This article was written a few years ago, but it is new to me. I thought you might enjoy it.
Miss Manners takes wedding planners to task.
For 32 years,
etiquette expert Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, has watched social
mores loosen and public behavior slide. But little has appalled her more
than the increasingly selfish conduct of brides- and grooms-to-be.
Spurred by wedding planners, she maintains, they act as if their
nuptials are not an intimate personal ceremony but a show in which they
are the stars, in which no one's interests but their own are to be
considered and whose tab should be footed by parents and guests alike.
So it should surprise no one that she has taken the white gloves off
and come out swinging. "Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified
Wedding," (W.W. Norton & Co., 320 pages), written with her daughter,
newlywed Jacobina Martin, tries to get couples back to the basics,
stressing that a meaningful wedding need not be an over-the-top
menagerie, put anyone in debt or require a theme.
There's already a theme, and it's marriage.
Celebrity treatment
"People have come to believe that a proper wedding requires all of
these things that the industry says they have to spend money and time
on," Martin said in a recent phone interview. "They're being told these
things are necessary in the name of etiquette. It's a vulgar display and
unnecessary. I wanted to set the record straight."
This should come as a relief (or something to rue) for the 2.1 million American couples expected to marry in 2010.
Martin is not the first to take note of the escalating trend toward
treating oneself as a celebrity. Television has made sport of it with
shows such as We TV's "Bridezilla" and TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress."
New Yorker magazine culture writer Rebecca Mead took on the wedding
industry in her 2007 book, "One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American
Wedding." She theorized that overblown weddings cover up a sense of
emptiness in a time when religious authority is sliding; make the ritual
more meaningful to people who are independent longer and marry later;
define couples by their consumer choices ("I buy, therefore I am.").
The most common question posed to Martin when she started her column
in 1978 related to the white wedding dress. Today, questions revolve
around money. "From the people getting married, it's: 'How can we get
more money out of our families?' " she said. "From guests, it's: 'How
can we avoid being exploited?' "
Aghast at wedding porn
As America's leading manners columnist, Martin was doubly motivated
to write the book because of her daughter's experiences. Jacobina
Martin, who teaches improvisational comedy at Second City in Chicago,
became engaged when her mother signed the book deal.
"My daughter became engaged and started reading the wedding porn - big, thick magazines - and was horrified," Martin said.
Their book's eight chapters include "The General Principles," "The
Engagement" and "Three Terrible Ideas," along with troubleshooting tips
and timetables written wryly by Jacobina Martin. There are also
questions posed to Martin over the years, with her oh-so-correct answers
to her "Gentle Readers."
Going into debt, misery
Martin said she is not a grouch or out of touch.
"I would be if I were interfering with weddings that people can
afford to spend the money on and that make them happy," she said. "From
my mail, I know people go into great debt and try to get money out of
their relatives and friends, so they can't afford it, and it does not
make them happy. It's astounding to me that a very profitable industry
has managed to convey the idea that tremendous spending and showing off
is the proper way to get married."
Naturally, wedding consultants take umbrage at Miss Manners' broad brushstrokes.
New York event planner Colin Cowie, who appears on NBC's "The Today
Show" and the HSN network and has written five best-selling wedding
books, said he
would "agree and disagree vehemently" with Martin.
“If you think about the well being of your guests, and their comfort,
then go ahead - if you're not embarrassing anyone, and you're not doing
anything distasteful, embrace your ideas to the fullest," he said.
"If you want to walk down the aisle in a lime green wedding dress
with your dog on a floral leash to Billy Idol's 'White Wedding,' it
tells me a whole lot more than walking down the aisle in a white frock
to Pachelbel's Canon in D."
Deborah Moody, director of the Association of Certified Professional Wedding Consultants,
an industry group that trains 100 wedding planners annually and was
founded in San Jose in 1990, said Miss Manners' ire at the wedding
industry is "not very nice."
"We work to try to help you stay within your budget and have your dream day as well," she said.
New trends include bridal couples chipping in with parents to pay for
the wedding and older couples registering for honeymoon donations,
instead of china from department stores.
Donations to charities
Laurie Arons, a high-end wedding planner in San Francisco, is, like
Miss Manners, "horrified" with the practice of registering for a
honeymoon. Arons suggests couples register with a charity so gifts can
be donations to a nonprofit group instead.
She sees nothing wrong with destination weddings, simply because few
people work and live in the same town where they were raised, nor do
their families or friends.
"In the extreme, Miss Manners probably is quite accurate about some
planners wanting to up-sell their clients," Arons said, "but there are
still good people out there working and thinking of the guests."
Cowie, taking a virtual jab at Martin, said he sees wedding Web sites
as a "great way to create community" and to inform guests about what
to expect.
"It'd be foolish to turn our backs on technology and pretend it
didn't happen," he said. "I think Miss Manners needs to get with the
program and realize if you don't grow, you're going to be left behind."
Jacobina Martin's ceremony a year ago was held in the afternoon at
the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. At the reception, a tea, bride and
groom mingled freely with guests.
Best of all, the bride did not wait a year to send out her thank-you notes, as some without manners have been known to do.
"Their airplane left late in the afternoon and she was writing
thank-you letters all along," Miss Manners said. "She was brought up by
me. What did you expect?"
Miss Manners' top 5 gentle wedding reminders
1. When you had that childhood wedding fantasy, you
were a child. If you don't have better taste and a greater sense of
social and fiscal responsibility now, you're too immature to get
married.
2. People are more important than menus. Figure out
first whom you want to have there, and then what you can afford to serve
them, not the other way around.
3. A phrase you will be happier if you forget: "the
perfect wedding." Perfection does not exist this side of heaven,
especially when it involves complicated arrangements and all kinds of
other people, and you'll drive yourself and others crazy if you think
you can achieve it.
4. Another phrase you will be happier forgetting:
"It's your day." The joining of two people involves two (or more)
families and other relatives and friends, and you ignore their feelings
and comfort at your peril.
5. Your guests are not your personal shoppers.