What NOT to do when you get engaged: become a "bride"

So I'm reading this list of "things to do as soon as you get engaged" because somebody somewhere linked to it (probably on Pinterest.

So, because I'm amused, how stupid this list is:

1. Get a manicure! Because you're now not a human being with a face or eyes, you are only a hand on which to display the ring. Listen, if you want to get a manicure, that's cool, I think having nice looking nails is a good thing. But the reasoning, which is basically "you're going to be showing your ring off and taking pictures of your hand A LOT" is just stupid because it's part of this ridiculous notion that an engagement is about the ring and not the two people becoming a family/partners and committing to help and support each other for the rest of their lives.

Which is what leads to the kind of stuff I talked about last week where a woman was saying her own mother was being rude to her and telling her she needs to force her fiance to buy her a better/bigger engagement ring.

Like almost all things, the answer is to just be yourself. If you like having nice nails/hands then do it! If you don't give a flip then don't! But seriously, you're a human being with a life and hobbies and activities, not a jewelry display case. You aren't your ring, and nobody should act like it including you.

2. Insure your ring! You know, this would be totally great advice except for the fact that it's completely dripping with the aforementioned assumption that a man's worth as a husband is tied up in the worth of the ring. My engagement ring cost less than $100, nobody is going to write an insurance policy for that.

But whatever, my point is that this isn't something that every single person should do when they get engaged because in my opinion, people need to stop being so tied up in super expensive gaudy engagement rings. Again, if you love expensive jewelry and it's within your means, I'm not telling you that you shouldn't.

I'm saying that going into debt to buy a pricey ring that you have to have insured seems a little stupid if you don't have the money to do it and/or you aren't the type of woman who wears a lot of jewelry regularly. If you have expensive possessions, you should insure them, absolutely.

But there's no requirement that you need a ring worth insuring.

3. Settle on a Budget: This is, in some ways, good advice, but not in others. Because the fact is before you can talk numbers or any of that, you need to talk expectations, ideas, and other generalities. You can't make a budget without knowing what you're budgeting. Were you wanting to invite a few close friends and he wants to invite the world? Are your parents going to insist that you have a catered dinner when you were thinking buffet? Yes, you probably have a general idea of how much money you can spend, but specific numbers? Not on your life. That's going to take part of the planning and research before you can do that. Unless you are a wedding planner, or just helped your friend get married or something then you don't really know what things cost when you get engaged.

Also, this line: "keep all familial relationships in tact by minding this budget down to the last red cent."

HA. The money and the budget is what STARTS almost all wedding arguments, and it's largely brides who are trying to "mind this budget down to the last red cent" that are the most screwed.

Seriously though, do a bit of research before you come to the table with whoever is footing the bill because otherwise you're just going to end up with bad estimates for everything and your budget will be messed up from day one. Honestly I would suggest coming up with ball park figures on your own after a discussion with your fiance about what type of wedding you both want. There's no use having a meeting without information.

4. Pick a date: Another thing that's good advice but not exactly once they elaborate. First, this should come before the budget because the season/month you get married in can change your budget immensely. This is exactly what I was talking about.

Second, their reasons? Because it will influence a lot of important decisions like "picking your gown, theme, bridesmaids dresses, etc." Okay, you know what all those things are? Things you should have in mind before you make your budget. They're also things that could be season specific if you want them to be, but depending on your venue, might not matter.

There was literally nothing about my actual ceremony that wouldn't work in any season, because it was inside a church. And because this whole "you can't do X at a winter wedding!" stuff is stupid. Plus, you should probably pick your venue before you can pick your date or season. Because what if you pick a date but the church is booked?

Your date will impact some things, but your venue is more important to picking your dress, bridesmaid's gowns, and probably also your "theme." And your venue also will affect your date. Pick a couple possible dates, in case you can't get the one you want.

5. Choose a diet plan and start it: The response I have to this advice is actually too vulgar for this particular blog. Let's just say it's a word that you're only allowed to say once in a PG-13 setting.

The fact that it's REQUIRED for bride's to try to lose weight and make themselves into something they aren't for their wedding day is a sign of a much, much greater problem with our entire society and I just don't have time to break that down.

If you aren't healthy and you want to be, great, it's always a good time to start being HEALTHY. But focusing on your weight and your perceived flaws is a really terrible way to start your life with your new spouse.

6. Sign up for Pinterest: Okay, yeah, that's probably a good idea but geeze do people go freakin' overboard with it all the time. First of all, roughly half the single/unmarried women I know already have wedding boards on Pinterest. Second, they pin EVERYTHING.

But it is just a technology advancement on what I did, which was go to the bookstore and buy a stack of wedding magazines and tear out the stuff I liked. Personally I still need the tactile aspect of physical pictures for that kind of thing, but yeah, Pinterest is probably going to be pretty helpful.

7. Pick a location: You know, if they had suggested this was a freeform list, maybe I'd still be on board. But the implication was that this was in order, and you're way past the time to pick a location. I mean, they're saying it's the most significant decision, but it's 7th? Then they say that you should consider the season, theme, and budget to pick a location, which seems completely backwards to me for the reasons I pointed out above. It is significant, because it will affect your season, theme, and budget not the other way around.

I mean, you could do it this way, but I don't see why you would. You certainly can't even begin to make a budget until you know about the venue, because you don't know if there will be a cost. And you can't get the cost for your venue until you know when it's available. And sometimes it'll be a lot cheaper in a certain season, so why pick a season until you know that?

8.Adopt better beauty habits: Okay, you are going to be in a lot of pictures and stuff, but seriously? Do we need yet another thing piling on to the "women-you don't look right no matter what you do so get to fixing yourself PRONTO" bandwagon?

One of the things I hate most about weddings is that they are all about becoming "a bride" instead of about the actual woman.

9. Hire a planner: Oh for Pete's sake. Hire a planner IF YOU NEED ONE. Also, IF YOU CAN AFFORD ONE. Planning a wedding is a bit stressful but it's actually kind of fun, and while I have the fuzziness of mine being seven years ago, I don't remember it being all that hard. It's certainly not nearly as difficult as a lot of the stuff I've done since. You try planning a film shoot, then a wedding feels like organizing a brunch date.

Not to mention the fact that this is one more thing that's telling you that you HAVE to do certain things and your wedding HAS to include this, that, and the other. You HAVE to be complicated. You HAVE to have place cards and favors and something quirky at the reception like Mad Libs or whatever. You HAVE to spend X amount of dollars. You HAVE to have a DJ and toasts, and dancing, and an open bar.

Listen, here's the most important rule of weddings and getting engaged: what you have to do is only governed by the laws of your municipality and your religion. Otherwise? It's all optional.

ALL OF IT.

A wedding planner, 9 times out of 10, is probably going to try to make you have all the requirements. So if you want the straight up traditional exactly as everybody else experience, then sure, whatever, get a planner.

If you're a busy career woman who doesn't have time for the annoying aspects and the paperwork, then sure, have a helping hand.

But you don't NEED a wedding planner anymore than you NEED a wedding. Have the day you want to have. End of story.

10. Sign up for sale alerts: Again, good advice for the wrong reasons. This one is because the gown is apparently worth splurging for but the accessories are not.

Listen: you will not wear your gown again. It is a one time thing, and while you will likely see your pictures often so you should be happy with it, at the same time, your accessories can be paired with other things and worn for the rest of your life (except your veil, that really isn't going to work with anything else).

Yes, you should absolutely save money where you can, including on the gown. Sale alerts probably aren't a bad idea. But there are other ways to save on your gown, like, oh, not going with a designer label? Not spending $6,000 on it in the first place?

Again, this entire list was basically the "how to have a standard cookie cutter wedding 101." So here's my best advice for you for what to do as soon a you get engaged:

Take a deep breath. Think about yourself for a little while. Think about your fiance. Think about your lives together, both before and in the future. Think about who you are, outside the wedding, without the trappings.

And keep that in your mind, as clear as you can make it, through the whole process. Your wedding isn't about what other people think you have to have or what other people want. It's about two people standing together, not just for one day but forever.

Your wedding day is just the start of your marriage, and a milestone in your life up to that point. It's about you, and your fiance, and the two of you together. It's about celebrating a great moment in your life with the people you love most, and them wanting to wish you well and enjoy the moment with you. It's about families coming together, and creating a new family.

If you can keep that in mind, then the rest will fall into place and you'll enjoy every minute.

Get over your engagement ring

I've probably said this before, but I read a couple of advice columns pretty regularly.

Today, I read a Dear Prudence where the first letter was this particular problem, which I've heard before:

I recently got engaged to my boyfriend of two years. He is from a northern European country where engagement rings are usually simple gold band, worn by both the man and the woman. The big diamonds that American women expect are very rare, and considered rather vulgar by most. My engagement ring is a cultural compromise: A gold band set with a very small (1/6 of a carat) diamond. I love my ring, but back home in the U.S., many people seem personally offended by it. My mother is urging me to have my ring "upgraded" because a respectable American middle-class woman needs a bigger diamond. Other people have made comment along the lines of "That looks like a promise ring that a high schooler would give to his girlfriend" and "You should have held out for something nicer." To many American women, the size of the diamond engagement ring seems to be a symbol of their success and worth as women, and the message that I have failed at this goal comes across loud and clear. It stings a bit when they wave their giant rings in my face while making their little comments. What can I do to get them to stop?

Prudence is, of course, a lot more diplomatic than I would have been.

Because my answer would have been simple: anybody, including your mother, who says anything other than "that's lovely" when they see your ring should be told to shut up and stuff their opinions in their ears. Or something less diplomatic.

If they don't proceed to promptly stuff it and shut the heck up, then they should be crossed off the wedding invite list. Immediately, with no recourse or apologies, and that STILL includes the bride's mother.

Of course, there's also the fact that I sense an undertone in this letter that the bride herself is not happy with her ring, and sees it as a failing. And that's the actual problem at the root of all of this.

Because the thing is I know a number of women who had non-traditional engagement rings, myself included. Women with sapphires, emeralds, small stones, fake stones, and everything in between. My own engagement ring was just a sterling silver Celtic knot. The unifying factor with all of these women? These rings were exactly what they wanted, and were chosen because the women had specifically asked for them. I had shown my husband a handful of rings that I liked the style of, and gave him one specific rule: the price could not exceed three figures. If the ring was a diamond, or too expensive, then I would turn down the proposal because it would mean he was either not listening or too willing to cave to a societal expectation instead of doing what was best for me or us.

The other thing that unifies all of these women? None of us put up with any grief from ANYBODY about our rings. We had something we loved, and it was what we wanted, and if people didn't agree then that wasn't really our problem, was it? We already knew that we were bucking an expectation because we also knew the expectation existed for no real reason, and that was FINE. I get the feeling that this bride wanted the traditional ring, and that's why she's letting these people get to her, and why she doesn't know what to say in response. Because the response is really simple, "this is what I wanted and it's my ring."

There's also another thing at play here: this woman has bad friends. You should never, ever, ever comment on somebody else's engagement ring unless you're saying something nice. Maybe if it was your best friend and she confided in you that she was unhappy with his choice (and then you could suggest they try to pick out a ring together). But 99.9% of the time your opinion on someone else's engagement ring doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, and should be kept to yourself. And if you don't know that, you are a bad person and you should probably figure out how to fix that about yourself.

As for telling your daughter that her fiance isn't worthy because he bought a ring that fits within his own culture instead of YOURS, that's a bit...xenophobic? I don't know the right word, other than self-centered.

All in all, the letter writer seems to have a lot of problems, but a fiance who doesn't love her or isn't really committed really isn't one of them.