The first time I bought a bridal magazine, I felt like I was buying porn. When I lugged a mammoth issue of Bride's up to the counter, I actually found myself asking the cashier to stick it in a brown paper bag. Why was I so ashamed? Because purchasing a wedding magazine felt hopelessly retrograde, almost an act of betrayal, as if I was condoning the petals-and-tulle fantasy world propagated by these cheery publications. I wasn't planning a very traditional wedding, so what did they have to offer me anyway? And yet, for reasons I cannot quite explain, the beatific brides on those thick, shiny publications beckoned to me.

In the months after I became engaged, I gobbled up every bridal magazine I could find. I searched between the acres of gown ads, hoping to find one thought-provoking article, one provocative essay that poked fun at the $70 billion dollar wedding industry, one reminder that weddings are about weighty stuff (love, for instance), a single acknowledgement that neurotically focusing on whether to serve sea bass or halibut (something, I admit, I got into a momentary tizzy over) is not the healthiest response to impending matrimony. All at once, I was faced with all of life's thorniest and emotional subjects -- family, faith, monogamy, commitment, sex -- and I had to plan the biggest party of my life at the same time? -- I needed help.

Alas, there was little to be found. All bridal magazines -- and there are dozens of them -- contain the same articles: registering for china, planning a honeymoon, selecting a florist and, most importantly, finding the elusive perfect dress. If you're interested in tipping protocol or how to handle your alcoholic aunt at the reception, the bridal media will do you right. Every magazine I opened was filled with checklists and planners to guide me from the engagement through to the honeymoon, reminding me of the thousands of tasks I had to complete. Some of the chores were obvious, such as booking a caterer. Others, like choosing a "going away outfit" for the honeymoon, were simply perplexing. I'm not even sure my mother, who was married in 1964, had a "going away outfit."

About six months into the wedding-planning process, when my office was strewn with wedding "To Do" lists, and our guest list had inexplicably ballooned to 204 people, my bridal magazine feeding frenzy came to a screeching halt. It was the day I saw the April/May 2001 issue of Modern Bride with a huge headline instructing brides to "Jump for Joy!" I realized then that if I was the editor of a bridal magazine, the cover line would have been "Jump off a Bridge!"

And thus, Indiebride was born.

Someone had to do it. Fat with ads (see "Get Real"), bridal magazines have no incentive to change, no reason to expand and refine the idea of what it means to be a bride. After all, would the magazines be so popular with advertisers if they did dwell on the more ambiguous aspects of what it means to get married? Once, while I was reporting a story, I had the opportunity to ask a spokesperson for Bride's why her magazine was so damned cheery. "Because we're in the happy business," she said matter of factly.

Well, at Indiebride we're not in the happy business. (In fact, at least for now, we're not in any kind of business. This website, like any good marriage, is a labor of love.) Which is not to say that marriage is necessarily depressing. But our goal is to explore the whole marriage process, the highs, the lows and the complexities. My hope is that Indiebride will fill a much-needed niche in the bridal media, that it will be a place for would-be brides who have more on their minds than planning a reception, women who never for a second believed in Prince Charming and who have not, despite all of the cultural cues, been breathlessly awaiting their wedding day for their whole life.

If you want to read articles by women and men whose take on marriage is -- for lack of a better word -- alternative, browse through our essays and interviews. If after your wedding you decide you feel absolutely no attachment to the cathedral-length veil you blew 300 bucks on, we welcome you to sell it on the Trousseau section of the site. If the wedding process leaves you feeling confused, tired, irritated, joyous, suicidal -- or all of the above -- head for our chat area, Kvetch.

And one more thing: The words "fantasy," "Cinderella" and "princess" are strictly banned from our pages.

Welcome.

-- Lori Leibovich
Editor

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