Writes Miriam Pérez on the ACLU's Blog Of Rights:

Marriage isn’t my golden ticket. Marriage isn’t my golden ticket unless I’m lucky enough (or even want) a long-term monogamous partnership. It isn’t my golden ticket unless I have a job or a partner with healthcare benefits. It isn’t my golden ticket unless I have an inheritance to worry about, or a pension to be concerned with… A movement so focused on marriage is not a movement that represents my activism and interests… my vision of social justice focuses on putting the needs of the most marginalized members of our community at the center of our organizing. The current marriage-focused movement fails to do this.

As a Feministing commenter notes, the commercial "is directly targeted at the 8 to 10 percent of undecided California voters. It is not for people who have already decided to vote No on prop 8, who are likely the same people who will question traditional wedding customs and what is a proper marriage. This ad basically makes the marriage proposition one about fairness and equality." But when it comes to fairness and equality, is marriage the biggest issue we have in this country? And does the commercial really send the right message? Another commenter writes: "I would rather see an ad that queered marriage than one that shows a rich, white couple getting married and suggests that everyone else should 'be able to be like them' as if it's the goal that everyone should aspire to."

Mega-Huge White Weddings For All! [Feministing]
Miriam Pérez: Marriage Isn’t My Golden Ticket [ACLU]

Photo via Flickr

1. The best kind of wedding is the kind where the hosts don't care if you bring a date, but you have more fun if you don't. If there is any way at all to make the headcount not the source of your next ulcer — a cheap venue? a buffet? — everyone will probably be happier and then you can invite people at the last minute.

2. Rogue forces within your family are angling to hijack your wedding. Always. In finance they teach you that the difference between raising money by selling stock or bonds in a company is that shareholders suddenly buy themselves all this influence over things and bondholders don't get to run it unless you really fuck things up. In the case of a wedding, accepting money from parents seems to work similarly. Parents, in my experience, seem to be the single biggest reason the whole process gets "out of hand," because they are looking for some sort of return on their investment, and you are just looking to get drunk with your friends. The latter objective doesn't need to cost that much.

3. Your friends will show up wherever. Do you have friends you don't see enough anymore? Like, maybe they are flaky, or swamped at work, or just it's difficult to coordinate plans now that you are an engaged person and your friend is still living in a room that probably includes as a design accent signage stolen while drunk? Those are the friends who will be really touched to be invited to your wedding, and they will make it and also, give memorable — if somewhat incoherent — toasts. I can't tell you how many faraway weddings I have been to where someone was like "You are a good friend for showing up here," and I am like, "Who doesn't show up to a wedding?" Because seriously, I am longing to apply some priorities to my life, and if I can do something that feels really special and momentous and also get drunk I am going to go. But more importantly, you shouldn't need to do all this in a location that is completely convenient. I mean, here I am in one of the three freaking Courtyard Suites in the vicinity of the Seattle airport, but it's not like I'm sorry I came. But what I am saying is, if you live in New York, don't feel compelled to get married there; everyone knows it probably costs a hundred grand to rent out the VFW.

4. The only thing worse than that "as long as I am dying alone maybe it should be sooner rather than later" feeling at a wedding is the "um, would it be possible for my boyfriend to more demonstratively convey his discomfort at the distant notion that this might ever threaten to happen to us?" feeling. Around the time I attended this wedding for which I still, um, owe a gift, I started along that line of reasoning, "Wow, weddings are where it is socially acceptable to sob openly about the fact that you are still single, that is fucked up." But I realized something recently: it is probably better to be dateless at a wedding for that reason, because if you are single, that could really change at any moment, whereas if you are with a significant other and it is not going to work out, the next two to five years could potentially be occupied extricating yourself from the relationship and coping with the messy emotional aftermath.

5. Summer > Winter Duh. I suppose this makes it harder to schedule the thing, but no one complains about having to schedule their office Christmas party in December. Or maybe they do, but they are lame.

6. Jewish > Other traditions. There are many beautiful wedding traditions, like henna tattoos (skip these if you get the shakes) and the great Indian "let the kids hide the bride's shoe and blackmail the bride into paying them money to get it back" tradition and the Catholic "drinking to excess and whatever else we do" thing and many others I'm sure, but the best traditional wedding regimen is probably the Jews' dancing around in a circle and breaking glass thing. So if you have any excuse to incorporate Jewish traditions other than the Orthodox Jews' "separating the men from women" thing, do so; your guests will appreciate.

7. It just occurred to me that this wedding I attended on Saturday did not have a wedding cake. I really love frosting, it's like the only really sweet thing I ever desire, so I should have noticed the absence of a wedding cake, but I didn't, until this morning. When I thought, "Wow, it is really cool that Ryan and Anna held their wedding at a youth hostel and everyone stayed in teepees and bunk beds and covered wagons and that he bought a sterling silver ring in Florence and she wore it for the first year of their engagement and that they had a whole bouquet fashioned from Peeps and that they gave out free keepsake beer koozies and that we had the leftover barbecue and Beast and candied yams last night. (Oh my god, and I never knew frozen pizza could be that awesome.) Though I really wish someone had baked more of those cupcakes." No one notices what is "missing" from a wedding if nothing is actually missing!

The Big Day Gets Smaller [Washington Post]

Diane von Furstenberg, Nicole Miller (3 mentions), Coke, Marquee, Tiffany, Cain, Budwieser, Skype, Chanel, Tenjune, Matsuri, Pink Elephant (3 mentions), Pastis, Cipriani, Le Bilboquet, Mediterraneo, 1 Oak, Hotel Gansevoort, Matsuri, Lazaro

See if you can figure out which is the name of her dog!

And see, see how happy the last page is, rid of all those pointless proper nouns? Awwwwwwwwwww, puke.

I Was Jilted Like A Real-Life Carrie Bradshaw [Page Six Magazine]
Related: Buy This Harvard-Free Keith Gessen Book And Win The Culture War! [Gawker]
Earlier: Will Sex & The City Make You A Communist?

I also don't find Tien's honesty "brave," I find it sad. When you share your life with someone, of course you will be frequently annoyed by them. But, beneath those frequent irritations, there is a deep affection, one that's so thickly layered that it's difficult to describe publicly without feeling you've betrayed your partner, or belittled your shared emotions by attempting to explain them in a way that's accessible to others.

Rosin describes the beginning of Tien's piece — it's "a portrait of her bumbling fool of a husband, who lies, always says exactly the wrong thing, scratches his armpit at a parent-teacher conference and then 'absently smells his fingers.'" To publicly denigrate someone you ostensibly still love in that way is kind of scary to me. Why is she staying with someone she doesn't publicly respect? Tien also writes that "Beneath the thumpingly ordinary nature of of our marriage — Everymarriage — runs the silent chyron of divorce." It seems like for her, the chyron is silent but deadly.

Divorce Anyone? [Slate]

Earlier: Slate Power Couple Attempts To Stay Within 15 Feet Of Each Other For 24 Hours

Last year Ms. Kraus decided to dedicate their latest novel, "Dedication" to her husband. No, she wasn’t married. But she was hopeful. 'I was creating a place holder,” Ms. Kraus, 33, said. “He was out there. I just hadn’t crossed paths with him yet.' She began behaving as if she was already in love. 'You carry yourself differently when you’re not alone,' she explained. 'I would carry myself at a party or a supermarket or a gym as if I was loved.' Then a month later David Wheir kissed her, and she no longer needed to pretend."

Okay, so clearly something about this is bothersome, but what?

1. So we're supposed to walk the streets in the same yoga pants and busted Chuck Taylors and expressions of total indifference to the male gender we'd be wearing if we had boyfriends who loved us? Because, you know, done.
2. Okay, I know I said "total indifference" but fuck if "Mr. Wheir" isn't totally fucking hot. Check the video.
3. All right, here's how it really happened: they were friends first, he'd flirt with her immaturely but he always had a destructive relationship with some girlfriend with whom he liked to suck face publicly — why do I suspect said girlfriend was working retail at the time? — and then Nicola was mean to the girlfriend the time she came with him to a dog's birthday party, which is totally not something I would generally pull, not that I would have a birthday party for a dog either, but still it's illuminating, to the extent that maybe if she had spent the party yakking with the girlfriend and ignoring David she not only would have secured herself a discount at the girlfriend's boutique but maybe might have hastened the process by which he came to the realization that any woman indifferent enough to his mammoth hotness to chat up his vacuous-ass girlfriend was not only emotionally independent enough to actually date, but sufficiently comfortable around shallow people to date him. Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But seriously, what was she so intimidated by in his ex-girlfriend? Her movie starred fucking Scarlett Johansson.
(OT, but: did anyone else On-Demand Nanny Diaries? I love that Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti both star in that thing. Can't you just hear Linney being interviewed…"Well I loved working with him on John Adams but we couldn't exactly not work together again after the once-in-a-lifetime experience that was Nanny Diaries…)
4. The wedding service involved a reading from the book Eat, Pray Love.

Vows [NY Times]

Miscellaneous observations noted the day after seeing Sex & The City: The Movie and reading about YouTube divorcee Tricia Walsh-Smith in 'New York' magazine and the anxieties of the newly-slightly-less-rich in the 'New York Times', vaguely petitioning the godless void to find someone to marry me before I look like this.

•Divorce is the new Death. No one wants it, really, but for some reason everyone assumes its inevitability. But when it comes, what happens? Who's the greater fool? This can be prepared for, like the Afterlife. Contracts can be drawn, assets accumulated and shifted. Carrie says she came to New York in search of the two "Ls" — "love" and "labels." Of course, "marriage" is just another variation on "label," worn like an LV to designate oneself as superior, uncommon, discriminating somehow, dignified. Whatever that means.

•Tricia Walsh-Smith is the worst-case matrimonial scenario. If you don't get married, or if you botch your prenuptial agreement, or if he leaves you at the altar (a.k.a. Big) or sleeps with a random stranger (a.k.a. Miranda), you lose all dignity; all of it, gone. And without that dignity, what is left? Shoes. The end.

•A recession is on; the specter of divorce is suddenly omnipresent. A prominent divorce attorney reports an uptick in her business on the basis of men worried their shrinking net worths will inspire their wives to leave them. “I literally had to sit there and tell him that he had to tell his wife that she had to stop spending,” she told one client. “He was actually scared she would leave him because their financial situation changed so drastically."

•Wealth (and wedded bliss) are useless if no one else is made to feel inferior in their presence. As a source of happiness, wealth, for one, is crap — just ask a rich person! As Carrie tells Miranda when she expresses reservations about her upcoming nuptials: "Can't you feel what I want you to feel for a second? Jealous?" The Times relates the story of a woman who sells $2 million in diamonds, because her friends wouldn’t notice that they were gone. "If I sold my Bentley or my important art, they would notice,’ ” she said. (In other words, now may be a good time to get in on a used engagement ring!)

•Following a worthy attempt by famous divorce attorney Raoul Felder to convert some of Tricia Walsh-Smith's capacity to withstand dignity ruin into currency, Tricia Walsh-Smith is in debt to Felder. She reports going to sleep every night feeling as though she's about to hurl.
•I felt like I was going to hurl throughout the entire SATC movie. Where do I live? How did I land here? I could barely walk up the escalator. Then I lit a cigarette, and looked at Dodai, who looked equally horrified. I decided it was satire. Thank the void for girlfriends!

The YouTube Divorcee [NY Mag]
It's Not So Easy Being Less Rich [NY Times]

And he's developed a taste for manicotti.

The transition has changed Denise in unexpected ways. "My entire sensory palate — smells, colors, foods — everything is different," she said. "There are foods I hated that I love now." (Ricotta.) "She cries more easily," Fran said. "We're always like, 'Oh, God, she's crying again.' We're always getting a tissue."

Through Sickness, Health And Sex Change [NY Times]

The real tragedy is believing in things like dignity and pride and ego — and while we're at it, prenuptial agreements! — and YouTube is the just the new way people who don't believe in pride and ego air out the wounds to their pride and ego in a way too public and self-destructive for anyone to accuse them of having any pride or ego, and also, go about finding a lawyer who will screw the fuck out of that old fuck.

Tricia Walsh-Smith is somewhat sympathetic. She's hit bottom before — addiction (she wrote a critically-acclaimed play about it) — and she seems levelheaded here even though you're pretty sure she's out of her mind. On the other hand, if she never fucked her husband throughout their nine year marriage I'm thinking this wasn't exactly true love but more like a "lifestyle choice" she made that she is now simply enraged at herself for making because she could have been fucking...well, whoever fucks pretty middle-aged recovering alcoholic playwrights. And the fact that she's pissed at herself for making that choice is why she made this video, along with capturing the attention of high-profile divorce attorneys who might take her on because she has rendered herself high-profile with her honest, uncalculated — of maybe calculatedly uncalculated?? — ode to her grief and rage online. Yeah, that's it; she hates herself, but she hates him more!

Humiliated By YouTube [Daily Mail]
Broadway Wife Wants Divorce By YouTube [CBS News]
Is Revenge Now A Dish Best Served Online? [Telegraph]
The Misery Broker [New Yorker] (It's a profile of divorce attorney Raoul Felder, who is now representing Tricia Walsh-Smith, ha ha ha I love the universe.)

Do lip plumpers work for anything other than keeping you entertained while you're on drugs?

They sort of work. Basically with a lip plumper like Lip Venom or Lip Injection, you're putting an irritant on your lips. Put an irritant anywhere on your skin and that part of you is going to sting, puff up, and get red. The lips are a really delicate, sensitive area, too, so something that might not irritate the rest of you will probably irritate that area. If you are not looking for entertainment while on drugs or in the middle of a photo shoot, I really don't see why you'd subject yourself to this. They don't sting that badly, although sometimes when I show people the Too Faced Lip Injection, they start freaking out and moaning and writhing in pain. These people being ridiculous. If that is what they think pain feels like, I'm glad I'm not their doctor. But the real question to ask yourself when it comes to lip plumpers is, "would I put this on my inner labia?" If the answer is no, it probably shouldn't go on your face lips either. Even so, as far as I know, there are no known cases of anyone not surviving a lip plumper. It's not really doing anything permanent or profound, don't let the nine layers of fancy packaging fool you. It just kind of tingles.

Bare Escentuals: miracle product or a gimmick?

Bare Minerals is Bare Escentual's star product. It's basically a foundation in powder form that claims to be so good for your skin that you can sleep in it. The thing I do like about it is that there are only five totally straightforward ingredients. It's mostly titanium dioxide, which is an ingredient you find in a lot of sunscreens. This is good because it provides some sun coverage, but the bad news is that lots of people are allergic to this ingredient. If you have an allergy, you'll break out in hives either right away or after prolonged use. Titanium dioxide is all well and good as far as I'm concerned, but Bare Minerals also has something called bismuth oxycloride which can trigger serious cystic acne in people who are allergic to it. Not so cool. Also not so cool is the fact that between the bismuth oxychloride and the mica, it is some disco shit. Which is awesome if you are eighteen, but for everyone else, the shimmer will accentuate large pores, wrinkles, acne, dry patches... whatever is wrong with your face, Bare Minerals will somehow manage to highlight. This stuff gets all up in my crow's feet and makes them look worse. Also embarrassing is that this was originally a QVC product. They also have really corny mall stores. I hear it works wonders for some people, but between the infomercials and the mall stores, I have to wonder if the lights in Applebee's are not maybe sort of forgiving. We sell a ton of this at Sephora. The starter kit is a really good deal and everyone usually buys that. You get two different shades of foundation, concealer, mineral veil which is basically powder even though all of it is powder, a priming lotion, and all of the brushes you need. Can you sleep in it? Why would you sleep in it when they make Rare Minerals is ridiculous. I mean, it's sort of awesome in that it is makeup that is also a night treatment. It's supposed to make you pretty while you sleep. I can see this being a lifesaver for girls who haven't gotten laid since the year 2000 because their skin is so bad that they don't want the guy to see them without their makeup on, yet are equally unwilling to go to bed without washing their face. It has decent coverage, too. It's makeup. I don't know if it works, I'm kind of scared of it. Every fiber in my being says that sleeping in makeup is wrong, and that it is even more wrong to put makeup on specifically for sleeping in.

Can Little Rock, Arkansas please have a Sephora store?

Well, way back right after they hired me, there was this big meeting when they asked all of the $11 an hour sales assistants (but not the lowly $9 an hour sales assistants) what we, personally, thought about the terrible conundrum of Little Rock. I tried to fight for you guys, really I did, but eventually the president told us that he felt that Little Rock was "beyond our services" in the beauty department. I had a free panini in one hand and the spigot on a box of Franzia pushed down with two of my other fingers. Who was I to make an issue?

I'm getting married soon and I'm so not a "makeup" chick. What kind of foundation looks the best in pictures taken outside?

Cargo cosmetics carries a product called Blu-Ray High Definition that is specifically meant for people whose pictures are being taken. I think the clever concept behind that name it is that it'll make you look good enough for high definition TV, which obviously magnifies every little imperfection and flaw and can sometimes be less than pretty for that reason. This product is a little kit for $59 that includes powder, blush/highlighter stuff, lip gloss, a mattifying primer, and mascara. Now, how mascara can be considered "high definition" in a sense beyond it separating your eyelashes is beyond me, but yeah, it's in there. The lip gloss is whatever. But the face products make a little more sense to me. They come in one color that supposedly works on everyone. The idea is that you use your own foundation between the primer and powder, and the blush is something that works for everyone. The fact that it's a whole kit is good for non-makeup-people, and also people who are buying makeup for a specific event during which they'll be photographed. As far as foundation goes, if you use this stuff along with your usual foundation, it should be fine. This stuff is pretty heavy-duty.

I'm Black, and I have what I guess is considered "typical" skin for Black people: oily, with blackheads and large pores. What should I use? How often should I wash my skin? Should I use moisturizer?

If you walked into Sephora, I'd try to sell you on the Shu Uemura Skin Purifier High Performance Balancing Cleansing Oil. Five ounces for $28. Basically the idea is that oil repels oil, so if you're oily and wash your face with more oil, it encourages your skin to find a balance. A lot of oily skinned people try to dry their skin out, which kind of makes their face think that it needs to produce more oil to compensate. Using an oil cleanser is one of way of making sure that doesn't happen. This alone could have a really dramatically good effect. Also, cleansing oils are good because they require you to massage it in, something that's really good for your face. Of course, since I'm not on the clock at the moment, I can tell you that you can do the same thing on the cheap with products you can find in the drugstore. Check out this website for the Oil Cleansing Method. The site recommends that you only do it once, at night, and since it involves oils anyway, there's no need for a moisturizer. Bare Minerals actually has an SPF 15, and it's great for oilier skin, so if you wear makeup during the day, that's a good way of killing two birds with one stone.

What other techniques have you thought about trying in your quest to achieve perfect skin?

I'm really interested in high colonics right now. I spent a whole day last week calling places up and asking them questions until they were about to hang up on me. A high colonic is when they pump your ass full of water, or water mixed with other substances, in order to clean your colon out. Apparently sometimes they find things you swallowed as a child, like pennies, rings, buttons, things like that. So what I wanted to know was, if you find a ring, can I keep it? Can I just keep my old poop if I feel like it? Cause you don't have to go digging through it if you don't want to, I'll do that part, but if I swallowed a ring as a child I probably want that back. Also I asked what I should eat first, and they said no meat or dairy for 24 hours beforehand. And I wanted to know if it hurts. Like fifty times, I asked that, and every single place assured me that it didn't. The one place said that all the poopy stuff goes through this tube and you can watch it come out, like poop TV. I asked them if I could do it every week, or if I should wait for something to build up, because, you know, they like to do a series of them. I'm not sure if that's a rip-off tactic or not but that's what all of them tell you. Anyway, it's supposed to be really good for detoxing your skin. If you are suddenly able to digest better, your liver isn't working so hard and your epithelial system isn't bearing the brunt of your bad habits. I can see how that works. Mostly, though, it's just something to do and I want to see what happens. A technician stands there and massages your stomach and whispers sweet nothings in your ear as your colon is irrigated. Do you think they get tipped? If anyone knows a precedent for that, please tell me. I would seriously hate to stiff a colon irrigation technician for a tip. It's poop. If they generally get tipped, I want to tip well.

Earlier: How I Conquered My Cystic Acne In Just 17 Painful Steps
I Work Here To Feed My Sick Fancy Product Addiction, The Least I Can Do Is Help You
Meet Jasmine, Our Undercover Sephora Agent

A few years back, I was living with a boyfriend who was a super sweet, super funny, all-around nice guy. And I broke up with him. We're too young, I need to work on myself, it's not you, it's me, I said. And I meant it. I had nothing but great things to say about him. And that's why, a few years later, when he contacted me out of the blue and wanted to "grab a drink" after work, I was excited and said sure. But as we sat in a pizza place talking about our jobs, I saw a flash of silver on his hand. On his finger. I think a bite of cheese fell out of my mouth. "Are you married?" I blurted. "Yeah, I am, I was kind of waiting for the right minute to tell you," he said. Approximately three thousand thoughts and emotions flooded my body, including questions like: Why didn't he tell me before he tied the knot? Why did we break up again? Meaning: Why did I break up with him? Why am I so shocked? Why is he so nonchalant? Do I wish I were married to him? Do I wish I still had the chance to be? Why am I still single? Why am I freaking out? Why do I care? That night, instead of answers, I had a few cocktails.

But today, I found myself wondering: How does the most famous almost-bride feel about her almost-groom tying the knot? And what is it about finding out an ex has gotten hitched that can rock your world?

Report: Runaway Bride's Ex-Fiance Marries [USA Today]
'Runaway Bride''s Ex-Fiancé Gets Married [People]

—-—-—-- Forwarded message —-—-—-- From: Blair Johnson Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 12:59 AM Subject: Walter asked me to marry him, and I said yes! To:

(Pictures to come in next e-mail)

Dear Family and Friends,

The subject line says it all: I'm getting married to the man of my dreams!! Last weekend, Walter asked me to marry him, and I said yes! And soon, I will be the future Mrs. Walter R.M. Montgomery!

Many of you know that I spent the month of January at home in FL, recovering from a bad case of mono. Little did I know how the Lord would use that case of mono to bless me for the rest of my life...

THE LEAD UP TO THE QUESTION
Resting at home in FL, I missed Walter so very much. He planned to come down and visit me halfway through my stay there. We had a beautiful time at the beach and around my hometown... but in coming to FL he also got to meet my dad. He had gotten to know my mom a couple times on her visits to VA, but he had never met my father.

Consequently, Walter called prior to his coming, if he could spend some one-on-one time with my dad. So the two shared breakfast one morning. When I asked how it went, Walter told me they had a great time talking about hunting, trucks, etc. What Walter didn't tell me was that he also asked my father for his blessing to marry me...

One week later, Walter explained to me over the phone that his parents wanted to get all his siblings together in Louisville, KY (his hometown) to celebrate some birthdays, and while he felt he should be there (his brother and sister were flying in from out-of-town too), he didn't want to spend another weekend without me... would I please go with him? I was so excited to visit his family again, (having spent Thanksgiving with them in the Fall) they are wonderfully warm and kind people, I was thrilled at the chance! So, one week after that, I returned to VA on a Thursday, only to leave the very next day on Friday. While we did enjoy a birthday dinner and light candles on the cake that night, I was soon to find out that everyone had come into town for a different celebration...

At the end of the family gathering that night, Walter nonchalantly asked his older brother Titus if he could borrow his truck the next morning. Walter wanted to take me out to his Grandpa's farm where he and his 4 brothers and sister had grown up over the years. Throughout our 7 months of dating, I have heard countless stories of Montgomery adventures on that farm - stories of planting fields and hunting deer, quail, doves, turkeys - anything that moves. I was so excited and eager to see the farm; I knew how important that land was to him since he told me that's where he learned many of life's important lessons and enjoyed God's blessings. And soon, I was to learn too.

THE PROPOSAL
February 16, 2008 (Best day of my life until our wedding day!)
Saturday, February 16th, Walter and I drove to the farm. Once we were inside the farm gate, he pulled out a rolled up piece of aged brown paper, tied with a piece of leather string. He told me open it. What I found was an intricate map of the farm, detailing every field, creek, and pond... but it was in the appearance of an old Spanish explorer's map. I noticed an "X" by the Duck Pond, and I looked at him, asking, "X marks the spot?" And he said, "That's right, babe. We're going on a treasure hunt!" While I have hoped for a long time that Walter would one day propose to me, I didn't expect it then because I thought our trip to the farm was a last minute thought... and I thought wrong!

With him as the off-roading driver and me as the navigator, we set out to follow the map's trails to the "X." We got out of the truck and wandered a little ways through the forest, until we got to a small clearing in the woods. It was a beautiful spot overlooking the frozen Duck Pond, the sun shining down on us through the trees. And truly, the Lord's light was shining down on us.

THE QUESTION THAT CHANGED MY LIFE, AND THE
ANSWER THAT CHANGED HIS

Suddenly, Walter stopped telling me tales of the farm. He took me in his arms, and staring into my eyes, he said words that took my breath away.

"Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."

These words were the first words Adam said to Eve (Genesis 2:23). The first words spoken from a man to his wife. Essentially saying, God has made you to be a part of me and me to be a part of you.

Walter continued...

"Blair, I have loved you. I love you. And I will love you the rest of my life."

Tears welled in my eyes, as I watched Walter get down on one knee. It was as if time stood still when I heard his next words:

"Blair Ann Johnson, Will you marry me?"

I threw my arms around his neck in such joy,but I couldn't believe he was proposing to me! The moment for which I had waited since I was a little girl and for which I had prayed since I was 14 years old... was actually happening! I was breathing so hard!

Finally, I found the words, "Yes, Walter! Oh yes, thank you Lord, yes!" And he kissed me, and our lives were changed for the rest of our time on this earth.
And in the joy of knowing that I would be his wife and he my husband, I forgot about...

THE RING!!
As he rose from the ground, he slipped onto my left ring finger, the most beautiful, exquisite engagement ring I could ever desire - a solitaire diamond, tiffany setting, in platinum (see pictures attached).

But the true beauty of the ring comes not from how it sparkles in the light, but its symbolism shows his heart for me.

The diamond is his great grandmother's diamond, the one she wore to his parents wedding, and I will now where to ours. What an incredibly special way to be invited into his family: on the farm of his mother's family with a ring from his father's family.

Beneath the diamond there are two small white diamonds. Walter later told me that he searched hundreds of rings of several jewelers before he found this ring (a treasure hunt, indeed!). He searched so diligently because, after asking God to show him what kind of ring to give me, he was deeply impressed with the need to find one with two smaller diamonds. The two small diamonds and one large diamond represent the following truth that will guide our marriage:

Apart from each other, we, like the two small white diamonds, are just two small creatures here on this earth.

Yet, in Christ's love, the two of us become one. As one, we shine His light, His love in a greater, more powerful way than any individual ever could alone. Our love is neither of ourselves, nor is it found on this earth. Rather, our love is a love from Heaven, created and sustained by God to demonstrate His character of goodness, righteousness, redemption, and truth. Truly, our love is a miracle, and we give God the glory for it. It is only because Jesus loves us, and we love Him, that we can
love each other.
And love each other, we do!!
A Montgomery WELCOME
After a few quiet, tender moments, we hopped into the truck and headed

—- end of quote —-

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dave is a fan of Job. He has trained himself to feel thankful for truly pathetic things, such as: "She's been more thankful about more things than I would have been. Sometimes I'll be curt with her, and she'll thank me. How bad is that on your conscience?"

It is an illness that can have a very long trajectory: 10 to 20 years is the estimated life-span after diagnosis, but there is no way to know. The better care Dave takes of Diana — and he takes very good care of her — the longer she will live. The longer she lives, the longer he has to live like this: Waking in the night to take Diana to the toilet or settle her after an anxiety episode. Getting up early to prepare her medications and make her breakfast, then rushing home from work to fix them both dinner. Feeding Diana, cleaning Diana, hoisting Diana up and down the stairs. Never taking vacations. Going to weddings and other events by himself. Sleeping alone. And sleeping little.

The Vow [Washington Post Magazine]

Online Chat Transcript with Dave Kendall [Washington Post]

Well, except for Lori. She just feels like she should have "settled" when she was younger and prettier, before her eggs shriveled etc. etc. But then what would have happened? At best she would have had a kid with one of those perfectly agreeable guys who is beloved by everyone except his wife, spent three years alternating between barely disguising her contempt for him and cooing unconvincingly over how great he is to all her friends, only to cheat on him the moment she'd lost the baby weight. But no sooner!

Anyway, I'm sorry, but if you're like this, you're NOT THAT GREAT. In fact, that's a good rule of thumb, if you constantly find yourself dating dudes for whom you think you are too good, that is probably the personality flaw that is keeping you from the perfect Mr. Right type characters you think you deserve. And you can either think about that for awhile and work it out in therapy and maybe find some interests and pastimes other than the constant obsessive superficial life evaluation engaged in by all too many thirtysomething women you know, or commence dating fat guys.

Finding Mr. Good Enough [LA Times]

Earlier: Settle For Mr. "Just OK" — While Your "Marital Value Is Still At Its Peak!"
Marry Him! [The Atlantic]

As for Ms. Langburt, an odd thing happened while she was developing a business plan for Single Edition: She met Mr. Right and got married.

It's really difficult to distill what annoys me about all of this. I mean, first of all, note how there are no dudes represented in this "Singles Pride" movement because for them it is all "duh." And then there's the fact that Singles Pride thing is just another idiotic "self-acceptance" movement too cloaked in marketing messages bent on distracting you from your loneliness with consumerism for most people to even really grasp the message at its core: that if you don't know who you are or what you want or how you really feel about life when you are by yourself, you'll never be happy, relationship or no.

But the big thing I don't get is amid all these messages about dating and demographics and marriage and thirty being the new twenty and urban tribes and single pride, is how no one has figured out how to convey the message that there's nothing inherently wrong with desiring companionship. You can desire it without being insecure, or un-self-actualized, or sex-deprived or oxytocin-deprived. Sometimes loneliness is just loneliness, and if you know yourself well enough to know what makes you happy, you'll either spend the next year either settling for someone you care about or holding out for that teenage feeling (apologies, Neko Case and Don) — which is all that Ms. Langburt was doing that whole time she was so happy and fabulous being single — just being romantic! Because maybe she met a guy here and a dude there and had a one-night stand every quarter or so but at the end of the day most of those guys, she just wasn't that into them.

A Guide To Embracing Life As A Single (Without The Resignation, That Is [NY Times]
Modern Love [NY Times]

In brief: Topper Mortimer is one of those old-money types who is a direct descendant of one of the families that ruled everything in America when the country was slightly more like a monarchy, and he drinks a lot of beer and finds his wife pretty thoroughly contemptible, not even, it seems, from an "I am old money and we find famewhoring distasteful" sort of perspective but from an "I detest rich people as only a rich person can" sort of perspective, and he goes on and on about how he hates charity functions and picture-taking and thinks it's all really idiotic but he can't help but "adore" her anyway, and it's kind of one of those situations where, either, he makes us like Tinsley slightly more because he is such a mensch, or he makes us like Tinsley less because she is probably cheating on him, or it's all an act cooked up to create dramatic tension in the reality television show we will in two years find ourselves involuntarily immersed in a marathon of, and yeah I don't feel like un-dangling that participle right now. (Also: "in his cups" — I am a drunk and I had never heard this expression. Service-y!) Anyway, so confused right now. And it's not even 10!

Why Is This Blond Smiling? [NY Times]

It's Wedding Week at Jezebel! Not only are Anna, Jennie and Moe all headed — bliss! — to far-flung festivals of monogamy this warm weekend, Moe will be handing over her blogger reins to an altarbound friend for the duration, and wheedling a guest column out of her little brother, who last week proposed to his girlfriend of three months. (Yeah, he was drunk.) In this installment we examine the sick appeal of watching someone else's dysfunctional marriage fail. Which, um, we don't think has much of an appeal.

Because unlike the addictively depressing Ladies Home Journal feature by the same name I relished so much as a strep-prone child, this story did not merely portray a colossally resentful couple in therapy to save their painfully uncommunicative-but-codependent bond, it focused on a "support group" of distraught couples in counseling who all sit around and watch:

Perhaps because of what they shared, the young wife was the first member of the group to plainly criticize what she saw happening between Marie and Clem, although not until midway through the year. "As a person who's known you for six months," she told them wearily, and a little tearily, "it's brutal listening to you."

Can This Marriage Be Saved? [NYT]

A funny thing happened the other day when we drinking heavily at a bar in DC with our college friend Mike. His fiancée didn't show up to meet us, and we began to wonder whether there was a reason we hadn't received our "Save The Date" notices yet. Good thing the next sentence out of his mouth was, "Would you believe some people thought they hadn't been invited because they hadn't gotten Save The Date notices?" Ha! "How absurd is the 'Save The Date'? Anyone who expects a "Save The Date" so they can cross out their weekend nine months in advance should just forget about coming altogether, they're clearly too important to be our friends." We decided Mike, whose lady assured us that he did more than his share of their wedding planning, would be the perfect wedding planner for us in the event (heh) THAT happens, and commissioned him to write this short opinion piece, "Planning A Wedding Is No Big Deal And If You Think It Is The Terrorists Have Won."

Put down that $10 copy of the summer issue of Martha Stewart Weddings. Stop watching Bridezillas. And no matter how much you long for validation from all the other brides who also obsess over every last detail, step the hell away from The Knot. Because planning a wedding is just not that fucking hard.

My fiancée and I are getting married in October and, as far as we can tell, the whole thing is pretty much planned already. This fact seems to stun people who, upon learning of our elaborate plan to wed, assume that commiserating over how tremendously stressed out about this awesome responsibility we must be is a bulletproof small-talk strategy. Sure, we both know people who spent hours and hours in the months before their weddings running around from meeting to meeting, updating their personalized WeddingChannel.com pages or generally going berserk over the whole thing. But instead of being stressed out, we're mostly confused about what, exactly, is supposed to be so complicated about this that there are already two editions of Wedding Planning For Dummies. We've dealt with the whole thing ourselves, with no hired-gun consultant overseeing it and hardly any logistical input from either set of parents (though they are helping to foot some of the bill, which FYI is coming in just under the national average of $37,000). And we're not doing some radically scaled-down anti-wedding, either — we're having a Saturday night party in Washington, D.C., with more than 120 guests, a live band, plenty of flowers, etc. (Though according to Macy's, we're "happy hipsters," so who knows, maybe the whole thing will wind up coming off like a bad night at Misshapes.)

Here's what we did: we went to see some venues. They're in the phone book, guys! You can just walk right in and look around! We found one that could accomodate an open bar for all of our friends for a decent price. We sacrificed top shelf liquor in the name of the budget, but we knew from experience that well booze gets you just as drunk as the expensive stuff. If not drunker. We tried to get away with not inviting our billions of young cousins, but when my aunt pulled a fast one on us and got the kids lobbying, we gave up — but I think we've got good leverage to make the cousins babysit our future kids for free. Then we called a talent agency, which sent us a DVD with demos of bands. We watched the DVDs and chose one. They even let us check them out in person first. Then we found a rabbi who wouldn't mind starting the ceremony a bit before sundown on a Saturday. The rabbi was the hardest part. It wasn't that hard.

It's one thing to get all freaked out over your wedding if you're the kind of asshole who wants a "long bar made completely from ice and monogrammed with (your) initials," serve "signature Matt-tinis and Love-mopolitans" to your guests or do your hora-ing on a "custom-made white dance floor." If that all sounds good to you, there's no cure for your egotism, and apparently you've decided the world is perfect and you can waste money instead of giving to charity, so by all means, go crazy.

But for the rest of us, despite what Jezebel reported a few months ago, it's just not true that "once you're in it, you're in it, you gotta have the best band, the best flowers, the best dress."

There's no reason to bother meeting with more and more vendors if you've found someone whose work you like and whose price fits your budget. Is it possible that someone getting married across town from us is going to have better flowers? Maybe, but our guests won't know, so we don't care. (Besides, does such a thing as "better flowers" even exist? Oh, you know what? Fuck you.) If you actually know anyone who cares that your tablecloths don't match the colors on your invitations, tell them that you're very sorry, but they received the invitation in error and you hope they'll make alternate plans for the evening. If you never start worrying about that kind of bullshit, it'll never have the chance to take over your life.

And if you can remember that the basic goal of your guests will be to a) try to get their money's worth in booze and food for all the gifts they had to buy you and b) get laid, it's easy not to go too overboard. It's just a big party! Just like all the other parties you've thrown in your life! Okay, with a rabbi/priest/minister/imam/whatever, fine, but they're just stoked they didn't have to buy you gifts. Trust me, a little open-bar scotch and any decent imam will overlook the flaws in your color scheme.

All the manufactured stress does seem to underscore the one truly excellent insight in Rebecca Mead's new book (I mean, at this point haven't we all beento enough weddings to know that, duh, shit's gotten out of hand?): that with more and more couples living together before marriage, there's no actual, legitimate traumatic event at the end of a wedding anymore. (Well, unless you're, ahem, "saving yourself for marriage"). Instead of losing their minds because they're moving out of their parents' house and starting a new life with a man they don't know that well, brides lose their minds because they can't find monogrammed flower pots or because they don't know how wide their chair ties are.

So brides of America, chill the fuck out! You have nothing to lose but your chains. And your full-length trains. Remember, it's not like you have real problems.

Anyway, In an interview with Salon Rebecca shares her favorite bridal magazines (InStyle Weddings and the trade publication Vows) and explains that the fundamental problem with the wedding business is not that it isn't feminist — hiring a wedding planner "could totally be construed as a post-feminist act" (!!) but rather, the consumerism of the whole thing:

One of my favorite pieces [in Vows] described how to market to the "nontraditional bride" and warned readers that this kind of woman is dangerously apt to "forget the wedding and prepare for marriage." These articles were often unintentionally hilarious, but also very chilling. People who work in the wedding business often appear to be very warm and sentimental, but they're salespeople, and the successful ones are completely coldblooded about it.

Okay, but why are all our friends so goddamned susceptible to these reptilian salesbots? Doesn't our generation have enough experience with, uh, men to know better?

The Marriage-Industrial Complex [Salon]
Rebecca Mead
Earlier: NY Times Book Reviewer Loves The Big Tacky Weddings!
The Economics Of Weddings Continue To Blow Our Minds

The most surprising aspect of Sunday's NY Times Book Review wasn't the big thumbs up Michael Kinsley gave to Christopher Hitchens' latest assault on organized religion, but Times reporter Jodi Kantor's review of One Perfect Day: The Selling Of The American Wedding, Rebecca Mead's new book on nuptial excess. Kantor all but rejects Mead's major thesis: That there's something obnoxious about the way soon-to-be-married Americans buy into marketers' hard sell of the ever-bigger cakes, the fancier limos, the more heavily-beaded $5,000 gowns. As evidence, Kantor cites her own "tasteful... if I do say so myself" wedding of four years ago, and complains that Mead doesn't seem in nuptials like hers (the horror!).

Mead is so outraged by the gilded picture presented by bridal magazines that she overcorrects and gives us a book full of tawdry, tacky affairs, where the dresses are ill-fitting, the officiant is a hired gun and the couples flushes away more than they can afford. These weddings take place mostly in Las Vegas, at Disney World, on an overcrowded stretch of beach in Aruba or in Gatlinburg, Tenn, home to kitschy wedding chapels and a round-the-clock marry-thon."

Maybe in the cash-rich and self-assured circles Kantor travels in, couples can get happily hitched without undue influence from the salespeople at David's Bridal. But in the rest of America there are more than enough examples of families depleting their savings accounts and mortgaging their lives to keep up with the Joneses, whether in pursuit of the latest PlayStation, hot-new SUV or Modern Bride-approved wedding celebration. Has Kantor — a former Times "Arts & Leisure" editor who presumably pays attention to such matters — never heard of the documentary Maxed Out? Or watched any recent episode of 60 Minutes? Perhaps she's too busy making "homemade ice cream" and dusting off her wedding album!

Also disturbing is Kantor's breezy brush-off of this country's obsession with consumption. "Yes, sure, lots of American weddings are overblown confections; and O.K., that probably tells us something about ourselves," she writes dismissively. After all, she adds, everyone's doing it! "Today, even the preppiest country-club bride is likely to write her own goofy vows, wear a $5,000 gown with an immodest neckline and treat herself to a little Botox before the big event. We're all nouveau riche now."

We think we're gonna throw up. To fit into our Vera Wang wedding gowns, that is.

The Princess Brides [NYTimes]
Earlier: The Economics Of Weddings Continue To Blow Our Minds

The wedding special is $720 for 3 ½ hours and includes an aisle runner, Champagne, bar and "horns" that play a recording of "Here Comes the Bride" when the car stops. Ever the experienced shopper, Ms. Mead asks how much the regular rental would be, if there were no wedding. "A four-hour minimum is $576." So you could spend $144 less and receive a half-hour more? Why not do that instead? "You can't," the saleswoman replies. If it's a wedding, you must do the wedding special." After taking a few steps away, Ms. Mead said, "This is the kind of thing that I'm really interested in — that mentality: you're going to get the horns whether you want them or not."

Intrigued, we decided to IM our fellow bridesmaid in an upcoming Destination Weddingpalooza about just what Rebecca Mead is trying to sell us.

Jezebridesmaid: So my question is, what is up with the whole wedding thing?
How much do you think Bridezilla's wedding is costing?
I am supposed to write about this but I am just sort of dumbfounded
You had a nice wedding.
Did you feel societal pressure to do so?
steph?
Notbridezilla: honestly, and i'm only telling you this confidentially, i think my wedding cost $65g, not including honeymooon
Bridezilla's must be 3+ million
Jezebridesmaid: ohhhhh....mygod
Notbridezilla: and yes, i felt pressure.
Jezebridesmaid: how do you decide how much to spend?
Notbridezilla: i'd rather own property, but parents want a blow-out
plus, once you're in it, you're in it
you gotta have the best band, the best flowers, the best dress
forget a budget
it's insane
Sent at 4:48 PM on Wednesday
Notbridezilla: and then you're like reading the knot and you hate the knot but you read it because you're spending all this time and money getting thin (and you think i'm obsessed now, last year i ate literally lettuce)
Jezebridesmaid: JESUS
there needs to be a support group for this shit
Notbridezilla: and you just pray that nothing goes wrong because people have been telling you for ages how you just get this ONE DAY
and you're like, um, what about the MARRIAGE
Jezebridesmaid: and you believe them because you are starving?
and your brain is addled by starvation?
and you're like "that's RIGHT, THERE IS ONLY ONE DAY"
Notbridezilla: and then three weeks before the wedding when everything hits the fan (which it will) and your future mother in law is on her like 6th makeup trial because she thinks it's her wedding, you will contemplate divorce
because at that point your future husband's CHEWING is driving you crazy
and you're like, the rest of my life is a LONG TIME
Jezebridesmaid: so boomer parents with excess liquidity are basically driving this industry
they're driving the demand
just like the real estate market!
we just need to raise their taxes
Notbridezilla: it's like the princess phenom among 3 year olds
Jezebridesmaidis the honeymoon at least fun?
what you up to this weekend?
Notbridezilla: friday i've got a bachelorette party — wanna go?
Jezebridesmaid to the maritime hotel?
Jezebridesmaid: sure!
Notbridezilla: yay!!
you should totally come
Jezebridesmaid she loves you.
Jezebridesmaid: how approps! a bachelorette party!
Notbridezilla: it gets better — her fiance's brother is a millionaire (works for that leverage buyout firm, kravis or something) anyway, the bachelor party is on a yacht called "We Won"
Jezebridesmaid: uhhh, we LOST.

Love, Honor, Cherish And Buy [NYTimes]