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Congrats Courtney. May your first child be a masculine child.

As for your comments, it's weird because I was talking to an engaged coworker the other day and couldn't believe her self-centeredness. She's up-to-her eyes in debt and is actually considering asking the guests to pay for themselves in order to fund her dream wedding.

The idea of maybe cutting back or pushing the date or figuring out how to have a nice wedding that didn't bankrupt her, her fiance or her family was just not possible. "Well it's my day!" was her retort. Not hers and her fiance's day. Hers alone.

I feel sorry for her fiance.

So you're saying I still have time to change your mind?

All the best to you and your betrothed, Courtney!

"So embarrassed to be a woman" sums up my feelings precisely, Single Pringle. I feel like I'm dealing with a completely different species when it comes to brides in this country. Thanks for the article and comments that prove that I am not alone in this.

In my opinion, the whole wedding idea has gotten far, far out of hand. I of course can understand making the day that you pledge to be with another person memorable, but I think the ridiculous white wedding princess magical ice sculpture $5,000 wedding dress doves, rainbows and peppermint flowers kind of thing is idiocy. I think love and money has to remain a smidgen mutually exclusive somehow or the whole thing is a doomed enterprise. Oh, by the way, congratulations!

MelBiv - no, no, no. Ginny Baker is the best bride of all time. "Samantha. Sam. You're really acting like.......an asshole."

"It's gonna be a piece of cake." (snap)

I will not put her in the same category as the foolery above.

Congrats!!

I'm with you on the Bridezilla hate. I'm getting married in April and I've asked the people closest to me to make sure to kick my ass if I start acting like a bitch. So far, so good, I think. My friends, family and fiance would never let me act like some of these women do. It's nuts. I think part of the problem with our culture is that we value the WEDDING more than the MARRIAGE. That is so very backwards.

Congratulations Courtney!

I like marriage a lot, but hate, hate, hate weddings. I wanted to wear a dress I could wear more than once and have a small wedding with some punch and cookies. My mother, on the other hand, wanted to invite everyone who'd ever invited her to their children's weddings. I told my her that she could only invite people I actually knew. In the end, she bought my dress and said, "Here, you're wearing this." Basically, I didn't plan a thing. I just showed up and gritted my teeth through it. We're going on 30 years together without a single fight. But I've never ever considered my wedding to be "my day."

Ugh. Fuck that Bride Wars flick or whatever the hell it's called. I sat through it simply for the fight scene that was promised. Not enough bloodshed for me, personally.

I would like to get married one day. My only requirement is a beautiful dress (don't need one that costs more than a car, though) and a bitching cake. I refuse to compromise on the cake.

Eh, I dunno. My wedding was two years ago. I was dead set on being the anti-bridezilla. We basically got good food and a good band and took care of everything. Let the girls pick their own dresses, paid for everything, based the date on when most people could make it.

It was hell. All people did the whole time was berate me for not doing what they wanted, yell at me if I dared make a decision that worked for me, and genral backstabbing and sabotage (or utter disinterest) from the folks in my wedding party. Hell, I didn't even get the dress I wanted (thanks to the fiancee blowing that budget on his tux).

So you know what? I have just the teeniest little bit of sympathy.

Note: I do have sympathy for the put upon brides. I spent my wedding with a voice in my head saying, "bride's day my ass!".

Congratulations, Courtney! May your wedding exceed the best and most fun ones depicted in cinema!

You get so many props for mentioning The Baxter.

Congrats Courtney - I hope you have a fun wedding and a great marriage!

I think that majority of people are actually pretty reasonable about their weddings, despite the reality-show and rom com crazies, and the people who worship them. The "average" price listed isn't a realistic figure because it includes some very expensive wedding for some very rich people. Put it this way - if Bill Gates walks into a bar, on average, everyone in that bar is a millionaire. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about - American wedding planning resources were useless for me because the expectations are so different in Canada.

My wedding was awesome. My husband and I did all those things we were told we would be too stressed out to do - eat the food and cake, drink beer, talk to all the guests, dance, and have sex at the end of the night. I still think it was too expensive, but it was really fun to have everyone we love in one place having a good time. My favourite part was probably the groomsmen no pants dance. You can have a fun and awesome wedding without turning into a psychopath, though it helps if you have fun reasonable people around you.

Many, many congrats and best wishes to you and your fiancee, Courtney!

We can rag on bridezillas all we want, and they are horrible people, but they couldn't continue to be horrible people if their "friends" and "loved ones" didn't allow them to be.

Parents, friends and of course the groom need to step up and do something about the bridezilla shit. But they're gutless, so they won't.

If you marry someone who acts like a spoiled, petulant child during the wedding preparations, you deserve every moment of unhappiness she causes you.

I've done extensive studies on this and I can safely say that the more money and nonsense put into the wedding, the less effort is put into the marriage.

My weird cousin and his dull, young bride...12 bridesmaids, 12 groomsmen, a putz running around collecting a ransom because the bride was "kidnapped" ( Fuck that, I gave you a gift)
The dimwitted bride didn't have the common courtesy to greet her guests, but pouted most of the day because the band played actual wedding music instead of her favorite explicit rap. Outcome? Divorced in 3 years

My sisters snooty friend and her manic depressive, misogynist fiance. Dress? $12,000. Guest list? 400. Headpiece $800, Engagement ring? Fuckin huge. A program that cost more than the first printing of Harry Potter. Outcome? Divorced after 7 years of married hell.
But she had a nice program....

My husbands cousin and her put-upon spineless fiance. A lovely hotel wedding where the bride would not let anyone enter the banquet room until ALL of her pictures were taken. She didn't want the room to look all messy with drinks on the tables when she pranced in. She did, however, have a small area cordoned off OUTSIDE in the garden for her guests to wait, unfortunately it was in 102 degree heat for an hour, where the Ritz crackers were wilting and the cheese balls were bursting into flame. That refreshing drink was not so refreshing when the ice melted in 12 seconds and the liquid started to boil. I was already feeling cranky when I saw her in the hallway having a major snit fit because her parents, messily divorced and married to other people, did not want to enter the banquet room together, arm in arm, something she just sprung on them. I swear I wanted to slap her. Outcome? Divorced in 4 years.

Spoiled bratty brides to not make good long term wives.

That said. Have a wonderful day Courtney, and may the weather gods be with you.

I eloped. No bridezilla moments, no debt and all my friends still like me. Win all around.

And in three weeks I'll create a 'Bestie Movie Menses Ever Awards' column, 'cause that's when I'm getting my next period, omigawd!!! I've landed At The Mountains of Coinvidence and art and event have collided! How does it happen? Who can say, who can say?

Congrats Courtney! I hope you have the best wedding and the best tasting CAKE ever!

Congratulations Courtney!!!

Courtney! Many congratulations. You forgot Anna Chancellor in Four Weddings, and Andie McDowell in Four Weddings, but it doesn't matter. Have a great day! x

Congrats, Courtney! I have hope you have a fabulous wedding and a wonderful honeymoon!

I agree with Samantha. I had a big wedding too, and loved every second of it. And so did my guests, judging by the video of everyone dancing and prancing and goofing around. 14 years and 3 kids later we are still going strong.
Now, I was always respectful and GRATEFUL to my parents, relatives and friends. I think Bridezillas are not obnoxious, entitled, nasty bitches around their wedding date only. They must be like that in their everyday life, it just gets magnified by the wedding spotlight
.

Congratulations, Courtney!

*ahem* as the operator of a wedding blog, I believe it's already implicit that I love weddings. But thanks for saying what I'm always saying. Brides are awful. I'm surprised more weddings aren't called off beforehand, considering how everyone seems to feel like an engagement gives them license to be monsters for about a year, or however long it is before the actual nuptial event.

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