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By Amy Reiter Winter 2001 | There's a fine line between love and a photo op. Nowhere is that clearer than in the fall 2001 issue of Martha Stewart Weddings, in which the magazine's editor, Darcy Miller, allows her own hitching to be grist for the Martha mill.
Now, you may be rattling off the reasons -- privacy, modesty, the desire not to exploit her husband, family and friends to please her boss -- for Miller to just say no. But if these concerns occurred to her, they apparently didn't make much of an impression. "After much deliberation," the editor writes, "I finally decided to go for it. As long as I was going to have a wedding, I would recruit my favorite vendors, think up as many original ideas as I could, enlist the help of my friends at the magazine, and throw myself into the biggest photo shoot I have ever organized: my wedding." And so we are treated to a bevy of photos and detailed rundown of Miller's wedding, complete with "linen handkerchiefs for 'les femmes'" and "stephanotis-and-bay leaf boutonnieres for 'les hommes,'" a ketubah inspired by a Parisian bakery box, huge glass terrines filled with something called "cootie catchers" (folded papers cards encouraging guests to "kiss the bride" and "introduce yourself to someone new), and -- oh yes -- a groom. But enough about the groom. There were also foods and souvenirs printed with the couple's wedding logo (!), more wedding cakes, cookies, candies and confections than could fit in a two-page spread dedicated just to them, and individual wedding cakes for each guest to take home along with a music CD commemorating the occasion. What of the "tiny ice-cream cones filled with pastel-colored sorbets nestle[d] in mounts of white cotton candy"? "I wanted it to be like a scene from 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,'" Miller says. Right there at New York's Four Seasons. Bring on the Oompa-Loompa bridesmaids! And speaking of golden tickets, let's talk a little about the groom, "a certain smart, young attorney" named Andrew Joseph Nussbaum. Martha knew him first. In fact, she and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia President Sharon Patrick picked him special for Miller. Initially, Miller wasn't interested. But for two long years her bosses kept after her, referring to Nussbaum as "your groom" whenever they mentioned him to Miller, and finally she relented. "It felt totally natural," she says of their second official date, two years after their first blind one. "It was just right." And what does Nussbaum, who was apparently smitten with Miller well before she returned his affections, have to say about the whole wedding thing? Not much, if this magazine is any indication, but he did get one heftyish photo caption in which to communicate to grooms across the land what he's learned from the experience. (Miller's all-white wedding shower gets six pages, but who's counting?) "If your wedding is in the evening," Nussbaum says, "make sure you have something to do during the day. I figured there would be last-minute things to attend to, but all I had to do was put my tails on and tie a tie. Everyone in my family was sightseeing or getting their hair done, so I ended up watching break dancers in Central Park with my 4-year-old nephew, Ben." The poor guy! Shunted aside until it was his moment to be trotted out for the cameras! But don't for a moment think Martha isn't grateful. She is. "When Darcy and Andy got engaged, we all knew that despite everything Darcy had ever said about not wanting a big or lavish wedding, not wanting to focus on months of planning and execution, her wedding would be extra special, extra lovely, extra everything," Martha writes. "And we were not disappointed in any way ... Thank you so much, Darcy, for getting married so beautifully and so memorably. We love you and Andy." Darcy dear, free wedding or no free wedding, I think it's a good time to ask for a raise. Phew! What can the December 2001/January issues of "Bride's" and "Modern Bride" offer you compared to that?
"Bride's" also contemplates that age-old prenuptial quandary: How can you tell your fiancé to knock off the spanking during sex? "I don't want to hurt his feelings, but how can I tell him to lay of the butt bongo?" asks one desperate reader. The "Bride's" editors, perhaps baffled themselves, turn over the question to California sex therapist Anita Banker. "We each have our own sexual styles," Banker warns. "It's neither right nor wrong, good nor bad," to get in a little mid-coital drumming. Best to take the old "It's not you -- it's me" approach, she says. "Let him know he's not weird, but that you don't find spanking arousing. You'll avoid hurting his feelings this way." Did you really think rescuing your bruised booty would be worth bruising his manly pride? While you're contemplating that, contemplate this: Antonia van der Meer, peach-towel aficionado and "Modern Bride" editor in chief, has figured out something that has apparently eluded her fellow bridal magazine editors in chief. We are in a recession.
"We know that budget is on your mind," van der Meer says. And so the magazine has added a budget planner to its Web site, instituted a new column on saving moolah in the magazine and gone looking for dresses that won't break the bank. But while cash-conserving tips are certainly welcome, they're not nearly as fun as the advice in "Modern Bride"'s "Sex & Health Q&A," in which one reader asks, "My fiancé sits down when he urinates. Is that normal?" To which "Modern Bride" oh-so-helpfully responds, "Think about it. Would you want to pee with all your coworkers watching? Some men just feel more comfortable in the privacy of a stall. And, hey, once you get used to relaxing on the pot, it can be hard to go back to standing, even in your own bathroom." Now, I ask you, would Martha Stewart be willing to tell you that? ----------- Amy Reiter writes the "Nothing Personal" column for Salon.com. ----------- What bugs you about Bridal magazines? Share your thoughts in Kvetch |
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"Although
you might think it would be easy for me to whip up a wedding, the situation
was actually a bit more complicated than that," Miller, who's worked for
Martha for a decade, writes in her editor's letter. "I wanted my wedding
to be special and warm and not like a work project for me. But I cover
people's weddings for a living, so how could I not cover my own?"
Well,
in addition to its regular fare of registry advice, dress guidance, hair
and makeup tips, and honeymoon "trend reports," "Bride's" also fills readers
in on the best way to tell a tattooed bridesmaid to break out the Derma-blend:
"Avoid using words like 'cheap' or 'inappropriate,'" advises Millie Martini
Bratten, the magazine's editor in chief.
In
a letter titled "For Richer or Poorer," van der Meer generously informs
us that a $5,000 wedding can be just as cool as a $100,000 wedding. In
fact, she says, her sister, Ellen, had a lovely wedding for $4,000 just
last New Year's Eve -- though unlike ol' Darcy , Ellen apparently declined
to have the whole thing photographed for her sister's magazine.