The hobo wedding seems like a particularly bad concept for wedding. Its not actively evil like the Colonial African theme but besides being really insensitive to actual homeless people it doesn’t seem to be that fun of an idea.

  My personal preference is for simple but competently carried out meaningful ceremonies with a traditional party with dancing, decent food, and alcohol. A good wedding does not really need a theme beyond a bunch of people getting together to celebrate the union of two people in love.

Which means you can definitely put that you’re expecting fairly early in your pregnancy, which, combined with the way the internet causes people to be a little swifter and more open with the public than is often wise, will lead to some sad times for women who pee on a stick, put immediately change their status, and then miscarry a month later and have to explain shit. 

Some people think women are smart enough to make their own decisions about how they want to interact with the world.

They couldn’t have just called it “The Apple Dumpling Gang” wedding or something? And what is up with the wedding guests? Are they completely devoid of snark and mockery? If I got an invite to a hobo wedding I’d show up as a space hobo fresh from the spacerails because if your hipster enough to want a transient themes wedding then your hipster enough to appreciate me using your special day to make a reference to a ten year-old cartoon.

Hey humorless @2: Good point.  I’m changing my status from “Expecting: Suck Ass” to “Expecting: Abortion”.

Weddings are just formal Halloween parties any more.

By the way, I’m one of those feminists who believes women are equal to men.  Equal, not better.  Which means that women, like men, come in very smart and very stupid flavors. There are some real dumbasses of the female persuasion.  It happens.

Clearly, the way to deal with this is treat women like men, i.e. give them rights.

@ oldfeminist: Ooooooo, nice.  May I steal that?

<blockquote>will lead to some sad times for women who pee on a stick, put immediately change their status, and then miscarry a month later and have to explain shit.<. blockquote>

Yeah that’s going to get ugly. Although I think the whole idea of keeping a pregnancy secret until the 12th week is not about a woman’s privacy or possible emotional fall out for her but to keep her from inflicting any discomfort on anyone, ever, at having the poor taste to miscarry.

The hobo-themed wedding is cringe-worthy but does seem more a victim of the pressure to have The Most Specialist Creative Snowflake Wedding Evarz that is endemic these days than active assholery.  They deserve mockery regardless, of course, to call out the enormous privilege.  Honestly I keep reading that statistic about how the average wedding costs something like $20,000 and I can’t wrap my head around it.  Where are they getting that statistic, because I really can’t buy that so many people can afford that kind of a wedding in this economy, but what do I know?

Are you calling me humorless because you made a joke that I didn’t get, or because you think I tried to make a joke that wasn’t funny?  I don’t understand where that insult came from.

Clearly, the way to deal with this is treat women like men, i.e. give them rights.
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.  I don’t think we disagree that we should give women rights.  I just thought it was odd that you attacked facebook for offering an option which you think is a problem because women might do something stupid that they will regret.

I didn’t know that the hobo wedding was an actual theme. I thought, somehow, that it was slang for a very casual wedding. Guess not.

I’m going to guess this is another humor post that I never get and take my leave for the day. I know my limits.

I wish I could figure out when people are making jokes. It’d make things easier.

sorry for the html fuck up.

I think there should be a contest for best name of fetus. I would personally vote for “Unwanted Product of Conception” or “Can’t Get an Abortion in Indiana”

(Confession: I’m the Twitter follower. And I admit that the cost of the wedding was a bit of a non-sequitur, and for that I apologize.)

I personally don’t think the theme is *quite* as tasteless as you make it out to be. It was specifically a Depression-era hobo theme, which American culture has fantasized and glamorized such as to divorce it somewhat from the realities of poverty and homelessness. It’s still kind of tasteless, but there’s a sliding scale between “Renaissance faire” and “re-instituting feudalism and plague”, and I can’t fault them *too* much for putting hobos closer to pirates than Civil War reenactment.

I still wouldn’t have used it as my wedding theme, though. I’m 100% behind you on abandoning clever wedding gimmicks.

I’m a competitive person, and if I was getting married, I’m sure the beast would eat me up and next thing you know I’d be asking people to stand on their heads while someone plays the Chipmunks rapping “Here Comes The Bride” while I walked down the aisle.

Is there something wrong with me that I think this would be kinda awesome?

The Great Depression is not some distant historical memory. I’m 33, and I was brought up on my grandmother’s stories of what she called “the dirty thirties.” Besides which, it’s not like the days of impoverished migrant labor are passed in the United States. It’s harder to hop a freight train than it used to be, and the migrants are more likely to speak Spanish than Polish or Swedish, but that’s the only thing that has changed.

Still boggling at the 20K number for weddings. My wedding theme (if you can even call it a theme) was Tacky Vegas Wedding Meets Hitchhikers Guide. (And since we got married on 10-10-10 which is binary for 42, we also carried black towels from Think Geek. Elvis, who “officiated” at our wedding even appears in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and we chose the Diner Chapel.) Including airfare for us and his fam, hotels for the fams, and a buffet dinner for our 15 guests, we hit just about 3K. My mother who doesn’t get irony now believes we are Sekrit Elvis Fans and gives us Elvis CDs for Christmas. (Incidentally: No ring, no giving away, no garter toss, no God, no changing my name. Everything as streamlined and as inexpensive as possible. Instead of exchanging rings, we exchanged high fives and said, “Go Team Venture.”)

RE:  telling the world too early and then miscarrying

That is such a good point, Amanda.  I also agree that the facebook fetal friend option is a terrible idea, but I’m going to stretch my optimism to its limit in responding:

While providing a medium for announcing pregnancy too early is questionable, at best, but maybe it will have unforseen positive effects? 

I know so many people who have had multiple miscarriages that I start to worry when someone tells me they’re expecting.  Too many times, I have seen that excitement turn to confusion and grief.  I don’t know what the statistics are, but my anecdata suggest that pregnancy is a coin flip. 

Maybe an increased awareness of this fact can be a good thing in the long run?  Sure, people are going to have more public tragedies, but it could be a way to raise awareness that God kills more unborn babies than abortion doctors.

Also, you really find out who your friends are when you go through tough times.  Certain friendships are strengthened, and certain friendships reveal themselves as “acquantanceships.”  The pruning process could prove to be a blessing in this era of friend collecting. 

The biggest potential positive, though, is the raising of awareness.  Then, maybe we can get some people who really care about life to do something about prenatal care, keeping the air and water clean, etc. 

I know, I know, I’m dreaming…

Cegeste—I don’t know that there is a lack of awareness. Generally speaking, I don’t think that people announce too early because they’re unaware that the odds are not in their favor, but rather because they’re so fucking excited that they decide they can’t hold the secret a second longer. There are people who can sit on good news/secrets/whatever and there are people who can’t.

I mean, really, I’m calling myself an asshole for factoring in the Drama Queen aspect of getting a shitton of attention when everyone has to pity you for having the miscarriage, but even I don’t expect there’s a lot of “Let’s see who are friends really are—let’s post our pregnancy announcement ridiculously early and then see who’s a dick when we announce our miscarriage!” people out there.

I don’t know what the statistics are, but my anecdata suggest that pregnancy is a coin flip. 

It really is. Various sources I’ve seen claim that anywhere between 10% and 33% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Though I imagine the 33% figures are counting pretty much any zygote implantation as a pregnancy, because many of those end up detaching shortly afterward without the person ever knowing they were pregnant.

When I linked this in Twitter, I was told by a follower that it’s not as bad as it looks, because they only spent $15K on the wedding

“Only” 15 large?  Jesus Christ.  I spent $300 - yeah, really, only 2 zeros there - and kind of cringed at that.  Got married at home, MIL and I did the cooking, 30 guests, done.  We’ve been married 20 years, and I’m still kind of annoyed at the size of our wedding - it was only as big as it was because my (now) husband was worried that his parents would disown him if we went to the JP.

A friend of mine, OTOH, recently divorced after 8 years of marriage and is still paying off the $40K she spent on the wedding.  *meep*

Don’t assume the bride or groom want this. My husband-to-be and I, after an extremely rough time through me being pregnant and living far apart, told our parents we wanted a ceremony with only siblings and parents. I planned to get a white dress somewhere, but not a wedding gown. My mom was having none of that, and went about planning your typical wedding in a Catholic church with a big reception afterwards. The guest list is 120. I don’t fault her—I think she genuinely believed I would have deep regrets if I didn’t do this—but I certainly didn’t want this added stress. And my wedding is fairly small and no-frills. I feel like weddings are getting more and more lavish and frankly ridiculous. I know girls driving themselves and their families into debt by insisting on $60,000 weddings with bachelorette parties in Vegas. I’ve watched couples being followed around by hired “papparazzi” who videotape them all night long. It’s insane, and it’s almost like a competition to be the biggest and best, even if you can’t afford it.

And I know Amanda doesn’t like this word, but I know that getting married has become a completely narcissistic experience for many women. Before I went to a bridal store, I never saw such tantrums and demanding behavior. Girls bring posses of 3 or 4 women just to look at dresses. Really? You think you’re THAT important because you’re getting married? Give me a frigging break. And don’t get me started on the diva behavior that accompanies bachelorette parties.

@19 - Mighty Ponygirl, you’re probably right on with the can/can’t hold a secret aspect to it.  I didn’t think about it that way because I am strongly in the can keep a secret camp. 

As for the “awareness” question, maybe that’s something that men (like myself) are privileged enough to be unaware of until it starts happening to friends?  Anyway, it’s something that people need to know about (and maybe not just “whisper” about), IMO, because there’s a lot of “fertilized egg = baby” stuff out there which isn’t even close to true for MANY reasons.  The high rate of miscarriage is a pretty big reason. 

even I don’t expect there’s a lot of “Let’s see who are friends really are—let’s post our pregnancy announcement ridiculously early and then see who’s a dick when we announce our miscarriage!” people out there.

LOL!  I would hope there wouldn’t be ANY of that happening!  I meant it as an “unintended” consequence.  People can’t fail as friends unless they’re given a chance, but I wouldn’t recommend laying traps for them.

The more weddings I go to, the smaller my dream wedding gets….

My parents got it right. Reception in the Church basement featuring kool-aid, finger sandwiches, and cake, honeymoon on the Eastern Shore. None of this take out a mortgage to have a wedding bullshit.

This article had me cracking up. Who in their right mind would want to tell everyone they’re expecting a child though facebook saying “John is expecting James”. It’s meant to be a personal thing. Isn’t it advised to not tell any/many people that you’re expecting until 3 months after conception due to that being when most problems happen?
Hobo weddings isn’t a bad idea, why would you want to spend in excess of 15k for one day when you could do it for cheaper is beyond me, I do think its a good idea to have a sydney video production service there to cover the special day!

You know, it would be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between the cost of a wedding and divorce.

Hey humorless @2: Good point.  I’m changing my status from “Expecting: Suck Ass” to “Expecting: Abortion”.

Made. of. WIN.

Parents + facebook just seems to be a terrible combination.  I’ve had to hide the status updates of more than one friend who just can’t stop talking about baby poop in graphic detail.  I realize poop is a big part of your life for that first year or 2 of parenting, but obviously no one else wants to hear about it.  I mean, that IS obvious…right?

I’m very strict about kid pictures on FB. No more than one every couple of weeks. As I understand the FB algorithm, people who don’t click on or comment or like the photo are less likely to see the next one. So my smug jackass FB friends who think disliking children makes them cool (or worse yet, that not having children makes them better people) probably never see any of the photos anymore. I have about 100 FB friends who have little kids, and nobody ever puts the specifics of poop in status updates or asks us to vote for their kid in some stupid contest.

That said, you’re 100% right that Expected Child is cheesy as shit. And STFU Parents has been making me laugh for ten minutes now. And that the wedding industry is a tool of Satan. We spent $310 on our wedding nine years ago; we have friends who got married at about the same time who are still paying it off.

The wedding-industrial complex is very good at extracting money from people. There are the markups (same hall, catering or clothing may cost half again as much for a wedding as for a no-name occasion), there are the extras (once you’re spending a pile of money, just like renovating a house, it seems foolish to “cut corners”), there’s the expertly created impression that what the heck, it’s not like you’re going to be able to save for your retirement or college for your kids, so you might as well do this…

Yeah, we had a lame-duck JP (how do you not get re-elected as a JP in a small town?) and a couple of celebratory cheeseburgers. I was thinking, though, if we’d had a party, we probably would have done it ourselves, and that’s a huge difference compared to catering, but it’s also a huge luxury in terms of having the time and extended family and skills and so forth.

FB, I think, is going to suffer from the law of large numbers. Sure, women who have had any kind of issues in the past will be chary of immediate posting, but there’s an endless supply of naive kids who think nothing bad will happen to them. What I really want to see is the study showing correlation of pregnancy announcements with changes in relationship status…

syfr @25 - Oh my god yes. I’m thinking ten people MAX, wear clothes I already own, and have a potluck in a park afterward. These ginormous weddings with year-and-a-half engagements, 12 bridesmaids and five (yes, five) wedding dresses at the Chateau de Whatever in Scotland are fucking ridiculous.

Thanks for the info, Amanda. I’m now anxiously awaiting Two-headed Stain some time in December.

Ben D. @ #28

Nice! I’d like to know that too but I would want it adjusted for income level.

I went and tested it by entering that I was expecting child Suck Ass in December 2012.

LOL, isn’t that when the world is supposedly going to end?

The best wedding I ever participated in was my little sister’s and my bro-in-law’s, at the Brooklyn County Courthouse, many years ago.  Our darling dad was still living then, and I vividly remember our conversation about Little Sis’ wedding plans:

Little Sis:  Hey, we love you, if you wanna come, just show up at the courthouse!

Me:  I’m there with bells on, and I’ll bring flowers.  Want me to dress up?

Little Sis:  Hell no, we’re both going to wear jeans.

Our Darling Dad:  AWWWW, Honey, c’mon!  You’re getting married!  Won’tcha please wear a nice dress?

New Bro-In-Law:  Hey, Fiancee (my Little Sis), your dad has a point.  We’re getting married, it’s a special day, he wants you to wear a nice dress.  You know what? - I will, too!

Darling Dad:  NOOOOOOO, that’s not what I meant!  Jeans, jeans are great. . . . please promise you won’t both wear DRESSES!  Oy gevalt!!!

That was 30 years ago.  Little Sis did cave in and wore a pretty seersucker dress; Bro-in-law wore a nice khaki suit and a blue tie.  We all met up at the Brooklyn courthouse, and after the wedding, we ate a fantastic celebratory lunch at one of Brooklyn’s finest Lebanese cafes - tons of hummus, baba ganoush, fried falafel, thick Turkish coffee. 

And 30+ years later, Little Sis and Bro-In-Law are still the happiest couple I know.

I think it’s a little inconsistent to say that women should be open and feel no shame about having an abortion, but shouldn’t announce their pregnancies on facebook because they might miscarry. The state of your womb is nothing to be ashamed about.

@33: “the Chateau de Whatever in Scotland are fucking ridiculous”

A French castle in Scotland would be at least mildly eccentric, yes.

I think it’s a little inconsistent to say that women should be open and feel no shame about having an abortion, but shouldn’t announce their pregnancies on facebook because they might miscarry. The state of your womb is nothing to be ashamed about.

Shame and grief are not the same things, even if both might cause someone to wish for a little bit of privacy.

A French castle in Scotland would be at least mildly eccentric, yes.

I tried to get married there, but they just taunted me until I went away.

A French castle in Scotland would be at least mildly eccentric, yes.

Considering the turbulent history of Scotland, any kind of castle would make more sense than an unfortified manor house.

While it being an option used on Facebook might put more pressure on people to blab about their pregnancy early on, women who end up miscarrying are always going to tell people they are pregnant before the miscarriage happens and then have to face some sad times when those people cheerfully ask about the baby, not knowing what happened yet. I think the annoying factor will outweigh any other bad effects it will have, to be honest.

As for the hobo wedding, geez, but it’s probably no coincidence that they posted it on Etsy. I love the place but it does seem to drive regular, well-meaning people to feats of absurdity (and stuff that isn’t that absurd but is vaguely offensive, like the obsession with feather headdresses and knock-off “Native American style” crap) in the name of being kooky and unique. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a little fruity or wanting to seem unique, but there really should be some sort of final warning screen before you put your wares on there or buy something that asks if you’re sure you have spent 10 minutes in the corner thinking about what you’re about to do and if you can expect to live it down.

If not knowing that theme weddings are a thing now makes me out of touch, I never want to get clued in.

More generally, meh.  People do stupid/tacky things all the time. Weddings are incidental.  That said, I’d also be fine with never attending another wedding again.  I haven’t been to many, but they’ve all involved some degree of cringe.

I’ve never understood people spending that much money on two hours of their life.  If I had a budget like 15K or even 10K, I would plan the cheapest possible wedding and then spend the rest on a fucking FABULOUS honeymoon to Fiji.  A week in paradise versus two hours of familial stress?  No contest.

IME, the people who have the biggest weddings are the ones overcompensating.  Every person I know who got married with a buttload of attendants and schmaltz got divorced within 5 years or less.  The people who did that shit on the down low with just some friends and family and fun times had by all have been the ones whose marriages have stuck.

The first wedding party I was in was shortly after starting college.  My high school friend and her boyfriend, who’d stayed behind in the small rural Wisconsin town where I went to school, were expecting their first child.  They were so poor they served ham and butter sandwiches on cheap buns.  So yeah, faking poor to be ironic or trendy or whatever is a total asshole move.

@9: I’m not sure the value in “calling out privilege”.  I see this term a lot, but what point does it serve to say, “You have privilege: feel bad!” 

Calling out racism, classism, sexism, etc., sure.

But calling out—-aka saying that X is bad—-privilege?  I’m skeptical. 

The point of progressivism is to expand privileges until they’re rights more than simply hate on people having nice things. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more a chicken-in-every-pot person than a hate-on-people-just-for-having-a-chicken-in-the-pot person.  I realize this may be a fine distinction, but it’s one that can focus our energies, not make enemies unnecessarily, and, at the end of the day, preserve that critical memory that others are human beings.

@46 Ham and butter sandwiches on cheap buns sounds pretty good to me.  I’ve heard of much worse wedding menus with much higher pricetags.

Amanda: Those denying the value of calling out privilege may be privilege holders themselves, which is a privilege only accorded the privileged who must not embrace the privilege of not being called out on the privilege.

Competition sneaks in everywhere - there’s often a bit of reverse one-up-man-ship about having the cheapest, most alternative and unorthodox wedding, too. As the Python seal has already been broken on this thread, I’ll go ahead and say it:

Eee, our weddin’ cost threepence ha’penny and I made me own dress out of orange peel and chewing gum I scraped off t’pavement! We were ‘appy though!

I’m trying and failing to come up with any reason the “Expected: xXXX” option is that bad. As it stands now, plenty of people use their status updates to share the same information earlier than I, personally, have felt comfortable sharing it, and some of them end up having to use their status updates to announce their miscarriages. In the last trimester of my last pregnancy (first one was pre-FB), my husband added our child-to-be to his info page as one of his kids. I don’t list my kids on my info page at all. I also leave the religion and politics sections blank. And I’m sure the reason they don’t restrict you to some time in the next 9 months is that it’s simply easier for them to give you a calendar than to link that calendar to today’s date and only let you go nine months out. It’s not like you have to use it.

If you want to put in Expected: Abortion, go for it. I would probably laugh. Lots of people wouldn’t, but who cares?

Two more things about pregnancy/kids and FB: One, it’s always hilarious to me how FB is supposed to help us keep in touch, but inevitably, when someone has a baby and puts up the newborn pics, someone comments, “OMG! Congratulations! I didn’t even know you were pregnant!” Two, as much as everyone bitches and moans about parents posting about their kids, any status updates, notes or pics related to my kids get more likes and comments than other stuff. So ...

Ashley, I’m not keen on the word “narcissism” because it’s overused, and often unfairly, and it’s kind of vague.  But man, I believe you about the bridezillas.  I suppose it’s an inevitable result of women being told that biggest, most important thing in the world that could happen to you is someone picks you to be his wife, with creating heirs being the next most important thing you could possibly do.  Our culture celebrates the individual and ambitious, while telling women the most important things they can do is be someone’s wife and someone’s mother.  Since women want a piece of the being-celebrated-as-a-unique-snowflake pie, then the wedding becomes that opportunity. 

The irony is that these hip, quirky weddings are somewhat a rejection of that, but sometimes tread into the territory of women showing off how their new husbands don’t expect them to completely subsume their identity in the marriage.  I prefer that by a long shot, but there are still some problems with it.

chin, I think the line between providing a reasonable amount of information to people with the full knowledge that your kids are boring—-because kids are boring, they like Barney and shit—-and being full-blown “look at me I’m performing the MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD” is obvious to outsiders but maybe not so much to parents who are going through a big change in their lives.  And so we as a society should not make it harder on them to know where the line is on judgement, etc.

I really don’t understand the need for a separate status update for being pregnant. Seems to me that just a regular entry or entries with pregnancy updates would suffice for anyone inclined to share that info on FB. And speaking of awkward FB updates, I have a FB friend who is really just an acquaintance IRL and I she posted something a week about about finally getting married (she’s been living and has two children with the dude). Then, yesterday another FB post about how he’s called off the wedding. She actually told him to post the cancellation on FB so she wouldn’t have to call everyone they know with the news. It felt kind of creepy to be reading about this woman’s heartache when I barely know her.

As for the hobo wedding, sheesh! We spent about $600 including the rings and hotel for ONE night because that’s all we could afford (that, and we really wanted it to be small; just my parents for witnesses). Now that’s a hobo wedding.

Amanda wrote:

I’m a competitive person, and if I was getting married, I’m sure the beast would eat me up and next thing you know I’d be asking people to stand on their heads while someone plays the Chipmunks rapping “Here Comes The Bride” while I walked down the aisle.  This disaster is being cleanly avoided by not getting married at all.

Oh, c’mon now, you could go YouTube viral with this!

I think the line between providing a reasonable amount of information to people with the full knowledge that your kids are boring—-because kids are boring, they like Barney and shit—-and being full-blown “look at me I’m performing the MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD” is obvious to outsiders but maybe not so much to parents who are going through a big change in their lives.

That’s not the only spectrum along which info about your kids or about pregnancy runs. Recently, I’ve had several friends have babies in unplanned pregnancies that occurred when they were living somewhere really far away from all their meat-space friends. So talking about pregnancy on FB was a way to get support and share information (like, how to ease common aches and pains, reduce heartburn, deal with some dumbass thing my doctor is saying, find daycare) with other people who have been through it. Later, it’s a way to get reassurance that you aren’t a bad person or bad parent because they’re driving you nuts or you want to run away screaming or you’re still in your pajamas at 4 p.m. That’s not something that people without kids are going to find that interesting, but people aren’t doing it to get patted on the back for doing things that are socially sanctioned. They’re doing it to do things that friends do for and with each other in an online environment. 

I have a FB friend who is a conservative evangelical Christian who is really into couponing. I skim/skip a lot of her status updates, but if FB came up with, say, some feature that makes it easier to share coupons or Bible verses, I wouldn’t say they shouldn’t do that and instead they should be helping her understand that lots of people are atheists who don’t use coupons.

I’m not trying to make a federal case about this. I just really don’t see it as indicative of anything.

My daughter is engaged, and I’m helping her plan her wedding right now. I saw that Hobo wedding entry on Etsy and I didn’t see how much they spent - I think it’s kind of gross to spend that amount of money on one party! Offbeat Bride is also a wealth of goofy wedding shit, although there are some thoughtful entries as well.

I got married in 1988. I bought a dress for $30, we hired a JP for $75, we paid maybe $50 for the blood test, and I think $12 for the license. After the wedding, we bought lunch for the 5 people who attended, which cost a smidge over $100. We got divorced in 2009, but I feel like I got my money’s worth!

... kids are boring, they like Barney and shit.

My kid is quite the budding skeptic. You might actually enjoy some of the things he says.

If I had a budget like 15K or even 10K, I would plan the cheapest possible wedding and then spend the rest on a fucking FABULOUS honeymoon to Fiji.

The really sad thing is that there are people who spend that much on the dress alone. (Ours came out to less than 10k even with travel expenses for three)

@48 Yeah, the wedding was a blast because everyone involved really loved each other and it felt like a real celebration of the future for these two people.  It didn’t matter what we were eating.  The vibe was so open and friendly that I even got my ass on the dance floor even though I’m usually too self-conscious.  They’re still together today and have three kids.

My mom had a similar low-key event for her second wedding.  Short ceremony at church, and reception at the shelter at a park down the street from their house.  They hired a local band to play oldies, and a family member made the cake, which was fabulous.  I think she told me she spent $1000 on the whole thing.

The point of progressivism is to expand privileges until they’re rights more than simply hate on people having nice things. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more a chicken-in-every-pot person than a hate-on-people-just-for-having-a-chicken-in-the-pot person.

See? This is why I love reading this blog. Not only is that a great description of progressivism or what it should be, but it totally cracked me up on a very blue morning.

But kids are not boring. Sometimes they can be irritating and needing, but they’re generally much less boring than adults.

Clearly, the way to deal with this is treat women like men, i.e. give them rights.

Like the right to post that they’re expecting a baby on facebook if they want to?

I think the new option is interesting only because it points out that people are already announcing their pregnancies on facbeook. Facebook is not forcing anyone to disclose that they’re pregnant - they’re just providing a new spot for something people are already doing. For all the things facebook has done to erode privacy, this doesn’t really seem like one of them.

RE:  telling the world too early and then miscarrying

That IS a concern, but its not a new one. Its always been an issue - every pregnant woman has to decide when to tell her friends, coworkers, various branches of the family, etc. Whether she wants to do this on facebook or not is also her decision. Now if facebook was doing something like taking a private post about pregnancy and publicizing it, then I’d be angry. But this is just giving people another box for something they already may or may not want to do. Its not like the box has to be filled in.

I actually have a friend who announced a pregnancy too early on facebook, and I think it was a mistake (for various reasons I won’t go into here). But not having a box for it on facebook didn’t stop her - she made her own mistake on her facebook status. And she was so excited that if she hadn’t had a facebook profile at all, she probably would have still told all her friends right away in some other way - like a mass text message or even just calling up a bunch of people. I think there’s value to warning women that they might regret it if they make an announcement too early, but I don’t think this new facebook option changes anything.

The cluelessess over the Hobo theme is that a wedding theme should be something the couple are really interested in.  Like say Amanda had a wedding with a music theme; it would make sense.  I doubt the couple are really into depression era Hobo culture; the clown hobo clued me in.

I’m going to defend big weddings because I had a big wedding that cost more than 10K.  About half was paid by our parents.  The rest was on us.  I don’t regret it for a second.  We had a great day and a fun party.  We had slightly over 200 guests.  About 100 from my family (yes, my family is that big), about 50 from spouse’s family and about 50 friends.  I know not everyone is fortunate enough to enjoy their cousin’s and other family member’s company, but we both are that fortunate.  Hosting a family party for them was not a burden, but a privilege.  I wish I could have invited second cousins and other friends too.

We had 2 priorities - a good meal and a good band.  We found lots of ways to cut corners, but food and drink for 200 people costs money. If we just made a huge pot of sloppy joes or something, we could have saved a lot of money & our families and friends would not have thought worse of us.  But we could afford a nice meal provided by a caterer who used a lot of locally sourced food, so we did. \

“Weddings are just formal Halloween parties any more.”

oldfeminist—since my first marriage started out great and turned scary, for the second we decided to start out scary…so we had a Halloween wedding and everyone (including the guests) came in costume.

Yeah, there is a lot of big-wedding hate out there, and I totally can see why. It’s a shitload of money, it’s often spent in service to making two people stressed-out and miserable while their parents work out whatever psychological crap they’ve failed to work out over the decades, yadda yadda. I get it. I’ve seen some miserable and ridiculous over-the-top weddings. Hobo weddings are gross. Bridezillas (the show and concept) make me unhappy for at least 10 reasons.

But, I’ve been to some 50K extravaganzas that were also an epic lot of fun, with very happy couples and happy families who just really like showing the people they know and love a good time. And the marriages that came from these weddings are, so far, strong and happy (as far as an outsider can tell—at any rate, they’re lasting).

My cheapie backyard wedding with a pinata and 15 people got us a lot of kudos at the time. Oh we’re so responsible and we’re thinking of the marriage and not the wedding and so wise not to go into debt and the small weddings always produce the best marriages etc.

But we only lasted, like, 2 years. So, YMMV.

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with telling women this is the “biggest day of your life,” so they think they have to go over the top and become completely insane over it. It’s just one day. Sure, it’s meaningful, but way too much money and emotional energy is invested into it.

When the time comes, I’ll probably end up spending money making sure we can accommodate the number of family and friends we are close to - and that will probably mean spending money on a venue other than my parents house, which is tiny. So I’m willing to spend some money to see family and friends that I care about and don’t get to see very often, but I’m not willing to spend lots of money on, like, centerpieces or whatever.

I’m so tired of the importance of the wedding.  I’m still bitter that so many people said they’d come out for a wedding between myself and boyfriend of 8 years, but not for the exhibit culminating a three year Master’s program (it was a couple of months ago, I’ll get over it soon enough).

I told a friend that I don’t want to get married and never have.  He told me that I was important enough to have a big special day that all my friends come out to.  I wanted to tell him that I though getting an advanced degree was way more special, but it seemed too mean to try to guilt someone into spending hundreds on a plane ticket. 

The wedding-industrial complex has made having a wedding a competitive act, which has not only caused spending to go up, but has also escalated the amount of quirky shit that you’re supposed to do in order to have people talk about what a unique and amazing couple you are.

The wedding industrial complex did not invent wedding competition, it did spread it beyond the filthy rich though.  Quirky came in so that those who wont or can’t spend insane rather than outrageous amounts can still compete in the game. 
Backyard hippie wedding should be the theme of choice - barefeet in a parent/friend/couple’s backyard, casual cottony clothes, simple flowers in hair (or not).  It also flows well into informal BBQ or other cookout reception.

andoatnp @ 10: Amanda is making fun of something stupid.  You are taking it as a very serious attack.  You are, therefore, clearly if not humorless definately humor-challenged.

I’ve never understood people spending that much money on two hours of their life.  If I had a budget like 15K or even 10K, I would plan the cheapest possible wedding and then spend the rest on a fucking FABULOUS honeymoon to Fiji.  A week in paradise versus two hours of familial stress?  No contest.

When my then fiance and I announced we were getting married, my in-laws said they’d pay for either: A) a wedding, or B) a honeymoon in Hawaii.  I don’t think it took me more than a microsecond to say, “Hawaii! Hell, yeah.”  (We got married in Vegas, with just his parents and my mom in tow.) One of the best decisions, ever.

Personally, I think if I were going to hold a marriage-related event, it would be for milestones like 20th, 30th, etc., anniversaries.

I’ve been thinking about the size thing.  The two biggest weddings I attended were polar opposites in cost and style. 
My mother and step-father got married at church camp, wearing nice clothes they already owned (flowered dress & usual holiday at church suit), with myself and two sibs as attendants.  I was wearing colored overalls popular in ‘81, my sister had on shorts and a sparkly t-shirt and my brother wore jeans and a plain dark colored shirt.  It was followed by a potluck with a cake baked by a friend.
My sister-in-law, for her 3rd wedding, was in a huge church with music provided by a string trio (all friends of hers), a cake (baked at cost by another friend), with video and photos (also taken by friends) with a huge dance reception after.
SIL’s daughter’s dress cost more than my folks whole wedding.

About 6 years ago one of my cousins had the biggest wedding EVAR - $50,000 USD, 8 bridesmaids, open bar, expensive food, chichi country club setting. I was talking about it to one of my friends, saying “Can you imagine spending $50,000 on a wedding? Think of how many plays you could put on for that!” Her answer was, “Yeah, but that’s their play.”

I can imagine that, if I did something boring but lucrative - like my cousins, who run an industrial cleaning business - if I had no performing ability or interest, I might totally go for the giant production of a wedding just because it would be my moment to be the centre of attention. I still think it’s an enormous waste of money, and it reinforces the “marriage is the goal of a woman’s life” thing, but I can kind of understand why people do it.

Anyway, as long as we’re whipping it out and putting it on the counter, I win the hipster wedding sweepstakes - I had a Hallowe’en wedding. In costumes and everything. In a BAR!

Amanda: Those denying the value of calling out privilege may be privilege holders themselves, which is a privilege only accorded the privileged who must not embrace the privilege of not being called out on the privilege.

Of course someone like you would say that…

I was walking behind a couple of men on the streets of NYC, and they had an infant and a preschool boy in a stroller.  They were discussing their upcoming wedding with the preschooler.

“You guys are getting married? REALLY?”

“That means that everybody gots to wear fancy clothes ... that all matches!”

“Who is going to carry the flowers?”

Somehow, even at a tender age, even with a non-traditional parent set, this young kid had clearly soaked up a lot about the standard giant heteronormative wedding, and was now just assuming that his dads were going to go for that.  Funny, but ...

Funny how I’m discussing all this on my 21st wedding anniversary.  Perhaps that is the value of stripping down marriage and partnership to what works and fits, rather than externally imposed notions of coupling and marriage and church bullshit.

It also doesn’t mean that marriage is a good thing for everybody.

True one-upmanship (or downsmanship) would require getting married in a sewer, or in the belly of a whale. The guests will receive full instructions on how to get swallowed by the whale.

It’s never been done before! Jonah was single.

I’m still stuck at the “biggest day of your life” thing. Maybe of the couple’s life so far, but if the wedding is the biggest day of someone’s life, that’s like the folks who peaked in high school…

When my mother was pregnant with what would become my sister, we called the fetus ‘Myrtle’.  After awhile, you do get tired of say ‘the fetus’, ya know?

I should probably refrain from mentioning that the fetus pic with that particular caption makes it look like this is going to be an article about babies masturbating in the womb.

Two, as much as everyone bitches and moans about parents posting about their kids, any status updates, notes or pics related to my kids get more likes and comments than other stuff. So ...

Damn, for a while there I thought I was the only one!  Post about myself or something non-kid-related and I’m lucky if I get a reply. Post a picture of the kidlet or relate one of his comments, and I get several to a dozen replies (from both parent and non-parent friends).  I actually did an experiment to verify it.

Which has led me to a new conclusion about the “parents talk incessantly about their kids” cliche. I notice that after the first year or two, most parents don’t talk about their kids any more than someone without children talks about a significant other, pet, job, or hobby.  I think, though, that to people without children or with grown children it stands out to them, in the same way the obnoxious kid at a restaurant is more noticeable than the 3 or 5 well-behaved ones.  Thus, hardly anyone notices when I’m NOT talking about my kid because it isn’t out of the ordinary to them. 

This is also why I can’t get in a twist about an expecting option on FB.  Seriously, I’m not sure why as feminists we have to tell parents to shut up about their kids and restrict their options for talking about them “or they just won’t know better.”  Man, that’s condescending.  If people talk about their kids too much for you, block their posts like the rest of us who have friends who annoy us with some hobby-horse.

history_mom, I’ve never minded when people talk about their children because in 99.8% of the time it isn’t ‘too much’ about their tykes.

What I object to is the default assumption that any married couple where the wife is still fertile and the assumption is that said couple will be having kids, sooner or later.

I found this to be true especially in my wife’s native culture so much so that I expected the Facebook application to have been originally developed in her native language.

Yes, actually, kids are boring, even yours. (And mine. I just read that book 5 times! I am not reading it again!) This is why every TV show dies a horrible, wasting death once the characters have a kid/kids.

Dark Avenger, I don’t take it as an assumption that they will be having kids any more than the option to list children who have been born is the same assumption, or the option to list relationships is an assumption that people will be in one or get married.  It’s an option.

I have a friend-of-a-friend whose every single post on Facebook is literally, “Another great day with my baby boy and husband, love my boys!” or “Hard to go to work today and leave my boys, can’t wait to get off work and be with them!” Or she had a post where she said that she wept when she took her son to get his vaccines, because it was *so hard* to see him get pricked with a needle. There’s a weird thing that people do where they try to convince everyone that they love their kids SO MUCH, like, so much more than is reasonable or possible, and it’s confusing to me. I’m like, you have a baby, I understand you love him a lot, no need to constantly try to convince me! People seem to use Facebook to try to convince all their friends and acquaintances that they’re really happy all the time, and it’s just not normal to be that happy all the time. Mostly, I think that when people post constantly about how happy they are with their new families, it makes them seem unhappy, like they’re trying to convince themselves as much as anybody else. “I got my baby a new slide today! He was so happy on his slide. Here’s a video of him going down the slide a bunch of times. Love my baby, isn’t he cute? Love love love!” We fucking get it, lady.

I also think that people who post constantly about their kids are being unfair to their children. For one thing, nobody should have to bear the responsibility of being somebody’s sole source of happiness. Some of these people on Facebook, I think when their kids inevitably start to reject them in order to forge their own identities, are going to come completely unwound. And also, you know, even if your kid is a little toddler, maybe he or she doesn’t need you broadcasting their every sentence to your social network. Maybe you don’t want everyone to know that you cried when you got your hair cut, or that you’re having a hard time learning to ride a bike or whatever. Kids are capable of feeling embarrassed, too. I’m sure if I posted about things my mom said as much as other people post about things their children said, she’d tell me to knock it the fuck off.

I think there are people who are prone to over post no matter what the topic. I don’t so much mind if people post about their kids or families, or their bands, or their theater shows, or their volunteer work so long as it isn’t EVERY POST. People get excited and enthusiastic about what they love. For some folks it’s kids.

Disclaimer, I have two kids and I do post occasionally about them.  I like kids a lot. I’ve worked with them (other people’s kids I mean), and I like mine.  For me, I’m more likely to be bored by hearing my friend post about his band and the things that happen on tours. I’m not in a band, I don’t tour. I don’t find his stories compelling….FWIW.

I think that it’s the level of repetition that would get to me more than the topic, though I have no idea how I’d react if I were to start my child bearing years today….I’d probably be psyched to post my incoming kidlet.  Though I’d worry about the privacy, marketing and so forth that comes with posting news on FB….

If I got a new dog or new car or new anything that really made me happy I’d probably post about it.

I’m much more offended by the huge overdone weddings than by kid posts.

One more thing….I’ve also heard from friends who are in the poly community how they’d like to be able to post their relationship status on FB, like…Mary is now in a polyamorous quad with Brad, Bob and Cecelia.

So….is it that we are creating a world wherein if it isn’t announced broadly, it hasn’t happened? Social media means if you don’t tell people RIGHT NOW, it’s not real? Cause I’m sure Bob and Mary and Brad and Cecelia had a handfasting with guests. So it happened. Just not on FB. Where it gets to be real.

Meaning, I suppose, that the possibilities of announcements are endless. New Job, marriage, moving in, divorcing, handfasting, babies, kids, etc…that’s a lot of tabs for a pull down menu.

Right, so why have a specific app for this one when a status update would work perfectly well?

I think there are people who are prone to over post no matter what the topic. I don’t so much mind if people post about their kids or families, or their bands, or their theater shows, or their volunteer work so long as it isn’t EVERY POST.

Well, that’s true. I unfollowed one of my girlfriend’s friends on Twitter because every three minutes there’d be a tweet to the effect of “OMG WATCHING TV WITH MY MOM I LOVE MY MOM SO MUCH” and “OMG TALKING TO MY NEPHEW I LOVE MY NEPHEW SO MUCH” and “OMG GOING TO DINNER WITH MY FAMILY MY FAMILY IS SO FUCKING AWESOME.” And it’s not like that’d be every few days. It was all day. Every day. I was like, “Jesus fuck, woman, I’m glad you like your family, but tweet about a book or the cup of coffee you’re drinking sometime. Just for some damn variety.”

Meanwhile on the street, it’s open season on every woman who wears a baseball cap and sunglasses this August, cuz they’re the “babykiller”:

http://wapsisquare.com/news/author-friend-of-mine-attacked/

To my mind, at least, there’s a difference between declaring your own fetus or embryo or zygote to be like unto a child to you, and saying someone else’s fetus/embryo/zygote is their child, or saying all fetuses/embryos/zygotes are children. And I’m on the side of, if she chose to mention it early and there’s a bad outcome, that’s on her. That said, it would me nice if they’d add an “Other” category. My father’s brother’s wife’s sister’s son is mishpoche, but that’s not one of the options.

The hobo wedding is unacceptable, though. It takes a special type of person to think that’s ok, someone who thinks not only that they’ll never be poor but that even poor people aren’t poor, they just like wearing Mugatu knockoffs.

tangent off of something jenny said, because i’ve seen this too…“my boys,” meaning my kid and my husband. um. wut? one is a child. one is a man you’ve most likely had sex with at least enough to produce said child. these are not the same thing. am i the only one who sees lumping them together like that as weird and creepy?

The hobo wedding is unacceptable, though. It takes a special type of person to think that’s ok, someone who thinks not only that they’ll never be poor but that even poor people aren’t poor, they just like wearing Mugatu knockoffs.

Exactly! I especially loved how the Etsy page claimed that theirs might be the “first hobo-themed wedding.” I thought, um, what about actual hobo weddings? But I guess for people like that, poor people don’t really exist except as potential sources of fashion ideas.

@94: Not so sure about weird and creepy, but a touch patronising ? Sure. As in men aren’t mature enough to be allowed out to play on their own. Sure it’s true, but it isn’t polite to come out and say so!

@39: To be picky (as you were being), a châteux isn’t a castle; it’s more a manor house.

Anecdata: My wedding cost $15,000.  Mostly that was because I have a HUGE family and I wanted them all there.  We had no theme of any kind, one witness each, there were no tuxes, and my dress cost less than $200, but feeding 150 people good food (a must—my mom’s greatest fear in life is that she will have guests over and run out of food, a fear that has literally never been realized) and finding a cool place to dance until they kicked us out (also a must) is not cheap.  Pretty much all of that budget was renting a non-corporate event space (a cool local winery we loved) and feeding the horde.  It was worth every freaking penny—a huge number of friends and family all in one place, dancing like fools all night long, and having a ton of fun.  People still tell us what a good time they had.  Sometimes money is a proxy for trying to impress others/outdo others and sometimes it just costs a lot of money to feed a lot of people.  We went into zero debt, and I would not trade the memories of that night for any amount of money.

As in men aren’t mature enough to be allowed out to play on their own. Sure it’s true, but it isn’t polite to come out and say so!

Actually, it’s not true, and it’s incorrect as well as insulting to say so.

I suspect the Facebook ‘expecting’ status is nothing more than a reflection of a) the fact that many people communicate with friends and family about life events via Facebook and b) Facebook makes money by selling advertising, and knowing who is in the future market for Pampers and baby books is valuable information.

Seriously, I’m not sure why as feminists we have to tell parents to shut up about their kids and restrict their options for talking about them “or they just won’t know better.”

We don’t. But if you’re a feminist who is also childfree and just wants everyone to stop talking about their fucking kids already, throwing on some sisterhood-guilt just might work, amirite?

Amanda @53: ‘Kids’ is a pretty big age range; I don’t think you’re going to find many six-month-olds or ten-year-olds who watch whatever the nowadays-equivalent of Barney is. But that aside, any time somebody has a thing that sucks up most of their waking hours, especially if it’s a brand-new thing, they have a tendency to blab on about it until everybody else not similarly involved wants to slap them. My childfree co-nerds don’t rhapsodize about babies, but damned if they don’t go on and on about their brand-new SO or their twelfth-level paladin or their new IT job.