On the most basic level, my problem with mass media wedding marketing tends to be this: it's selling you fear. Instead of us all taking this wedding formula - I'll start with the basics (partner, vows, officiant, family, clothes) and then add on the things that I'm into (pick from: food, photography, cake, flowers, guests, music, attendants, etc) we all get told "OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO HAVE EVERYTHING OR YOU WON'T BE GOOD ENOUGH AND YOUR WEDDING WON'T BE GOOD ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL HATE IT AND YOUR MARRIAGE WILL SUCK" Lovely.
So, along those lines, I had to share this bit of (actually pretty hilarious) wedding marketing that reader Amber passed along:
Imagine that you have just crossed over into the twilight zone; you’re standing in the middle of a big blank white sheet of paper. You need to tell everyone something exceedingly special about your upcoming event…but when you go to shout it out to the world…nothing appears but the echo of bland and colorless…nobody listens… they forget to save the date… and worse, they don’t show up for your special day. Yikeeeeeesss…
Because yes. We all know what happens when your invites are boring. People don't come to your wedding.
Oh wait. Clarification: assh*les don't come to your wedding. Which actually means... you win.
Friday, February 19, 2010
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26 comments:
Fantastic, that's hilarious!
Not sure if I should laugh or cry on this one! Honestly!
"You have just crossed over into the twilight zone" indeed.
This could not be more true. And before I discovered the non-Knot online wedding community, I honestly felt like I had to have everything. Thankfully, I grew a brain and came to my senses which means we were able to cut out stuff that simply didn't matter to us. Honestly, it makes me want to send out really boring invites just to make sure that those judgey, a-holes won't show up. The less of those, the better.
I'm in the middle of finalizing our invitations and sort of hating it, so thank you for this. I needed to laugh, I needed to be reminded that IT DOESN'T MATTER! (what does matter is what time the ceremony starts, which I just can't seem to figure out. But I digress.)
My wedding is a little less than 3 months away so these reminders are very grounding!
I'm not going to lie... I admit I am one of those brides who obsesses over details -- but that's because I'm a graphic designer & photographer. But even with some design abilities, I become so overwhelmed to meet what my friends & family expect from me. Ironically, it is THEM who remind me they simply can't wait to celebrate.
So who is really putting these expectations? Yep, ME. And it is with posts like these that bring me back to a happy mentality of just going for it and not looking back!
Yesssss. Glad I passed this along - I, for one, found it HILARIOUS. Mostly because I had that exact mentality when I started our std designing about 7 months ago. "Yiiikkkeeeeesssss" indeed.
We are just now getting to our invitation proofs and I just do not CARE anymore! haha I have seen the Team Practical light (also must attribute some of education to the lovelies over on Offbeat Bride!) in the past months and whoa - what a difference it has made in my prioritizing and planning process!
Thanks a million for doing what you do Meg! You have saved us all!
but meg.
we all know that if the wedding is boring, the marriage will fail.
come on.
oh gah! i need to figure out what we're even DOING or wedding invites!!!!
fingers crossed they're not boring
Why yes, I often feel like I've crossed into the twilight zone with weddings planning. But not in the way this marketing BS meant.
Oh, UGH, yes. I'm dealing with this in spades-- I'm usually good about standing up for what really matters, but things are starting to get confusing.
We're having our wedding on a Thursday night (our ten year anniversary, hence the Thursday), and I'm already have trouble balancing What We Care About with Keeping Guests Comfortable. It's not about fear, per se, but the Wedding Industrial Complex still manages to creep its way in there. We want a cocktail-style, heavy (and delicious) hors d'oeuvres reception, without a typical plated dinner. But we want our guests to enjoy themselves, and between the fact that it's Thursday and we're not planning on serving them dinner (though the reception will start at 7ish), I'm worried that we're being too selfish.
So how do we find the balance between saying NO to the Crazy Wedding Nutjobs, and keeping people comfortable and happy? I hope we can figure it out....
hilllarious. I saw a "tip" the other day that said to plan a backup rain venue even if the almanac says that it hasn't rained the week of your wedding in four decades. In other words BE AFRAID. The apocalypse may come upon you and rain all over your wedding. So spend another $1000 to bajillion dollars renting things you don't need.
Oh and Sarah -- a heavy apps reception sounds fabulous to me. Stay strong and put your foot down. You're not selfish and anyone who can't get full on heavy apps should be able to hit up Taco Bell on the way home. :)
This is a fabulous post! I needed that laugh. If only I'd known it was that easy to weed out the undesirable guests. Missed that chance.
To Sarah - I also think heavy APPS is awesome! Maybe some kind of advance notice for the guests so it's not a complete surprise would be the only thing I could suggest - in the invite or on a website? Stick to your guns. It's gonna be a wonderful celebration of the 10 years you've already spent together and the 80 more in your futures.
I was convinced that I needed letterpress invites and was trying to figure out to fit $1500 worth of paper into a teeny-tiny-at-home-wedding budget. then fiance said "don't people just throw those away? can't we just make some and print them at home?" oh the voice of reason. i realized i'd rather have good food and alcohol than something i didn't care a thing about until diving into the wedding world.
This is so ironic because I was just looking at a magazine yesterday that was saying similar things and thinking how ridiculous it was. It had a whole section about why NOT to use an iPod at your reception and how NOT to trust photography to a friend. The mentality in this blog and similar ones has been been the kind of thinking I was used it. It came as a complete surprise that people actually think that you HAVE to splurge to have a decent celebration.
Wow that's hilarious - talk about selling fear and guilt! If people don't come to your wedding it's YOUR fault - you failed in your choice of invite! If only you'd spent more money and slaved over it more!
Even though all of us are probably pretty good at tuning this stuff out, I think some can seep through in our weaker moments - no wonder wedding planning gets so stressful.
This is funny, and incredibly scary at the same time! I want to believe it's not real, but I sadly know that it is!
thanks for this meg! i find wedding invitations to be the one area where the indie wedding world is just as bad as the WIC. "oh, you didn't hand-gocco 150 invites, coasters, napkins? you ORDERED them ONLINE? that is SOO WIC and uncreative." ugh. let's just recycle all this paper goods shit and move on with the wedding and the party.
Delurking to give a hear hear @Chelsea. Seriously. Sometimes the DIY wedding world is equally as insane, expensive, and brainwashing.
Thanks, ladies for being supportive voices of reason. :-)
@bettyb
HOLD THE PHONE! A backup rain VENUE??? Like, rent another venue in case it rains?? Oh, yes, of course. The back up venue. Duh.
@Sarah
You're just going old school. My parents had heavy apps and champaigne punch, and they had a formal formal formal wedding. Just put the word out, and it will be fine. Light apps would be a problem, heavy apps is not.
hahahahahah!!! the bastards.
What cracks me up the most about this - the most formal thing you can do is a plain white slab o'heavy stationery with black calligraphy or engraving. Not that I'd call myself an expert, but is that not still the go-to for the fanciest affairs? Hilarious.
I have been freaking out for the past week about wedding planning (CT is crazy expensive when you need a location with wheelchair access :( ), and this post made me crack up -- cracking my layer of stress in the process.
Having plain recycled paper with the pertinent info as an invite and a RSVP postcard (oh no! no fancy-schmancy little envelope to mail it back in??) works just as well as invites that cost 15 times as much and produce 5 times as much waste. Thanks!
@HRH- I used a postcard for my RSVP's also- all fully addressed and stamped- and the only person who had trouble with it was my mom's fancy-shmancy rich cousin from Cape Cod, who sent me this email (and I quote):
Bob and I are looking forward to attending your wedding and as I prepare to return my response card, I notice there is no return address to send it to. The invitation is awesome, the two inserts too, but there is no return envelope nor address. The first is irrelevant, the latter crucial. Please send along a return address when you get a chance.
So I emailed her back and told her it was a postcard, to which she replied "I never thought to turn it over."
Just fyi, in case any of your guests are similarly confused ;)
I know I found it hilarious when I told my foster mother about my idea of not inviting everyone and their dog to a reception, and perhaps not even having a reception, let alone a sit-down steak dinner (just an afternoon tea in the garden next to the church), and she said, "But then some people might decide not to come!"
And I was just like, "Well if that's the only reason that they're coming, then I don't think I want them to come." It just baffled me.
A) my friends aren't that shallow. those that want to see me get married will come no matter what type of wedding it is. And B) if someone doesn't want to come to my wedding (ie. because its too cheap or too offbeat or whatever) well I respect that and I don't begrudge them not coming, and hey I can always see them another time. I don't need people to drop everything and inconvenience themselves and come to a wedding that they think they're not going to enjoy. I understand that people have better things to do than make a big fuss over me (also I'm an introvert, so I'd rather only have the people there actually care about being part of my wedding day).
Still I couldn't believe that she thought I would want guests there who were only there for the steak or the alcohol, and that I'd be upset it if they didn't come because of that. When in reality, I will breathe a sigh of relief at not having to deal with someone who is there for anything other than seeing me get married.
Another hilarious thing she said, when I mentioned how I didn't want to have place cards, was "well then how will people figure out where to sit?" and I was like "um, in the same way they would find a seat in any other event that didn't have allocated seating?"
Yeah, I need to buy her Offbeat Bride I think.
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