Blogs May 8, 2010 at 9:43 am

Comments

1
Bridezilla!
2
The cornstalks in the background speak volumes.
3
If the bridesmaid dresses are a typical color, they are better off in black and white. Bridesmaid dresses are intentionally hideous.
4
Selfish? Not when your bridesmaids look like that...

Ah jeez, I can't help myself sometimes. I'm a jerk.
5
man i wonder what it must be like to walk around and be annoyed about everything and just whine about everything in the universe

must be a real treat to hang around savage
6
It's because the bride is the only one who is not a virgin.
7
Wait until you see the picture I took of the keypad on an ATM at a bank in Peoria—it'll blow your freakin' mind, Swearengen!
8
I see what you did there with this post, Dan. And I like it.

Subtle!
9
those last two could eat the others.
10
"My parents mortgaged their home for this dress, and I'll be damned if these bridesmaids steal my spotlight!"
11
@2, @9 Corn-fed, indeed.
12
When I first looked at the picture, I didn't see the note at the bottom about B/W vs. color. I assumed it was an interesting expose' on including drag queens into the bridal party! (2nd from the end).
13
oh, i didn't even see the bite-size little girl. run!!!
14
Bad taste is always in fashion in the midwest. When I think back on my own lack of style, I cringe.
15
Meh... wedding photos are always indulgent.
16
This picture is being used for the purpose of advertising. It's not meant to be an example of what this bride wanted. It's supposed to appeal to brides-to-be by calling their attention to this one, thus getting them to remember this photographer when the time to hire one comes.

Advertising 101 - make an impression any way you can. It doesn't have to be representative of your product.
17
the only thing more pathetic that 'hipsters' sneering at heartland values is retarded heartland reject 'hipsters' sneering at heartland values....
18
17
....unless it is faggy drama queen bitches sneering at at heartland values
19
And also let's trash this tasetless picture's rotten composition: The bride being the only color creates an overwhelming focal point wasted by being way off on the left hand side. What crappy artistry.
20
Not to mention - WTF are they lining up for? Waiting to cross over into the color-filled wonderama that is wife-dom?
21
The HUGE bazooka's and the very wrinkled looking dresses would be enough for me to look for another photographer and different material for my bridesmaid dresses. I agree with The Max @19, reposition them and make the bride the "center of attention".
22
@ 20: You made me snort! :)
23
@20-it's like a reverse Pleasantville. In reality, the bride should be in black and white, with the other girls in color.

Girls that size, poor fashion choices, corn field--it must be Iowa.
24
lol, everyone's a photo critic. I agree that the 'B&W with one thing in color' shot has become a ridiculously overused cliche', and though it can look good, it's still just a really lazy way of creating a visual focal point without actually having to think about composition, leading edges, framing, depth of field, etc. (you know, without actually having to do your fucking job as a photographer)
25
There's a trend in wedding photos to do black and white with spot color, usually the bouquet and (if he wears one) the boutonniere on the groom. Usually tacky looking, but usually a hell of a lot better than this.
26
You just know there's going to be jello salad and iceberg lettuce with French dressing at the reception...
27
Skanks.
28
wtf it is a wedding! of course it is all about the bride and groom. why have a wedding then if it isn't to focus on them? complain about the existence of the wedding if the call for attention bugs you. but a photo that draws your eyes to bride? big deal. that's the point.
29
Also, what's up with the huge spider shadow on the right?
30
@29: IT IS THE ONLY THING I CAN LOOK AT.
31
@29 and 30: But it's so much more interesting to make fun of teh fatties than notice the spider....
32
Ugh, using this as their ad would make me run for any other available photographer.

1. Lazy composition
2. Cliche "one thing in color"
3. Obvious use of Photoshop B&W conversion without the necessary brightness/contrast adjustments to pull it off
4. Horrible choice of background (too busy; bridesmaids get muddled)
5. Bad framing (why is a bit of a shed in the picture?)
6. Bad cropping (too much space left over their heads)
7. No consideration of lighting (bridesmaids' faces in shadow)
8. Focal point shunted way too far over to one side
9. GIANT DEMONIC SHADOW SPIDER!
10. Bad posing (nobody wants to see the back of the little girl's head)

Seriously. I'm not a professional photographer by any means, but I could do better. If your professional ad makes me confident that I as a layman am better at your job than you are, you've failed pretty hardcore.
33
@ 32, my wife's brother got married a few years ago and since his bride's family was paying for everything they had to use their handpicked photographer (some friend or family member, natch). Out of over 200 pictures taken, maybe five were any good. I took more good pictures on one roll of film than that assclown did. And yes, he was a so-called "professional." Hell, one of his pictures violated the "don't stand in front of a post or else your subject looks like he has it growing out of his head" rule.
34
8: except that when used to refer to the board on which colours are placed and mixed, or to the range of colours thereon, the word is "palette," not "palate" (which means "the roof of the mouth"). Jeesh, for a writer Dan certainly plays fast and loose with spellings and definitions (see also: "Today in homonyms").
35
@33 -- And yet he got paid and you didn't.
36
@ 26 and 32: You have made my morning special. More snark please.
37
@34 How do you know Dan wasn't referring to his mouth?

@36 My pleasure.
38
@ 35, proving what? It wasn't a competition.
39
Didn't Spielberg do this in "Schindler's List?"
40
The bridesmaid's all have big tits...the poor bride couldn't breast feed a hamster. It's her day, leave her alone!!!
41
@39 Yes, and she too wore red (I believe the colour was a symbol of young life and hope that was crushed by the nazis), and she ended up dead on the back of a cart full of other dead people, her hope and promise extinguished....very cool midwestern marriage/death/cornfield analogy! (...or did you just mean the single colour?)
42
Vacation time already? Galesburg? Amtrak to Chi?
43
Good god, that's one of the worst wedding photos I've ever seen. And this clown is using it as advertising!?! WTF?
44
@29 @30 HOLY FUCK IT'S HUGE. Is that a typical Illinois spider?
45
Dan, You were in Peoria Illinois and you didn't even call??!!!
46
Dan, You were in Peoria Illinois and you didn't even call??!!!
47
So getting married is the ticket to the land of oz? Click your heels together, because there is no place like home.
48
@29, 30, that is the first thing I noticed. That is a HUGE FUCKING SPIDER SHADOW. Freak me the fuck out.

Also, I bet a dollar that marriage makes it two years MAX, and that at least one of the bridesmaids has slept with the groom. I'm guessing bridesmaid #5.
49
Jeesh, for a writer Dan certainly plays fast and loose with spellings and definitions

Seattle tower, TWA Delta Sierra climbing to flight level 2-9-0.
50
Maybe it's a one-fem, five-butch six-way lesbian wedding? Didn't Iowa legalize that?
51
@26 - omg YUM
52
I assumed they were ghosts. "Honey, I was walking by a cornfield at dusk and five strange women said some disturbing things about you. Have you been engaged before, and why did you just pour a new concrete floor in your basement?"
53
Dan did a Savage Love Live gig Friday at Knox College in Galesburg, a town which interestingly has ties to Carl Sandburg, Ronald Reagan, biologist Sewall Wright, Ferris wheel inventor George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., and the inimitably named no-nonsense Civil War nurse Mary Ann "Mother" Bickerdyke. (Last but by no means least.)
54
@53 Does Dan post his speaking schedule anywhere? I've looked on his facebook page and didn't see anything (I'm only asking because it seems like you know these things............and Bickerdyke? Seriously?)
55
@54, after Dan's ribs-'n'-mac post I just googled "dan savage galesburg" to find out what up; found a link to the Knox College calendar. I guess there's stuff on Facebook, somewhere--it irritates the crap out of me so I don't go there.

I googled Galesburg because it rang a bell. Turns out that was because I have a book on Ferris wheels, and the Wikipedia article on the town has a list of local luminaries including Ferris. And yup, Bickerdyke. A name for the ages. I'm sure there's a Fussyfag out there somewhere :D
56
I didn't even notice that little girl in the picture until the fifth time I saw this.
57
Everybody please back up off the fat girls. There is plenty wrong with this photo that you can talk about; making cracks about the bridesmaids' weight is just lazy and mean.
58
@55 Thanks. I don't "do" facebook, either. I'll be very sad if he comes here to speak and I miss it, sigh.
59
Right, because a wedding is really all about the bridesmaids.
60
I'm curious what Dan was doing in my neck of the woods as well - if he was giving a lecture or something nearby I'm kicking myself for missing it.

All I did today really was season a bunch of cast iron cookware.
61
For those focused on the size of the bridesmaids, maybe you're too easily contemptuous of this photo? Cuz you totally fell for it: the line created by the bridesmaids (follow the top of their heads) intentionally emphasizes the petiteness of the bride. Which means, on the flip, a visual over-emphasis on the size of the women at the other end.

I'd bet money the bride is one of those skinny bitches who feels secret contempt for and thus superiority over her fat girlfriends, so much so that she made a point of making a permanent memory of it. Cuz, as a large busted girl myself, I would know from jump that that style of bridesmaid's dress would do nothing for my figure--my bet is that such complaints wouldn't have been heard, as the intention is often to make the bridesmaids look as hideous as possible.

So, yeah: a selfish, shallow and narcissistic bride with tacky photography to boot? Welcome to American weddings people!

62
Spider! Shadow! Spider! Spider! Spider!
63

Always a grayscale, but never an RGB.
64
...That was a terrible pun.
65
The bride is, for some reason, all the time, bleeding,
and she is friendless.

Up there is Galesburg.
66
From Galesburg, with love:

It's too bad you missed Butts' Law Office, with the wonderful email address buttslaw@yahoo.com. Butt slaw!
67
Wow, most of y'all are so kind, loving, and tolerant, I could cry!
68
Everybody please back up off the fat girls. There is plenty wrong with this photo that you can talk about; making cracks about the bridesmaids' weight is just lazy and mean.>>

Thank you. It makes me so sad that so many adults never left the biting nastiness of 7th grade behind (and seem perfectly ok with that).
69
Soulless bride sucking the life colour from all life around her? This actually makes sense, doesn't it?

Post script: she looks manufactured. Trite. It's the other women who look human, unique, and alive.
70
Dear everyone who is freaking out over a spider —

Your phobia is real. I am validating it. You have nothing to worry about. In the bigger scheme of things, there is much, much more terrifying than the harmless spider (exception given to the highly localized brown recluse and black widow). There is something worse than even the human centipede.

It is this "life" form. And yes: it was really hard for me to even summon the courage to find this picture. I will have nightmares tonight. Especially ones suddenly taking to the air and directly toward you (every time).

Some bugs can always be worse.

Love,
-Tesla Girls
71
@26: Très ler!
72
So Tesla, do you remember the scene in Little House on the Prairie (I think) where Laura is away from the house, and this cloud of grasshoppers descends and carpets the ground...she has to run home across them in her bare feet, feeling them squish underfoot? Gaa, I woke up barfing that night....I feel your pain :(
73
snobbery snobbery. i'm from the midwest (granted, a significantly larger city than this one) and think it's pretty funny how supposedly enlightened and cultured coasties think we're all a bunch of hicks. i judge all of you who would spend many tens of thousands of dollars on perfect princess weddings more harshly than these chicks, unattractive as this picture may make them.

*my* real midwest (read: rust belt bigger cities) is down-to-earth and more unique than many places, and the people are more genuine than anywhere else. as long as you're in metropolitan areas where we're not all bigots, you've got the best of both worlds (and the coasts have plenty of bigots, too).

i always love how when i visit my BFF in the Bay Area i always hear: "oh, you're from wisconsin...so....what do you DO there?" just so y'all know: we have museums here, we have bars here, we have music here, we have awesome people here. and the bourgeoisie who can/want to spend obscene amounts of money on weddings and furniture and photographers and "art" have plenty of opportunity.
74
@73 You have a point, there are definitely plenty of cool places in the midwest, like Madison...however, I think you would've made your snark against "enlightened and cultured coasties" a little more effective if your avatar weren't Princess Jasmine...just sayin'...
75
Re: the spider shadow...are you sure it's not an *ACTUAL SPIDER* that was crawling up the picture as Dan took the photo? That's what I assumed, at any rate.
76
@73: Dumplin', no need to lecture me. So I once lived in the Twin Cities then. Real great place. A smidgen above average for the Upper Midwest, don'tcha know. Best place in the whole world for ice cream. A Kopps on every other corner just can't compare. I once lived in Seattle. Okay place, but ya betcha Ballard makes for more sense when you've lived in Minnesota. And we already know from here I once lived in lower Texas, but no one ever actually knows that unless I spill around them. They know all about spilling there. I learnt from the best.

@74: I'd also add to the avatar the login name, but we digress.

@72: Oh, do I ever remember LHotP. Like clockwork on Monday night at 7p. Starring Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Michael Landon as God. As in, Michael Landon played a pious father teaching good family values on TV. Then Michael Landon played an angel in Highway to Heaven. And just before he passed away, he was working on his next series: I'm God, starring Michael Landon.

Ahem. I don't remember that episode, but I can certainly visualize it. I believe Ingalls Wilder actually was referring to a specific locust swarm plague that literally swept in across much of the prairie states east from the Rocky Mountains in 1875. It was estimated the swarm totalled in the several trillions of grasshoppers all at once. It is particularly noteworthy because it was a species of grasshopper — named, unsurprisingly, the Rocky Mountain locust. After that swarm event, the entire species vanished permanently and are now extinct. Cause? It is suspected that pressure from white settlers farming strained their habitat to a point where their confinement resulted in the swarm (which is what happens when you cluster grasshoppers too closely to one another within a season; it triggers a change in biological development to an aggressive mode).

History class dismissed.
77
@ 73 - You had a pretty big qualifier there - as long as you're in metropolitan areas. But most of the stereotypes about the Midwest are really rural stereotypes more than Midwestern ones, and the Midwest (and the south, for that matter) tend to be more rural than the Northeast or the West Coast. Though your larger point - that people on the coasts tend to forget that there are some pretty big cities in the Midwest - is well made. (Hell, people seem to forget that Chicago is in the Midwest.)

Don't get me wrong, I actually really like the cities in the Upper Midwest, even aside from the special place in my heart that Saugatuck holds. And your point is well made - for instance, there are plenty of rural areas of Maryland that, despite being in a coastal state and relatively close to both Baltimore and Washington, might as well be in the backwoods of Kentucky. And speaking of Kentucky, Louisville is great. But the Midwest is, overall, more rural than the coasts, which informs perception of those areas.

@ 75 - I'd add to the avatar and the username an apparent hostility toward capital letters, but that's rather beside the point.
78
Er, @ 76. Sorry for the typo.
79
@76 I was thinking of the book, actually (the first series I read on my own, starting with book 2...the first has written on the front flap, "For _____, who is 6 years old, and a good listener." but I digress as well...) Anyhoo, her description of running across those insects is appalling, ew!

@77 I'm pretty sure the rule is, unless you are e.e. cummings or k.d. lang, you must capitalize your first and last names, no exceptions. And personally, I just don't think you can go wrong with a Wizard of Oz avatar--ruby slippers, Glinda, flying monkeys, the wicked witch, so many choices--but I've been meaning to say, your new avatar is very lush...yes, I think that's the word I'm looking for... :)
80
@78: I went through my anti-caps phase many years ago. Back then I was all "hay i am the next bell hooks, e.e. cummings, and k.d. lang of literary protest, goddammit. hear me speak. loudly, for. i am. ignored, otherwise. thank you. my name is telsa grills. all lowercase lowercase lowercase lowercase, repeat."

@79: Alas, I don't remember reading any of her books, though a few short stories were definitely in our primary school storytelling hours.

[and I see you beat me to the quip about lang and cummings. curse you. so can!!!uck. Now I have the Mad TV sketch of The Wizard of Oz's "alternate ending" stuck in my head.]
81
@ 79, 80 - Oh, we can get into the actual UTILITY of capital letters, sure.

Mostly, I just hate "Small Caps." With a passion.
82
@81: Oh, small caps are the worst. Some provincial and state transportation ministries have a real stiffy for small-cap road signage (like this in Mississippi — wtf is this, people?!!). Absolutely drives me mental. "LRN 2 TYPOGRAPHY PPL K THX XOXOXO."
83
Tesla, don't forget...if you start Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" on the 3rd roar of the MGM lion at the start of the Wizard of Oz, the music follows the movie (at least for what was the first side of the original album).

@82 What about iced caps? (Tesla knows what I mean...)
84
@73: "i judge all of you who would spend many tens of thousands of dollars on perfect princess weddings more harshly than these chicks, unattractive as this picture may make them."

Seriously, you do not know the depths of poor taste that people can plumb WITH money. Just because this lady has no semblance of artistic taste and class doesn't mean she didn't blow a wad of cash.
85
oh well, in my defense...i guess the Jasmine avatar and general disuse of capitalizing are just due to me not taking the interwebs quite as seriously as i do the "real" world...as in, it's fluffier than real life (though i do enjoy it, of course) so my representations of myself and methods of communication don't require the standards they would for the physical world.

so i maintain my point: snobbery is unattractive, as are the materialistic values that lead to this attitude toward hick weddings.

@76...i think i'm going to start calling my boyfriend "dumplin'." even though i think that was (if good-natured) an attempt to poke a bit o fun at me, dotcha know. but you betcha it's a cutsie of a nickname, ai'na?

and it's a bit silly to judge someone on her avatar, isn't it? how do you know i didn't choose it because i'm being ironic about something, like all those super-cool hipsters? (and that's another funny thing, our "hipsters" are like your normal people...i see y'all complain about hipsters on here and chuckle because you don't even realize you're hipsters, too).
all love to you beautiful people...i just wanted to remind you to send some love our way, too.
and anyway, Jasmine is totally hot...
86
@76 & 77...username? is it the "vegan" thing? now that makes me a little sad if that's what bothers you. again, i've never been big for the interwebs and never got to know the "right" ways to do things, again, because it's not as important as real life, so i'm confused. the rule can't be about having a location in there, as evidenced by "Anne in MA." and many don't use anything approaching a christian name...so? what?

is it that it's annoying for someone to be vegan or to put it in her username? because, again, i don't take life on the interwebs super seriously, so never really thought these things mattered very much. and if it's annoying that i am vegan to begin with, i'll chalk up your annoyance to being defensive about some hick from the midwest being more enlightened than you ;)
87
@86: Are you sure it isn't that important for you? You just wrote a two-paragraph rant defending your name. I thought we all stopped pretending how important our "real" (a turn of phrase I always found odd ... so this is all ... imaginary?) lives were in 1998.
88
@83: Please don't remind me. I h9.5 Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and my stoner ex was constantly synchronizing the two together. I just had to end up leaving the house when that happened. It didn't matter: once she toked, she wasn't much for conversation for the rest of the day anyway.

What are you on about, woman? Oh, ha. I got it now. Nice play on words. No, they're generally vile, except on those late mornings in July when you have to be outside all day and just want the caffeine fix without the ice cubes or heat. I always add a hazelnut flavour shot. Which doesn't improve it, but it renders them less harsh. Be glad you know little of Ontario's Coffee Time!

@85: I call my favourite cat alive Dumplin', so parse it as you please. Also, when did this become a "hick wedding"? My kinfolk? They're hicks. Former sharecroppers, even. No need to lecture me on the delicate nuances of hickdomania. Let Garrison Keillor do it for you.

@86: Please. Do us all a favour and invest in yourself if you haven't already done so.
89
is it all the rain and gray skies on the west coast that make you all so cranky? gotta love the personal attacks trumping simple disagreement, especially on a post regarding such trivial matters. i suppose i oughtn't try to dip in to any conversations here anyway.

thanks, slog, for reminding me in less than one day why i usually avoid engaging in these types of conversations on the interwebs. i'll go back to lurking now, and you can reserve your venom for people who know the rules of this silly game.
90
Yes, the midwest is a trivial matter. Can we pave it yet?
91
@89: Sweet jesus in a crackpipe. Many here aren't in Seattle, the west coast, a cost, or even the Pacific time zone.

Build up a little callous on your ego and you're good to go here. I can even lend some of mine.

@90: I will derail you for that. Someday.
92
You can't derail me, I've paved over the tracks.

CONVOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
93
I'm from "Wisco," too. Oh, yes, there's LOTS to do there...as long as you either live in one of the 3 large cities or don't mind driving cross-state to get to one of them. The main pastimes everywhere else include drinking cheap beer and later vomiting up said cheap beer.

Actually, those are two of the main pastimes in the 3 large cities, too.

But, hell, maybe those are the main pastimes for young'uns everywhere these days. I don't get out much.
94
I haven't been following this thread, but it's pretty obvious just from reading the last few posts that this "vegangirl" dipshit is all of about 12 years old.

BC, you can't pave the midwest. Where would we get all that lovely HFCS if there was no corn?
95
Aren't "most" brides selfish? The whole entire time leading up to my co-workers wedding I had to listen to her talk obsessively about her wedding and checking her registry hourly. She would make our interns for the summer run errands for her wedding (mind you it is not her company) and our boss even EXPECTED me to put in my own personal time for free because she offered to make her dress, we work at a fashion company and I politely declined. Her registry consist of super expensive items mostly due to the fact that she just wanted people to give them money. IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILTY OF YOUR GUEST TO PAY FOR YOUR WEDDING, which is why when I got married I made sure to skip all the bullshit, 5 minute ceremony, thank you for coming now here's some good food and shit load of booze, LET'S GET WAISTED!
96
@89: You haven't lurked enough if you weren't at least sort of vaguely braced for "personal attacks trumping simple disagreement, especially on a post regarding such trivial matters." (I think that's the subtitle for the Slog, actually.)

People are nice here! You just have to have to be less defensive about having dignity (because you're conversing on the same platform as LOLCATS), or a "real life" vs. our imaginary Matrix-induced existence, stuff like that.
97
Gloria's absolutely correct. Actually, Slog has really mellowed with age. We haven't had a really good flame war in years.
98
That's a really big arachnid.
99
Maybe she's just not, ya know, in Kansas anymore?
100
@91 & 92.....This is why I spent the drive back from Costco thinking "slog, slog, slog," because I knew you guys would make me laugh...."Sweet jesus in a crackpipe," definitely my new favourite phrase! (and Tesla, you are SO clever with the imbedded graphic, very cool.)

Ah, vegangirl @85/86, I know it hurts. Every post I made at first, whether it was on politics or tampons resulted in a big "sit DOWN Canadian!" and yet, I am still here, discussing really important things like the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz connection. And I beg to differ: This IS the real world, and everything else you do, the grocery shopping, toilet bowl cleaning, spaghetti making is naught but Plato's shadows on the wall cave allegory (yeah, we old English majors like to take the occasional break from our $12/hour retail jobs to say things like that) Anyway, you need to nut up, or as Dan might say, vadge up, or whatever his term was. Bon chance!

PS: IMHO: Pretty challenging to be ironic with a Disney avatar when your name is vegangirl....I'm thinking the Jasmine avatar would've worked better if your name had something to do with cock. Or, keep vegangirl, and make your avatar a sign from Sizzler steakhouse! (Jeez, maybe we do spend too much time here...)

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