A Hitch In Time

Pardon me if this column doesn’t make much sense; I am suffering from bridal-lag. Bridal-lag is similar to jetlag but without the fun of going anywhere. “Jetlag” is defined as “A temporary disruption of bodily rhythms caused by high-speed travel across several time zones typically in a jet aircraft.” But, in the case of Bridal Time Zones, all of which are located on a planet that exists on a separate but interactive plane with ours, no jet is necessary. Just a wedding date.

When I got engaged, little did I know that I crossed over to a parallel plane of existence in which the planet Planwed resides. In retrospect, this explains why those few minutes it took for my boyfriend to propose and for me to watch myself accept seemed to take one nanosecond. That’s how time works on planet Planwed.

Planwed actually has two incongruous time zones which exist simultaneously: Romance Time (RT) and Bridal Magazine Time (BMT). While you are visiting, it will seem time is crawling along at an excruciatingly slow pace, and then without warning it will suddenly speed up, resulting in panic attacks about finding an elbow-length two-tiered bridal veil with a one-quarter inch pencil edge immediately. Here is an example of how the complex physical properties involved can play out: I am not getting married for another five months, which, in Romance Time, is the equivalent of one decade. But I am having a wedding in five months, which is the equivalent of 3.024 seconds in Bridal Magazine Time. By their calculations I am teetering on catastrophic failure because I have not yet ordered the groomsmen’s boutonnieres.

Visitors to planet Planwed should be aware that while they are required to adhere to the two time zones simultaneously, residents of the planet are not. Each resident belongs to only one of the time zones, regardless of their geographical location (e.g. Wedding Cake Lake or Sparkly Ringland) and they expect you to adjust accordingly in your dealings with them.

When I approached the D.J. (who is from a very laid-back, mostly farmland area of Planwed) with a dog-eared list of carefully selected songs, he waved me away with a lackadaisical hand and scoffed, “Oh, you’ve got time!” But when I went shopping for a wedding dress the sales women nearly collapsed at the thought that I was just starting my search with a mere six months (BMT translation: 3.386 seconds) to go.

The BMT populace will have you believe that if you have not booked your honeymoon before anybody actually proposes to you, then clearly you are so unorganized and irresponsible you shouldn’t be allowed to marry, much less procreate. However, those dwelling in RT zones believe that if you dare to presume you will ever go on a honeymoon, time will expand exponentially until, despite all laws of physics, you will live for 350 years and spend them all dating scrawny guys with pocket-protectors who have a habit of spitting when they talk.

BMT was created and is monitored by a fairly sizable and wealthy country on planet Planwed similar to France in that its citizens all feel they are far more interesting and sophisticated than anyone else on the planet, but have very little evidence to back themselves up other than a snotty accent. The country is almost entirely populated by extremely thin women with blond highlights, sprinkled with a few effeminate men who wear a lot of hair product and say “fabulous” ad nauseum but have no literal translation in their language of “please” or “thank you.”

Wedding Dress Salespeople make up the largest population of BMT residents. These are the thinnest of the thin women and they are very high-strung and quite excitable. If they were animals, they would be hamsters – whiskers quivering, running like mad on their tulle-adorned wheels. Their tiny frames belie their immense strength, particularly in their upper arms, which are regularly exercised by pulling mercilessly at the corset ribbons of brides-to-be. Rewards are given to those capable of cinching a bride’s waist so tight that her back fat (which she formerly was not aware she had) splooges out the top of the dress, giving the effect of two extra breasts located in her armpits. Any means of causing a bride to faint is considered a sign of proficiency among this tribe; if the fainting is a result of successfully accentuating heretofore unknown back fat, you are likely to get a fabulous two-week vacation to Wedding

Cake Lake and an Employee of the Month plaque.

Caterers are a nomadic people who wander in and out of BMT and RT countries without regard. But mostly they are just a group of people whose accents – none of which are the same – are very difficult to understand. Often this results in having a dish at your wedding you did not know you ordered, and are loathe to eat, like Brussels sprouts in maple walnut syrup garnished with pepper-stuffed olives and rosemary. You thought he said, “roast beef.”

In addition to D.J.s, Florists and Bakers also live in temperate climes on the RT side of the planet. Florists live in a country where plants flower into picture-perfect blossoms no matter what the season, but if you try to pick any of them you are charged $150. Don’t even ask about the trees.

Wedding

Cake Lake is on a beautiful island and follows Romance Time rigidly. Here you are required to recline when sampling delicate cakes adorned with beautiful icing bows. The ensuing sugar high cuts off the flow of brain chemicals related to controlled spending, making the $1200 price tag for what amounts to, let’s face it, artfully arranged butter and flour, seem reasonable. Come to think of it, as lovely as the Wedding Cake People seem, they amount to no more than your average drug-pusher.

So you can see why, as I shuttle back and forth between the frenzied time zone of the Wedding Dress Salespeople and the dreamy, laid-back attitude of the D.J., I’m feeling a little deflated. My body and mind are having a difficult time understanding where or when I am anymore. But I am keenly aware that I have only 163 days left to plan, because no matter who I visit on this planet, this is considered the standard formal greeting. “Hi! Welcome to Patsy’s Floral Arrangements! Only 163 days to go! Well, there's just no chance in hell you're going to pull this off but we'll go ahead and humor you!”

Nobody told me about the existence of this planet before I became engaged. Maybe I was supposed to have been taken through special security procedures where the life of my future children was threatened should I leak any of this information to the happily oblivious women out there. Somehow I slipped through the cracks, and I feel it is my duty to warn you all. If you decide to go ahead and visit planet Planwed anyway, then all I can say is: May the Fondant Be With You.