Guilty Pleasure Wedding Reality Show

WEDDING PLANNER:  Let’s get started!  Becky, why don’t you tell me your vision for your wedding, as dictated to you by years of patriarchal assumptions that all women obsess about their weddings and the Disney princess of your choice?

BRIDE:  Well, obviously, it’s My Day, and I want to be a princess.  But, you know, without any of the responsibility of governing or the scrutiny of being a figurehead.

GROOM:  Sure.

WEDDING PLANNER:  Right.

GROOM:  Of course.

WEDDING PLANNER:  It’s Your Day.

BRIDE:  And I want this cake, on this table, at a 40 degree angle, it’s very important. 

GROOM:  Becky, that cake costs $750.

WEDDING PLANNER:  Yes, it’s true, all cakes cost $750.  Flour and sugar are very, very expensive.

BRIDE:  Greg, this cake is what I’ve always dreamed of.  I just can’t take a marriage seriously if it isn’t based around a seven layer cake with white fondant at a forty degree angle to the ice sculpture.

GROOM:  Ice sculpture?  Aren’t those thousands of dollars for water?  Babe, we can’t spend that money!

BRIDE:  (to WEDDING PLANNER)  we are having an ice sculpture

GROOM:  instead of pointing out that we should sit down and have a serious, unemotional talk about finances as adults who are about to commit to each other legally, I’m going to make a joke about money not growing on trees, which will enrage and provoke you and furthermore, we are not having ice sculptures.

BRIDE:  (icily, to the WEDDING PLANNER)  we’ll see about that

COMMERCIAL BREAK!

WEDDING PLANNER:  So, Becky and Greg, we’ve put together two centerpieces as mockups for you to choose from:  One is the lavish and over-the-top look Becky is going for, consisting of white orchids and red roses handled exclusively by virgins singing in a natural soprano wearing gloves made of dreams and fairy-spun silk.  And the other is Greg’s affordable option, which is a single Kleenex tissue in a red Solo cup.

BRIDE:  How much is *my* option?

WEDDING:  Becky, to put one of these centerpieces on each of your tables, it would cost $1,150. 

GROOM:  $1,150???

WEDDING PLANNER:  …per table.

GROOM:  Well, how much is *my* centerpiece going to cost?

WEDDING PLANNER:  Greg, a box of Kleenex – and we are talking the ones without lotion – is $2.99 per 100, and a sleeve of Solo cups is $3.99 per 50.  However, due to the exorbitant cost of labor and the overblown wedding industrial industry, your centerpieces would cost $50 per table.

GROOM:  Money doesn’t grow on treeeees!

BRIDE:  Neither do orchids and roses, Greg!  They grow…uh…from the ground!  That’s why they’re better!

GROOM:  Roses grow from bushes, Becky.  That’s like a tree.

BRIDE:  Don’t talk down to me, Greg!  I told you when you proposed, I am not a horticulturist!!!

WEDDING PLANNER:  Do I need to give you guys a minute, or…?

GROOM:  No, no, it’s fine – we’ll go with the roses one, the one she wants.  I’m only relenting because I’m afraid of her throwing a scene in public, which is how she always gets me to agree to everything.

BRIDE:  Wheee emotional blackmail roses!!!

COMMERCIAL BREAK!!

BRIDE, V.O.:  It was very important to have my entire family and Greg with me when I picked out my dress, because I knew that it would take at least five adults with good credit just to afford the deposit on any dress that would make me feel like a princess on My Day.

DRESS CONSULTANT:  Do you have an idea of what kind of silhouette you’re looking for?

BRIDE:  Well, obviously, I have to look like a princess.

GROOM:  Yep.

WEDDING PLANNER:  Obviously.

DRESS CONSULTANT:  Of course.

BRIDE: …but I also want it to show off my figure.  I mean, six figures.  I need this dress to make me look like a million bucks.  So I figure it should cost a million bucks.  Are you catching these hints?  Just bring me the most expensive dress in the store so I can cry until my family buys it for me.  PRINCESS.  My Day.

DRESS CONSULTANT:  This dress costs 2.5 Billion dollars, and comes with a 64-month financing plan at 8.6% interest.  It’s the most expensive dress in the world.  You would literally have to be insane and hate your entire family to put them through the emotional and financial hell it will take to pay off this dress just so you can feel like a princess for four hours of your life that you’ll barely remember anyway.  it’s a mermaid-fitted trumpet flare made of silk charmeuse.

BRIDE:  Silk charmeuse doesn’t grow on trees!  Does it?

GROOM:  I literally stopped thinking entirely when I became a walking cliche.

BRIDE:  The morning of the wedding I was amazingly calm, like the coastline of a secluded beach resort before a deadly tsunami

GROOM:  The morning of the wedding I was hungover, but I still popped a few beers with the boys because I know that, realistically, this is the last time I’ll ever be able to hang out with my friends alone without Becky tagging along for the rest of my life.

BRIDE:  I wasn’t worried about anything going wrong, because it was My Day, and I was surrounded by my friends and family, so that if I even began to pout or sniffle, they would surround me and pamper me and coddle me because it’s My Day.

GROOM:  I was most excited to see Becky appear at the end of the aisle, because once she was on the aisle, there was very little chance of her spending more of my money, what with me and my wallet being all the way at the other end of said aisle.

BRIDE:  Were there things that went wrong?  Definitely.  But it doesn’t matter now, because I’m saving those as emotional blackmail to remind Greg of in the future.  I’m really excited to be married to this guy, because this whole wedding planning experience has taught me that I have broken his spirit, and have the power to manipulate him into giving me exactly what I want for the rest of our lives together!

GROOM:  Yup!  And wedding planning has taught ME how to check out emotionally from this relationship, so I will feel little to no guilt when I develop an emotional affair with a moderately attractive female subordinate of mine at work 8 months from now.

BRIDE:  Love you babe!  Kiss!  Ugh, don’t smoosh my lipstick.