Ten Thousand Things We Won't Do

When we got home from work last night (at about 9:00), we were tired enough to just make leftovers and salad and sit in front of the television.  But the television, instead of being a soporific, became the source of endless inspiration.

We discovered...

My Fair Wedding!

My Fair Wedding (hereafter MFW, though OMG or WTF would do as well) is a show on the WE network in which brides--never couples, only brides--volunteer their wedding plans three weeks before the wedding for a makeover by events planner David Tutera.  From his bio:  "Leading Entertaining Expert David Tutera is hailed as an artistic visionary whose ability, uniquely creative talents and outstanding reputation have made him a tremendous success in the lifestyle arena.  Tutera has created a name for himself by taking his passion for designing spectacular events and transforming it into a lifestyle."

Okay, just look at that paragraph.  More adjectives than nouns, every word chosen to be as overblown as possible (hailed, visionary, uniquely, outstanding, tremendous, passion, spectacular).  So you already know his primary theme:  smarmy excess.  Any time someone turns your wedding into a "lifestyle," you know you've got problems.  And boy howdy, did these folks have problems.  (Note: when the TV host asks the groom why he fell for the bride, and his first response is "because she's smokin' hot!", place your bets on FAIL.)

The episode we watched last night featured bride-to-be Shelby and her goal to have a safari-themed wedding ("Passport to Africa," which, since Shelby and her fiancee were both Asian and had never been to Africa, seems to have come from the trip to the San Diego Zoo where they met).  She was subjecting the bridesmaids to zebra-print halter dresses!  Tutera avoided that train wreck only by imposing his own multi-layered disaster on top of it.  The wedding had a "signature drink," a handmade mojito (a traditional African drink, right?) and a "signature toast," prosecco tinted with blue curacao.  He moved it to a safari park outside San Diego.  He changed the bridesmaid dresses (though the one that he wanted and she rejected looked like an explosion in a cookie-sprinkles factory), the food, the flowers, the table decorations, her hair, her makeup.  And in the end, it looked just like what he sees every day at work--a casino in Atlantic City.

I guess I didn't realize that weddings had themes.  Or that all wedding themes had to be derived from Disney movies or soppy Broadway musicals.  So far, MFW has had brides planning the following themes:

• The Phantom of the Opera
• Alice in Wonderland
• The Wizard of Oz
• Pirates of the Carribean
• butterflies and rainbows (awww...)
• The Great Gatsby (think she missed the point of the book?)
• The African Queen ("Leeches!!!")

Anyway, the disaster list goes on.  But we learned many things to carry forward into our own wedding planning:

• NO ZEBRA PRINTS!!!
• No Disney characters, chariots, or undersea decor.
• No television broadcast.
• No custom made wedding dress paired with a custom made reception dress.
• No FM-radio voiceover artist saying "It is my pleasure to present to you... Mr. and Mrs. Groom's Name."
• No major decisions (officiant, location, vows, guest list, date, spouse...) based on a favorite color
• No wedding cake taller than any of the guests.
• No entrees with domed plates that release a puff of wisteria smoke when the dome is lifted.

Perhaps the theme for our wedding should be "friends and family around us."  We kinda like that one.  But if you'd like to suggest a movie that should serve as our theme, now's your chance.