He said (Ryan)

I try to not to look at marriage and weddings too negatively, but I still gotta be a “man” about it. Turning the day you are permanently paired up with someone into this “start of real life” moment sort of trivializes, at least for me, all the years before that point. It’s the easier thing to do, but what happens to the rest?

But people do it all the time. The old stereotype that young girls fantasize about their dream wedding is outdated, but one can’t ignore that even the most modern man and woman disagree tremendously on the size and scope of weddings.

In high school, I dated a girl who had spent the better part of a weekend making entire “wedding dream books” with her friends. They planned the colors, time of year, who their maid of honor would be, (sadly) what their dream husband would look like, their honeymoon, what type of cake, and on and on. And I put on a pleasant grin for a while, but after two or three minutes, I just got bored of it.

I just don’t care that much about the details. I reject the “male” notion that my wedding day should be a day to dread, that now I’ll have the “old ball and chain.” But I also reject that it is a day that should have more than three days devoted to planning it, too. I don’t want to tie the knot in Vegas or anything, but I also don’t want my spouse’s Dad to have to take out a second mortgage for something so surface.

Call me new-fashioned, but a wedding, for me, is about three very distinct and simple things: allowing my Grandma to see it happen in a church, kissing the bride for just a second too long to try to be funny, and getting enough wedding gifts to allow my new wife to forget she just married a shmuck.

If those things happen, then all the rest is just filler for what it’s really about: love.

She said (Amanda)

I started thinking about what my wedding day would be like before I was even out of elementary school. One Halloween, I even dressed-up as a bride. Now, when I attend weddings, I take mental notes of things I would like and wouldn’t like at my own.

There are many women like me, who will go to very elaborate measures in order to create a picture perfect special day. Some people do not understand the madness behind all of this, including myself. The only thing I really understand is that a wedding day is a time when us girls get to be a princess, a day when all eyes are on us. We get pampered and more dressed up than we will for any other day of our lives. It’s the ultimate day when we get to feel “girlie.”

In fairy tales, the wedding day is the day when the “happily ever after” begins. The character marries her prince charming, and she’s usually saved from some wicked stepmother or horrible life or man. This fairy tale ending is what many women want to happen on their wedding day (until the reality check hits us and we realize that there is no such thing). The more elaborate the wedding, the more close to the fairy tale.

We women also have another strike against us when it comes to weddings. Not only have we dreamt about it since we were little, but our mothers and grandmothers began planning it when we were little girls. And the older we get, the more questioning we get about when we are going to get married and have kids.

So, is it very rational for some of us women to want to spend thousands of dollars on a day that, from what I’ve heard, goes by so quickly that there are things we won’t even remember? Not really, but I’m sure when it’s my time, I will still want the wedding that I have dreamt about since I was a little girl.