The Nest

Bridezillas in My TV

Posted Monday, June 11, 2007 2:51 AM

I spent most of the weekend shaking my head. For 21 days this month, The Style Network is having a 21-day "wedding party.” Meaning they are showing (almost) nonstop shows about weddings. Shows with names like "Last Bride Standing,” about a endurance test where seven brides-to-be attempted to win a dream dress – while wearing heels and standing on boxes in the middle of Citywalk; "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" which focuses on the craziness of being a wedding planner; and celebrity weddings, featuring ideas and styles that 99 percent of the viewers could never afford.
Sunday morning I turned on TBS to watch a few minutes of the remake of "Father of the Bride," one of my favorite wedding-themed movies ("this guy was going to coordinate our wedding? How? With subtitles?"). I wasn’t able to watch the whole thing, ironically, because I had to meet my fiancé and our rabbi for one of our premarital counseling sessions (fear not, I have the movie on DVD). Sunday afternoon I was flipping through channels and stopped on We: Women’s Entertainment, which offered a "Bridezilla" marathon and, as the name implies, it is what happens when seemingly good brides go very bad. My fiancé was in the room and he shook his head right along with me as we watched a bride chew out her wedding planner for losing the marriage license – which it turns out the bride still had in her car.
After the Tony Awards ended, I finished my night with another wedding: Shrek and Fiona's. I didn't mean for the weekend to turn into wedding central -- it just happened that way
But there WAS one show that made the experience worthwhile: "Extreme Makeover: Wedding Edition." As it is, "Extreme Makeover" always makes me cry. The show gave a dream wedding to a truly deserving couple: the groom needed a heart transplant after enduring an abundance of chemotherapy treatments. The wedding, held at City of Hope in Duarte, was put together in three days and the Xmas in New York theme was a dream come true for the couple and their families, who never thought the groom would live to see his wedding day. Members of the City of Hope staff came in during the ceremony holding candles to show their appreciation for the couple (who have inspired other patients). I think I cried for a solid hour.
That’s what wedding should be about. Not the damn centerpieces or the matching bridesmaid dresses or the $1,500 cake. It’s about two people who love each other more than anything in the world -- who understand that life isn’t just a world of fondant and tulle.
Of course I’ll keep watching these shows, they’re very entertaining, but I’ll also be wary if any similarity to anyone living or dead no longer stays coincidental.