Tag Archives: hitched

Hitched: Should Marriage Be A Renewable Contract?

Andrea GrimesMarch 13, 2013 //

I seriously never thought I’d say this: I miss being engaged.

I don’t miss wedding planning, and I don’t miss being talked to as if, as a human with a ring and a vagina, I had no interests aside from talking about the details of “my” (so rarely, “our”) big day. I sure as shit don’t miss shopping for wedding dresses. I don’t miss getting Wedding Industrial Side-Eye because Patrick and I had, like, a wedding budget.

What I miss is the day-to-day experience of preparing to love someone publicly. Keep reading »

Hitched: 10 Things A Woman Must Have At Her Wedding Or She’ll Regret It Forever

Andrea GrimesMarch 6, 2013 //

Hey, heterosexual ladies, the only people who matter when it comes to weddings! Gearing up for your big day this summer? Here’s a handy checklist of things essential to a great wedding day, to make sure everything is as perfect as possible or everything in your life will be meaningless.

Do you have … Keep reading »

Hitched: How Many Pre-Wedding Parties Is Too Many Pre-Wedding Parties?

Andrea GrimesFebruary 28, 2013 //

Shortly after Patrick and I got engaged, my mom called with a request that was so cute, I didn’t know what to say: “The ladies at church want to throw you a bridal shower.”

The “ladies” in question were women who had watched me grow up in our small-town Methodist church, with whose daughters I attended countless birthday parties, bunked with at church camp and defied the chaperones at all-night lock-ins for Jesus.

I was touched. I hadn’t had a conversation with these women for years and yet they wanted to throw me a party. And not just any party. A presents party! Keep reading »

Hitched: I Didn’t Try To Lose Weight For My Wedding

Andrea GrimesFebruary 20, 2013 //
Wedding Body Project
hitched photo
Andrea on the expectation that all brides-to-be want to lose weight. Read More »

People on the internet have been telling me I’m fat for at least a decade — since whenever the first full-body photograph of me appeared on a blog author page. I still remember one of the first times it happened. I was probably 22 years old, wearing a pink pencil skirt and cute black top, retro-style, in the photo.

“Just like I thought, she’s pear-shaped,” snarked one commenter, who apparently previously inferred from the quality of my writing that my body was not up to his high expectations, only to have it all confirmed by a photo.

I stood in front of the mirror in that same outfit, staring at my body from every angle, trying to figure out just how pear-shaped I was. Was it my thighs causing the problem? Had to be, right? I measured them. I calculated my BMI. I took more digital photos and compared them to the existing photo. I went through the size tags on all my clothes, trying to find the biggest one so I could prove to myself that I either was or wasn’t fat. Definitively.
Keep reading »

Hitched: Valentine’s Day, Wedding Day, What About All The Other Days?

Andrea GrimesFebruary 13, 2013 //
Hell Yeah, I Love You!
Hell yeah, I love you! Getting love is easy this Valentine's Day. Read More »

You can read wedding magazines, and wedding blogs, and wedding everything, but you’ll almost never turn the page and see the marriage. Everything stops in a last, beautiful moment, blurred by sparklers or bubbles or birdseed as the (inevitably white, inevitably young, inevitably thin, inevitably straight) couple disappears into the back of a limousine, a horse-drawn carriage, or, if they’re very edgy, maybe a racy vintage sports car.

Having a wedding can be glamorous; certainly the Wedding Industrial Complex sells it that way. And being engaged is exciting. People send you pretty cards and congratulate you for being nothing more than very lucky. They ask you where they can go to buy you some presents so they can reward you for being in love. You are actively encouraged to brag about yourself. Everything builds up to the big day. Your perfect day! Your princess day!

And then … what? Keep reading »

Hitched: Beyoncé And The Luxury Of Playing “Mrs. Carter”

Andrea GrimesFebruary 6, 2013 //

Like everyone else in the country with excellent taste and a belly full of adult beverages, I very much enjoyed Beyoncé’s half-time performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday. I loved her all-woman band, particularly Bibi McGill’s spark-shooting axe. I loved the Destiny’s Child reunion. I loved that my Beyoncé half-time BINGO card included a square for “killing it,” which I ticked off within seconds of the show’s start.

And yet, my reaction to her post-halftime announcement of the upcoming “Mrs. Carter Show” tour was not to cheer her on in a post-feminist choose-your-choice fist-pump, but to huff: “Call me when Jay-Z goes on a Mr. Knowles tour.”

Why does the most powerful woman pop star in the world want, or need, to remind everyone she’s married? What does a Mrs. moniker have with her ability to sing, dance and write songs? And no, the name issue isn’t what gets me. I’m not raising a figurative eyebrow at “Carter,” I’m raising a figurative eyebrow at “Mrs.” Keep reading »

Hitched: Everybody Panic, Single Women Are Planning Weddings!

Andrea GrimesJanuary 30, 2013 //

The New York Times, ever concerned about the plight of the three people it takes to make a Style Section trend story, has identified a disturbing new tendency among women to … plan their weddings. But wait for it: they’re not just planning their weddings, they’re doing it on the Internet and they’re doing it while single.

The horrors, they are horrifying. Time to muster the judgment and disdain appropriate to the situation: these pathetic cases are wasting their sad-ass time, and their real human relationships are suffering for it, because using the Internet means shunning all human contact, only going outside once a week to get a gallon of milk and a bag of cat food. Keep reading »

Hitched: Braggy Ring Photos Are Braggy

Andrea GrimesJanuary 23, 2013 //

It happened in slow motion; I couldn’t stop myself. It was like I watched from outside my body — NOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGHHH — as I reached into the seat pocket, pulled out my phone, and took an artsy photo of — STTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPP — my newly paired engagement ring and wedding band.

“It’s a six-hour flight to Hawaii,” I probably told myself. “What else am I going to do to pass the time?”

And then a force greater than myself caused my thumbs to move swiftly across the iPhone screen, open Instagram, and post the photo — tinted green, of course, to match my beautifully manicured, fir-colored fingernails and peridot-paired diamond, posed artfully above the mostly unreadable text of a Big Island guidebook — before I even knew what I was doing. Keep reading »

Hitched: It’s Okay To Break Off Your Engagement

Andrea GrimesJanuary 16, 2013 //
Amelia's Engagement
Is Amelia's busted engagement a problem for you? Read More »

So, Britney Spears is no longer engaged to that dude she was engaged to, and obviously the only logical response is the one People chose, which is to lament the end of Britney’s “fairy tale.” Because all weddings are fairy tales, and literally any man a woman can be engaged to has got to be Prince Charming?

I bet Britney Spears is really sad that she’s not getting married, but I’m also not going to assume that she might not also be a little bit relieved. It sounds like that guy was not a particularly good match for her. Sounds like they made the right decision here. What’s sadder than a broken engagement? A divorce. What’s sadder than a divorce? Staying in a bad marriage until you die.

It’s okay to end your engagement. It’s okay to end it if you just bought a gazillion dollar ring. It’s okay to end it if you’ve put a $10,000 deposit down on a rooftop venue. It’s okay to end it if you’re literally opening the doors to the courthouse. This is not something we say to people. But it’s true. Keep reading »

Hitched: Does Being A Wife Mean Being A Proper Lady?

Andrea GrimesJanuary 9, 2013 //

“Are you going to grow your hair out for the wedding?”

Obviously my stylist needed to know, because she was standing there with scissors. But family members? Dress shop employees? After the hundredth time telling people “No,” it got a little tiresome.

The question, in and of itself, isn’t offensive or stupid. It’s probably just small talk. After all, it’s incredibly uncommon to see short-haired brides, especially represented in mainstream wedding-related media; it’s understandable why people ask.

But there are an awful lot of preconceived notions about weddings and femininity and the all-importantness of a one-day event packed into that deceptively innocent sentence. Keep reading »

  1. < BACK
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. ...
  9. NEXT >
  10. ...
  11. »