Someone Else's Wedding

We discuss the decisions we make about other people's weddings. Emily is making choices about her role in her sister's wedding and Shannon is bemoaning how awful the role of bridesmaid often is.

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Transcript:

Sarah: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Sarah 

Beth: [00:00:05] and I'm Beth. 

Sarah: [00:00:06] We host a Pantsuit Politics, a podcast with a remarkable community of listeners 

Beth: [00:00:10] Here on The Nuanced Life we come together every week to answer your questions and commemorate your milestones in hopes of bringing a little more grace to every aspect of life.

Sarah: [00:00:25] Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Nuanced Life. Today we're going to talk about weddings and let me just tell you something that is a fraught topic at any point in our lives or in human history, but it is a particularly fraught topic during a global pandemic. Beth, you said when we were about to sit down and record.

You have lots of thoughts about weddings. Now, do you need to express any of those before we tackle our listeners questions? 

Beth: [00:00:53] Well, let me just put this frame around this episode, we are specifically today talking about somebody else's wedding. And I think when we talk about somebody else's wedding, there is lots of wisdom in thinking about your own wedding, because I worry that in the realm of weddings, we think of them like it's.

Horrible and expensive if it's not mine. And if it's mine, it must be perfect. And I don't care how horrible and expensive it is for everybody else. And I think weddings are a good place. We just had this really good conversation for pantsy politics about the difference between being considerate and managing someone else's field.

And I think that distinct is a really good entry point for this conversation where we think about how do we celebrate and support other people without sacrificing every. Comfort and priority of our own. 

Sarah: [00:01:46] Right. I think that that is such a great framing. And also weddings are a playground for like individual psychologies, cultural norms, gender stereotypes, community stress, individual stress, interpersonal trauma.

I mean, that's why they're so fraught. And that's why that framework is like, Excellent. And also takes damn near superhuman strength 

Beth: [00:02:10] just to let us muster our superhuman strength together. As we consider Emily's question. Emily, Emily is the matron of honor, which again, phrase that we should retire. 

It's so hard to retire it because of all those cultural norms, expectations, and the people who roll their eyes whenever you mess with old language, but zero people want to be called a matron.

Anyway, Emily is going to be the matron of honor for her younger sister, which is something I have had the pleasure of doing as well. Emily is very close to her sister and they have a really great relationship. She's super proud of her. Her sister's always been really supportive of Emily, so beautiful things.

Emily also has an eight month old, which makes wedding participation, challenging to say the least 

Sarah: [00:02:59] that's the best of circumstances, right? Right. 

Beth: [00:03:02] Yes. And her sister is a wonderful aunt to that eight month old. Okay. So the sister is grieving getting to have the wedding that she envisioned, but it's still going to have the wedding probably going to look like a small outdoor ceremony, which will be lovely.

And also not exactly. She wants hard for everyone. They were able to go dress shopping together. Before everything fell apart. So Emily, as she says, always has special memories of pumping while my sister was in between. And I am so glad that Emily shared that detail with us, because I have lots of thoughts on people who need to pump during weddings and how we treat them.

We'll come back to that. Okay. So Emily is sad that her sister is going to have to have something that's quite different than what she would have otherwise had because of COVID. And Emily is also somewhat relieved because she has an eight month old. So she has been taking social distancing and mask wearing very seriously.

She said her sister has too, she knows we're cruising into flu season and she is really trying to figure out. Even with this smaller outdoor affair, she has some anxiety about gathering with people and wants to know how can I be truly helpful and supportive to my sister and also manage all the feelings I have going into this situation that is going to be uncomfortable.

Sarah: [00:04:16] Oh, I have so many thoughts. Well, here's the thing I want to say to Emily's sister who didn't write to us, but I'm going to talk to her anyway, because I think there's a lot of people in our audience that are probably dealing with changes in wedding plans. Here's a valuable lesson that I learned during my wedding that I've actually been thinking a lot about recently, because I think it also really applies to home renovations, stay with me here.

I promise I have a point. What I learned in my wedding is that you never get the wedding you anticipate, or you desire, or you envisioned unless you are independently wealthy to like a Beyonce level. And I bet you, even if you are, there's just always things that follow short or weren't exactly what you envisioned.

I had a real moment after my wedding where I thought like, Oh man, I didn't get this music play that I wanted. And this wasn't quite what I had expected. And this food didn't turn out and the DJ, blah, blah, blah. Actually music came up a lot. Cause the DJ was terrible, but like, Then I started looking at the photos of the event because I think a lot of our expectations are built on photos of other people's weddings.

But photos are snapshots in time. Right? So our expectations when I got married, cause I'm old were driven by like Martha Stewart, weddings and real simple weddings. And like this vision of like these snapshots of these truly perfect moments now, like, Oh my God, I would have been a disaster. Had Pinterest existed when I was planning my wedding.

But like they fill us with snapshots and then we're living the moment and I think that's true of home renovations. Right? You get snapshots. But like, you're not actually envisioning that literally everything can't come together 100% perfectly as it appears in a photo. And just like releasing that. I think is helpful pandemic or no, it's never going to be exactly what you envisioned because our vision is based usually on snapshots in time of other people's experiences, you don't know that person, that person, a Martha Stewart wedding like could have had a million disasters that just didn't show up in the photos.

And so I think like just sort of everybody released that around weddings, it would be helpful, but I think it's a particularly helpful framework in the middle of COVID. 

Beth: [00:06:29] Can I just add to that excellent point that you really need to be clear about your priorities around your wedding day. And when I ask myself, what do I really want for this day?

The answer was, I want to have a really good day. And that was in some ways inconsistent with really having picture perfect lifelong photos. And that was fine with me. I wanted to have a fun day more than I wanted to have that Instagram Pinterest worthy wedding. So I let go of a lot of things and my philosophy became what's easy here.

And because of that, I did have a really fun day there. Very few things about my wedding that I would change if I went back in time and did it over again, because it was simple, people kept commenting to me. This is the easiest feeling wedding I'm so relaxed. I was like, yes. See, that's what I wanted. I wanted us all to have a really relaxed, good day together.

And we did. And it's hard to get in that frame of mind. People treat you like you are a revolutionary, if you are in that easy frame of mind about it. So be a revolutionary because it's wonderful. It's so much better. Or when you're just having fun and not making it hard for yourself or others. 

Sarah: [00:07:37] Okay. Now specifically to Emily and I think this is also applicable outside of weddings.

Okay. I will be attending two family weddings. I have one in September and one in November. And, you know, Beth and I were just talking about this. So we have a new pneumonic device for COVID from an article we talked about in depth on Pantsuit Politics, but it is people in proximity for a prolonged period of time with poor ventilation and no protection.

Okay. Five Ps. So you're looking at people. Usually inside that means poor methylation, no masks for a really long period of time and close proximity. Right. So the other thing I keep that in mind. And the other thing I think about a lot is. It's very easy for me to get into a spot where I think if I encounter COVID, I will get sick, but we've had Michelle Becker, an epidemiologist on our podcast several times.

And like, I just have to keep her voice in my head. That's like, it's really about your viral load. And I also think a lot about at the beginning, there was a really good illustration about your, your risk. Like your risky behavior money to spend. Do you remember this? Like when it first started, like pre COVID, you had a dollar now you have about 10 cents. Spend it wisely.

And I kind of think about that in relation to my viral load and my risk assessment and whether the five P's are going to be present. So for me, what I think is like, The reality is my behavior for 80% of the time, like where I'm spending my budget. I'm not spending my budget cause I work from home and I almost never leave because I don't do the grocery shopping in my family.

I pick up my kids in a car line. Like I just don't go a lot of places during the week, especially. And so. Because I'm not being exposed over and over, like someone in a healthcare setting, my viral load is most likely going to be low. Now I would really like an app that would just keep us assessed of our viral load at all times, but that's not out there yet.

And that's fine. And everybody's viral load is different, but I try to keep that in mind. Okay. So I haven't spent any money and it sounds like Emily has been so careful for you know, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks now that's not to mean that like, you can be careful and you can go to the wrong setting and catch COVID.

Okay. I get it. But I think there has to be an assessment of risk. And so for me, I think, okay, I've been, I haven't used any of my budget. And so yes, there is risk. If you're at a wedding, right. We're going to, we're going to probably have some proximity. You're going to be closer to people for 15 minutes.

Hopefully there will be masks. Hopefully it will be outdoors. So you're reducing that risk. And hopefully you haven't been engaged in, in other risky behaviors. So you have a little of that budget to spend. And I think your sister's wedding is a good place to spend it. And I think, you know, if you can take the precautions, don't let that anxiety

rob you, it's a very, very difficult psychological exercise we're all engaging. We're not great at risk assessment in the best of circumstances. We're certainly not good at it under stress, but I do think there's like room in there to like really. Look at the risk and look at the benefits and you know, what's so hard about COVID is some of these events that are really high benefit for human populations, like family gatherings and church functions, where people get a lot of emotional support are also very risky and that's just an assessment.

To a certain extent, not that I don't think there should be any sort of broad, overarching policies that people have to make. And so just, you know, I just don't want you to be eaten up with anxiety, you know, taking the information as best you can support your sister, take the precaution, except that there will, there is always risk in our lives.

Like we're living in a global pandemic, erasing risk of exposure is not available to almost anybody. And I think you just have to give a lot of grace to yourself and to your sister and to everybody trying to navigate that. 

Beth: [00:11:23] I totally agree with all of that. I feel pretty comfortable outside. And I think the fact that she's doing this outside is really good.

And I would just talk to her in advance about what are the expectations for the entire day? What are the getting dressed expectations? And you might need a little more privacy than everybody else for a lot of reasons. Since, if you have an eight month old and you're still breastfeeding. And so I would just say to your sister, I am so excited about this.

You know, how much I love you. I want this to be a great day. And I think it would be really helpful for both of us. If we can talk ahead of time about what's really important to you. When do you want everybody to get dressed? Do you want that to happen together? I would really prefer because of nursing because of COVID to get ready on my own.

And then show up and meet you or whatever your answer is. Right. But just have that discussion. Tell me the times I will absolutely respect your calendar. I just want to be able to plan accordingly. I am going to need the pump a couple of times again. I just want to understand your calendar so that I can plan for those times that I pump.

So it's not like an emergency that I need to go do it right at a heavy photo time or something. I think that we often have this attitude of like, well, If you're in a wedding then whatever the bride sets is non negotiable. And we develop this attitude of resentment about that as people in the wedding, instead of just saying, Hey, can we talk about this?

Because I am all in for you. I just want to plan ahead for my own needs. That way. You don't have to think about them on the day of, because when they come up on the day of, then the bride gets all mad, right? You're supposed to be all in with me. It's my day. So I just would have as many conversations as possible about before the ceremony, after the ceremony, the pictures, everything that's gonna roll out so that you can protect what you need to protect on your end, Emily and your sister knows that you totally are.

There to be supportive and celebrate with her. That's probably a good segue to Shannon's question.

Shannon as a gay woman, who's never really thought a whole lot about marriage does not understand, these are her words, why women accept that being a bridesmaid has to be an awful expensive and traumatic experience. And look, Shannon. I don't think you're wrong about that. I think that's a pretty accurate characterization of a lot of experiences of being in a wedding.

Not every one, but many of them. I don't understand why we accept that we should all wear the same dress. I would like to start there. I think everybody wearing the same outfit is the dumbest. Just get rid of that tradition. 

Sarah: [00:14:08] You know, where it came from. Right? Go ahead. It's really fascinating though. It started because the.

Idea was like, you wanted to sort of keep evil spirits or evil eyes from cursing the bride. So in, you know, just the ultimate cultural expression of women are supposed to sacrifice for each other. You dressed alike. So the spirit would be confused and maybe take the, want to get one of the bridesmaids and not the bride.

Beth: [00:14:28] Yeah. No, thank you, please. I don't need any of that. 

Sarah: [00:14:33] Look. There's so much overlap with our outside of politics from Pantsuit Politics this week, because there's just a weird chemistry thing that happens with women. I told my husband, I feel like it. And I said it on the show. There's this like, well, who can be the last to articulate their needs?

And this is like such a toxic cultural like environment for that, because there's one person who's like been crowned to articulate her needs and has probably been swallowing in the face of sleepovers and other girlfriend environments or whole life, and is like, this is my chance. I love that moment in Sex and the City where Charlotte is like, this is my week.

And Miranda says, you get a day, not a week a day, but I think there's this sense of like, now's my chance. Now's my chance. And when you're a bridesmaid, I think there's this sort of narrative of like, well, it'll be my chance one day. Right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay the Piper and make the sacrifices and be the like happy maid servant.

Because one day it'll be my turn and will be my chance to boss my friends around. This is all very, very unhealthy. I just think that's some interplay that's going on. 

Beth: [00:15:39] I think you're totally right. I've never thought of it that way before. That's brilliant that this is your one day to have your needs met.

And I think that's why it is such a toxic disaster. And why have we learned that our needs mean putting other people through this circus? 

Sarah: [00:15:54] I know the answer. It's patriarchy, patriarchy. They have to pit us against each other. If we have, we are, we're competing for a teeny tiny little piece and we have to compete with other women instead of being like, this is crap.

How about, instead of saying you don't need, you know, your friends up here taking care of you for like, that's wrong to articulate your needs in that way. We just say, why don't we all get better at articulating our needs all the time. That's a fun experiment. A fun suggestion, because I don't want, I don't want to do is like, say that they're not spaces for women to come together and celebrate each other and have fun together.

But, you know, I just think there's a lot of cultural baggage. Like I think that's true at girls weekends and slumber parties and when they're bridesmaids, because we're not just coming to, like, we're not just carrying each other's hopes and fears. We have all this cultural baggage that we're trying to navigate without ever articulating it.

It's just really hard instead of articulating our needs or saying like laying down boundaries. You know, and I'm not convinced that this sort of difficult dance doesn't happen when men get together too. I just, I'm not sure if at any gathering of adults, I look, cause this happens on some of like when I've gone on weekends away or vacations with other families, like it's just, we're not good at this dance with one another where we're just we're together for prolonged periods of time.

Everybody needs to sort of, feel comfortable articulating their needs and putting boundaries in places. And there's like, I don't know. I don't, I don't think we're good at this anytime, bridesmaids or other. 

Beth: [00:17:33] I have some thoughts about ways to make being a bridesmaid, not a horrific experience. I don't know that I did.

I'm sure I did not do everything right around my wedding, but I had been in a lot of weddings by the time I got married because not only had I been a bridesmaid a lot, I sang in a bunch of weddings too. So I had loads and loads of wedding experience. By the time we got married and some of the things that I think worked really well were a telling bridesmaids;

I just want you to wear a black dress. I don't care what it looks like. I don't care if it's new. I don't care if it's 20 years old, I just want you to wear a black dress that made everybody very uncomfortable at first. Right. And I was getting so many questions. Like, can it have something besides black on it?

Yes, I don't care. Can I wear this kind of jewelry? Yes. I don't care. I just want you to wear it. I want you to wear a black dress that makes you feel beautiful. The end. And I did that because my bridesmaids were from a wide range of positions in life. And I knew that some people were delighted about the opportunity to go out and buy a fancy new dress.

And some people did not have the extra cash to spend on a brand new dress, but they had a black dress, you know? And so it worked really well. They look so beautiful and the photos, I still look back and think they all look like themselves. They are really different people. Everybody had on something that was flattering.

It just, it worked out so beautifully. So I love it, that part, and I want us to all get our hair done together. So I paid for it. And I budgeted so that I could do that. If that was important to me, I wanted to spend the money for them to do that. I just tried to really think through how can people be comfortable?

How can this not be extremely expensive for them? You know? And how can we enjoy this time together? Because I have been in so many weddings for people that I adore, and it was not fun at all. I wanted the pictures to go quickly, you know, because. Not everybody wants to spend hours smiling into the camera.

I'm not sure that anybody 

Sarah: [00:19:35] does. 

That was absolutely my favorite part of that, 

Beth: [00:19:38] but I wanted most of the photos to just be candids anyway. And all of that just made for a much less tense day than I had had around other weddings.

Sarah: [00:20:01] Can I say something about budgeting and weddings? It has literally nothing to do with bridesmaids. It's just something I like to pontificate about is I just think they're like part of the expectations about weddings is like, there's only one kind of wedding to have, which is big. God, I hope COVID disrupts this because I feel like what happens is people say, well, I have to have the big wedding with the meal and the dancing and like the huge party.

And so I will shove that into whatever money I want to spend. And usually if I can't make the money work for that vision, the wedding I'll offload those costs on the other people. Whereas like, you know, back in our parents' day like, there were like a lot of wedding types available to you. Like, some people had what we call in the South, a cake and punch reception, which actually I love.

And I think it needs to make a comeback. Or like some people had like afternoon weddings. Like my mom always talks about our relatives who lived in Indiana. Like they were the first ones to have like the big nighttime wedding. Like they had no concept of it. They were like, what is this thing you're doing in Indiana?

And I just wish there was like a b, more like a bigger menu of opportunity, like options. And I think definitely COVID is probably forcing this. So if you say, well, this is how much I want to spend. So this'll probably work out better as opposed to, well, My only options are big party or getaway, destination weddings.

And I don't really have the budget for either. So I'll just make it work. Like, you know, it's probably a lesson in budgeting, more than anything else. 

Beth: [00:21:23] I think in addition to what you said about illustrating that women are taught to just save all of your needs up for this one day in your life, we're trying to think about for a long time that weddings also reveal that we get very mixed, crappy messages about money and particularly about splurging.

So for some of us, a wedding is like the one acceptable splurge, which illustrates a need to have more frequent splurging. Right. Not out of control, but like healthy. I did something fun with my money that made me happy and I will, again and someday, instead of this sense of like, gotta do it now, got to put it all into the past canapes. 

Like, that's just not a good thing, place to be. And the other thing is like, I don't think we should shame people for whom that is the splurge that they really look forward to. It makes him happy. My philosophy was I would rather have. A lasting splurge. Like I would rather buy an expensive car that lasts for awhile, then have a really good wedding party, you know?

And that is about the comparison that you can, that you can make when you think about what a good wedding. Yep. And so that would be my choice, but that's not everybody's choice and that's fine. So I try really hard to reign in the judgment. Like, can you believe what they spent on this? Because for some people that might be a really healthy expression of what they want to do with their money. But I also think that the cake and punch is a beautiful choice as well, and that we should just invite that whole, whole range of expressions of. Who we are and how we want to celebrate with other people and how we want to spend our 

Sarah: [00:23:03] dollars.

 I mean, listen, I don't, I've been to some weddings where people broke the bank and it was fun. And I'm glad I got an invite. Like, I just think you, I've also been at weddings where I can like see the stress and anxiety of how much it's spent on everybody's faces. And I just wanted to be like, Hey guys, you didn't have to do this. Like. You don't like that if you want to, fantastic, great, love an invitation, but you don't have to.

I think that's just what stinks. It's like we've erased these other options. And I really do hope COVID is sort of broken that open a little bit where people are like, Oh, I kind of like, cause there will be people who have had expectations for a certain kind of wedding, get another one in her. Like, you know what.

I liked that that was great. I'm glad it worked out that way. Not everybody, but I think a fair amount of people. It's also hard because they won't have, like, it's like, they'll be able to compare one to one. And so the other one will always sort of. Live on with Rose colored glasses of the wedding that could have been, I hope people don't torture themselves with that.

Beth: [00:23:55] I think that's the thing you want to spend a level of money that you're comfortable with so that the stakes aren't so high that you can enjoy the day. That's what I have experienced that I've not been able to name. I've been to so many weddings where people spent the maximum that they could afford to spend on the wedding.

And so the stakes were super high and if any little thing went wrong, all that financial stress came bubbling out. And that's to be avoided at all costs. 

Sarah: [00:24:23] So in summary, weddings, what a mess so much going on. And if you lay a layer of COVID-19 over top of it, just, you know, God be with us, God, be with us each and every one. 

Beth: [00:24:35] Keep those advice questions and commemorations and just, "I'd like your general thoughts on this" coming. You can send those to hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We'll be back with you on Pantsuit Politics on Friday and Tuesday. Here again next Wednesday. Until then, keep it nuanced, ya'll.

Sarah: [00:25:02] Dylan Garven produces The Nuanced Life. 

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