We'll admit it. The Plunge is usually guilty of hyperbole. On far too many occasions, we've referred to the "647 blogs about bridal dresses" or stories like "50 Hot New Trends in Wedding Cake Frosting!"
This is usually a joke. This is usually a gross exaggeration of wedding-porn, which, we've privately admitted, might even be a touch...well, okay...unfair. After all, the wedding-porn's not that bad, right?
Then, this morning, after twirling our evil mustaches and plotting the subjugation of engaged women, we fired up the internet and clicked on our home page, TheKnot.com. And we realized we were guilty of something else entirely: understatement.
TheKnot, bless them, tempts your fiancée with these actual headlines: "900+ Centerpieces" and "Get 130+ creative table name ideas."
Let that sink in. 900+ centerpieces. 130+ creative table name ideas.
Now, we've been accused of being too sarcastic, too anti-wedding, too mean-spirited. Maybe that's all true. Maybe we're just being insensitive jerks. But c'mon, really...NINE HUNDRED CENTERPIECES?
Don't get us wrong. We know that choosing the perfect centerpiece is a high-stakes operation. The pressure's on. If you select the wrong decoration, then it's a near certainty that your wedding day, family relationships, the respect of your guests, your perch on the social ladder, and your very marriage--all of this--will go straight to the shitter.
We get it. It's a key decision.
But just for the sake of argument, let's put the 900 centerpieces in perspective by looking at a few other numbers:
21: Number of candidates in the 2008 presidential primaries. 21 might be a sufficient variety of choices for the primaries, but it just doesn't cut it for centerpieces, a subject more complex, nuanced, and substantive than presidential politics.
256: Number of players selected in the NFL draft. Think about this. Even hardcore football fans will rarely examine every single player taken in the draft--that's an awful lot of research. But it's nothing compared to the smorgasbord of centerpiece-possibilities.
127: Number of films that Samuel Jackson has appeared in. That's a lot of movies. But it's less than 15% of the kind of centerpieces you're lucky enough to choose from.
...and so on.
Which brings us back to The Plunge's core belief: we're not anti-marriage. We're not anti-women. We're not even anti-wedding. We are, however, anti-insanity. And on that note, if you haven't seen it, check out how wedding-porn is brainwashing your fiancee.
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