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The Bridal Wave: A Survival Guide to the Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married Years - Softcover

Torneo, Erin; Krause, Valerie

 
9780812976014: The Bridal Wave: A Survival Guide to the Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married Years
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0812976010 ISBN 13: 9780812976014
Verlag: Villard, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

It starts with the IGBN (I’ve Got Big News) phone calls and a mailbox full of Save the Dates. Next comes the meltdown: I always thought I’d be married by now. Why does she have a ring on her finger and I don’t? Soon you’re buying outrageously expensive china, dancing the electric slide with the groom’s dull but available cousin, and envisioning a long and single life for you and a dozen or so cats. But fear not!

Now Erin Torneo and Valerie Cabrera Krause show you how to surf The Bridal Wave on your own terms. This hilarious and practical guide to surviving the wedding blitz reveals the sanity-saving secrets to dealing with all manner of matri-mania, including how to

• manage finances during the costly wedding season
• turn brutal self-examination (“What’s wrong with me?”) into empowering self-reflection (“Nothing!”)
• cope with envy and feelings of competition
• deal with lobridemized friends
• avoid settling for Mr. Wrong just to fit the timeline in your head
• actually enjoy being a bridesmaid, despite the dress

Like the best of friends, Erin and Valerie will help you separate fact from fairy tale–and stay sane, whether you’re coupled-up, single and looking, or single and just fine, thank you very much!

“For any woman who is currently trapped in the middle of a Bridal Wave–this book is your lifesaver!”
–Liz Tuccillo, co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You

“A funny and genuinely helpful book that should be on ever single woman’s shelf.”
–Karen McCullah Lutz, author of Legally Blonde

“Torneo and Krause’s advice will be eagerly gobbled up by legions of women.”
–Celeste Perron, author of Playing House

“Will ease your wedding panic with humor and intelligence.”
–Andrea Lavinthal, co-author of The Hookup Handbook

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Erin Torneo is a former editor at Cosmopolitan. Her work has appeared in various magazines, including Lucky, Variety's V Life, The Independent, The Kyoto Journal, SEED, indieWIRE, and Mother Earth News. She is the coauthor of The Bridal Wave.

Valerie Krause was an advertising executive in Los Angeles prior to taking the plunge into writing full time. She specializes in finding consumer insights and creating strategies to help companies connect with their customers in real ways. She is the coauthor of The Bridal Wave.

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INTRODUCTION
 
 
What Is the Bridal Wave?
 
Feeling overwhelmed by marriage mania? You aren’t alone
 
One minute, everything is peachy. You are living the independent life you dreamed of in college: you’re on your own, nobody tells you what to do or how to do it, and heck, you can blow two weeks’ salary on a base-and-highlight if that’s what you want. Who needs a husband when you’ve got a gal pal who’ll do power yoga, grocery shopping, and a cheap manicure with you all in one afternoon? Then, wham!—you’re deluged with engagement parties, shower invites, and save-the-dates. You’ve got eight weddings to attend, and you can forget that trip to Fiji you’ve been planning, as weekend after weekend—not to mention paycheck after paycheck—get eaten up. Those friends you counted on for weekend Bloody Mary brunches are busy registering for designer housewares and 1,000-thread-count sheets. Suddenly, you realize you’ve been stranded on singles’ island while they paddle off in rafts made for two with their monogrammed towel sets and the Cuisinart food processor (that you bought them, even though you couldn’t afford one for yourself).
 
The Bridal Wave is the culmination of familial, societal, cultural, and internal pressure to marry that strikes like a tidal wave, sweeping up your friends one by one and showering you with anxieties. The single, carefree life that you once celebrated is suddenly called into question at every turn. Conversations start to relentlessly revolve around who’s getting married next or who might be on the verge of engagement. If you’re not next in line, it’s easy to feel like the odd woman out. You may be in grad school kicking ass, you may be flying up the corporate ladder in your dream job, or you may be having the time of your life just trying to find your way. But if you don’t have a ring around a certain finger or (gasp!) aren’t even in the running by a certain age, people are going to start asking: “Why aren’t you seeing anyone?” or “Have you tried online dating?” followed by the gentle suggestion that you lower your standards: “What about Dan in Payroll? He’s been looking a lot better since that rash cleared up.” Or you attend your younger sister’s wedding without a date and someone else’s relatives try to set you up with “nice boys.” The not-so-subtle subtext is screaming, “You aren’t getting any younger!” And how about those looks of forced enthusiasm when your married friends decide that you “need to get out there” and plan the dreaded Girls’ Night Out, where they sit nursing a Cosmo and encouraging you to chat up the dweeb at the bar, all the while silently thanking their lucky solitaires that they don’t have to?
 
Being single can suck when you’re made to feel like some kind of social leper for not having a serious boyfriend, but the fact is, even if you’ve got a guy you aren’t free from the wrath of the Bridal Wave. Those of us in relationships also face the firing squad, sometimes in a more overt way—like when your family corners you at Thanksgiving dinner and asks flat out, “When are you two going to make it official?” or your friends attack you after you return from vacation to see if he popped the question. Others will sneak a peak at your hand after a weekend in Vermont, Valentine’s Day, or any other engagement-appropriate occasion, then look up from your suddenly naked-feeling finger with eyes that say, “Not this time either, huh?”
 
But far and away, the most tormenting voice is the one in our own heads. When this first Bridal Wave strikes, usually in your mid-twenties, panic can set in. Formerly happy, sane, accomplished women turn insecure and desperate. Some among us decide to find a mate with as much tenacity as we pursue our MBAs. We buy bridal magazines and plan the ceremony down to the napkin rings even though there’s no groom in the picture; or we hint continuously to our boyfriends (many of whom aren’t even worthy of us, truth be told). You may not even be sure you want to get married, but the point is, why the hell isn’t he asking?! Racing thoughts at night fill our mind with unanswerable questions (though our parents, friends, and oftentimes complete strangers seem perfectly clear on what we need to do).
 
Or maybe you wake up one day and realize that thirty is bearing down on you like a Mack truck and according to the life plan you concocted when you were twenty, you should already be married. Your up-till-now-happy relationship is subject to severe scrutiny: Is he the one? Is there even time to meet a new one? We’ve been together for three years already, so I can’t just scrap the whole thing now.
 
We’ve been there. We get it. And we’re here to say that enough is enough! It’s time for a backlash. Not a backlash against marriage. Marriage is wonderful if that is what you want and if you have found the right person. After all, the pharmaceutical companies make it look so nice in their TV ads—two silver-haired people pushing seventy, holding hands and walking along the beach, sharing a lifetime of memories and, apparently, the benefits of the latest arthritis drug. We mean a backlash against the insanity. Against women feeling pressure to wed because they are sucked into the Bridal Wave—they don’t want to be last, they don’t want to be alone, they want to start a family, they want to “beat” a friend who seems to do everything first and better, they don’t want to be the scary cat lady, or they’re conforming to a timeline they created when they were fifteen years old.
 
Most of us could sing the chorus to “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Que Será Será,” but for many of us take-charge, control-your-own-destiny types, this sit-back-and-let-life-happen philosophy is a hard pill to swallow. To get into a good college, we took SAT prep. To get those shoes that we can’t live without, we whip out our plastic and charge them. We’re used to going for what we want. “It’s really frustrating not knowing if it’s ever going to happen to you,” says Karen, thirty-two, one of the many brave, gracious, gorgeous gals who shared their stories with us. “The lack of control is horrifying. It makes you feel really girly and disempowered.”
 
We’re going to help you stay sane when you’re neck deep in other people’s nuptials and your own inner turmoil. Why? Because we know a little something about it—and even though you feel like you’re the only one you know who isn’t getting hitched any time soon, you aren’t alone. We sit on different sides of the great nuptial divide, but we’re both survivors of the Bridal Wave. This book is going to give you strategies and tips to ride the wave on your own terms.
 
 
From Erin
I was always the girl who knew when to cut and run. If a relationship was obviously not working out, I ended it and never looked back. But something changed in my mid-twenties. Engagement announcements, shower invites, and save-the-dates were all starting to flood my mailbox. They seemed to signal “Entering Adulthood,” and apparently I had some catching up to do. The guys I dated started bringing up the M-word as the inevitable next step, so I figured these were serious relationships that I had to invest time and effort in. Instead of throwing in the towel, I thought it was my job to fix what, looking back, were totally unfixable...

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Verlag
Villard
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0812976010
ISBN 13 
9780812976014
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
256
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Verantwortliche Person
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