week four.

Wedding Week in my world means a whole heap of ill-placed stress. I believe that if it's not my wedding, I shouldn't feel like I'm carrying a huge burden. My cousin, Whitney, is getting married in late October and my sister, Mayne, and myself have the dubious pleasure of being the Maid of Honor and a Bridesmaid, respectively. So this week's event happens to be the Bridal Shower. First thing's first, we went to the professionals at the Huffington Post. Their article Planning A Bridal Shower just gave off some basics: the theme, the games, the invites. Then we took a look at the wedding experts. The article that we found on the knot.com's website was Bridal Shower Ideas. This excerpt went into more details about what kind of games we could play, how to incorporate the groom in a bridal event, and gave a much needed checklist for everything that would be necessary for the day. Now, we've done our part. We've put together a Mardi Gras themed, game filled, funtabulous (it's so fun I had to make up a word) Bridal Shower for my cousin; the only problem is she has turned into a Bridezilla (everyone has seen the show, its a guilty pleasure). She wants bigger, better, more, more, and more. It's ridiculous the amount of opulence this girl wants. What my 21 year old mind can't seem to grasp is why is she expecting so much from people who are still in college, or fresh out. It didn't take much to hit me though; those shows, Bridezillas, My Fair Wedding with David Tutera, and any other wedding television show you can think of are poisoning her mind. The shows put on such a huge production and then have the nerve to call it a "wedding". Don't they know that having a trapeze artist perform your ceremony kind of lessens the sanctity of the nuptials? Then regular old everyday brides, i.e. Whitney, want to put on an extravagant show with the budget of an old fashioned nickelodeon. But I guess the media has that power, to make you want to spend money that you don't have on things that you probably don't want. It's all in the advertising, I guess. Now back to me, I'm a Mass Communications major and I really want to use my degree for good (insert Oprah's philanthropic smile here). I don't plan on being the kind of advertiser that makes you go broke, or nearly broke, trying to buy things that you do not need. It is my plan that every ad I create will urge people to go out in the world and be charitable. So I hope that by this time 2013, that's what I'll be doing.