Why the Hell am I Obsessed with Wedding Shows?

There is of course the obvious reason, that hits home for all of us ladies a little bit: I want to get married.

But there is something else, it's kind of like shopping, it's my horrible guilty little pleasure. When my boyfriend walks in the room to see me salivating while Bridezillas is on the screen, I feel quite ashamed that I'm being entertained by something requiring little gray matter to process, but not ashamed enough to change the channel.

I've only encountered one fair maiden in my day that had no desire for a wedding, though she did want to get married. She ended up getting hitched in Wyoming with Falcons (yes, literally, the predatory bird) as her bridesmaids in order to remove the attention of the crowd from her. She agreed to this for her husband. She wanted to submit the holiest of unions at City Hall.

In any case, one out of 982,960,965 isn't much. And there must be a lot of people like me because there is talk of creating a whole freaking channel devoted to wedding programming.

These people, like me, can talk for hours about our dream wedding. Maybe it's in the 9th ward, maybe it's being performed by an Aboriginal chief, or perhaps on in animal costumes because the couple of comprised of furries. Or maybe it matters more who is there, not where it is or what it looks like. Whatever the case: practically every woman, at some point in her life, decides what she wants her wedding to look like.

Perhaps this is a bit of a sycophantic notion, setting oneself up for failure by virtue of creating such a decisive illusion. Maybe, those of us doing this are sort of delusional anyway.

But aside from the obvious, why the hell am I obsessed with wedding shows?

Say Yes to the Dress: Oh yes gimme more, I cannot stop looking at bride after monotonous bride try on piles of white satin and tulle, wondering, "oh dear...I do ever so hope this is the one for her!" By proxy getting a minor fill of my own "shopping" and reflected joy as well.

Bridezillas: My love for this show is absolutely vindictive in nature. These women are nasty, futile, irreverent, and superficial. I'm not (except for when I watch this show). This makes me feel good about myself. I can sit here and cattily narrate, "oh GAWWD I'd never do THAT, that is so foolish and trite." But I'm wasting my time watching these bitches, so I guess that's score Bridezillas 1, Asta 0.

Masters of Reception: Who doesn't love a good party? I know I do! This show may actually be somewhat constructive. It causes me to go, "hey, that's a great idea, but you know what I would have done better..." Then I feel a bit like I'm correcting the end of a Michael Bay movie.

My Fair Wedding: Alright, so I've only seen half of the first episode of this show, but I'm taken. This guy, David Tutera, does what I WANT to do! He rights all of the horrible horrible wrongs made by brides with bad taste. He whisks away tackiness and misguided design without the Bride's involvement at all. Yay David!

America's Trashiest Weddings: Oh the Fox Reality Channel, when do you not provide me with low-brow entertainment? This show actually features people who love each other. I can't say anything bad about it.

The thing that I must note about all of these shows, for whatever reason they generate an emotion that most television is incapable of creating: happiness.

How many television shows can actually make us happy? We're happy for imagining our own weddings and we're happy to admire these people who seem to be, for the most part, legitimately pleased with their lifetime long decision.

Of course I can poke holes in the many facets of these shows that are corrupt and why society need not participate in these traditions any longer. The bridal industry is a massive moneymaker pretty much contrived by religion and little girls' dreams of being a "princess" on her special day (note that through my experience of watching these shows, I can conclude that these women are a nightmare, do not marry them).

All those nasty notions are lifted away when I sit back, relax, open my mouth to catch some flies, and lose some brain cells to an episode of one of these matrimonial productions. What's so bad about just spacing out and being happy? Nothing at all.