Tuesday, April 1, 2008

You can't escape...the nuptual industrial complex

Getting married comes with many new, and mostly unpleasant experiences. As soon as you set a date, you are suddenly exposed to the most ruthless, well-oiled commercial machine in the world: the nuptual-industrial complex.

I am truly amazed at the thoroughness of their attack. We started receiving wedding-related junk mail almost immediately after I bought my dress (coincidence? um...no). I wish that I had saved some of it and scanned it, because there were some real gems. My favorite was the chair cover brochure. Did you know that this was a thing? I mean, it never occurred to me that chair covers were a wedding accessory(tm), much less than there would be an entire company devoted to renting them out. The most amazing part was the cost--$2 per chair cover. That is the same amount I'm paying to rent chairs. And man oh man, are they terrible looking. If there is something fuglier than a chair cover, I'd like to know what it is.

Anyway...I have no idea whether this junk mail will ever stop. I mean, they apparently have no idea when my wedding date is, because they keep sending me information about venues--despite the fact that any self-respecting snooty country club event planner would laugh in my face if I expected to rent their space one month before my "event". Maybe I'll lose them when I move.

By the way, by far the creepiest part of the wedding industrial complex is on facebook (of all places). The instant I changed my relationship status to "engaged," I started getting ads for wedding junk in my sidebar, and even in my news feed.

Facebook is watching me.

I'm thinking of "facebook eloping" just to put an end to the visual spam.

3 comments:

paisana said...

can imagine something uglier than a chair cover: a really ugly, old, flowered chair.

btw, you and I are going to have words. Not only do you not facebook me (oooh, no, you facebook Nick, but not me), I have to find this through a scouring Becky's comments.

Tch. I'm mortally offended. MORTALLY.

paisana said...

Oh, AND the link to my blog is broken. Harumph. HARUMPH, I SAY.

Anonymous said...

Urgh - that sucks. Moving might be the only way to get rid of them - at least, if you find another way, let me know because then I'll be able to stem the tide of baby-product junk mail that we've been swimming in for years.

I managed to miss the bridal onslaught by sheer luck - my wedding dress wasn't listed as a wedding dress, just as a fancy dress (well, it was BLUE, after all - how could it be a wedding dress? :)) so the vendors didn't realize that I was out there. But the sheer amount of stuff that people try to convince you is essential is absolutely mindblowing. I remember one couple whose wedding I worked at had rented Waterford crystal champagne flutes for their first toast, which led to a mess of major proportions because said flutes got temporarily lost during the reception. There's the Bridal Beast at its worst - somehow they became convinced that the first toast just wouldn't be all that if it wasn't done with horrendously expensive rented crystal. Waterford is beautiful stuff, but still, wow ... why did they think anyone would even notice?

Oops, apologies for rambling! I shall be shorter and sweeter anon :).

- Sonetka