Here is an article I found on MSN that pretty much describes me...
You Know You're an Anti-Bride If …Do you loathe the mad frenzy and expense of the American wedding industry? You just may be an anti-bride.
By Jessica Murphy
After I got engaged, my mother started making a lot of phone calls. She was putting out feelers for venues, dress shops, caterers, but really, she wanted to prompt me into wedding-planning action (of which there had been none). When she called a small historic home and made an appointment for me and my fiancée to visit, she went on to explain to the caretaker that I didn't want anything too fancy, that I wasn't looking to be the center of attention, that she was having trouble convincing me to have a wedding at all. "She's an anti-bride," the caretaker said, nonplussed. "I do very well with anti-brides. Bring her in."
It was the first I'd heard of the term, but it seemed right on target. I felt like an anti-bride—in love and wanting to be married but decidedly not in love with the trappings of the American bride and the American wedding.
Anti-brides are not anti-marriage. They're not anti-wedding. And they're certainly not anti-groom. They're not even necessarily anti-white dress—though they are probably, on the whole, more open to a wedding dress in color or period costume. Anti-brides would simply like to opt out—if not entirely, then at least in part—of the mad frenzy and expense of the beast that is the American wedding industry.
How do you know if you're an anti-bride? Here are some key indicators:
You need to be convinced to have a wedding. Eloping doesn't seem like a bad option. The idea that all of the work involved in planning the event can disappear with one short trip to Vegas is tantalizing—right up until the moment you walk down the aisle.
Bridal boutiques give you the creeps. You're not enamored with the whole process of finding a wedding dress, and Vera Wang price tags seem downright absurd. A generous family member may willing to buy you an expensive dress (and if you're having a short engagement, you can be sure the boutique will charge more to "rush" the order), but you will opt for buying something off the rack, online shopping, eBay, or one of the more reasonably priced chains.
You don't believe that the wedding is "all about the bride." It's amazing how often a bride-to-be will hear this phrase. However, the anti-bride is typically uncomfortable with this notion because to you it's all about the groom—and the vows the two of you will make.
You let your bridal party decide what to wear. Many of us have bridesmaid dresses gathering dust in our closets. As an anti-bride, you'd rather have your friends wear a dress that they like, that they feel beautiful in, and that they can wear and feel beautiful in again. You may not even have a bridal party at all. You may simply have your sister stand by your side.
Save the dates. What save the dates? Party favors. What party favors? You don't sweat the small stuff. You forget to wear something borrowed, something blue …
You'd rather go for a hike than have a bachelorette party. Sure, your friends who don't like to hike will want to kill you for making them exercise—and you may never hear the end of it if they disagree with your interpretation of an "easy" hike—but if they're your friends, they'll still love you. And that sip of wine at the top of the trail will never taste so good.
You opt for nontraditional wedding invitations. Whether you and your fiancée design them yourselves or your best friend and brilliant graphic designer offers to do the legwork, you want the invitations to reflect you as an individual couple, not an ideal that others aspire to.
You fight tooth and nail not to have a bridal shower. This one goes hand in hand with not wanting to be the center of attention. What can be worse than opening gifts all alone? All eyes on you? If you're too slow, people will grumble. If you go too fast, people will think you're insincere. If you must have a shower, be sure the gifts come unwrapped. Displaying the gifts, rather than opening them, will let you get straight to thanking your guests for their generosity. Then you'll have more time to actually catch up with them.
You don't own anything resembling a wedding planner. You don't have any how-to guides or planners—not even the ones that say that they are for "anti-brides" (beware the burgeoning "anti-bride" industry, whose guides seem to resemble every other wedding planner). Any bridal magazines on your bookshelf were given to you by your mother during the aforementioned period of trying to convince you to have a wedding, and any planning is done on an as-needed basis.
You only need a few months to get your act together. Short engagements certainly aren't for everyone, but you can see that needing nine months to a year to plan a wedding is a myth. In fact, aside from writing sincere thank-you notes, the anti-bride probably sees that most of the dos and don'ts of wedding planning are myths. In the end, as long as you and the groom are planning to show up, the anti-bride knows that everything will work out just fine.
Jessica Murphy is a freelance writer based in Seattle.
