Rain on my Parade, Why Dontcha!

Last week, Miss Swan from Weddingbee.com wrote a post about peoples' reactions to her e-ring. (Go read it!) Miss Swan's thoughts really got me thinking. Fortunately, reactions to my ring haven't been as rude. I am more likely to get "it's beautiful!" and then more conversation about the wedding, my family, jobs, our pugs, etc. I'm sure I'll have rude encounters in the future, but I have just been lucky so far.

I'm not always so lucky though, in general. I have on occasion been shocked by peoples' comments. Don't they realize they are being rude? I have tons of examples and I'm sure will encounter more over the next eight months.

A relative whose daughter was recently married decided that everything her daughter did was what I should do, or it wouldn't be right. For example, that bride let her bridesmaids all choose their own black dress. So that was suggested to me multiple times, and when I politely said I'd rather choose a dress, I was told how much easier it was, and how everyone loved it, while being given the rudest, most judging look I had ever seen! Since when did wanting matching dresses for your bridesmaids become a crime? Mr Pug knows- I am sort of anal about symmetry. He even hooked me up with two wedding bands for that reason. I was sure to have matching numbers of bridesmaids and groomsmen. And they will all be wearing the short black dress of my choice- hardly murderous.

Another relative put in her two cents multiple times about our registries. I will discuss the registries in depth in another post, but long story short we pretty much don't have one. We are registered for a few larger items (mattress, vaccum), gift cards for our photographer, and our honeymoon through our travel agent. Mr Pug and I will have lived together for more than two years come wedding day, and moved in together right before Christmas. Everything given to us was home-related and we were able to stock our house with all necessary items. Our home is also about 900 square feet, leaving little room for much else, especially not china or a KitchenAid mixer. Anyway, that's for another entry, and it's also our registry, not theirs. A relative made a comment to another relative that we were doing ourselves a "disservice" by not registering for china, and that our registries were "lame!" We would much rather have a gift from the heart than an appliance which will get stored in the basement, dusty and forgotten.

I also experienced a rude comment when I announced that we had booked our honeymoon. A friend asked where, and I of course gushed about Sandals Dunn's River Villaggio. She said "Boo! You totally should have gone to Negril!" Um, I'm sorry? When did it become acceptable to insult people's travel choices post-booking? I responded politely that we had looked into Negril but Dunn's River was the best choice for us. And luckily, another friend commented how wonderful the resort looked and how much fun we'd have, which made it less awkward.

Has anyone tried to rain on your parade with a rude comment or snide remark about your plans? How did you handle it?