Weddings bring out many things: hype, hope and heartfelt promise.
They also bring out critics, curmudgeons and overly concerned bystanders who have opinions on everything a bride -- whether she's marrying into the family down the street or into royalty as Kate Middleton will do April 29 -- says, thinks or does.
"We're paying for the wedding all on our own, for the most part, but that doesn't stop anyone and everyone from inserting their opinion, whether that's chair covers or the type of flowers or the venue," said Erica Finley, 26, of Royal Oak. She is to be married next month.
"It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter how well you know them. Either they've been to a wedding or they've planned a wedding themselves. They're so very eager to tell you what works and what doesn't."
• Related: Royal Wedding links and resources
But why?
It's one thing to care about your own wedding, but why do so many people -- women, especially -- care so much about the weddings of others?
A happy occasion
Unless she becomes president of the U.S. and has an inauguration or does something meriting a ticker tape parade, a wedding tends to be the largest party a woman will ever have.
They are usually happy occasions -- even though about half end in divorce -- and who doesn't like being involved, if only vicariously, in a happy occasion.
"I love weddings," said Joan Kaichen, 72, of Bloomfield Hills. There's "the whole romance, the new beginning, the whole celebration," she said. "The fact that it's a universal tradition. It's something that's celebrated in different ways all over the world."
She and her sister, who will fly in from Florida for the occasion, plan to watch Prince William wed Kate Middleton at Kaichen's home while her husband makes crumpets.
"Charles and Diana -- that seemed so arranged from the very get-go," she said. "But this one, where they started out as friends and the relationship grew from there, it's just compelling. And with all the horrible news going on, here's something you can be happy about and excited about and look forward to."
And of course, Kaichen added, there's always "the dress -- the whole mystery behind what it's going to be like!"
Princess fantasy
We are insatiable voyeurs.
We spy on the wedding photos that friends of friends post on Facebook because we are nosy. But also because "there is that whole yours is better than mine, mine is better than yours, keeping up with the Joneses" kind of competition, said Angela Thompson, who teaches "Unveiled: The Sociology of Weddings" at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth.
We snoop through the registries of brides we don't know. Just as there's something indescribably satisfying about Ivanka Trump registering for placemats at Crate & Barrel and a $325 silver serving spoon at Tiffany when she got married 1 1/2 years ago, there's also something satisfying about knowing that the witchy woman who lived down the hall from you in college but was too cool to be your friend registered for junk.
We tune into wedding-themed reality shows.
We read New York Times wedding announcements and bridal magazines. "I still find it so fascinating that women that are married are still buying my magazine," said Grace Ormonde, editor of Wedding Style magazine. "Women like the idea of being married."
Or at least they like the idea of having a wedding.
"It's highly significant as a cultural symbol," said Pamela Smock, a sociologist and family demographer at the University of Michigan. "People believe it is an achievement and something that everybody wants."
And why wouldn't they?
"We have this childhood fantasy that we have kind of embedded in our brains that comes from the Disney fantasies of Snow White," said Thompson. A wedding, she said, "is a chance to dress up and be a princess."
And we don't hesitate to speak up when we think someone is going about the business of being a princess all wrong.
"We tend to prefer that people follow the rules about what your wedding is going to look like," Thompson said. "It's supposed to look a certain way for you to have the happily-ever-after ending.
"When I was planning on getting married years ago, I briefly thought of wearing a red dress," she said. "The outcry from my family! 'Are you kidding? You're going to wear red?'
"Can you imagine what would happen if Kate Middleton decided she was going to wear red? The world would shut down."
Everyone weighs in
And so it was with all that cultural baggage that Sarah Reid, 29, of Southfield, who is planning to get married June 4, went to look for undergarments to wear with her wedding gown.
"The saleswoman who was trying to help me was basically telling me ... she was not going to help me with anything unless I got a corset.
"She had given me recommendations where her daughter had gone. Her daughter was the perfect bride in her eyes. She told me I should go to this specific place to get this corset. And I needed shoes from there and crystal jewelry and all that kind of stuff.
"I just kept explaining ... I didn't want to be restricted on my wedding day. I was just looking for another option. She basically told me that I was wrong, and she wasn't going to help me.
"I've never been turned down like that."
Of course, she's also never been a bride.
Contact Georgea Kovanis: 313-222-6842 or gkovanis@freepress.com
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