The Best Time to Plan Your Wedding is When You’re Single

As a corollary to my benediction of the wedding binder, I’d like to rant against the societal forces that shame women for planning their weddings early. Because this wouldn’t be Violet on Orange if I didn’t tilt at windmills.

I found this photo of myself, junior year of college in the Davenport dining hall, apparently practicing my wedding planning with an orange. Prelude to an Engagement on Orange?

Adjust genders/titles here as needed, but you know the scene. In a well-worn trope, a man discovers his girlfriend prematurely scouting venues online, marathoning episodes of Say Yes to the Dress or looking just a little too hard at the displays in a jeweler’s window. But being on the other side of the coin now — that is, I’m supposed to be doing these things but I keep putting them off — I’m flabbergasted that society shames the pragmatic woman for getting the ball rolling on these arduous tasks.

Another dining hall throwback photo, this time in Pierson. I’m just deploying these somewhat non-sequitur images to remind myself that I went to college to get more knowledge. Not — as these wedding planning posts may imply — that I went to Jupiter to get more stupider.

Well, in typical fashion, I have put in the research where jewelry is concerned. I won’t be shamed!

Sure, you wouldn’t want to throw yourself so wholeheartedly into pre-engagement wedding planning that you, say, lose your life or your job. But it’s increasingly apparent to me that for most people, planning an event of this scale and expectation is a burgeoning beast whose nightmare nature only becomes apparent when you’re in too deep.

Moral 1: Never shame the premature plotter! With apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins: She fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise her.

Keeping current: I’m spending too much time going out. Stay in! Plan a wedding!

Moral 2: I need to book either a wedding planner or an elopement.