Profile for Andrea Grimes

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Hitched: Miley Cyrus, Don’t Marry Him, Girl!

Andrea GrimesJune 6, 2012 //

Miley Cyrus, pop star and heir to the “Achy, Breaky Heart” fortune, has announced that, at 19 years old, she’s engaged to marry her boyfriend of three years, actor Liam Hemsworth. I have this to say: Don’t do it, girl!

And when I Googled “Liam Hemsworth” to find out who the hell this dude is, the first result was his official website, and the blurb excerpted is … an interview with Miley Cyrus. Friend, if you are 22-years-old and your professional career is already defined by your romantic relationship according to the seminal information provider of the whole internet, I feel obligated to pass along a ‘Don’t do it, girl!’ to you, too. (Jessica’s Note: He was also in “The Hunger Games.” I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of him!)

Now, I know that trying to dissuade smitten young people from making bad romantic decisions is an exercise in futility. Miley Cyrus is gonna marry this dude. It will happen. And maybe, just maybe, she will not be a twentysomething divorcee. Miley Cyrus, I hope you are not a twentysomething divorcee! I want your marriage to Liam Hemsworth to work out. I want you to be the happiest, most forever-married person in the world.

But if Miley Cyrus asked me — and she definitely did not — I would discourage her from getting married at 19. If any 19-year-old in the world asked me, I would discourage that person from getting married. Keep reading »

Hitched: Your Elaborately Planned Public Marriage Proposal Is Awkward For Everyone

Andrea GrimesMay 31, 2012 //

If you are currently in the process of planning an elaborate and public marriage proposal to your intended, please consider not doing that, not doing that even for a minute, and instead consider just stopping everything you had planned and not ever doing that, and even if you still want to do it a little bit, I beg you, don’t ever do it.

Elaborate public marriage proposals are rude and awkward. They’re presumptuous in the worst ways. They’re intrusive. They’re manipulative—and not just toward the proposer’s intended. Keep reading »

Hitched: We Got Married Because Our Friends Were Doing It

Andrea GrimesMay 23, 2012 //
I Kept My "Maiden Name"
Andrea explains why she didn't take her new husband's last name. Read More »

Patrick and I totally got married because our friends were doing it. We didn’t do it only because our friends were doing it, or because our friends were going to stop sitting next to us in the lunchroom if we didn’t do it. But I’m pleased as punch to say that when it comes to marriage, we had some fine peer-couple role models to look to.

Call it “peer pressure” if you want. We watched happy people around us get happier when they found forever partners and married them. We wanted to emulate them because we believed we had the reasonable tools to be able to do so: love, respect, shared values and life goals. I feel strongly that if I had had a lot of negative marital role models in my life, I’d have been far more circumspect in my approach to marriage. It’s only reasonable to use the information you have to make decisions about what you’d like to do with your life. Keep reading »

Hitched: Yes, I Kept My “Maiden Name”

Andrea GrimesMay 16, 2012 //
What's In A Name?
hitched photo
Why there's no way in hell Andrea Grimes will change her name. Read More »

“So, should I be calling you something different now?”

The bartender at my local bar walked hurriedly over to my table last week as I sat with my 5 p.m. Hefeweizen, wrapping up the day’s work on my laptop. He looked genuinely worried that, when I’d walked into the bar, he’d somehow offended me by calling me what most of my favorite bartenders over the years have ended up calling me, which is: “Mizz Grimes!”

I don’t know why they’ve all tended to pick up “Mizz Grimes,” but they have, and I love it. It makes me feel fancy and Southern, and there’s something about the way Texas bartenders say “Graiihhhhmmmz” as they’re grabbing a Lone Star or a High Life out of the cooler that just sounds right.

It was the first time someone who didn’t know me well, but who did know that I’d gotten married last month, had asked me about changing my name. Keep reading »

Hitched: My Mom And My Wedding, A Springsteen-Fueled Fairy Tale

Andrea GrimesMay 9, 2012 //

Once upon a time, there was a Texas girl who loved and adored her mother, but also respected and feared her. The Texan girl didn’t always see eye-to-eye with her mother, but even in the worst of times, her mother had always been there with the love and support she needed. The Texan girl always wanted to make her mother happy.

So the Texan girl didn’t know what she would do when the Texan girl got engaged and didn’t plan to have the church-sanctioned, decorous affair she expected her mother would want for her.

And then the Texan girl got tired of talking about herself in the third person.

My mom is a brilliant and intimidating person, and she’s also very shy. She’s great at math and was a star athlete in her day. I’m a people-pleaser and an unrepentant extrovert, have made my living as a writer and do well to play right field in co-ed softball. Which means that once we stopped sharing bodily fluids roundabouts November 9, 1983, we’ve been about as different as two people can be. Keep reading »

Hitched: Let’s All Get Married! All Of Us!

Andrea GrimesMay 2, 2012 //

Well, I’ve finally sobered up some from our honeymoon — real talk, y’all, I remember writing just about 10 percent of last week’s column. And now I know that there’s nothing like a honeymoon in Hawaii to remind you that you are the most boring, normal person in the whole married world, because literally everyone in Hawaii is on their honeymoon, with zero exceptions.

Seriously, the people on our sunset catamaran cruise off the Big Island coast (thanks, parental units, for footing the bill!) got kind of pissed when the booze-distributing cruise-masters forgot to toast people who were honeymooning. Keep reading »

Hitched: I’m A Married Motherf**ker!

Andrea GrimesApril 25, 2012 //

Last night, my husband (!) Patrick and I were having Hawaiian martinis at Roy’s Waikoloa Bar & Grill (which is to Hawaii the way Chili’s is to Texas) when he asked me, Was it all worth it? Was all the stress and the arguing and the pressure worth it, to have a wedding instead of sneaking down to the courthouse or eloping to Las Vegas?

I had my answer ready, because I’d been thinking on it since we drove back to our hotel in a pick-up truck covered in dicks on Saturday night. My answer was: yes. All of the bullshit and the pressure and the stress was completely worth the experience of being married in front of all of our closest family and friends. Keep reading »

Hitched: I’m Getting Married On Saturday!

Andrea GrimesApril 18, 2012 //
No Bachelorette Party
Why Andrea chose not to have a "real" bachelorette party. Read More »

The next time y’all read a Hitched column, I’ll be a married person! It’s been a long, strange journey since Patrick and I got drunk at the lake last September and decided to get engaged. But there has been no stranger time than the last couple of weeks, when the Wedding Crazy moved into my brain like that stupid Mucinex chest-booger moves into gunky animated lungs.

I prided myself on not being the crazy bride — especially since I realized very early into our wedding planning that the actual process of wedding planning makes me a nervous wreck. I let Patrick take the reins and stuck with logistical issues and large concepts and buying three different pairs of wedding shoes because fuck it, if you are going to go bridezilla, at least go bridezilla with some shit you can use more than one day out of your life. Keep reading »

Hitched: Why I Didn’t Have A “Real” Bachelorette Party

Andrea GrimesApril 11, 2012 //

“But Andie, it’s your last chance at freedom!”

This is what my father told me when I informed him that I wouldn’t have a bachelorette party, and instead would go camping with Patrick and all our best Texas friends.

My dad was disappointed that his daughter wouldn’t be vomiting behind a strip club at 3 a.m. But I just got back from a wonderful camping weekend, and I’m confident in saying that I don’t feel any less “free” for opting not to spend a few hours in close proximity to a banana thong. Keep reading »

Hitched: Our Wedding Venue Fell Through 20 Days Before Our Wedding

Andrea GrimesApril 4, 2012 //

Of all of the many things I worried about before our wedding — dreaming of accidentally getting huge, hideous chest tattoos or enduring painful silence at our karaoke reception — one thing that never occurred to me to worry about was, “What if our wedding venue falls through 20 days before our wedding date and we have to find an entirely new location at which to get married, two hundred miles away from where we live?” I should have known better. Keep reading »

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