Indiebride | Press

T H E T U L S A W O R L D

Who wants freedom from the ball and chain of planning a traditional wedding? Anti-Brides say, "I do!"

By Leigh Woosley

July 7, 2002 | Toss out the stark-white wedding dress like it's a wilted bouquet. Trash the tulle and lace like virginity on a honeymoon. Pick taffeta? Better hit the trails.

The Anti-Bride has arrived to set free soon-to-be-wives from the shackles of shoulds, woulds and coulds so loudly shouted by bridal tradition. This she-hero is adding volume to the bride's inner voice -- you know, a personal opinion -- that often shrinks against the grandeur of moms, marriage mavens and Martha Stewarts who rule the wedding world.

Never fear, poor captives in veils. The renegade brides are rising up to say, "I'll do it my way!"

Whether that means marrying in Aruba and honeymooning in the same spot, or dropping by the courthouse and then throwing a big reception, the Anti-Bride weds the way she wants.

She doesn't cold-shoulder marriage, but she doesn't let "the 75 bridal magazines tell her how she should get married," said Stephanie Rosenbaum, co-author of "Anti-Bride Guide: Tying the Knot Outside of the Box," (Chronicle Books, $20).

Rosenbaum, who is restaurant editor for citysearch.com, and co-author Carolyn Gerin hooked up for a three-way phone interview from San Francisco, where they both live and work.

"It's anti-wedding industrial complex, it's not anti-bride," said Gerin, president of a design-marketing firm, who unearthed the Anti-Bride spirit while planning her own wedding four years ago.

Brides too often get wrapped up in the wedding, worrying about what everyone else wants and forgetting what the day is really about. "But if the big, traditional wedding is what she wants, that's great," Gerin said. "As long as it's her personality instead of what the magazines and people tell her to do."

Not to say there's no wiggle room. Even the Anti-Bride must compromise -- just not on the things dearest to her heart.

Daddy's girl no more

The fervor for a little less fluff is astir, but is still a faint cry in the $70 billion wedding industry that each year welcomes 2.4 million marrying Americans.

The mini-movement has much to do with money, considering the traditional wedding costs about $28,000, but it's not strictly stitched to pocketbooks. Some women truly don't want to lug around a 47-pound wedding planner.

Experts on the local scene say the shift to less-traditional weddings mirrors society's pause to marry. When women wed today, they're about 25 years old on average, or four years older than they were 30 years ago, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

In these parts, 28 was the average age of women who got a marriage license, according to a survey the Tulsa World did last year on 500 marriage licenses issued in Tulsa County.

When Sheila Bisdee opened a wedding planning service in Tulsa 18 years ago, her average bride was 18 years old, but now she's 26 to 30.

"This is a whole new ball game right here because the bride and groom are busy, working people," said Bisdee, owner of Serving Hands Weddings, Rentals and Flowers.

These are brides with careers, independence and a sense of self. And because they're older, Daddy isn't always footing the bill, she said. "These are adults who (marry) the way they want to."

When Gerin married four years ago, she was a 37-year-old with a busy career who didn't want to "spend every spare minute tasting hors d'oeuvres and shopping for a dress I'd never wear again."

"I didn't really want to go down that long, long aisle of hell," said Gerin, stressing the word long. So, she and her husband signed the marriage papers at San Francisco City Hall.

After the minor affair, for which Gerin donned a cocktail dress practical enough to wear again, the couple threw three mini-receptions in three different cities for friends and family. "It kind of felt like I robbed a bank, like I'd gotten away with murder!"

It had to be a crime. How could Gerin plan for and star in her own wedding without turmoil and trauma that plagued so many brides before her?

Because she did it her way. The Anti-Bride way. Together with the unmarried but big-wedding-nonbeliever Rosenbaum, Gerin published her secret. Now the betrothed from every land has a hot-pink-covered, spiral-bound alternative to Bride's magazine.

Chapel of love

The Anti-Bride movement is slowly spilling into the nation's center. The most obvious change, said some close to Tulsa's wedding circuit, is the growth of out-of-the-church weddings.

"We see a lot of people going to Eureka Springs (Ark.) to get married and then coming back a week or two later for a big reception," said Nancy Wienker, co-owner of Class Act Party and Wedding Supply Rental.

Not that destination weddings -- as insiders call them -- are always cheaper, but Wienker said, people just "don't want to do a lot of preparation."

Weddings nowadays have more of a personal touch without stepping too far from tradition, said Bisdee, the wedding planner. "Most women still want to walk down that aisle in a white dress, and they still want those vows."

That's Suzanne Bessette. The 35-year-old Tulsan always dreamed of getting married in a big church alongside lots of bridesmaids, a beautiful flower girl, and lest we not forget, a "handsome groom."

Bessette didn't get that chance 11 years ago when she had a tight- budget wedding at a chapel in Dallas. Now that she's remarrying, she's "going all out" for her Oct. 5 wedding at Holy Family Catholic Church in downtown Tulsa with a reception at the Golf Club of Oklahoma.

"This time we're going to do things right." And Bessette's idea of the right wedding is a "beautiful and elegant one," followed by a fun-filled reception.

When it boils down to it, she said, "there isn't a right way or a wrong way to do anything. I think people should do what they want."

Nice day for a white wedding

But Lori Leibovich worries that some women mistake their true desires for how the wedding is painted in high-gloss magazines.

When the 31-year-old editor at Teen People sat down to plan her wedding, she was "tortured" by what she saw in the stacks of magazines through which she pored.

"I didn't see myself in any of the articles, photos or ads," she said in a phone interview from her home in Brooklyn. "You can't help but question yourself because you see them on every single page, and you ask, What's wrong with me?'"

Her angst boiled into a Web site, IndieBride.com, where women wanting weddings outside of the box can congregate or commiserate. She launched the colorful site in June 2001, two months before she married in, oddly enough, a fairly large and traditional wedding with 200 guests.

"I did wear a wedding dress, but it wasn't poofy," she said. She didn't have bridesmaids, toss a bouquet or have any wedding showers.

"It was perfect. It was beautiful. It was me. It was my husband."

So what is the mainstream? An attempt to get an opinion from Bride's magazine was deflected to another bridal magazine owned by the same company.

The editor-in-chief of Modern Bride, Antonia van der Meer, e-mailed a statement, which said: "It's really too simplistic today to label a bride as traditional' or nontraditional.' Her wedding will likely incorporate both elements.

"We believe that our reader and her fiance are sophisticated enough to make the choices that will make their wedding unique, and we encourage that freedom."

The "Anti-Bride Guide" has a freedom in that it's a book without advertising, not a magazine. As the authors write: "The most important thing you can do is relax and enjoy your life now. You're in love!"

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