Weddingbee boards

In 1911, a girl launched her career as a hostess by assisting her mother at social affairs; she became recognized as an independent adult; married and moved in with her husband, hosted guests to tea and formal dinner, had children, held increasingly large and formal parties, and finally crowned her social achievements by hosting a  wedding reception for fifty to a hundred people on behalf of her daughter.

In 2011, the typical girl first moves in with her lover, has children, then launches and crowns her social career in one fell swoop by hosting her own fully-formal wedding reception for one to three hundred.

Is it any wonder that wedding planning in 2011 is stressful and fraught with problems? The wedding hostess of a hundred years ago had a wealth of experience that let her pull a wedding off and enjoy the whole process. She had learned a hundred little tricks, and built up a set of resources from a well-documented Visiting Book to a wardrobe of appropriate social stationery, and a stable of well-trusted vendors. In contrast, the bride of today is in over her head as soon as she starts planning. Haunt the etiquette and planning forums of any wedding website like this one, and you read post after post by brides trying to solve problems that are the inevitable result of some decision the bride herself made weeks, or months, ago.

I think this is where bees-in-waiting have a tremendous opportunity. Instead of day-dreaming imaginary plans for a wedding that hasn't even been proposed, waiting bees can bury their frustrations in developing some of the experience and resources that are such a help to the experienced hostess. The great thing is that, no matter how long the wait is, your experience as a hostess lets you host small non-wedding-related affairs with ever-increasing ease and pleasure.

@aspasia475: I always enjoy when you post. You have a real talent for clarity and i always look forward to reading more. 

@Miss Tattoo: Totally agree with the 'wedding industry complex' and love the example of other family functions not causing as much stress. 

And this is the thing. Not only do i have an eduction and career outside of the home but so did my mother. I am part of a generation of women who was raised by women who didn't 'lunch' or host teas. I don't even think my mother had stationary. She certainly did not teach me to cater to others. I also know that she will not be purchasing me any china. 

I guess this gap is what causes marketers to create things like honeyfunds and us to have questions about plus 1's. 

I really like this post. I WISH my mom were around to help me plan things because she actually was the stay-at-home wife who regularly hosted dinner parties. Now that she and my dad live on the other side of the globe and I'm getting married in my FI's home country, though, both her expertise and her resources (friends, vendors, etc.) are unavailable. We skype to toss ideas around and talk about wedding stuff, but I'm definitely the one doing the planning. I watched her a lot over the years and did learn quite a bit from her, but this wedding thing is waaaaayyyy out of my league. It's not just an event for 120--it's an international gathering of friends and family from 7 different countries, all of whom are expecting something that reflects what they think a wedding should be. Talk about second-guessing choices!! I find myself wishing at times that things were nice and simple so that they would fit into everyone's "box" of what a wedding should be. The pressure to get it right on the first go is unreal!

I think what I'm learning from this process is that you can only do your best with what you've got, and even then, your best won't please everyone. Wedding planning eats people pleasers for breakfast. 

This might be strange but I absolutely loved every single minute and every single detail of the planning process. I have never before been so enthusiastic about a project and I never really felt like I was inherently good at anything until I planned my wedding and realized how much I loved it, and it happened to be PERFECT. I have had experience planning numerous showers though, so perhaps I was more prepared than I thought. I have already started planning imaginary weddings for my younger sisters and best friends now. Maybe I am crazy.

Excellent post.

I think the PP make some good points about the wedding industrial complex and the weight of expectations, too. I sometimes have to remind myself, when I'm being buried under questions like "Candy buffet? Photo booth? Favors? Colors?" that I don't even want any of that.

@armychica06:

I didn't see it that way at all. I thought the point of the post was that a hundred years ago, planning these kinds of social events was a woman's "career" (at least in some circles) and since then, weddings have become larger and more elaborate with higher expectations and at the same time, the roles of women have changed and the highlight of our "careers" is no longer organizing our daughter's wedding.

I didn't think the message was judgement for not living like a society lady of 1911; I thought it was a comparison of the task a modern woman sets herself (as a bride, not the mother of one) and the experience she has at her disposal when she does it.

@KristenGotMarried:

Alas, so much for my vaunted ability to explain myself clearly :-D   But you have a good excuse, because I wasn't so much making any point, as trying to introduce some ideas for discussion, and for a suggestion I would like to propose.

On the Etiquette boards, one often reads brides saying "I didn't have a clue about any of this stuff until I started planning". Certainly, there are brides who are event planners themselves, and others who are frequently hostesses of large family gatherings, and those brides have a tremendous advantage even if they do still find their own wedding to present new challenges. But there are many many more brides who are not event planners and don't have experience. They start planning based on what they read on The Knot or other wedding-industry sites, which is a lot like walking cold into a used car dealership and starting your car-buying based on what the commissioned salesman tells you. And a lot of the problems they encounter a few months along, are a direct result of early choices they might not have made if they'd had a little more experience.

On the other hand, on the Waiting boards, one often reads the refrain of "what do you do to pass the time while you're waiting". Planning a party can be so much fun, and so many girls are so eager to get started, that they are thinking venues and vendors, and suppressing all those secret thoughts for fear either of the jinx, or of the inappropriateness of such plans. What I am suggesting -- not so much to the event planners and the family hostesses, but to the others -- is, why not get some practice in?

I do understand that most women work. Back in the sixties, I was one of those women demonstrating on campus for access to "male" programmes and faculties. I worked full-time to support myself until I retired -- admittedly early -- to become my dad's hostess/live-in caretaker; and then I got involved in local politics and governance boards: I am hardly a stay-at-home housewife. In fact, I had to be something of an iron maiden myself to get my foot in the door in business, over a decade before my province passed its first human rights legislation banning discrimination on the basis of sex. Women's right to work is really NOT just part of the background environment for me.

But, few of us work seven days a week, do we? (And, if you do, I know a geriatric activist who would be happy to write a few letters on your behalf.) And, unless you will quit work to plan your wedding full time, you'll be planning that big party on your weekends and evenings (or shift rotations off). In these days, despite being semi-retired and in consultancy/politics where I can set my own hours to a degree, I plan all my parties for the weekend because the guests can't attend any other time. Planning the occasional garden party for a dozen folk, or formal sit-down dinner for six, should be a piece of cake to fit into your weekends, compared to doing your wedding that way. But it could  make planning your wedding that much easier.

At a minimum, think about the troubles brides have figuring out how to address a formal envelope -- is it "Mr and Mrs John Smith"? Or "Mr John and Ms Jane Smith"? Or "Mr John Smith and Ms Jane Smith" -- and heaven forbid if it should turn out to be "Mr John Smith and Ms Jane McGillicudy"! The right answer is, in case you were wondering, that you address it in the form preferred by your guests. You don't get to decide that Mrs John Smith should call herself something different, if that is indeed her formal name. But do you even know what your friends and family prefer for their formal names? In the casual environment we live in, you may never have heard them addressed formally -- and, for that matter, they may never have thought about it long enough to know what they prefer! But if you start keeping a visiting book, and make it the topic of conversation during tea, you can note down now what their preferences are, and keep it as a reference for that eventual wedding. Or, take a good guess and send them a formal invitation to dinner, and if you guess wrongly they are likely to let you know and you can record that for your reference.

@PutABirdOnIt:

"Also, people born in the early 20th Century did not have the advantage of abstract thinking and the same problem-solving abilities as people today."

My grandmas would beg to differ.

I dont think that its a matter of increased abstract-thinking and problem solving abilities, its planning a wedding not rocket surgery. People have been planning and hosting much larger formal affairs for centuries. I think that we just have a lot more freedom of expression and personal taste at weddings now and if we dont want it to be formal then it doesnt have to be, we also have nearly unlimited access to other brides advice and ideas over the internet so we have more choices. Our weddings are no longer cookie-cutter affairs and we become overwhelmed because we have so many choices and we worry that our personal taste is going to be judged by our guests and other brides. We also tend to want everything to be perfect and we feel like if anything goes wrong it will ruin the whole wedding. We put a lot of excessive pressure on ourselves to live up to the standards the wedding industry holds up for us.