Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I liked the first half of this quite a bit. Then…it kind of turns into advice on how to do a wedding. With drawings. Good drawings, but they’re kind of drawings of pins from Pinterest, to be a jerk about it.
I liked the parts early on, about her life and relationship, but when we got down to hardcore wedding planning, this almost felt like wedding-in-a-box, how to re-create this particular wedding, and the story kind of up and left.
Also, there are a lot of parts in these between-chapter sections that get repeated later in the book. Stuff about certain weird traditions. Or there’s a part where she describes how she made ties for groomsmen, which includes a little text that says something like “Don’t do this. Just buy ties.” And then, a few pages later, the characters discuss how they made their wedding cheaper, and one of the things is making ties. Well, which one is it? Do we make the ties or not?
It felt, in the second half, less tight. Less interesting. It really, really turned into an album and a how-to, and I didn’t love that part the way I enjoyed the parts that were about her relationship. I think these parts just didn’t work for me, so much. I have to say that I felt like I was part of the audience for the first half, but I should have excused myself from the book somewhere in the middle. Maybe it’s a better fit for people who have planned a wedding or are planning a wedding or have thought about it, at least in the abstract. People who aren’t me, to make it brief.
Also, one of the big problems in her relationship earlier on was that she really wanted to have children, and her boyfriend didn’t. And he kind of talked her out of it, or said rational things that made her sort of talk herself out of it, I don’t know, it was confusing. Not in a bad way. I think the author herself would say she was confused by what she wanted and how that differed from what her partner wanted. But then they get married, and it’s like that issue was just sort of…resolved.
It’s a weird thing to me because, hey, if you don’t want to talk about a personal issue in your book, that’s cool, but then I think you can just leave it out of your memoir entirely. If you do want to talk about it, that’s awesome, but I think I want to hear the resolution. Because it’s not like a thing of picking colors for a wedding. If they fought about that and then everything was blue, I’d be like, “Oh, I guess they settled on blue.” Getting married when the partners disagree on having kids, that’s a big deal. And how they overcome, skirt, ignore, whatever the issue, was something I was really interested in. But it just wasn’t there. Unless I missed something.
Everyone’s got the right to include what they want in their memoir. It’s their right as a creator. I think it’s also my right as a reader to be disappointed that a big issue, which caused a lot of distance early on, isn’t resolved. This wasn’t like a throwaway or something. It changes the whole course of the relationship. And then it’s just like, Whatever.
I’ll be honest, I was also a bit chapped whenever it came up that the patriarchy wants weddings and brides to be this or that way.
There are traditions with weddings that seem patriarchal to me. Ask anyone I’ve been to a wedding with, they’ll tell you my feelings on the daddy/daughter dance (summary: gross. Or sexy. Depends on how open that open bar has been up to that point and how deeply sad I’m feeling). I don’t think the dad really has to give the daughter away. I also usually find the religious readings to be pretty off-putting. I feel like you have to work pretty hard and maybe do a little creative editing to get a 3-minute readaloud of a super old book that doesn’t include smiting OR something about subservience. Shit, it’s hard to read Huckleberry Finn without hitting an N-word, which is just about the worst thing you’re going to hear anymore. And that book is like, I don’t know, HUNDREDS of years newer than the Bible. Good luck with that.
As far as the patriarchy ruling the realm of weddings, I’m kinda unconvinced.
Let me say, my ring of choice, for me, is cheapass silicone, and for $60 bucks I could get 10 of them, which is perfect because I can guarantee you I won’t be able to hang onto a ring for 40 years, which is hopefully how long a marriage would last for me. When I’m in my 70’s, marriage is off, by the way. That’s when I could go at any time, and it’s time for a fuck spiral that ends in the grave (I’m sure my partner would feel the same, but we’re still in the honeymoon phase, so phrases like “fuck spiral to the grave” still have a bubbly, romance-y quality to them).
I guess I feel like there is pressure for brides to be thinner than they are normally, prettier, dressed a certain way, that everything goes right at the wedding, and to sport some expensive jewelry and throw a garter out into the crowd and all that business.
I’m struggling to say this, so fuck it, I’m just going to say it: I think these traditions, in 2016, are choices perpetuated by women. I’m NOT talking about relationship choices, not dating choices, I’m talking about wedding choices.
I don’t see men reading bridal magazines. I don’t see a lot of Pinterest wedding boards made by men. I think centerpieces are silly and suspect most men agree. I don’t think grooms have a ton of concern for the hairstyle of choice the bride sports. I don’t know a groom who told his bride a target weight for wedding day. In fact, I think that idea is fucking crazy. Sure, I want my body to be pretty cut on my wedding day. I WILL be getting married in a TuxSpeedo, after all. It’s only fair to the guests who came so far to get the very best.
But my bride, whatever. I don’t think I would marry someone and expect them to look totally different when we got married. I didn’t want to marry this person but, you know, a couple notches more fancy and made-up and thin. I wanted to marry this person I wanted to marry.
If there’s a patriarchal thing going on with weddings today, I don’t think it’s anything to do with rings and dresses and dollars. I think the patriarchal thing is that men feel like they don’t have to be involved. It’s not an expectation.
I guess that we’re really straying outside the territory of the book, so here’s what I want to end on.
I agree that a lot of weird wedding shit started with patriarchy, began as that. But where we differ is in who’s perpetuating it. But hey, this is opinion, and I didn’t rate the book poorly because of this difference in opinion. I rated this book poorly because I felt like it was half a book I enjoyed, half a book that has a specific audience of which I’m not a part.
And for the record, if someone tells you to spend a certain amount on a ring or tells you to weigh a certain amount, you’re marrying a monster.
And if they tell you No TuxSpeedo, you’re marrying a true monster, one who feeds on the lack of fun being had at a party.