever on the wedding day is going to be a problem, you're either coming at this with harmful attitudes, or marrying the wrong person, or both. I'm fat, queer, and poly, and shacked up a long time before getting married--and things like this make me think not only that I'm good at relationships (I have other evidence for that) but that I am unusually good at relationships, which worries me.

[oursin]

Can't help thinking of the v different attitude to this 'special day/stay the same' motif, expressed in the music hall song 'My Old Dutch', which is about the process and growing old together:
We've been together now for forty years,
An' it don't seem a day too much,
There ain't a lady livin' in the land
As I'd "swop" for my dear old Dutch.

Sweet fine old gal,
For worlds I wouldn't lose 'er,
She's a dear good old gal,
An' that's what made me choose 'er.
She's stuck to me through thick and thin,
When luck was out, when luck was in,
Ahl wot a wife to me she's been,
An' wot a pal! Chorus.

I sees yer Sal -
Yer pretty ribbons sportin'
Many years now, old gal,
Since them young days of courtin'.
I ain't a coward, still I trust
When we've to part, as part we must,
That Death may come and take me fust
To wait.......... my pal! Chorus.

[hafren]

Although it's a bit saccharine, especially when you think of the stage backdrop (the workhouse to which the old people have come, but backed off when they saw the two doors for "men" and "women" and realised they would have to split up...) Brilliant bit of theatre though; a shame Albert Chevalier, who made it such a famous tear-jerker, was apparently a total shit whose compassion and social concern were all front. Unlike many music-hall stars - Gus Elen, Marie Lloyd, Ned Corvan - who were noted for generosity.

Martha Vicinus's The Industrial Muse (Croom Helm 1974) has a description of Chevalier's "my old Dutch" stage act:

My Old Dutch began with a pantomime act: the curtain would open showing the front of a workhouse with its entrances marked "Men" and "Women". Chevalier would enter arm in arm with "my old Dutch" and the guardian would separate the two, gesturing to the appropriate doors. With a look of horror, Chevalier would say "You can't do this to us - we've been together for forty years" and break into song."Makes you grateful

[oursin]

It does sound a bit pass the sickbag: the thing I'd like to go back ihn my time-machine to see is Marie Lloyd doing 'I've asked Johnny Jones (and I know now)'.

[st_egfroth]

God, that article is horrendous. I'm currently planning a very low-key wedding for later this year (civil ceremony & meal for < 20 people at a nice country pub), and trying to avoid making a large fuss about it (including resisting any external pressure to break the habit of more than ten years and actually put on some make-up). The whole industry is completely terrifying, but the stuff described in the article is particularly disgusting. I know of one person who paid large sums to have her (really quite noticeably stained) teeth whitened in time for her wedding, but I think in that case it was only an excuse to spend the money to do something she'd been wanting to do anyway (and I don't think that's comparable with surgery!!)

[nineveh_uk]

Have just sent a copy of the article to my sister who was complaining at the weekend about the bride she is bridesmaining for saying she wants to lose weight for her wedding and failing to "put in the effort". I await the fireworks.

[mamculuna]

I had two homemade, outdoor weddings, with family and close friends and food I or they cooked, and it was delightful. Beyond that, I don't see it. But I think that being a bride is a chance to have one day as a celebrity, to be the center of all the attention of hundreds of people--and occasionally it's the desire of the mother, not the bride. I went to one wedding last year, not terribly over the top as weddings go, and the bride wore a lovely off-white long dress, which looked quite nice on her sturdy frame. Clearly the groom adored her. But the bride's mother! A yoga instructor anyway (and you'd really think yoga would help her get her head straight), she'd dieted down to a size 2, and wore a form-fitting, red satin sheath. Pretty clear who the star of that event was supposed to be.

And both mother and daughter are psychotherapists.