Tag Archives: getting married

Hitched: Shit White, Middle-Class Married People Do

Andrea GrimesAugust 29, 2012 //

Why Andrea and her hubby keep their money separate. Read More »

Now that the summer wedding season is winding down, it’s time to shift the focus from the Big Day to the Big Rest Of Your Damned Lives. I’ve only been married for 129 days now, but my husband Patrick and I are starting to get a pretty good bead on how this thing works.

First of all, if you don’t already have a home garden, you’re going to want to get on that this weekend. Especially since (I think) it’s time to start planting fall tomatoes. I don’t know for sure because our tomato plants all died, I’m too lazy to actually Google it, and the only thing that survived our Texas summer was a wad of basil that’ll be great for caprese salads until sometime after the apocalypse.

Married people love gardens because it’s a fun, torturous and back-breaking activity you can do with your partner, plus you get to nitpick about the way your partner holds yard implements. The time to start nurturing heirloom vegetables and long-lasting resentment about minutiae is now! Keep reading »

Weird Wedding Trend: “Morning After” Wedding Shots

Julie GersteinAugust 23, 2012 //

Top Secret Celeb Weddings

15 celeb couples who secretly tied the knot. 15 Photos »

Pinterest Ruined My Wedding

Planning a wedding with Pinterest? Total nightmare! Read More »

Hitched

The wedding dress body project. Read More »

Wedding Dress Porn

Absurdly expensive dresses we can only drool over. 16 Photos »

Was your wedding not sexy enough? Did your nuptials not properly convey how utterly hot and sensual your relationship really is? Then maybe you should invest in some “morning after” wedding photography. Taken hours or days after a couple gets married, this new exhibitionist trend is aimed at showing how spicy new marriage can be. Keep reading »

Hitched: We’re Married, But Our Bank Accounts Aren’t

Andrea GrimesAugust 21, 2012 //

One of the things I’ve learned, over my many years of roadtripping in and across Texas, is that hell is being stuck going 50 miles per hour behind a recreational vehicle. But recently, I’ve come to wonder if heaven might be being behind the wheel of one.

I don’t generally dream about buying big-ticket things like cars and houses. I’m a freelance writer, after all. At this point, saving even a few hundred dollars a year is a struggle — though that got significantly less stressful once I moved in with, and later married, my husband. Splitting rent and groceries and bills has taken significant pressure off my wheezing bank account — even more so than living with roommates.

So maybe that’s why I started letting myself fantasize about taking long trips to Marfa in a giant vehicle with a wildcat or a wolf emblazoned on the back. When I proposed this to Patrick, he was, as we say here in Texas, “raring to go.” Some couples dream of outfitting a nursery. Patrick and I dream of converting an engine to biodiesel and training the cats to ride shotgun. Keep reading »

On Marrying Up

Let's be realistic about the finances it takes to raise a family. Read More »

Pre-Marriage Questions

Crucial questions these celebs forgot to ask before they tied the knot. 7 Photos »

Cash & Coupling

Advice for when your S.O. takes a paycut. Read More »

Hitched: Help Me Platonically Charm The Pants Off My New In-Law Family

Andrea GrimesJuly 18, 2012 //

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to be living it up in beautiful South Dakota. The occasion: my new grandma-in-law’s octogenarian birthday and combination family reunion. I hear there will be picnics and jet skis involved.

I am petrified.

But Andrea, how can you be petrified when there are jet skis involved, you ask? Well first off, I’m afraid of watercraft, so there’s that. But there’s also the fact that these jet skis belong to my new-in-law family, and what am I supposed to do around these perfectly nice, terrifying people for three whole days in beautiful rural South Dakota? Also, “beautiful rural South Dakota” is a few kinds of redundant, right? Keep reading »

Hitched: How To Get Married Without Being An A**hole

Andrea GrimesJuly 3, 2012 //

Be A Good Guest

How not to be a terrible presence at your friend's wedding. Read More »

The amazing thing about life is how many complete assholes manage to find someone willing to put up with their bullshit and marry them. When I was a single person, the thing that crushed me the most when I was feeling lonely wasn’t that I thought I’d never find a spouse. It was that Donald Trump did. Three times. Ben Roethlisberger? Totally married. Michele Bachmann! Married to another asshole. Michael Vick? Just spent $300,000 on his wedding this weekend. The “Real Housewives“? They are, by definition, married. I always wonder why self-help books and matchmaker shows bother shaming perfectly nice people into becoming “marriage material” when so many complete shits of human beings didn’t change a thing about themselves and still found love.

Of course, married assholes don’t have to be famous. They can be these assholes, who had a three-day wedding celebration that they made their guests cook and pay for. They could be this asshole, who dumped a bridesmaid because she was fat. Assholes get married all the time; sometimes because they were assholes before they got married. And sometimes the wedding process turns otherwise lovely people into assholes. The whole process is practically designed to do that to people. Keep reading »

The Soapbox: Why I Hate Weddings, Like Really Hate Them, A Lot

Alexandra GekasJune 26, 2012 //

Wedding Survival Guide

It's wedding season! Here's how to get through it. Read More »

Single At A Wedding

Three reasons why going to a wedding alone is good for your self-esteem. Read More »

Weddings Are Dumb

Here's 11 reasons weddings are actually pretty stupid. Read More »

I recently stumbled on the video of a bride singing Christina Aguilera’s “The Right Man” while she walked down the aisle, and I reacted so strongly that I startled myself. The video opened up a cavern of emotion that, while I knew it was there, went deeper than I realized. And that emotion was repugnance. To me, this serenade was not an act of love, but an act of vanity. I saw a woman in the midst of a performance that had nothing to do with how she felt about the man she was walking towards and everything to do with a fantasy she’d been playing out in her head since she was a little girl–groom TBD.

But self-aggrandizing brides aside, the bottom line of my repugnance was that I hate weddings. I think they have gotten so out of control that they have become intolerable, and I deeply resent being held hostage to their preposterous demands. For years I’ve faked my joy for brides and brides-to-be both out of respect and fear. I have put on a smile and cooed over dresses, shoes, cakes and flowers, partially because I usually do love the person the bride is when she is not a bride, but also because I am afraid that I will be shunned from the sisterhood if my disdain is discovered. Keep reading »

5 Methods For Surviving Your Younger Sibling’s Wedding When You’re Single

Sara BarronJune 25, 2012 //

Single At A Wedding

Three reasons why going to a wedding alone is good for your self-esteem. Read More »

Weddings Are Dumb

Here's 11 reasons weddings are actually pretty stupid. Read More »

Bridesmaid = Expensive

Being a bridesmaid drained this woman's bank account. Read More »

WEDDING SURVIVAL GUIDE

This summer, my younger brother is getting married. (I would like, before going any further with this subject, to state in no uncertain terms that I very much like the young lass he’s chosen for his bride.) When he got engaged, I immediately started working on my plan for what I’d do if I were still single when his big day came; as it happens, the Single Older Sister at the Younger Sibling’s Wedding is a rather frequent occurrence.

As luck would have it, I no longer need this plan – but here it is; I can only hope will provide you with the littlest bit of entertainment/assistance, should you need it. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: Planning My Lesbian Jewish Wedding

Sara-Rivka DavidsonJune 25, 2012 //

Jewish Matchmaking

WTF comments from an Orthodox Jewish matchmaker. Read More »

Drew Converting?

Drew Barrymore and other celebs who've converted for love. Read More »

Lesbian Vs. Straight Sex

Lesbian sex changed the writer's definition of "straight sex." Read More »

In my mid-twenties, I came out as a lesbian. But the hardest part wasn’t even coming out: it was realizing my wedding would be different and therefore I was different. It took me a few years to come to terms with the fact that my wedding wouldn’t have a groom or any of the other stuff that goes along with heterosexual weddings.

A few months ago, my girlfriend of three years proposed. A couple of weeks after we got engaged, Chriss told me she was thinking about converting to Judaism. So as we started planning our wedding, we began attending synagogue together and Chriss enrolled in an Introduction to Judaism class. When we became full-fledged members of our synagogue and reserved the chapel for our wedding it dawned on me: I have no idea what a lesbian Jewish wedding would look like. Keep reading »

In (Reluctant) Defense Of “Why You’re Not Married … Yet”

Jessica WakemanJune 21, 2012 //

Bad Dating Habits

Us ladies are not immune to fouling up a date... Read More »

Dating Victim

I am not a dating victim -- and neither are you. Read More »

Bad Dating Disorders

8 Disorders You Didn’t Know You Had That Could Be Affecting Your Relationships

These disorders may be affecting your love life. 9 Photos »

Dating Isn't Personal

Ami talks about how she realized dating was not to be taken personally. Read More »

I’m going to say something as a feminist ladyblogger that I suspect I’m not supposed to say: Why You’re Not Married … Yet: The Straight Talk You Need To Get The Relationship You Deserve, by Tracy McMillan, actually isn’t a terrible book.

Oh, it has some problematic aspects — and I’ll get to those. But generally what’s wrong with books like Why You’re Not Married … Yet or 2009′s Marry Him! The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb, isn’t the actual content. I’ve read a decent number of self-help books, both for professional reasons (to write about them on The Frisky) and for personal reasons (to find out why am I such an idiot when it comes to boys), and I even read that godawful Steve Harvey book Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man because my surrogate mother gave it to me. I’m open-minded to reading them, I guess you could say. So, while Why You’re Not Married … Yet is getting bopped everywhere from Jezebel to The Good Men Project, who titled their piece “Fuck Off Tracy McMillan,” I’ve actually read the book and what’s more, I loved it and found it extremely useful. What’s wrong with Why You’re Not Married … Yet isn’t the dating advice — it’s how that dating advice is only marketed towards women. Keep reading »