Category Archive

feeling competitive

Weddings can bring up all sorts of uncomfortable feelings… including competitiveness, envy, and feeling jealous of other people’s weddings. This is our collection of posts exploring the green-eyed wedding monster, with great suggestions for how to get over competitive wedding syndrome, and start feeling joyful.

5 step "WIC-whiplash" recovery: how to calm down when you feel pressured from all sides

5 step “WIC-whiplash” recovery: how to calm down when you feel pressured from all sides

Do you ever feel like you’re getting it from both sides: you’ve got pressure to be more traditional and materialistic on one side, and on the other side, you’ve got pressure to be uniquer, more special-er, authentically truly meaningfully YOU-er. Back! Forth! Back! Forth! I can resist tradition! I don’t want to avoid something just because it’s traditional! I like chair covers! But I can’t like chair covers! Everything we picked is personal! Now it feels like of embarrassing…like it’s over the top and “me me me”!

THIS, my friends, is what one reader coined as WIC-whiplash (WIC-lash?). Together, we’re going to take a deep breath and try to get over it.

post secret wedding crop alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Why does the internet love snarking about weddings so much?

The internet loves snarking in general, but there seems to be something particularly digitally delectable about making fun of weddings. Sometimes it feels like nontraditional weddings get snarked on the most, but these days it seems you’re just as likely to see people bitching about how all the wedding trends are played out. What I want to explore is WHY? Why does everyone love getting bitchy about weddings? I’m going to put on my sociologist/media studies hat and share a few theories…

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One-lowmanship and luxury shame: one more way you’re supposed to feel bad about your stupid wedding

I know from the our reader survey exactly how many of you are trying to plan economical weddings with budgets under $10k (or $5k… or $2k). It’s a lot of you. But I also know exactly how many of you are planning weddings over $10k — and even over $30k. And I know how many of you are feeling weird about it.

Original photo by Cheriejoyful alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Othering: the ways offbeat types push ourselves away

Over the years, I’ve seen something come up time and time again from Offbeat Bride readers: people will send an email, post on the Tribe, or leave a comment that basically amounts to, “Do I REALLY count as an Offbeat Bride? Do I really belong here?” I think of it as the Offbeat Bride’s version of othering: this way those of us who’ve defined ourselves as non-normative have of pushing ourselves away from other people. The push makes sense, of course — if you live in a region where your politics aren’t aligned with those around you, of course you’re going to feel a push, and like you need to clearly define yourself as “not that.” There are a lot of social and cultural contexts where it makes perfect sense that people who feel a little bit off the beaten path would push against the people and society around them. What makes less sense to me is when I see us push against each other…

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Wedding trend overthinking: Everyone else is doing it!

I started searching online and found all these great ideas: mercury glass candle holders, stacks of books for centerpieces, stationary with those cool old brackets on it, lanterns, library card escort cards — and ran with it. I was so happy that we were doing things that felt like us and not just the same old cookie-cutter wedding stuff that we had seen throughout our twenties. It felt amazing. Until we realized that everyone else was doing it, too.

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Oh Noes, I Think My Wedding Will Be Normal!

You may think I’m crazy since our wedding was actually pretty darn offbeat and unique. But it didn’t really feel that offbeat, and I was wondering if I should be concerned. I saw all these seriously amazing weddings on Offbeat Bride and the Tribe and I wanted to be among that crowd. Then I realized that the fact that it felt normal was awesome. It actually meant we were doing it right.