Thursday, May 19, 2011

It's Not Just A Big Day . . .

By guest blogger Kelly McClymer

Thanks for inviting me to share a pet peeve for Pet Peeve Thursday, Lorna! I have so many (for example, you cannot crumble a piece of paper without a lot of effort, but you can crumple it easily enough: why do writers not know this?!?).

But my big pet peeve right now revolves around weddings. I love to attend weddings, but not because of the big fancy cake or band or dancing (well, okay, I do like the dancing, even though I dance like Elaine on Seinfeld). No, I love the way family and friends circle the couple and support the big step into marriage. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes family and friends to remind a couple that the wedding day is the beginning of a (hopefully) long and rewarding journey.

My pet peeve is that all the hype around having a perfect wedding day misses the point: this is the beginning. One day of many, many days, if you're lucky. You need some ... ummm ... interesting ... things to happen so that everyone in attendance can laugh about it as they share the memory around holiday dinners and anniversaries.

StarCrossedBride But no. Everyone wants the perfect dress, the perfect cake, the flawless ceremony. I know this for two reasons: 1) my daughter recently got engaged and has begun trying on wedding gowns and thinking about when/where/how; and 2) I'm releasing my out-of-print historical romance Once Upon a Wedding Series in ebook format and I've been looking at wedding photos non-stop in order to find images for the covers. The artist and I finally decided (after lots of dresses, veils, flowers, etc.) to focus on cakes. There are some awesome (and no doubt expensive) wedding cakes out there, let me tell you. Including chocolate cakes. Chocolate. Cake.

By the time I was finished looking at all these images, even I was beginning to think about how to make my daughter's wedding perfect. Fortunately, I came to my senses by laughing with my husband about how our low-key ceremony, where a friend took photos with our not great camera, and my dad played bartender, was perfectly almost perfect. So I think as we head into June, the wedding month, it is a good time to use my guest Pet Peeve post to remind people that the wedding day is one day and perfect is the enemy of good stories to tell around the holiday table.

Can't you just see Wills and Kate laughing with their grandchildren over how Wills had to give that ring a good push to get it on Kate's finger? I can.
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FairyTaleBride Kelly McClymer started her career writing short science fiction, but then switched to historical romance for the happily ever after. Currently, she writes young adult novels (The Salem Witch Tryouts series, Must Love Black). Her backlist Once Upon a Wedding series is fatefully being released in ebook form just in time for a promotional effort to help ensure her daughter's wedding has plenty of family and friends to gather around the couple...and make sure there are some memorable flubs to talk about over turkey. And maybe a chocolate wedding cake. You can read the latest news at http://kellymcclymer.com/wordpress

6 comments:

  1. We got married on a path by the ocean in Maine. A justice of the peace officiated and Dave's youngest sister and her friend were witnesses. It was cold, drizzly and windy - and I thought it was perfect. Cost? Whatever Dave gave the JP.

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  2. That sounds lovely, Barbara. A friend of my middle child's got married and held the reception in a park in Camden, Maine. They did the food themselves, the bride's grandmother did the cake. The couple had their first dance in the park's gazebo. Very sweet (and with the requisite imperfections like being locked out of the reception hall for the first fifteen minutes :-).

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  3. I love weddings. So romantic. We got married down by the lake and I was terrified it was going to rain.

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  4. First of all, the crumble/crumple thing is not one I had given much thought before, but I'll be thinking about it now! LOL! I'm not a writer, but I do have some of my own pet peeves like that.

    I pretty much phoned it in on my wedding prep and left it up to my Mom. That probably should have been a clue back then. LOL. I do think we often go way overboard on the perfect ceremony that is going to last 15 minutes!

    Blessings
    Michelle V

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  5. Kelly,

    I still remember my wedding day. I got married at a beautiful country Club in Houston, Texas. I do remember spending a small fortune for everything. I got married the same year I started teaching 26 years ago. Even though I only had around 100 people attending it was still very expensive, I do not want to even think about my daughter when she gets married, I am sure by then I will have to sell my house and move into a shack in order to pay for it.

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  6. We had what I felt was a scaled down wedding and it still cost thousands of dollars. The thing is, we're part of the problem. Our need to have the perfect everything is what has driven prices up.

    I've been married for nearly 11 years now and I am still kicking myself for spending $1100 on a dress that sits in my closet in a bag.

    Wishing you and your daughter the best,

    Cheryl

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