Another “Tales from the Veil” story is brought to us by Rachel Kitt who is the Executive Assistant at the Jewish Federation of San Diego County. She loves to run competitively and for pleasure, bake gluten-free sweets, and hang out with her hubby, a San Diego attorney. After eloping to the island of Oahu in December of 2007, Rachel finds herself looking back on her Jewish destination wedding adventure and laughing out loud. Her story will show you how any bride can take wedding disasters and turn them into wedded bliss. Lemons into lemonade. Grapes into Manischewitz. We’ll be hearing more from Rachel as a regular contributor to The Wedding Yentas.
Bridezilla Moment: Every bride has one. Or two.
Let’s be honest, we have all watched those reality TV shows where the bride is a total bridezilla (or worse, the mom is a momzilla!) and while it makes for fantastic ratings, there’s no reason to be that girl in real life. Your moment, your end-all, be-all moment will happen at some point. Your vision will clash with reality. But pick your moment. Pick that moment when someone disagrees with you or when something doesn’t make you happy or doesn’t go according to plan. This is your day. This is the time to put on that tiara that says Princess and MVP and go for it. Get what you want.
What’s that you say? How will I know my moment? Oh, girlfriend, you’ll know. You will know because the juice will be worth the squeeze.
I probably should start by explaining that my hubby and I were only engaged for three months. No no, we were not prego (but thank you to every aunt and girlfriend who asked!). After six years of dating, two years living together, and only a month of wedding planning, I realized that while I wanted the big white poofy dress, I didn’t want the rest of the hoopla. I just wanted to marry my best friend, and I didn’t need the big venue or 200 people. So to make a long story short, after getting engaged in September, we decided in November to get married during our Hawaiian family vacation a month later in December. So the truth is, I had three weeks to plan my wedding in a different state, an entire ocean away.
Clearly, I had a lot to figure out and a lot of opportunities to be a bridezilla. Instead I was flexible, even calm, cool and collected (don’t ask the hubby though). I like to give myself a pat on the back every time I think back to how well I rolled with the punches. Flowers were easy. I just asked for local, pretty pink ones. The cake was easy. I just asked for their most popular type and emailed a photo of a three-tier decorated cake with a design I liked. Food was easy. Every person was going to have surf and turf: mahi-mahi and steak. Drinks were easy. Open bar!
But not everything was perfect and I couldn’t be flexible about everything. I found my bridezilla moment, my “Oh no you didn’t!” three days before the wedding. It was a beautiful eruv Christmas day actually (we Jewish girls remember these things; plus it’s essential to the story). The location of our ceremony at the hotel had to change. Originally the plan was to say “I do” outside with the Pacific Ocean as our backdrop. I mean, we were getting married in Hawaii and what’s a Hawaiian wedding without a beach view? Well, while an ocean view seemed ideal, the Speedo-clad man bending over on the public beach was not. As the wedding coordinator introduced us to the spot where we’d start our lives together as husband and wife, I was distracted. I had visions of the old man and his tush in the background of my wedding photos and that would just not do.
The wedding coordinator said it was a public beach and nothing could be done. My beautiful and quintessential Hawaiian ocean view had the chance of coming with an old man and his Speedo tushie. I thought about it. I could not take the risk. It did not make me happy. So the ocean front location had to go.
Of course I made this decision on Christmas Day, just two days before my December 27th wedding and of course, the wedding coordinator wasn’t working that day. I can’t say that I would expect any person who celebrates Christmas to be working, but with a wedding 48 hours later, she couldn’t pick up her cell phone? Once? She was nowhere to be found, and my patience was at an all time low. My nightmare was about to turn me into a nightmare bride.
What’s a JAP (Jewish American Princess) bride to do? Bridezilla out. My fiancé and I waited two hours to talk to the other on-site wedding coordinator and demanded the site be moved. During our wait I did the following: left a few not-nice voicemails for our wedding coordinator, put my hand in my mother’s face and told her, “I will take care of this! You go enjoy the beach!” (I’m so lucky she still loves me and I think forgives me), and got really, really red in the face. Panic had set in; I was a bride on a mission. It was me against the world, and I was going to get my way, no matter the price. Let me tell you, these were not my best two hours.
Was I acting crazy? Yes. Was I completely aware of it at the time? Yes. Can I laugh about it now? Absolutely. Does my mom still speak to me? No. Just kidding. Of course, yes!
Silver lining: the other wedding coordinator was able to move the ceremony to a more suitable location that was actually more private. We saved some moola on the location by not having an ocean view. And most importantly, no butt cracks in my photos.
My wedding day was still not without its comedy of chaos, like when the hotel caught fire, but that story is for a whole other day.
So, that was my moment. My teeny, tiny, little, itty-bitty moment. Go ahead and find yours. Just make sure it’s worth it. I know that if I had to do it all over again, I would in a heart beat.
