Four Weddings, One Angry Blogger

*Spoiler Alert - many words in this post will probably be in CAPS*

Usually I like just about anything on TV. I watch everything from the critically acclaimed Emmy winners to the guilty pleasure reality shows (c'mon Rehab at the Hard Rock.. best show ever... anyone with me?). About 9 times out of 10 I can find something redeemable about any show I'm watching. I just love television.

That's how I felt until this last Saturday when Rebecca and I watched TLC's "Four Weddings". In-fucking-furiating! When I think about that show.... show.... make.... David.... ANGRY!!!!!!! MUST PUNCH SOMETHING. (breathing into paper bag so I can write the rest of this blog....)

For those of you that aren't familiar with this show, allow me to tell you about it. Actually let me give you an unbiased description of the show. According to TLC, "Four Weddings" is a show in which "Four brides have agreed to attend- and score- each other's weddings. They'll be judging the food, dresses, venues and overall experiences. The bride whose wedding rates the best wins a fabulous five-star honeymoon."

Wow, well reading the description this sounds pretty good, right? At one point or another we've all gone to weddings and silently judged them to ourselves... not for prizes, but sure, we've left and said, "Gosh, it was a beautiful day, but the prime rib was SO bad!". Even though not to one another's face like "Four Weddings", that is judging... so this show, in theory, should be great.

Then I watched it.

First of all the major flaw of the show is that they pitted a woman that had a $15k wedding against a woman that had an $80k wedding. Look, I'm not saying that the woman with a 15k wedding can't win and can't have the best wedding in the world because look, my wedding is WAY WAY WAY closer to that amount than to 80k and I think we could easily be planning the best wedding in the world, BUUUUUUUT come on, this is not a very level playing field. I'll get back to the monetary discrepancies in a bit because the other problem I had with this show were the women on it. Oh my god, did I DESPISE the women on this show and the terrible things they would say about one another's happiest day ever. Their fucking FAKE friendships they had with one another, their over the top judgements, their "I'm on TV I should wear my emotions on my sleeve, and their "if I'm not having fun I should look like I'm being tortured" attitudes. These women were so fake and so unfair I couldn't believe it. The woman that had a $45k wedding had a SPREAD for her cocktail hour: many different food selections, lobster, etc etc etc. But because the woman that had a $15k wedding had a much more modest cocktail hour she OBVIOUSLY didn't try hard enough. What bullshit. Look, I will say this, in defense of the women (I can't believe I'm defending them) the bride that had the cheapest wedding really could have stretched her dollar further. She had no entertainment for her guests, there was no dancing, the food didn't look very appetizing, the wedding looked bland. And if you're in a competition where I'm forced to judge you, then your wedding lacked. But you know what, when you go to this woman's wedding, you can look a little happier. It's a few effing hours, you don't need to sit there acting like it's dental work. Some people wear their emotions on their faces and can't fake excitement - it's so immature. A few women on this show fit that category. I wish I could have shaken these ladies and told them that the bride didn't REALLY want you at her wedding. She wanted the chance to win an awesome honeymoon (the episode I saw it was a great trip to Bora Bora). There were most likely guests the bride had to cut from her invite list....legitimate family and/or friends that were were on the bubble, so she could accommodate three absolute STRANGERS for a chance to win a great honeymoon. The least you could do is blend in instead of sticking out as a woman nobody else knows TEXTING AT A GOD DAMNED WEDDING CEREMONY. (counting backwards from 100 so I can complete this blog post)

If I've laid out reasons 1 and 1a why I hate this show, here is reason 1ab (because I hate everything about it EQUALLY): the women refuse to accept any cultural differences! Like I mentioned before one woman was TEXTING during another bride's ceremony because "the whole ceremony was in a different language and therefore completely boring and according to her, they should have hired someone to translate." Um, REALLY? You're an adult. You can't enjoy experiencing a wedding that is culturally different than yours? You can't take ANYTHING out of a new experience? Furthermore she bagged on the bride's religion saying that she would never set foot in that denomination's church again because the ceremony was too long and if she was ever invited to another wedding of that faith, she'd skip it and only attend the reception. The bride then gave her rival a low score for her "long, boring, different language" ceremony. Later in the show, at another bride's reception she surprised everyone with a huge band of bagpipers, drummers, and authentic Irish dancers. It was a great personal touch and an excellent surprise for wedding guests. It was a pretty awesome experience for everyone EXCEPT for one of the rival brides! This woman complained that the performance wasn't appropriate for a wedding and not everyone likes bagpipes. Oh REALLY? Hey fuckface, you had STEEL DRUMMERS at your wedding and everyone went with the flow. I know that it's still a competition so you want to diminish your rivals' accomplishments, but at the end of the day this is their WEDDING. It's personal. You are a guest. Temper your judgements.

On that note here comes reason 1abc I hated this show. The women took it beyond judging the wedding. They started judging one another. One woman didn't like another woman's dress because it still showed her tattoos. Look (expletive) the other bride is different than you are! She has tattoos and even if you don't like them, SHE does. If she had worn a gown that covered all of her tattoos you would have complained that she was wearing a burka. One of the women was a bit older than the other three and her wedding was shit on because "the guests seemed a little on the older side, so there wasn't much dancing". I'm blind with anger.

If this show's aspiration is to give an immediate gut punch to a bride who thought everyone enjoyed her wedding then it succeeded with flying colors. I know that the person with the lowest point total at the end of the day claims, "I wouldn't have changed a single thing about my wedding" but she's going home thinking that 3 people truly didn't enjoy her wedding, and if THOSE 3 didn't like her wedding at all, who else didn't? That's horrible! I know she signed up for that abuse.... but nobody deserves that. I've seen how hard this wedding planning is, and how time and energy consuming it is and that's not fair to do to anyone... well maybe to the woman who lost because her wedding WAS the worst. OH GOD! It's rubbing off on me... I'm becoming horrible.

At the end the show they crowned their victor and it just reinforced everything I absolutely knew I hated about it:

1st Place Winner budget: $80k

2nd Place Budget: $45k

3rd Place Budget: $30k

4th Place Budget: $15k

Fuck you TLC. If you're going to have such a large monetary disparity maybe go the extra mile and find women that don't think the only way to have a successful wedding is to have a culturally bland wedding with a raw bar, live band, and a princess ball gown. It's extremely possible to have a $10k wedding outshine a $75k wedding so maybe do some leg work and talk to brides who are doing work to make the day special despite having a small budget. I'm a firm believer in the fact that a backyard wedding can be as magnificent as a black tie formal ballroom wedding. How bout trying to enforce that TLC? Additionally I'm not casting judgement on people that can afford big budget weddings! I'm fine with a big budget grand wedding too! They are great, and I love to attend them. I just think they should maybe have women that all spent $60-$80k go against one another instead of continuously beating the small budget wedding every episode (Rebecca commented that she's seen the person that spent the most win the other times she's seen the show).

One last note before I hit "publish". This is something I don't usually do. When I talk about someone, I usually make it as anonymous as I possibly can. This time I've decided differently. Nadine, I sincerely hope that you are into googling yourself. I hope that you do a search for "Nadine, Four Weddings, Blog" just to see if anyone has commented on your wedding. You ragged on 3 other women who had only nice things to say about your wedding. You were terrible. I hope you read this.

Anyone else ever seen this show? Anyone else have as many issues with it as I do?

Kudos, Ladies!

One thing I've learned the last year or so wedding planning is that this stuff is EXHAUSTING. It's all encompassing and completely consumes your life. As soon as one task is crossed off the list, the joke is on you because it only gives way to hundreds of other new tasks. It's the most wonderful exciting vicious cycle of to-do's that I've ever seen. Of course it culminates with a glorious day tailor made to everything you love, but for most, that day doesn't come easily.

It's for this reason that I really want to say thank you to all of you, and especially to the bride-to-be bloggers. I honestly don't know how you do it. Rebecca manages to look at EVERY single wedding item posted on the internet and then somehow also finds time to cross things off our wedding checklist. You all blog continuously and yet when I check my twitter feed you've managed to comment and retweet and joke amongst yourselves all while planning. Again, I don't know how you do it. You post new content when you can't find content about which you want to share your opinion. And you do this all while you're planning a WEDDING. It's unfathomable to me how you accomplish this.

When I see a time-dependent task approaching on my wedding checklist I tend to take the "all hands on deck" approach to make sure that it gets done. Somehow you take the "all hand on deck" approach, but unbelievably another hand comes out from under your shirt and you blog about the task, multiple ideas for the task, ways you would maybe do the task differently next time, an eco-friendly way to do the task, a DIY way to do the task, a budget-friendly way to do the task, tweet it, follow people on follow friday, and then craft a 3-armed shirt for sale on etsy. I don't know how you do it. You somehow make blogging a full time job while you have full time jobs, and still find time to wedding plan which is absolutely a full time job. I don't even want to delve into doing guest posts on other sites, because that shit just isn't human.

At the end of a long day of wedding planning all I want to do is collapse on the couch with a beer that I'm "taste testing for the wedding" and turn off the wedding-planning thoughts in my head. I just want to tune out for an evening and relax. The next day, or at the end of the week, I'll come up with a cutesy tweet or post apologizing for my lack of posting and I'll let you know what I've been planning with Rebecca. In the time it took me to enjoy those first sips of my beer on my night off you gals have already found a new engagement session, commented on it, and then posted opinions on making your engagement session personal to you.

Look, I don't want to sell myself short. I've crafted a wedding blog that I hope is entertaining, and I like to think that where I lack in pure quantity I thrive in quality. I really have enjoyed planning the wedding with Rebecca. I am definitely more involved in wedding planning than anyone I know...but I haven't given her enough credit. I don't have the excel spreadsheets, and the crazy to-do lists like she does.... like most of you have... I just am here helping plan every step of the way which I think is pretty damn good. Comparatively.... it's a start.

I exist to give you all a fresh take on wedding planning, and I really do hope that my blog somehow inspires guys to lend a helping hand. It's not a "gay thing" (as I imagine guys see it) to want to help plan, and I hope that this blog helps them realize it. The last year has really just opened my eyes to the fact that WE should be that third arm poking out of the etsy shirt hole. There are more guys wedding blogging than ever before, which I think is really cool. A site like The Man Registry churns out wedding content daily and is something that never existed before. I'd like to think more men are getting involved because of sites like it and the grooms blogs like you see in my blog roll. I feel like we're revolutionizing the way wedding planning is going to happen in the future. I can only imagine more and more wedding blogs popping up soon. I'd love to think that the men in my blog role are the forefathers of bearing some of the wedding planning load.

Anyway, in the past few days that I've taken a breather from my blog it's just become completely apparent to me that you women are not human. It's unreal. As suck-up as this post sounds, something needed to be said. Thanks for the help - Rebecca, the wedding bloggers out there, and even to the countless women who just READ wedding blogs because I know you're reading them ALL and planning as well. If you take time to read groom blogs, you're helping the groom revolution thrive. Support us, and we'll support you! Your daughters will walk hand-in-hand with wedding planning grooms.

Gocco for Sale!

I really hate to use my blog to sell something, but right now we could REALLY use the money for wedding budget help! A few weeks ago I told you about my experience with the Gocco and why I decided not to use this awesome looking Japanese screen printer. I finally took an inventory of everything I've got and I thought I would post it on the site.

SO... here we go. I bought this very lightly used Gocco PG-5 straight from Japan. It has not been used by me and is basically immaculate. I have a lot of extras to sell with the Gocco as well as everything that comes in the original box. I promise you won't find a complete package like this anywhere else on the internet right now as the Gocco and its accessories have become hard to find. Here's what I've got:

(1) Gocco PG-5 + original items that come with it in the package (Riso pen, manuals, template books, vhs instructional video, ink blocker, positioning sheet)

(6) Screens

(22) Bulbs

(32) Tubes of ink in various colors. As far as I can tell there are only a few that have been used. Nearly all of them are unused and in their original boxes. Many different colors. (email me if you want to know about a particular color)

I really want to sell this as a package and don't really want to sell off parts. I'm worried that I'll have a harder time selling off the odds & ends that you don't want.

Email me if you're interested and we can talk about pricing. To give you a heads up of what I'm thinking regarding price - the base model with a few extras sells for around $250 right now. I'm not looking to make money off any of you, I'm going to jack up the price on my craigslist listing, but if anyone in the wedding community wants this I'll just sell it to you for the amount I spent on it.

Email me if you're interested: templeofgroom [at] gmail dot com

Please forward along to anyone you think may be interested!

Robot Presides Over Japanese Wedding

This is a tad too on the nose... I mean even though I've never seen a robot presiding over a Japanese wedding, I feel like it's already been done a thousand times. On a monday morning I can't even come up with a good "Japanese people getting married by a robot" joke because I feel like this is already a caricature of itself. I've got nothing - leave your best robot priest jokes in the comments.

Ben Folds plays my wedding! (3 months early)

Rebecca and I went to a Ben Folds concert on Wednesday night here in LA. It was AWESOME. We shouted "Temple of Groom" several times, but I don't think Ben heard us. It was such a fun show.

Even though for the first part of the show a 6'5" guy decided to barrel through the crowd and camp out nearly in front of us, we had a blast. Look, total side note to that guy, I KNOW that it's not your fault you're so damn tall. We get it... you were born that way. But at least realize that if you're that effing tall, people are going to get a little upset when you push your way to the middle of a general admission show. The 5'4" girl next to me had a right to say something nasty to you because you pushed her out of the way so you could stand in front of her while your drunk girlfriend didn't even watch the show. She literally had her back to the show the entire time. You have a right to stand where you want, but at least get to the show a bit earlier so the shorter people can plan accordingly. And while I'm at it (sorry for the rant guys)... a quick shout out to the guy that pretends he spots a friend towards the front of the venue so he can push his way forward. Your acting is going to have to get a little better than that. We knew there was no "Adrienne!" 30 feet in front of us. It's a great idea though, people were parting left and right, but try to end up in a spot that is physically capable of human occupancy. Don't wedge yourself in between two people less than a foot apart. You seemed like a pretty good guy but I didn't love the taste of your shampoo!

ANYWAY... It's always great to see a Ben Folds show. If we didn't have such a great DJ booked for our wedding, then I probably would have printed Temple of Groom cards to hand out at the show, and would have thought out some way to let Ben know about the campaign I launched a few months ago. He may not be at our wedding, but his music will be there at some point.

Well, to wrap things up, at the end of the night Ben took a picture of the audience so he could tweet it later... check it out!!!!!!!!!!

Click the pic to enlarge!