Hello, I'm getting married. *waves* Oh, and look there; it's a bunch of my friends who are also getting married, or who just got married, or who are planning on getting engaged. And hey, there are entire blog communities made of awesome dedicated to weddings and married life.
I'm noticing a trend regarding weddings and people's hopes/expectations, not only within my own peer group, but also somewhat on the internet. It's an interesting one.
There's this stereotype that as little girls we all dream about our weddings, and that they are all big, grand days full of fairy tales and ponies and glitter and magic. Then there's this concurrent stereotype that men don't care at all, because they are men, and weddings belong to women. That being the case, one would expect that, if the stereotypes were true, women would want big weddings and men would want little ones, right?
Um, no. Not right.
Thinking of three weddings coming in the next year or so, I know three brides (myself included) who wanted little weddings and whose grooms have pushed for something bigger. Turns out, this may be more common than I realized, as I discovered on a recent Get Rich Slowly post.
What's up with this? Is it that we, as women, have weddings pushed on us to such an extent that we want to give up, a little? Is it that because we're exposed to weddings so much, and the ones to whom much of the planning tends to fall, we better understand the work and expense involved in weddings, especially bigger ones?
Or maybe are the guys getting in touch with a slightly less practical but totally celebratory part of weddings that gets easy to miss in the mess of actually planning one? Maybe because (as a generality, in my own experience) they aren't the ones stuck planning all the details (even the ones that suck, and that they don't care about) they're able to focus more on that big picture? The fact that a wedding is a giant celebration of love, and a chance to share that with and be accepted by our community. Maybe they're more able to tap into that. I'd like to think that's what it is, at least.
It makes me wonder though. How about you? If you are getting married/have gotten married, how did you decide how big of a wedding to have? How did you and your partner differ?
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