Americans love the TV and the movies. And we model our lives after them. One tender love scene and Pachelbel’s Canon in D is the wedding march for the next twenty years. We’re susceptible. There are probably great things about that, but right now I’m too frustrated to look for them.
You’re Engaged! And you’re getting married because you love one another. You’re going to create a wedding ceremony that honors your relationship, wedding vows that are the foundation of a lifelong marriage and a wedding reception that invites your community to join together in their support of your new endeavor. Weddings, although they should be fun celebrations of your love, are also serious passages where you commit to a shared future. What gets said at the wedding ceremony, the promises to which you commit and the support you gather from your community are important harbingers of the success of your marriage.
So, if as in this movie, you wind up at the wedding planners without your partner, alarm bells should go off! Here are some of the stupid and dangerous stereotypes this movie is pushing:
- Men are extraneous to wedding planning and weddings. Men are excited to be engaged and to be marrying the woman of their dreams. Most weddings I’m involved with created by both members of the couple and are not the purview of brides. So last century!
- Weddings are not about marriages and wedding ceremonies. This may be the key to our problem with divorce in this country! Everyone wants a wedding but nobody wants a partner! Well, actually no. Real wedding couples, ones anticipating living happily and healthily ever after, are creating their weddings around their extraordinary relationships. Given the right support they do well. (Good wedding ceremonies and receptions will help with that support!)
- Women’s lives are nothing but competition for the unbearably frivolous. We’ve all heard horror stories. But in 1,000 weddings I’ve heard no more than three or four. Most weddings are huge celebrations of friendship. Bridesmaids and groomsmen throw showers and parties, listen endlessly to wedding gossip and do all sorts of ridiculous tasks for their friends.
- Movies are a good model for weddings. HA! This movie isn’t even a good model for a movie! (Although everyone agrees that Anne Hathaway has great eyes and is a decent actor. Great décor on the Titanic didn’t save it, did it?) Everyone panned it. (I liked the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Carrie Rickey headline: “Winsome twosome turns gruesome.”) Everyone agreed the two should have married one another and solved the wedding date problem, but right, same sex marriages are illegal! (Watching this movie, you’ve got to wonder why ANYONE wants to get married if this is what a wedding is!)
- Women moviegoers will see anything and don’t want to see good movies. What can you say to that?
- And right, any self-respecting Wedding planner would tolerate such behavior from her brides.
Since the economy is tough and you’re saving for your wedding, why not go for a romantic stroll around town with your beloved instead? Hold hands, find new places to steal kisses and remember why YOU’re getting married. You can go to the movies when there’s something fun to see. After all, you’ve got a great love affair to turn into a lifelong marriage with a deftly crafted wedding ceremony, strong wedding vows and a wedding reception that is fun to give and to attend. If you need to know more about it, you can rent it.
