Overwhelmed by weddings
Oct 2nd, 2008 by Katie
I left the National Wedding Show last week – at which I tried but failed to talk convincingly on flower colour schemes and how to hold your bouquet – with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it was encouraging to see a growing number of green-minded exhibitors, from tree wedding favours to charity gift lists, wedding venues such as the RSA in London doing their utmost to be environmentally aware in every aspect of their business, and a multitude of vintage boutique style offerings making second-hand sexy.
On the other (and I say it as shouldn’t, having been involved in the wedding industry for a good few years now!), I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of wedding-related – for want of a better word – stuff.
This feeling was put into words by a bride I overheard about to enter the show. It went something like this:
‘I’m scared to go in because of all the things I’ll see that I didn’t know I needed.‘
Of course, she was half joking but it suddenly brought home to me how much we package weddings up as a big, shiny, sparkly parcel and get so distracted by the wrapping that we forget to look inside and remind ourselves of the reason for the party.
Whatever else gets thrown in your path towards the aisle, don’t let it get in the way of that reason.
I went to one wedding fair, a relatively small one at that, and just ended up feeling stupid as people looked at me in shock when I said I wasn’t having a DJ, I wasn’t sure about the price of the dresses, or said they had never heard of my wedding venue. I’m strong enough to not buy into the whole wedding business too much, but other people aren’t and they are ending up spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need that end up going to waste.
Maybe you could start green wedding fairs? (and bring one to Edinburgh of course!)
What about just not going to wedding fairs
? Do we really NEED to after all? They exist for the purpose of pushing ’stuff’ at you. Websites like this are all you need at the end of the day – the info is there on what is out there, but without the in-your-face pressure to buy into anything and everything, and noone there to be critical of your less ‘mainstream’ decisions. I’m steering well clear!
