Wedding dislikes, Part II

In emulation of A., Meg, and many other of the fabulous blogs on my blogroll, I have decided to try and further the noble cause of making it OK to have opinions in the wedding blogging world. Also, like most grad students, I enjoy complaining. So here are 5 more wedding things I just don't get:

5. Caterers who think "extra side dishes" is a legitimate vegetarian option
I may be a carnivore, but even I know that a large helping of mashed potatoes and 3 extra green beans does not a vegetarian meal make. I've been to one wedding where the poor vegetarians at our table were starving after their "meal" and ended up sneaking all of the leftover bread from nearby tables! Note to caterers: if your "vegetarian option" is just the beef entree with the beef removed, you need to try harder.

As an addendum: fellow carnivores, if you attend an all-vegetarian reception, please don't embarrass the rest of us by throwing a fit or pouting that there's "no real food." Not having a meat option is not the same as not having a vegetarian option, because a meat-eater can still eat the food available. So grab a stuffed mushroom and an artichoke mini-pizza and chow down. One evening of veggies won't kill you.

4. "Daddy's Little Girl"
Really, sappy songs in general just aren't my thing. (This has been a problem as we select our first dance song; Econo Boy loves sentimental ballads.) But I find this one particularly icky -- it lays on the mush with a trowel, and that boring melody isn't helping. And while I was definitely a "daddy's girl" as a kid, nowadays it rubs my feminism the wrong way to be called "Daddy's little girl" in public. I'm 27, and on my better days I like to think I'm an adult!

3. Calla lilies
My favorite flowers have lots of texture, and look like you could bury your face in them and be rewarded with a marvelous scent. Think lilacs or roses (yes, roses, I don't care if you think they're boring, I love their smell!). Calla lilies, while lovely, don't really have that going for them -- they're very structured, almost architectural, and somewhat stiff-looking in my eyes. I think I may have also suffered a bit of calla lily overload -- when I first started looking for flower ideas, I was amazed at the number of online bouquet photos that involved nothing but calla lilies! Whatever the reason, the only coherent instruction I gave my poor florist at our meeting was "I like everything. Oh, except calla lilies."

Image from TheKnot.com

2. Jordan Almonds
Now, I love most candies, just not these ones. They taste like chalk, and they're impossible to chew. Yes, they're traditional, yes, they're "wedding-y," yes, they're a bit more "formal looking" than M&Ms in your wedding colors. I don't care. I think they taste gross. M&Ms are delicious, and I believe delicious should always win out over pretty.

Image from FavorStudio.com

1. In fact, the whole school of thought that says it's more important for food to look good than taste good. Also, fake food.
Wedding cakes with neon blue fondant, I'm looking at you. Fake wedding cakes, especially at weddings where no cake will be served?* I'm also looking at you. Seriously, is it really so important to have a pretty "wedding cake" for the guests to look at that you'll put out a chunk of decorated styrofoam? I don't get it, I really don't. Cake is for eating, end of story.

* People do this, I swear. It wasn't just a hallucination I had after eating too many lemon bars.

So have at me, people. Does anything on my list reveal me as a ridiculous human being with no taste or style? Am I heartless for hating on "Daddy's Little Girl"? Or do styrofoam cakes also make you secretly want to weep?

Random wedding dislikes

When planning a wedding, you are bound to run into at least a few trends and traditions that just make you want to scream and run away, often for reasons you can't quite identify. Here are 5 wedding things that make me go "ick." I have no real reason to dislike any of the things on this list (with the possible exception of #4) -- it's more a knee-jerk reaction. But I'm feeling a bit punchy today, so I might as well vent :-)

5. Wedding favors

The perfect storm of emotional blackmail and WIC salesmanship -- "but if you don't give favors, how will you thank your guests for coming?" I also hate that every time I see a picture of a table setting with those adorable little favor boxes, I flirt with the idea of giving out favors just because the boxes would look so cute on the tables! Clearly, I have a problem.

Image from whiteaisle.com

4. People who obsess over what their family members are wearing to the wedding
If I run across one more bride on a message board throwing a fit over the color of her fiance's mother's dress, I will scream, and then possibly set the living room on fire. News flash: if you told your aunt to find a baby pink dress and she sent you photos of a coral dress, this is not a crisis. Not even close. And don't start wailing about how the pictures will be ruuuuuuuined if your family members aren't color-coordinated. No, they won't. I have tons of great group shots of friends and family that look fantastic despite the fact that no one told us what colors to wear. Some of us clash. So what? We look happy, we're all wearing outfits we like, and the pictures are great because they contain people I care about.

If your family members *ask* you what color they should wear, by all means, give them some ideas. But otherwise, stop mailing fabric swatches out to your aunts, uncles and cousins and let them dress themselves like grown-ups.

3. Pickup skirts
Heavy, poofy, princessy -- everything I wanted to avoid in a wedding dress.

Image from anythingbridal.com

2. The Tiffany blue-and-brown color combo
I know it's cool, I know it's stylish, but for some reason I can't stand seeing these colors next to each other. I think it looks like a mistake, like someone dropped a Tiffany's box in the mud and decided to make the best of it. (In general, I'm not a big fan of brown, so maybe that's my problem.) And am I the only one who finds it a little scary that Tiffany's has achieved the level of brand awareness where they have a color named after their company?

Image from weddingbycolor.com

1. "The Bridal Chorus" by Wagner (a.k.a. "Here Comes the Bride")
Maybe it was that time I heard a "Bridal Chorus" ring tone on someone's cell phone in a NYC coffee shop. Maybe it was learning that in Wagner's opera Lohengrin, the source of the famous "Bridal Chorus," the bride betrays her husband and ends up dead. Maybe it was all that time I spent as a child singing "Here comes the bride, big, fat and wide," with my friends as we married the Barbie with no hair to that Ken doll whose head kept falling off. (Our Barbies lived rather Shakespearean lives -- everyone either ended up married or dead.)

But I hate this song. I mean, I HATE it. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I'd rather walk down the aisle to "Muskrat Love." (Kidding ... sort of.)

What are your random wedding dislikes? Do you love anything on my list and think I'm a nut? Let me know!