Wedding vs. Marriage

Here's a wedding story that will help us to all feel more smug about judging those IT'S MY WEDDING!!! people.

Narcissists want weddings, not marriage.

...It is our own entitlement that causes us to obsess over a one-day event. While couples are waiting to get married until their late 20s and early 30s, they may rush into the engagement and wedding planning, McWade said."We all have a degree of narcissism," McWade said. "It can be triggered by an event like this; then people get very warped."

Not every wedding turns into a narcissistic circus, and they aren't all about the expense.

"The wedding is, on the one hand, a healthy way of making a public commitment to each other and acknowledging that you're part of a web of family and friends that helps to nourish the relationship," said Stephen Fabick, a consulting psychologist who specializes in conflict resolution. "But on the other hand, it preps like a cancer, where the focus is on the show and not the long-term or reality of the relationship."

crazy bitch hat

"The emphasis today is largely on the wedding and not on the marriage," she said. "Because you're getting married, people think you're entitled to opulence." And when the wedding becomes about "me" instead of "we" or "her big day" and not "our big day," it can be a warning sign that perhaps this is a union best avoided.

Surviving the task of planning a wedding together and ultimately living together for years and years means being able to support each other during basic decisions or rough patches. Couples who have dated for less than a year often can't even ride out small conflicts or navigate differences, McWade said.

After sitting with couples through countless meetings with lawyers as they face down the disappointment of divorce, McWade has a few tips for entering into a marriage that works. Namely, she doesn't believe that people should become engaged before a year of dating.

"You should know that person for a year and not just get caught up in the hormones, because a lot of the attraction is very physical, but that does not mean that people are able to live together for the rest of their lives,"

Second only to addiction, McWade claims, narcissism is the ultimate relationship killer and a significant factor in many of the divorce cases she has witnessed.

Narcissists lack self-esteem and live in an internal world, one that they can attract another person to and form a relationship around because they can read other people and manipulate them. It becomes a parasitic relationship, with all of the affection going to the narcissist, McWade said.

"The best type of relationship is one where people are really independent on their own, and then they get together to share their experiences and love for each other," she said. "That they have full lives on both sides and that both people are pretty balanced on each side, and to be able to maintain that for a year -- that's the best."

This article was written in response to the Kardashian divorce news that shocked the world as much as blue skies and green grass.

Wedding gown DIY - Lydia Deetz

If you're looking for an awesome, wedding-related Halloween costume, look no further than your local thrift store. Crafty person Mizerella took an ugly, outdated wedding gown and sprayed it blood red to look like the childbride wedding gown from Beetlejuice.

You know what I mean:

She spray painted a gown with fabric paint, and then used red tulle (ahh, tulle: every bridesmaid's worst friend) to add a veil, and some texture to the dress.

I have personally used this type of paint. It's easy to work with, but the pump spray will give you some nasty hand cramps if you have to use it a lot.

Check out her results!

It looks a bit like a waitress uniform at a Mexican restaurant until...

Veil and creepy make-up!

This is a great craft. I'll bet it could be done in a few days if you're looking for a gotta-have-it costume before Monday. Maybe I'll do this next year?

Happy Spooky Weekend!

Kay

'Til death, and beyond

This story is romantic, and a bit macabre - perfect for the almost-Halloween season.

The skeletal remains of a Roman-era couple reveal the pair has been holding hands for 1,500 years.

Italian archaeologists say the man and woman were buried at the same time between the 5th and 6th century A.D. in central-northern Italy. Wearing a bronze ring, the woman is positioned so she appears to be gazing at her male partner.

The two skeletons, which are poorly preserved, will be now studied by Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist at the University of Bologna. The research includes establishing the couple's age, their relationship and the possible cause of death.

"We believe that they were originally buried with their faces staring into each other. The position of the man's vertebrae suggests that his head rolled after death," Donato Labate, the director of the excavation at the archaeological superintendency of Emilia-Romagna, told Discovery News.

In 2007 another skeleton couple, buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, was found at a neolithic site near Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, where Shakespeare set the romantic story of Romeo and Juliet.

"In antiquity, it is not surprising to learn of spouses or members of a family dying at the same time: whenever epidemics such as the Black Plague ravaged Europe, one member of the family would often die while the family was trying to bury another member," Kristina Killgrove, a biological anthropologist at the University of North Carolina, told Discovery News.

Locked in a tender embrace, they also looked at one another in apparent defiance of time and decay.

"The two couples are separated in time by five millennia, and both evoke an uplifting tenderness. I have been involved in many digs, but I've never felt so moved," Labate said.

According to Killgrove, the positioning of the Modena skeletons, looking at one another and holding hands, indeed suggests they may have been a couple.

"Whoever buried these people likely felt that communicating their relationship was just as important in death as it was in life," Killgrove said.

Am I sick (don't answer that), or is the picture really heart-warming? Look at those two - they really loved each other! Or, more realistically, they really learned to tolerate each other's annoying habits.

Occupy Wa...wedding

A couple in Oakland have decided to continue with their wedding plans to marry on the Oakland courthouse steps, despite the Occupy Oakland protest. Latrina Rhinehart and Matheo Chavez - great-nephew of Cesar Chavez - aren't bothered by the protesters because the couple supports them. Also, they're a super-cute couple!

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

The protesters say that they're honored to be included in the ceremony.

-KB

Goth wedding gowns

Check out these gorgeous black-and-gothy wedding gowns from Vera Wang. Is all the zombie and Twilight popularity with the normies making Goth mainstream?

It looks like gray tulle under a black gown. How depressingly romantic!

The gown on the left looks like something out of a 19th century London period-piece movie. The gown on the right is my obsession.

I love the corset/bustle style on this one. If I had to choose from these gowns, this is the one I favor the most because it has so much structure.

I wish there was more detail - the mermaid style with fluffy stuff is so gorgeous!

These dresses make me miss the funny dancing at the Goth/Industrial clubs back in the good old days. Can't you just see these girls stomping it out on the dancefloor - eyeliner running and cigarette dangling from hand? HAHA.

-KB

How to be a good wedding guest

Maybe you've read my piece on planning a wedding without looking like an asshole, or post-wedding don'ts. Since I'm so fond of dispensing unsolicited wedding advice, I thought I'd write a little something about how to be a good wedding guest. I just attended a really beautiful wedding, and being the judgmental bitch that I am, I couldn't help but notice some judge-able wedding guests.

Rule #1 (and the most important rule): BE ON TIME. Seriously. Leave your house thirty minutes earlier than you need to, and be prepared to sit around for a while. A lot of care and planning went into the evening, the least you can do is be in your place before the bride comes out. If you show up right before the bride, you'll be standing around looking awkward, and generally detracting from the important vow exchange that's about to take place.

Obvious rule is obvious: don't be a drunk asshole

Rule #2: Wait your turn. The bride and groom will get to you when they get to you. You're not at the wedding to hang out with the couple, you're there to support them. If they need you, they'll ask for you. If they don't, they'll just come by and say hi, and you can see them again another time. If you're an out-of-town guest then the couple should spend a little extra time with you, but if you see these friends on a regular basis, don't expect a lot of face time.

Rule #3: Don't compare the day to your own wedding. If you have a funny story that is about weddings, that's okay, but don't brag about how great or how much more expensive your special day was. It's not the right time for your stories of self-indulgence, it's a day to celebrate the newlyweds.

I'm sure there are roughly 1000 more wedding guest don'ts, but they're probably all common sense things like "send back the RSVP card on time" and "dress appropriately". Everyone knows those things, and if they don't they're jerks!

-KB

Super awesome wedding invitations

Lately, I've been playing Super Mario World - a game I had TWENTY years ago. I still get suck on Tubular in the special levels. Right? Back me up on how hard that level is.

Anyway.

Check out this awesome wedding package from Larry T Quach. The invitations, seating chart, place cards, and wedding favors are all taken from elements of the Nintendo classic Super Mario Brothers.

The cartridge invitation comes in a black sleeve. I'd totally forgotten about the sleeves until I saw this.

Open up the invitation for the information and a look at the game "works".

These were the wedding favors.

Inside is a little card. Don't take the heart, Mario! Lakitu's gifts are always a ruse.

And this is the card that guests use to mark which meal they chose - ha! I love it.

There are a ton more photos, plus explanation from the designer at the source.

-KB

I Hate Weddings

I recently found this site: I Hate Weddings. The writer really, really hates weddings, and his friends (I presume). I can't blame him. As much as I love weddings, I hate the self-indulgent attitude that some couples adopt.

Here are some of my favorites:

Passive-aggressive way to taunt a bride:

I don't think I have ever RSVPed for a wedding. Not RSVPing used to be my way of forcing friends who disappeared off the face of the Earth after they got engaged to call me. Oh? Joe hasn't had the time to call anyone back since his three engagement parties? Not RSVPing will force Joe or his fiance to call you.

My other friend "Barney" and his wife refused to call people who weren't RSVPing. Instead "Mrs. Barney" sent RSVP "overdue notices" and "final warning" letters. After the "final warning" letter she just assumed the invitees weren't coming. I don't know if any invitees who missed the "final warning" showed up to their wedding anyway.

If I see this at your wedding, I will punch you.

Wedding Gift Calculator (my favorite!):

The biggest chore for a wedding guest is to decide how much money to put in the envelope. Not all weddings are equal. Therefore every couple getting married does not deserve the same gift. When giving a gift for a wedding there are many factors you should consider so that you don't look cheap and more importantly so that you don't give too much.

When you give cash is to remember to give it at the end of the reception. This gives you a chance to have fun and look at how much work the bride and groom put into the event. It also gives you a chance to consider how much work YOU put into the event. Remember, its not the gift, it’s the thought that counts. If you put a lot of thought into a wedding . . . you should give money.

I start off with a base figure of $75.00.

You brought a date to the wedding.
Add $75.00

You were invited to bring a date but couldn't find one.
Add $25.00

You were not invited to bring a date.
Subtract $25.00

You were not invited to bring a date but brought one anyway.

Add $5.00

Open Bar for alcohol
Add $25.00

Cash Bar for alcohol
(*Ask for a receipt every time you order a drink. Deduct the total amount of money you spent on alcohol. Then put the receipts in the envelope with your gift)

Dinner is served Buffet Style
Subtract $10.00

The reception is a Denny's Breakfast buffet.
Subtract $20.00

Cash Bar for soda **
(**If they charge you for soda at the wedding DO NOT GIVE A GIFT. Immediately,
go to the bride, kick her in the shin and then go home.)

HAHAHA. There's a more detailed list of wedding gift calculations at the link.

It's safe to say that this guy's friends do NOT follow my rules for getting married without being an asshole.

-KB

Photo found via another funny site.

Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell

As you're surely heard by now, Steve Jobs died yesterday.

Jobs was married for twenty years, until his death, so let's look at his married life.

Steve Jobs an Laurene Powell wed on March 18, 1991 at the Awahnee Hotel in Yosemite National park. Jobs was Buddhist (I assume she was too?) so their ceremony was officiated by a Zen Buddhist monk. The two met at Stanford University when he was speaking to a class.

The Awahnee Hotel - it's gorgeous!

Looking cute and crunchy.

I don't know if this is actually their wedding photo, but it's obviously an early photo of the two.

Jobs has four children - three with Powell, and one with another woman from his early life, Chrisann Brennan.

Here's a more recent photo of Jobs and Powell

I love that an innovative man wore the exact same clothes all the time.

In addition to being married, Steve Jobs once performed the service of Wedding Photographer at Larry Ellison's marriage to Melanie Craft in 2003. And I'd bet that a huge percentage of professional wedding photographers use Mac computers and software.

Thanks for the productivity and time-wasting devices, Steve.

-KB

Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Angela from The Office got married

She's not real, but since I watch embarrassing amounts of Office re-runs, I was excited when Angela got married. Maybe "excited" isn't right - Angela's a stone-cold bitch. What is her problem, right?! Why is she so rude to everyone, and why would anyone groom her cat with her tongue? Gross. I guess the writers are setting Angela up for failure since The Senator - the man Angela married - is super gay. This was confirmed by Oscar and Ryan, and it blew Pam's little mind since she only knows two gay people.

Anyway, if you're an Office addict like me, you'll be interested to see these stock photographs that NBC posted on their website instead of filming a webisode devoted to Angela's wedding (humph).

This was one of the most notable summers of my life. My tabby cat Noodles had kittens. And oh yes, no big deal... I got married to the Senator!!!



I wanted to hire a planner, but Robert had so many visions for the wedding that I didn't need to! He even chose my dress from a photo he saw in Vanity Fair. [Because he is gay! Don't let it hit you in the head.]



The guest list was very high society. Everyone from Ted Brown (D-NJ) to Maria Leahy (R-MN) came. Michael Reed (R-FL) said our crostini was the best he ever had. [I'd firebomb my own wedding if politicians showed up, but status is important to Angela.]



The band was wonderful, and we had such a good time dancing to Blondie and Chaka Kahn covers at Robert's request. Everyone enjoyed it, especially his assistant.


My expensive, elegant wedding may not have suited every woman, say Pam or Phyllis, but it was perfect for me. I'm looking forward to a long, fruitful marriage.

I'm really curious to see how Angela's baby changes things. Will Angela ever discover that The Senator is gay? And will it end in divorce? Angela is so religious, it seems like she'd never allow herself to be divorced, but churchy types tend to be the most hypocritical, so maybe divorce is okay when she does it. I noticed that Angela's wardrobe was less conservative now that she's "little pregs". Is marriage changing Angela as a person?

Is it possible I'm over-thinking this television program?

Answer: No, it is not.

-KB

Sean Connery in a wedding gown

Here's a random image to send you off into the weekend:

Sean Connery in a wedding gown. Supposedly from Zardoz in 1974. What the what?

-KB

Cute film from 1956 - puppies get married

This clip is from a 1956 newsreel about Alexandra Williams, a champion breeder of Pekingese Dogs.

The bride wore a full ivory dress with crochet trim, a floor-length veil, and carried a tiny bouquet of silver and yellow flowers. The groom wore a black classic tuxedo with jaunty top hat.

One bridesmaid wore a blue dress, blue floral headpiece, and carried a basket of flowers, while the other bridesmaid wore a salmon pink gown and carried a bouquet.

No word on whether these poor puppies were drugged to be so docile while humans made them wear embarrassing clothes.

The video quality is impressive, right?! The clip is from British Pathe, an old-timey newsreel company that show in very high quality.

-KB

Elizabeth Taylor's wedding gowns will go to auction

Two of Elizabeth Taylor's wedding gowns, along with many of her other custom-made clothes, will go to auction on December 15.

Not only clothing, the auction is said to include hundreds of purses, scarves and other accessories owned and worn by the actress. Taylor’s iconic jewelry, including a ruby necklace that contains a 16th century pearl, is expected to fetch millions.

Wedding gown #1 (to Burton; #5 for Taylor)

Though the jewelry may bring in the most money, the real stars of the show will be Taylor’s two wedding dresses. The gowns were worn in 1964 and 1975 at her weddings to Richard Burton. The pair wed twice, for the first time in 1964 living “happily ever after” for 10 years before getting divorced in 1974. The couple reconciled and married again in 1975. Their second marriage lasted a mere 11 months and eventually ended in divorce.


Click the link for more details about Elizabeth Taylor's weddings to Richard Burton.



Her small, second wedding to Burton took place in Botswana.

A portion of the proceeds of the auction will reportedly go to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation. The foundation, set up by Elizabeth Taylor in 1991 is her legacy in the fight against AIDs. The actress became an outspoken advocate for those living with AIDS in a time when it was a taboo subject. The foundation works primarily with providing services to those affected by the disease.

-KB

First Don't Ask, Don't Tell wedding

DADT was repealed yesterday and that immediately prompted 16-year Navy veteran Gary Ross to marry his long-time boyfriend Dan Swezy.

From Vermont:
The couple traveled from Arizona where same-sex marriage is not legal to get married at the Moose Meadow Lodge in Duxbury, the same location as the first same-sex marriage in Vermont back in 2009.

"It means a lot to me just because I'm a part of it. I'm a part of history. So that's what makes it exciting for me," said Greg Trulson, co-owner of the Moose Meadow Lodge.

Though the couple is making history, they say they aren't getting hitched just to make headlines. "We didn't come here at the stroke of midnight to be the first or to make news," Swezy said. "We came here because we wanted to get married for years and we didn't want to wait a moment longer than we had to."

But Ross says hiding his relationship any longer would be a dishonor to his duties. "As an officer in the military I am expected to be a leader. And it would be a huge waste of the taxpayers' money if I stopped leading now just because I was a little bit nervous about people's reactions," Ross said.

Though he says he has some apprehension about returning to work Thursday, Ross hopes it will soon be back to business as usual. "I'm still gonna come to work in my same uniform, I'm still gonna boot up my computer and read my emails, pour my tea, whatever I do… nothing's going to change. And I hope once people realize that that everyone will be OK with that," he said.

Ross now proudly wears his Naval Academy ring on his right hand and a wedding band on his left, displaying his love for his country and for his new husband.

The couple says they made the decision to come to Vermont partially because it's one of six states allowing same-sex marriage and also because it's Eastern Standard time-- they wanted to be married the first moment they legally could.

I'm sure I've mentioned how much I LOVE military uniforms - especially at weddings. I think they're adorable, and I love the matching white-on-white bowties. The Moose Meadow Lodge is very beautiful and masculine at the same time, so it's perfect for them. The website says the Lodge is close to Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream factory, but remember Misters Ross-Swezy that a wedding is no place for ice cream. Cake or GTFO! :) Congratulations!

-KB

Renew your vows on the Weezer cruise

It seems that celebrity cruises are all the rage (not Celebrity brand cruises, but cruises with celebrities), and Weezer is jumping on the cruise wagon. For as little as $500 you can cruise from Miami to Cozumel with Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, and The Knocks.

"Weezer bassist Scott Shriner [will be] performing ceremonies for married couples to renew their vows.

This reminds me of the Bruce Campbell zombie wedding and mass vow renewal - maybe vow renewal is a trend with these celebrity events?

The rest of the Weezer cruise details:
Drummer Pat Wilson will challenge fans in a shuffleboard tournament, while guitarist Brian Bell will host a midnight movie pajama party and Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo, will read selections from his book The Pinkerton Diaries.

I know there are some ravenous Weezer fans out there who will readily pay $500 for special performances and a meet-and-greet with the band. I guess it's like a music festival on the water - hopefully with better food and sanitation!

Here's my favorite Weezer song:

-KB

Adorable mini wedding cakes in your own kitchen

I don't know how it's possible that I don't have this:

ADORABLE! My favorite baking blog Baking Bites recently posted this adorable cake mold. It makes tiny tiered cakes - aka wedding cakes without all the excessive frosting and gross-tasting fondant.

Needless to say, Me Wantee!

Not the Onion: Wedding inspires a lack of vanity

There are some people who cannot resist their own reflection - I once had dinner with a guy who was so busy looking at his reflection in a window that he faced the window to watch himself speak. Weird, right? Kjerstin Gruys is the opposite of that guy; she has vowed to avoid her own reflection until after her upcoming wedding.

Behold: Last March, the 28-year-old PhD student embarked on a year-long project, banning herself from gazing at her own reflection — no mirrors, no reflective surface at all.

Gruys started the project, which she chronicles on her blog Mirror Mirror … OFF The Wall, after an exhausting March day spent shopping for her wedding dress. “All these insecurities about my body came out after staring at myself all day.”

She later posted on her blog, "At some point my dress search stopped being fun. I hated feeling vain, insecure and indecisive. Never one for subtleties, I rejected these obsessions by rejecting my reflection."

It isn’t an issue that women use mirrors, Gruys says. "It’s that they stare at themselves — even though there is often no new information. So it represents a loss of time and energy. They use mirrors as a tool to turn their bodies into a project, something to improve and work on."

Over the past six months Gruys has not cracked although her resolve has been tested, mostly when she was feeling lonely. On those occasions she gets metaphysical. Mirrors have helped her through periods when she’s questioned her value and even her existence. “When I have those ‘Who am I?’ moments, I feel the urge to look at myself.” She had also had been looking to mirrors for affirmation. “I felt my mirror was my companion.”

The project is about trust, says Gruys — and not just trusting that someone will tell her if there is spinach or a poppyseed stuck in her teeth. She has had to learn to trust compliments. “Before when someone said I looked great I wondered if they meant it.” She admits she often ran to a mirror to make up her own mind about whether the compliment was justified.

As she prepares for the final fitting of her wedding dress in early September, Gruys has assembled a coterie of friends, she says, who she trusts will tell her if the dress is all it should be. So if her friends say yes to the dress — that will have to do.

What do you think? I respect her mission - it's true that women spend an exhausting amount of time criticizing appearances. It's not useful or productive. Weddings especially have so much vanity tied in with them; maybe she'll enjoy the day more if she's not obsessed with looking and being "perfect".

-KB

Sofia Coppola and her purple wedding dress

Don't get too excited, because it's not Prince purple, but dusty Eeyore purple. Still, it's a very pretty dress.

Sofia Coppola got married in Italy last weekend. Blahblah celebrity blah. Let's just look at the dress. Here's the article if you want to read all the details. I don't really care, I just like the pictures.

Here's Sofia Coppola with her new husband. The dress is a silvery-purple with a light, fluffy texture. I love it!

In this shot you can see the full, short skirt and more of the pattern.

But then in this photo, I question the dress. I love the simple sleeve with the belted top, but the skirt looks a little like a kid's dress.

And then she changed into a coral-colored strapless dress with chunky, brightly-colored heels.

Cute, right? I like seeing pictures of alternative wedding style. And I hope you do too because this has zero substance. Yay, substance-free!

-KB

Wedding crasher was a total wiener

Last week my favorite fist-wavers The Consumerist posted a story about an unusual wedding crasher.

From a Consumerist reader:
My sister got married this weekend at a church in Dewitt, NY and while we were all getting our photos taken, we saw the Oscar Meyer Wiener-mobile nearby. We waved to it and, to our surprise, it pulled into the church parking lot!



They pulled up to us, handed out wiener whistles and allowed us to take pictures in front of it. Such awesome behavior will certainly ensure that I'll be picking up a few of their products on my next trip to the store!

Yay! I strangely LOVE the Wiener-mobile. I've seen it twice. The first time was during high school summer break; I saw it rolling down the street at the beach. The second time was at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit where I purchased several wiener whistles for...reasons.

Have a day!

-KB

Entire planet swarmed with axe-wielding brides-to-be

Okay, the title is misleading...a LOT misleading, but I like sciencey stuff, and I find this article interesting.

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard. The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.


See? I tied it into wedding stuff with my amazing image manipulation skills. Where are you going?

"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon -- i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun," said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Lying 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.

Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation. In the case of pulsar J1719-1438, the beams regularly sweep the Earth and have been monitored by telescopes in Australia, Britain and Hawaii, allowing astronomers to detect modulations due to the gravitational pull of its unseen companion planet.

The measurements suggest the planet, which orbits its star every two hours and 10 minutes, has slightly more mass than Jupiter but is 20 times as dense, Bailes and colleagues reported in the journal Science on Thursday.

In addition to carbon, the new planet is also likely to contain oxygen, which may be more prevalent at the surface and is probably increasingly rare toward the carbon-rich center.

Its high density suggests the lighter elements of hydrogen and helium, which are the main constituents of gas giants like Jupiter, are not present.

Just what this weird diamond world is actually like close up, however, is a mystery.

"In terms of what it would look like, I don't know I could even speculate," said Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester. "I don't imagine that a picture of a very shiny object is what we're looking at here."

Yay, science!

-KB