This morning, I wake up to an email from someone demanding $500, which is apparently past due. I'm already running late because my phone has decided to retire one vital function at a time and today that function was the alarm. So I'm standing in a half-asleep panic in my room, one leg in my cat hair couture slacks, grandma-style bra severely misaligned, staring at this email and wondering who I owe money to now.
There are a few possibilities that I jump to first. To start with, medical bills. Is this unknown person reminding me of yet another unpaid hospital bill? A half hour of "therapy" (for an illness I don't have, by the way, but that's another long, strange tale) that slipped through the cracks? A charge for breathing in the proximity of a hospital, even if I didn't check in? Because I'm still getting random bills for treatment I received 7 months ago, and I'm barely joking about the bizarre charges I've received at random intervals since then.
But the email seems too casual for that. So maybe it's from the small marketing business I use to promote Necessaries? Because working with them has been a little... chaotic. There doesn't seem to be a lot of structure, and it wouldn't surprise me if they forgot that I'd already paid for their services. Hey, it's a small business, and it hasn't figured itself out yet.
And what if it's a scam? Standing partially nude and with my chin still caked in drool, I'm outraged by the thought. So I fire back, announcing I don't know who this is, or what the charge means. If it's a medical thing, this is unprofessional. If it's the marketing service, it's sloppy and incorrect. If it's a scam, don't these people know I'm broke?
At the moment I hit send, I remember the only remaining giant money-suck after the medical and book business options.
The wedding.
Oh my gawd, I've just sassed the kind woman who is in charge of our venue. I immediately apologize and explain my mistake. I don't remember her telling us about another $500 charge due 6 months before the wedding, but I totally buy it. My head has been so chock full of wedding crap that it's leaking out my ears, and I'm sure I'm losing important details because of that (despite the elaborate wedding planner binder my mother-in-law-to-be provided).
Between the music and the dresses and the invitations and the photographer and the guest list that is 85% people I've never heard of, my brain is turning to soup. Not just soup. Spicy, angry, bowel-singeing chili. Whenever Kelsey and I have to "real talk" about wedding junk, I have this invisible line I risk crossing between "This is fine and we're getting things done and maybe I'm even enjoying it" and "Why the HELL am I letting this stupid, sexist industry devour my soul, empty my family's pockets, and fill my Facebook feed with advertisements about 'saying yes to the man (lol) of my dreams'?"
And when I cross that line, I'm one nasty, whiskey-swigging, teeth-gnashing bride-to-be.
But who wouldn't be? This wedding stuff is insane. There's so much to deal with, and every single person you encounter seems to have a strong opinion on how your wedding should go. You have to make thousands of decisions on vendors, and pay them all handsomely for quality. You have to sort friends and family friends and family (even the family members you think your mom might be making up for the sake of adding more names) before sending invitations and you KNOW someone is gonna have their heart broken, but the venue just isn't big enough. You have to make yourself pretty. Absurdly, fairy tale pretty, even if you were just diagnosed with a disease that makes you gain weight, grow a beard, and become enveloped in acne.
The worst of it is turning down everyone else's opinion without making enemies or being labeled a bridezilla. What an awful term. You know, every vendor I've encountered is used to working with the bride, not the groom. So the bride is the one expected to have opinions, yet when she does, she's mocked for it. And the groom is just, I don't know, along for the ride? This stuff doesn't quite apply for Kelsey and me, I suppose, but the weird "This day is about you!" vs "Here are my 8,000 opinions on your wedding and if you turn them down then you're a rampaging monster!" dynamic is still there.
It's all part of the business model. It's an industry, plain and cold and simple. And it's an industry that targets women, because the significance of marriage and "our special day" has been pressed on us since birth. So women end up in charge of everything, but society has this weird way of demonizing women who are in charge of things. It's a nasty Catch 22.
But it's OK to still like weddings, even though they're often problematic and overly commercialized. After all, regardless of the venue and cost and guest list, it IS our day. And I'll try to make it as perfect as possible, and I'll get frustrated, and I'll shoot people down if I have to, and it still won't be perfect.
And that's fine. We're not perfect. So we'll throw the best damn party we can, and invite as many loved ones as we can, and pay the outrageous costs knowing that sometimes, you just gotta.
And next time I get a confusing email asking for money, I won't immediately punch the wall and throw a tantrum, and I'll try to think about the dozens of people who just want to help me make our big day one to remember for the rest of our lives.
(Seriously, I bruised my hand.)
(Did I use too many gifs? Naaaaah...)