Self-expression @ MindSay

I just channel-surfed my way onto the opening credits for "Whose Wedding Is it Anyway?" and was confronted with the following voice-overed declaration:

"This is your one day to express yourself."

What a horrible sentiment! As if brides aren't already under enough self- and socially-imposed pressure, now they're being told that they'll never have any opportunity for self-expression outside of their wedding day. What if you never get married? No self-expression for you. The wedding industry lines its pockets by planting these suggestions in the minds of vulnerable brides-to-be, who are presumably new to the wedding-planning game and willing to spend huge amounts of cash to meet real or perceived expectations. Who needs the pressure of being informed that you have an eight-hour window in which to show the world exactly who you are?

I'll be honest -- I began the wedding-planning process with loads of excitement, but before long got overwhelmed and came to hate it. I'm a perfectionist and a little (ok, highly) obsessive, and the stress of planning a wedding and a cross-border move brought out the worst of my neuroses. It's kind of funny in hindsight, but at one point I was so overwhelmed I actually crawled under my bedsheets in a panic mid-day, trying in vain to shut it all out. I've always been a champion sleeper, but would wake in a cold sweat from nightmares of a half-done wedding. Looking back, I wish I had enjoyed the process more, but by some miracle, despite the officiant showing up half an hour late and the guitarist arriving without the extension cords he needed to perform at our outdoor ceremony, the wedding came together last-minute and was the antithesis of the horrible planning process. Focussing on that allows me to block out all the blood, sweat and tears that went into it (I honestly don't know how I would have recovered if I had put all of that energy into it and had an equally traumatic wedding day to match).

Wow, I'm feeling dangerously expressive for someone who's already had her one kick at the can. :)