Shoot me now

I really hate the fact that there is even a "Wedding Industry." It makes me angry, all this fuss around YOUR SPECIAL DAY (like you'll never have a special day ever again), where you must have the perfect hair with the perfect makeup and the perfect matching favors to match your perfect blah blah blah or everything will be terrible. When did this begin? When did women start falling for it? I have had more women than I care to admit to come up to me gushing about MY DAY and the dress and the hair and the everything they seem to think is important. Why is it important?? Shouldn't this event be focused on the marriage? Our new life together? Thats what I'm concerned with, not matching anything. Whats worse to me, is I can't quite assert this viewpoint to the women around me without being terribly rude. They're so excited for the matching favors, tablecloth and flowers. The other day I got an Oriental Trading wedding magazine, and in it you could order special wedding toilet paper. No lie. Go ahead, wipe you ass with this symbol of my union.

Points I am trying to make:

• I don't want this to be MY SPECIAL DAY, I just want to be Katie, marrying Nick, with as many family and friends as they could afford to attend. This isn't about me in a white dress being the center of attention. Its about me publicly announcing my commitment to this man, while I happen to be wearing a white dress.
  
• Who cares about all the matching and personalized everything? Yes, parties do look fabulous with great decorations. Parties are also fabulous with nothing more than good food, good music and lots of friends and family.
  
• Why does there have to be a terrible industry that makes me wish we eloped? I want my family and friends there, I just want them to leave all those "wedding expectations" the style network shoved down their throats at home.
  

That being said, if we get any personalized crap from Things Remembered, I hope its at the wedding and not the shower because there is no way I will be able to accept the gift with a straight face. Oh, the horror of personalized bullshit. Shoot me now :)