Diary of a Mad Bride by Laura Wolf

Martin got married. Sure that makes it a hand-me-down venue, but I figured with $10,000 I should just be happy it’s not the Motel 6.
    But even the Marrion wanted $4,000 just to rent the room. What are they, crazy? They’re barely above the Days Inn on the hotel food chain, and they want more than a third of my entire wedding budget? Forget it. That would leave a buck-fifty for decorating, and even I can’t be creative on a buck-fifty.
    How the hell do people afford these things?

october 15th
    M y parents are holding their position—no more money. Stephen’s parents are taking their cue—no more money.
    Apparently the Stewarts are so busy arguing over the terms of their divorce that the mere mention of money sends shivers down their spines.
    Well, they’ll be sure to shiver when Stephen and I are married at the homeless shelter at Port Authority.

october 17th
    K ate expressed concern about my wedding today. She claims that it’s consuming too much of her time. She’s fallen behind on her filing, her typing, her interoffice memos…and Barry’s starting to complain that she isn’t paying enough attention to
his
needs.
    I don’t get it. I’m an easygoing boss. She should be happy I’m not asking her to retype my file labels in a more “stylish” font like Barry did last month. Besides, if she’s got time to give herself a manicure in the middle of the day, then she’s got time to call the Chambers of Commerce for all the metropolitan areas in the greater tristate region, in search of a potential reception venue.
    I know how this sounds. I know it sounds bad.
    The greater tristate region?
Who the hell wants to get married there? But I’m afraid it’s come to this. No matter how creative I get there’s just no way $10,000 will pay for a unique and creative eighty-five-person wedding in New York City.
    Stamford, Connecticut, still beats my hometown. Trust me.

october 20th
    O ur parents have given us the names of people they want to invite to our wedding. All 135 of them!!! My parents had twenty-six, Mr. Stewart had eighteen, and Mrs. Stewart rang in with
ninety-one.
We don’t even know most of these people. For instance, who the hell is Hans Lindstrom? And how are we supposed to pay for his lobster risotto with a budget of $10,000?!

october 23rd
    M andy, who is still perfectly tan from her honeymoon in Hawaii, just told me that she and Jon exchanged engagement gifts. Who knew people even did this? Apparently
BB
discusses this custom in Chapter Sixteen. I’m still on Chapter Eight.
    Well, there’s no way Stephen and I can afford engagement gifts right now. He has to save money for his tuxedo, I have to save money for my stress management seminar, and we both have to save money for Hans Lindstrom’s lobster risotto!
    I wonder if he’d like a subscription to
Round-Up.

october 24th
    I had lunch with our staff writer Julie Browning. She’s spent the last two months doing an article on karaoke’s impact on New York nightlife, and we needed to hammer out a new angle since the latest issue of
Glamour
featured the exact same story. Did I mention that
Round-Up
is New York’s least read magazine?
    While we were eating, Julie noticed my engagement ring. Turns out emerald is her favorite stone. Classy lady. We started to talk about marriage and life and work. Julie used to be a senior editor at a magazine in D.C. I always assumed that she’d left because she preferred the freedom of a writer’s lifestyle. WRONG. Seems that once her boss got wind of her plans to marry she was surreptitiously edged out of her job. She was no longer invited to big corporate meetings, she was left out of the loop on major issues, and her story ideas were routinely passed over.
    I told her that I wasn’t worried about that since, unlike her socially conservative magazine in D.C.,
Round-Up
is a very liberal glossy. But Julie wouldn’t waver. She kept warning me to watch my back. “People assume that marriage, specifically being