Monday, March 15, 2010

Add it to the list, right after mannequins

I got some great advice from Luc, which he got from his mom, which she gleaned from Luc's sister who was planning her wedding last year. Did you follow that? No? It's ok, this is the important part: Don't read too many bridal magazines, it gets depressing. The same goes for (certain) wedding websites and blogs. I hate to pick on Style Me Pretty (because I read it EVERY day), but they're a great example of how brides are led to set fantastical expectations for their big day. I always have to remind myself that someone designed these weddings, or there was at least a wedding coordinator to lean on. A company, whose job it is to buy pretty things and decorate a room or area is dedicated to conveying a theme and usually has a large sum of money thrown at them to do so. They're always lovely, but if you're not hiring someone to do this for you, chances are you'll make yourself crazy trying to achieve it on your own.

The photos on these sites and in the magazines are out of this world beautiful and, for the most part, out of reach. I don't actually get too bothered by it though- I think our wedding is going to be amazing and very "us", and I love drawing inspiration from these sites and mags. However, it's the photographic treatment that feels a bit contrived. It feels like design showcase (rather than a wedding) where someone has been hired to "style" a room and the photographer takes "artsy" photos that are, arguably, unrelated to the wedding. A few examples:
-a vintage fan
-a stack of books
-old suitcases
-a typewriter
I understand that these are all contributors to the atmosphere, but when they're featured (alone) in photographs, it bothers me. Yup, just another weird thing that bothers me.

3 comments:

  1. I don't know if you read this one: A practical wedding (www.apracticalwedding.com) - by far the best wedding blog! I'm getting married this summer, and a practical wedding basically makes me laugh and say "thank you!" at least once a week. I highly recommend to balance the wedding-industrial-complex propaganda

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  2. That's great!! Thanks for the link. Luc always goes on about how the wedding industry is such a racket...so he'll appreciate this too!

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  3. Media like "Style Me Pretty" does for weddings what Victoria Secret commercials does for women... Provides an unrealistic expectation of how things "should" be.

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