I know I'm coming to the game a little late here, but I can't help it. While we can all agree that yes, empowerment is good … I think we can also all agree that BridesDecide.com is decidedly dumb. (You'll notice I'm not linking it — I refuse to give them clicks!) I realize that political demographers are all about finding niche voting blocs (soccer moms! upper class latinos! one-armed lactose intolerant gay men!), but targeting brides as a voter group is just ridonk.

I mean yes: women should vote! Go women! But other than progressives who refuse to get married to protest marriage inequality, getting engaged doesn't seem like much of a political of a statement, and "bride" is a pretty fleeting identity that women have for only a few months to a couple years — and if you're offbeat, it's often label worn with deep hesitation. Mostly, "bride" is a consumer market — not a lifestyle or political demographic.

Trying to pair political excitement with your consumer market just feels stupid. What's next? Rock The Vote Soy latte drinkers? Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Obama? Mr. Bento Owners Decide?

Although the photographer is totally skilled, I can't help but balk at the pose in this engagement photo.

Is it just me, or do the crossed arms of the headless groom-to-be comes off as creepily paternalistic? ("No, you're not getting your bride allowance — you've been naughty this week!") And there's just something very subservient about sticking the bride-to-be on the ground, wrapped around his feet and smiling.

Again, Anne Ruthmann is clearly an amazing photographer. (Check out her stuff!) But the pose strikes me as creepy. That is, unless the couple pictured are into some kinky bdsm power-play dynamics and the bride is smiling cuz she's all, "Look who I let out of the dungeon for the afternoon! Tee hee!"

(Thanks to Anne Ruthmann for the photo!)

Normally I leave this kind of thing to Riona at Godawful Wedding Crap, but I can't help myself. With all due respect to Brooklyn Bride (a site I love), this t-shirt gives me about 10 different kinds of squicks … the sad groom and happy bride, the implications of dating as a game that men "lose" when they commit (because god knows there are no women out there who are total players completely skeeved out by marriage), the suggestion that brides are smug at snagging their hapless, gloomy grooms.

I totally get that this is just comedy, and I don't want to seem like a humorless gender-warrior, but I guess on a certain level I just don't quite understand why it's funny … as a groom, do you want to be thought of as unhappy about your marriage? As a bride, do you want to be seen as "winning" some game that results in your frowny-face partner being stuck with you for the rest of your lives?

Oh, how I wish naked grooms were an emerging wedding trend.

Instead, it's just a ridiculous trend in wedding dress catalogs, sort of the reverse of a chick in a bikini trying to sell a car. "Buy one overpriced wedding dress, get one toned naked cabana boy for free!"

(Hat tip to the ladies of Kvetch!)

Last year I was contacted by someone on Flickr who was collecting wedding photos for a book about the unseen wacky and wild sides of brides. They wanted to use this photo in the book. I was a little weirded out by the fact that they were building a book of photographs that they weren't paying for (??) but I agreed to let them use the photo, contingent on them mentioning Offbeat Bride in the caption. These are the things one does when trying to publicize a book.

Anyway, their book is finally out, and it makes me SO ANGRY. Sure, they failed to credit Offbeat Bride as agreed, but that's actually a relief, because I don't want my book to have anything to do with this one. I'm not even going to tell you the name of the book, because I refuse to do promotion-by-proxy for these folks, but I have to tell you about how much this book sucks and how pissed I am that my photo is in it.

Continue reading "Authors behaving badly" →