June 4, 2014 • 37 mins
Writer Jen Doll has attended so many weddings, she wrote a hilarious memoir about the nuptial tradition from the guests' perspective. Cristen chats with Doll about weddings and relationships, feminism and her new book, "Save the Date."
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Supports
dot Com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and
I'm Caroline. And since this is unofficially wedding week or officially,
should we say officially totally officially, Yeah, it's officially wedding
week on Stuff Mom Never Told You because this is
(00:26):
the beginning of June, which is also the beginning of
wedding season. That's right. And earlier in the week we
talked about gay weddings, and today we have a fantastic
interview to share with you from the writer Jen Doll,
who recently published a hilarious memoir called Save the Date. Yeah.
(00:48):
Her book actually stemmed out of a post on The
Hairpin a couple of years ago where she basically recounted
all of the weddings she had attended. And I read
it in awe because I mean, I've I've been to
a good chunk of weddings, but nowhere near the number
that she has attended. Yeah, she's been too. I think
(01:08):
there were seventeen listed in that Hairpin post, and she's
been to even more than that. And so in the interview,
one of the first questions I asked her is how
she's managed to go to so many weddings. Um, do
you remember the first wedding you went to? Caroline? Oh? Gosh, Um,
probably my uncle No. Oh, No, I was the flower
(01:31):
girl for the wedding of um We. We grew up
next to a Greek family in Marietta, or I grew
up next to a Greek family and I was their
flower girl for one of their daughters. And it's funny
because you know, everybody in the entire church had really
dark hair, and I was here's like this little blonde
girl walking down the aisle, you know, throwing flowers out,
(01:52):
and people are like, who did she belong to? But
you didn't care? But I didn't care. No, But yeah,
that was That was my first wedding experience. The first
one that I remember was when my oldest brother, who's
significantly older than I am, got married and I was
a bridesmaid. And it felt like prom for me because
(02:12):
there was the whole process of getting fitted for a
dress and doing hair and getting to walk down the
aisle with my very cute soon to be sister in
laws a younger brother. Saought it was a very big deal,
the only downside of which was that it happened in
August in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and thus it was a
(02:34):
swamp outside, hot swamp. My mother says, I'm not allowed
to get married in the summer. Yeah, because she'll be
too hot. Yeah, that's the funny thing about how many
summer weddings there are. It's just I've sat at an
outdoor wedding in Atlanta in July and melted. Yeah, I
remember coming in. It was in June. It was a
June outdoor wedding a couple of years ago, and I
(02:55):
came in completely sunburned. Thanks a lot. Well, I probably does.
My fault should have put on sunscreen. Let's be real.
Let's be real. Well, and since speaking of real, let's
toss that a few relevant wedding season statistics, because Jen
dolls memoirs Save the Date is all about her experience
as being a wedding guest. So for a few numbers
(03:17):
to kick things off in the two thousand thirteen wedding season,
according to the Wedding Site, than not the average number
of wedding guests hundred and thirty eight. Really big wedding
is it? I have no I have no concept that
feels like a lot to me. Yeah, I well, I
know that one thirty eight is probably low compared to
(03:37):
some people out there, or it feels low compared to
some people out there who I know. For instance, my
friend her in laws got kind of carried away with
the guest list, so I think she wanted more like
a hundred and thirty eight, but I think ended up
with closer to three. Who who I know. Well, well,
so you have to spend a lot of money for
all of those guests and all of that fun time
(03:58):
that you're having. But if you're do in in Manhattan,
which is the most expensive place to get married, you're
going to spend an average of eighty six thousand, nine
hundred and sixteen dollars. That's nuts. That's nuts, um. And
apparently one of the trends of late is that spending
on your wedding guests is increasing. So well, maybe part
(04:21):
of the explanation for that eighty six thousand dollar tab
in Manhattan at least is the fact that spending on
wedding guests is going up. So not only are people
who are getting married spending a lot of money on
a venue and dresses and texas, but now it's also
guest entertainment. Apparently, in two thousand thirteen couples spent an
(04:44):
average two two dollars per guest. Yeah, and this whole
guest entertainment category is apparently growing at at rapid speed.
In nearly one and three couples provided additional guest entertainment,
compared with just eleven percent in two thousand line. So
is this like, does this include the favors, the band,
(05:05):
the I don't know. That's what I'm thinking, And I'm
just gonna go ahead and throw this out there, Caroline,
for people listening who might be planning a wedding, if
you want to integrate a live podcast or a fee
into your guest entertainment, we will come. I I work
for food, I do know. I will work for food
(05:26):
and cash wants. Or maybe if we could just do
like a blind selection of one of the gifts on
the wedding gifts, Yeah, we could totally. We could totally
do that, so just let us know. But more importantly,
I'm really excited to share this interview that I got
to do with jendall Um. There is, by the way,
some some background noise because we actually chatted outside at
(05:49):
a cafe in Fort Green. Um. And so don't mind
the noise too much, folks. It's it's not too bad,
but just it's more like an outdoor podcast. Yeah, like
like we're all together outside at a cafe. Yeah. And
I just like, close your eyes and picture Kristen and
Jendall surrounded by hundreds of podcast listeners just staring at them,
(06:11):
just staring at us, not creepily at all. So, with
no further ado, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce
you to Jen Doll so Gendall. For people who aren't
aware of Save the Date and your Wedding attended tabit.
(06:32):
How many weddings have you been to? Just to start
off at this point, I've been to approximately thirty um,
and I think there could be more that I don't remember,
but thirty are the ones that I can actually count. Um.
The book deals with seventeen weddings because I joked that
like otherwise I would have been writing the War in
(06:52):
piece of weddings like that was in page book. We
had to cut some of them out to make it,
you know, a narrative arc that people could actually read
and not have to carry around like some sort of
giant home. So how does one go about getting invited
to the wedding and also not experience the wedding pictinue
(07:12):
because it seems like in a book you don't reach
a point of wedding exhaustion or bankruptcy related to having
to buy some many wedding gifts, right, I mean, I
guess to some extent, you know, for me, my my
feeling about weddings changed as I kept going to weddings
in my lifetime, and some of the bankruptcy stuff that
(07:33):
maybe I should have thought about more early on in
my wedding going life wasn't an issue for me. I
was not that I didn't not that I had unlimited funds,
but simply that I thought if I was invited to
a wedding, I should go to a wedding, and it
was such an important thing and I would never miss
any of these friends weddings. UM. Later I started to realize,
I'm like, I wish maybe someone had told me back then,
(07:54):
you don't have to actually go to every wedding you're
invited to. UM. There are some that maybe you should
pass up for various reasons, But at the time I
just went to all of them, and I thirty weddings
in a lifetime. Really isn't even the highest number of
weddings I think people go to. I've talked to people
now who were like, I've been invited to thirteen this year,
and I've been to twenty five and I'm twenty three,
and I'm like, oh my goodness. So I'm definitely not
(08:18):
the Guinness Book of World record holder for the most
wedding attendances. But I do think that I've felt so
many different emotions at all of the weddings I've been to,
and also I have gone to them in many different states,
you know, states of life, like as an unemployed person
in my thirties, and as a person without a boyfriend,
(08:38):
and as a person with a boyfriend bringing the boyfriend,
and and I just really thought about how it makes
such a difference. You know, every wedding you to go
to is different because of the state you're in and
the age you're in and the things you're feeling. Yeah, well,
speaking of sort of the emotional experience that is wedding attendance,
one thing that jumped out to me when I was
reading the book was when you say that we're vulnerable
(09:00):
at weddings, So I was wondering if you could talk
a little bit about that and how weddings in particular
make us kind of vulnerable. I think of it as
like prom for adults, um. And it's one of the
few times in adult life that we get to repeat
these um, really orchestrated, formalized affairs and we dress up
(09:21):
and photos are taken and it's very important. It happens
less regularly than a birthday maybe, um and but it's
and they're always different. And I just think when we're
going to these things where love and romance and togetherness
and a spirit of bonding not just with a couple
but of the entire group of people there, um, we
(09:42):
can't help but feeling really heightened emotional states at the
same time. And it's all very dramatic. It's like the
Oscars or a movie or you know, stuff like that.
So we feel vulnerable because when we see people doing
this thing, we think about where we are in life too,
and maybe we don't measure up. And I think it's
very hard ever to feel like you've quite done it.
(10:06):
You're you've got there, You're great now, You're there's nothing
wrong with your life, there's nothing more you want Um,
the funny thing is, I'm sure that people who are
getting married feel the same way. It's not that just
getting married means suddenly you're there and everything you've ever
wanted has been a tie. If you keep wanting things,
you keep growing. You're vulnerable as humans because you have
desires and emotions and you know you're living life and
(10:28):
life is complicated. So but I do think that weddings
presented this really interesting ecosystem upon which to lay out
the different emotions that we feel, and our vulnerability is
to know whether it's that we just broke up with
someone and now we have to go to a wedding
and we feel really complicated about that and possibly fraught,
and possibly we're gonna get really drunk. There's definitely the
(10:50):
benefit to the open bar aspect. But yeah, Um, one
of speaking of those like fraught emotions that can come
up with weddings, one of the most heartbreaking anecdotes in
a way was about your friendship with Jenny, who ended
up wearing a guy that you really didn't like. And
I think from my conversations with girlfriends as we get older,
(11:12):
it's kind of a common thing of girls sort of
you know, hang in for the long term with guys
that we don't think you're the best for them, right, So,
looking back now on your experience with that, what's your
advice when you know you're supposed to celebrate their love
but you are an exactly a fan of it. Yeah,
this was like probably the hardest thing to write about.
(11:33):
I was much more comfortable writing about my mistakes, my
drunken mistakes, my foibles. And I was writing about this
friendship that I lost because, um, friends are some of
the most important people we have in our lives, you know,
sometimes more than romantic partners, um. And we don't expect
to lose friends, yet inevitably, in growing up we grow
(11:55):
apart with some of them. And I included that part
of the book because it is to me a universal thing.
I'm maybe not all of us have been have lost
friends through the people they've married, but I think all
of us have had an experience with a friendship where
we've grown apart because of a romantic relationship on one
side or the other. And we don't always love our
(12:16):
friends husbands or boyfriends. UM. And so in writing about it,
you know, I really wanted to get across how it
made me feel and I think that what I should
have done differently, you know, kind of like as a
lesson to people, maybe if they read about it, they'll
feel a little better about what has happened to them
as well. But also um that that honesty is such
(12:39):
an important thing, you know, you hear that it's kind
of like whip service, But like, really, when people are
heading into these grand events in life and and weddings,
we tend to think that we're supposed to just stop
talking about anything bad. Um And I think for me,
it was very difficult to oppressed the stuff that I
(13:01):
knew and to not address it. And I wish that
we had just found a way to communicate about it,
because I think that would have helped immeasurably. Maybe we
would have grown apart anyway. But there was a kind
of like repression of the feelings and the story, you know,
like we weren't talking about the same stuff anymore that
had really sustained our friendship and being honest with each
other and talking about our our relationship difficulties. It was
(13:24):
like that all got covered up because there was this
wedding on the horizon. And I just think it's important
to keep talking about those things in as honest and
kind way as possible, and also not to just get
really drunk and then start to address it, because that's
never going to go well. Like don't address it at
the wedding, which is something that I kind of did, um,
(13:44):
but but really try to like be upfront about what
you're feeling and then also what your friend is feeling
and acknowledge that we're different people and we can feel
different things and we can choose different partners. Um, we
can't decide who are friends Mary, but we can at
least decide how we're going to behave with regard to
that and like whether these friendships are worth keeping and
(14:05):
how we want to try to do that. And So
for someone who's now, you know, you've been to so
many weddings, so we also hear so much about weddings, marriage,
the wedding industrial complex sort of how do you square
the two? Is it's like fine to have these like
indulgent celebrations of ourselves. Where are we reinforcing the patriarchy?
(14:27):
Where's the line of that? Yeah? I think the line
is really blurry, and I think we have to the
most feminist thing we can do is make the decisions
for ourselves as fully aware, autonomous, independent, smart people. Um.
I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a grand wedding.
But if you're simply going through the motions because you
think that this is something that you're supposed to do
(14:49):
and you're not really being self aware about it, I
think that's a problem. I think you could be a
problem for your relationship too. But UM, I think it's
hard because one of the chapters in the book that
really addressed this was about my parents marriage and about
why they got married, and about how marriage and weddings
have changed from the time that they got married to now, um,
(15:12):
and how it's become less of unexpected. You know, you
don't have to get married um. And especially if you're
a woman or a man living in like an urban area,
you're probably getting married a lot later than your parents
got married and you can do those things and the judgments.
You know, maybe there's some stigma and people are still
(15:33):
being like, oh, what's wrong with her, she's not married,
she's thirty eight, But like, it's far less than it
ever was, and you do have the freedom to choose.
So I think that to be a strong feminist you
need to actively choose um and do the things that
you think are going to be good for you. Um.
I also think that if you're having a wedding and
(15:57):
you have single women who are attending your wedding, like,
be careful about the bouquet toss because it does seem
to perpetuate certain stereotypes about how we all want this thing,
and maybe we don't all want this thing, and certainly
we don't all want to like grapple for some flowers
that were thrown at us. I mean it's like maybe
the most undignified tradition that it still carries through. Although
(16:21):
which is worse the garter belt, oh god, or the flowers.
The garter belt might be worse because it's so sexualized.
But also, I mean maybe I approve that more because
it's like, yeah, for surely the bride and groom are
probably going to have sex. That's great, um, But like
the bouquet toss and the assumption that this is the
(16:43):
pinnacle of what a woman's life should be, so we're
all going to fight for this bouquet to be the
next to go down that aisle is to me rather demeaning.
Maybe if all of your bridesmaids and all of your
single women friends are like really dying to do it,
then go for it. But again, I think that the
other thing about being taking an independent kind of approach
(17:05):
to weddings and a pro woman, pro man, pro everybody,
pro grown ups approach to weddings is that we all
can do whatever we want and that's okay. But again,
be open about it to yourself and to your friends
and family. And now back to the show. One thing
(17:29):
I really appreciated about the book was that there wasn't
the rom com esque narrative park of you having to
end up by the end of the book going down
the aisle yourself and just out of curiosity. Was that
something when you're going through the publishing process that maybe,
like editors were expecting you kind of requested to sort
(17:51):
of massage the narratives. My publisher is awesome, and they
would never have done that, I mean, thank god. I'm
sure that that is something that people have experience, and
I think that it might be a more hollywoodization of it,
you know, like with the occasional I don't know. There's
been like a few talks that I've had with potential
(18:13):
movie people and and they seem to be a little
more pushing or rom COMI you know, I mean, I
think that's just what we expect in rom coms, that
you're going to end up with someone in the end.
I I was with someone in the end of the book,
although you wouldn't know it from the last chapter necessarily,
Oh god, this is a spoiler. But um but I
(18:36):
really wanted to have the storyline not be about ending
up with someone romantically, but about choosing to be the
you that you most want to be and knowing that
whatever state you decide, you know, cared up or single,
it's good. It's like you're you're you're experiencing life, you're
(18:56):
having the adventures, and you're like living the lights that
you have whether you're married it or not, and and
both of those things are good. So I definitely it
was a conscious choice not to end with some sort
of wedding. Also, like I wasn't proposed to at the end,
so it's a it's a memoir, so it had to
be true. Um, but yeah, there was The last wedding
(19:17):
I go to in the book involves a guy I
was dating and going to this wedding with his friends
where I didn't really know anyone besides him, and how
that shifted my perception on bringing my bringing dates to
weddings like throughout the course of my life. Like I
was like, Oh, that's interesting, Like this is another side
of it. And I think that that's something that I
(19:37):
hope people get in the book also, that there are
always different sides to these experiences and we don't always
we're not always aware of them until we experience them ourselves,
or maybe we read a book about it and that
can get us to start talking about it too. Um
and sort of along those lines, Uh, in your experience,
do you think that we, especially I as women, are
(20:02):
coming more to a place to where the societal idea
of what happily ever after looks like is evolving beyond
just well you've got to be married at some point, ladies.
I certainly hope so. UM. I do think that there
are still beliefs in stereotypes and um things that continue
(20:23):
to exist, Like there is kind of this default notion
that we should end up paired off with people. However,
I think that there are all of these new ways
of being paired off and partnered and maybe even just
having a really strong support group of friends. Um. And
there are a lot of great writers who've been talking
(20:44):
about how people live single lives for a really long time,
and how those lives often are happier and more productive
and more tied to the community and things like that.
Um I think that if anything, just the progression and
the openness which wild with which we look at relationships
in society is it's impressive, and it's like we're moving
(21:07):
forward in that degree, and I think that's really good. Well,
it sort of along those same same lines in terms
of us moving forward. One of the chapters in the
book is about going to you know, the gay wedding
in New York that Mayor Bloomberg officiated, And we actually
did a podcast a couple of weeks ago on gay
(21:28):
weddings and how they're often treated as this trend where
it's something new and yet still the same tradition. And
the question we were asking ourselves in the podcast was
sort of when we'll just a wedding via wedding. UM So,
just for your take, is someone who's been immersed in
wedding culture by being just so many I mean, how
(21:50):
do you think that this inclusion of same sex marriage
will have a lasting impact on the tradition of weddings.
I mean, I guess I think a wedding will never
be just a wedding because they are too orchestrated and
emotionally I don't know, fraud, but also significant and uh,
(22:12):
we place a really high importance on them in society.
I think that with gay weddings, it's just amazing that
we can all have different kinds of weddings, and and
they can even look the same but have different couplings
and mixed sort of relationship types and UM. One thing
that was really fun with my book is that looking
(22:34):
back at it, UM, there there were gay marriages, and
there were interracial marriages, and there were um marriages of
people who were in their early twenties and marriages of
people who were in their later thirties. And I really
like that there are all of these different possibilities and combinations. UM.
I just think with gay marriage, we're probably just gonna
see more marriages, and that's great as long as they're
(22:56):
good marriages exactly. So what is something than that going
to all these weddings has perhaps taught you about yourself
and about your relationships romance. I think that when we
grow up, and I'm speaking as someone who's a woman
so like as as little girls, you know, we think
(23:19):
about weddings in this very particular way, or we tend to.
Not all of us do, but a lot of us do,
because what's put out before us in society are like
these pictures in these um storylines and the narrative of
like a bride and groom walking down the aisle, and
how that's what we want to have to And I
think in going to so many weddings and seeing that
(23:41):
they exists in so many different forms, it was like,
you don't have to do it that way. There's always
kind of like a weird disconnect with me. I think,
thinking this is what I'm supposed to do, but like
do I really want to do that? And doesn't have
to look this way? And um, can you like have
love without a wedding? Can you? Just because I think
(24:01):
love is more important than weddings honestly, But um, and
I guess that that idea that we can that we're
living our lives, the whole lives that we live. It's
not like it starts or stops when we get married.
That's just another component. And that if we can approach
everything with kind of as much openness and like open
heartedness and spirit of adventure, then we just lived more
(24:25):
enjoyable lives. Um, and to kind of not be I
guess another lesson is just to not repress our feelings,
but to try to address them, especially before intense moments
and perhaps wedding exactly. And yeah, so one thing I
also lived about the book was how it sprinkled with
(24:47):
all of your your wedding tips. Uh, if you had
one wedding tip to bestow upon listeners, what would it be?
Always get the French fries because um, and I mean
that metaphorically as well as specifically. But you know, there's
a scene in my book when I'm hungover after rehearsal
(25:12):
dinner and we've ordered food and I think I can't
remember if I get them or not. But the tip
is to get them because you just want to experience
life as wholly as you can, and you know, barring
any sort of French fry allergy, should probably get the
French fries. It's a good tip. So in September, I'm
(25:33):
officiating my brother's wedding, which is um funny because in
the book, you know, my brother and his fiance are mentioned.
They've been engaged for several years, and I think I
have some comment about how, um, my parents have stopped
asking when I don't know if this book was a
push to get them to actually do it. They probably
would hate it if I said that, But um, they
are doing it, which is really exciting, and they've asked
(25:55):
me to officiate, which is going to be a new role,
a new wedding guest role that I've never gotten to do,
and I'm really excited about. So obviously, since it's a
memoir as well, get pretty personal and I'm sure that
some people's identities might be masked a little bit. But
how was the reception of the book from say, ex
boy friends, friends that you might have had difficult who's
(26:18):
with which family members? Um? Some of those stories, I mean,
all names are changed except for my immediate family members,
and I wanted to respect that when when you're invited
to a wedding, you're the people inviting, you probably don't
think you're going to write a book about it. Um.
I also wanted to be very clear that these were
(26:39):
my memories and my experiences, and that's a huge point
of the book, that the experience at a wedding is
not the same for everyone, and it's not always this
you know, Lacy walked down the aisle sort of story
that we see perpetuated in movies and TV. It can
be many different things, so I just I wanted to
(27:00):
be clear about that, and I wanted to be respectful
of the subjects from the characters. UM. I gave most
of the brides and grooms a chance to read early
drafts of the chapters as a fact checking move as
well as you know, f y, I, this is happening.
I hope you're okay with it, and the majority of
them wanted to read, and also we're really really excited
(27:22):
about it. UM. I think the other thing about the
book is that it's really not any kind of snarky
expose on weddings. UM. You may people may have that perception,
but really it's about most of the weddings in the
book were incredibly enjoyable. I may have made some mistakes
of them, but they were pretty lovely weddings, and most
(27:42):
of the couples are still together and very happy, and
that to me is really moving, and I wanted to
um kind of honor them in writing the book, not
tell them that they're dirks or that their cakes tasted bad.
You know. UM. I did also reach out to you
some ex is, including one who is probably the longest
(28:05):
term x I had. His name is Jason in the book,
and he was like, oh my god, I'm so excited,
which is amazing. UM. And he's always a really great guy.
And it's just an example of the kind of people
who they might be great people, they might be great friends,
but maybe you're just not supposed to end up with them,
which is I think a good storyline to remind ourselves
(28:27):
of we haven't messed up by not getting married to
those people. We've actually done them and us a service
by admitting it. You know, you need to be with
the right people. Um. Now he's married and has a
baby and has a dog, and it's like super happy.
And also it was like, this is amazing. I've never
been in a book before, so that was really fun.
I UM, I do worry about some of the other characters,
(28:48):
but because not everyone is always depicted in the most
perfect way. But I think that of all the bad
characters in the book, I'm probably the one who has
depicted the worst. So I acknowledge that. And I also
um made sure that identities were kind of shielded in
other cases, because the point is not to you know,
(29:08):
de story someone's life or anything like that. It's just
to tell an honest story. And the things that I experienced.
One thinking of that honesty, was it ever challenging the
process of writing the book to either sort of push
yourself a little bit more forward, to be more honest
and open with the reader, and also maybe giving you
(29:30):
pause about things that you had done but maybe you
weren't necessarily proud of, which you're also very honest about
in the book. I think I went into like a
weird view state law writing it, and I didn't actually
think about other people reading it, which might be necessary
for any kind of memoir writing, where if you're thinking
about people reading it and how they're going to judge
you for it, you couldn't do it. And I just
(29:53):
was like kind of in this protected, really focused state,
and I wrote what I remember doing and feeling, and
I tried to be totally. I guess it's interesting because
when you write a memoir, you capture yourself in a
particular time and place, and there are people who have
(30:14):
commented things like Amazon commentors or things like that where
they're like I think Jen has a drinking problem, like
get help. And I think that that's really amusing and
kind of not very nice, but because but it's also
a little bit shortsighted because clearly I wrote this book.
I put together weddings, um where there were open bars.
(30:37):
If you look at my whole life, I wasn't drinking
the way I drink at weddings every day, because that
would have been probably a really hard way to write
a book. UM. And the the sentiments that anyone gets
from a memoir are exactly what the author has put forward. UM.
So it's really interesting to me that that's just like
how memoir works. UM. I I didn't think about reviewer
(31:02):
comments or negative reactions when I was writing it, because again,
that would have been probably devastating to think about. And
it was only until the memoir was about to be
out I think that I was like, oh my god,
people are gonna think I'm a jerk. And you know,
if they do, they do, and I have been a
joke in my life. So, UM, I don't know. I
(31:22):
just you just live and deal with it, I guess exactly. UM.
I realized that this is horribly clichiate question, but I
do have to ask if you were to have a
wedding in the future. Is everyone asking you this question
now about this book? If you're gonna have a wedding
at some point, do you have an idea of what
it would be able to just go to the courthouse
(31:43):
called a day have a big, black, lavish affair. Um.
I've been asked this question a couple of times, and
I actually love it because it's really funny. I mean,
I would definitely have my wedding at a circus and
ride in on an elephant. I'm just kidding. I would.
I don't really think about what my own wedding would
look like other than I would probably well, I would
(32:06):
definitely have an open bar, and I would want to
have all the people who I love around me for it,
because I think that's the most powerful thing about weddings
that you're bringing You're bringing together all of these interwoven
relationships and friendships and um people to share in this
experience with you. That's the key thing. And I also
(32:28):
would want to marry someone who I like, really liked,
But basically that's it. Well, Gendall, congratulations on saved with
Date and thanks so much for meeting with me in
Brooklyn and chatting about weddings. Thank you so much, it's
been really fun. Well, thanks again to Jendall for speaking
(32:52):
with us. It was awesome to hear her perspective on weddings,
especially as someone who is a seasoned wedding veteran. Kristen,
do you have any weddings kind of up? I do
have a wedding coming up. In fact, one of my
best guy friends is getting hitched and I don't know
if it's official or not, but I've been asked to
be a groomsman, So I'm really hoping I get to
(33:15):
rock a lady tux. That's really my only condition. We
haven't really hashed out the details, but if I can't
wear a tux, I don't think I'm going to do it.
I love it. No, dude roommate told me that if
and when he ties the knot with some special lady,
that he wants me to be a groomsman. Yeah. There
should not have to we should have to have these
gender divide. Well again, I just wanna give a huge
(33:39):
thanks to Jendal for meeting up and chatting in folks.
I do highly recommend checking out Save the Date if
you're looking for a fun read this summer, and you
can find it on Amazon. You can also head over
to Jendall's website, which is jendal dot com to learn
more about it and also find other places that you
can pick it up. And in the meantime time, you
(34:00):
can also read Jen Doll's work at The Hairpin, Vulture,
and The Atlantic, as well as other places. She's everywhere, folks,
and to keep up with her, you can also follow
her on Twitter at This is Jen Doll. And speaking
of Twitter, if you want to keep up with Caroline
and me, you can find us at Mom's Stuff Podcast.
You can also message us on Facebook as well. Be
(34:22):
sure to like us while you're at it, and we've
got a couple of Facebook messages to share with you
right now. Alrighty well, I have a letter here from
Brenna talking about our Women in Animation episode. She says,
first off, thank you. I was thrilled that you did
an episode on women in Disney Animation. However, I noticed
(34:44):
that while you talked about present day women in directorial roles,
you didn't discuss much on those working in the visual
development slash artistic roles in animation. There happens to be
a fantastic group of Disney associated artists. Their names are
Claire Keene, Laura le Beau, Victoria Yang, Helen Ming, ju Chen,
Brittany Lee, and Lisa Keene that are releasing a book
(35:04):
of their personal work. I highly recommend checking out their
work individually, as there aren't many celebrated women artists and
animation and it's important for other women to have contemporary,
positive and successful role models in a still male dominated industry.
The book is called Lovely Ladies of Animation and she
says that you can go on Amazon and the book
(35:25):
is available for preorder. So thank you so much, Brenna
for that heads up. And speaking of books, I've got
a letter here from Jacqueline asking for feminist book recommendations.
She writes, I'm writing because I want to see if
you can help me. My youngest cousin is eighteen and
about to graduate high school, and she's kind of a
(35:45):
girly girl. She's going to college in the fall, and
I wanted to give her a feminist book as a present.
I don't think feminism is something she really thinks about,
and I want her to. I want her to value
herself for more than her looks. So I wanted your
help and perhaps the help of the listeners and finding
a book to give her. I want something that's accessible
to someone who is not familiar with feminism and that
(36:06):
isn't too heavy on feminist theory. So can you help me?
Thanks for any help you can give um. So one
recommendation I have that might seem a little bit random
is Bossy Pants by Tina Fay, because it's hilarious memoir,
but it also has a lot of feminist undertones of
(36:29):
her kind of dealing with her looks and her body
and choices in school and in balancing work life stuff,
and so that might be a good kind of sneaky
primer I think, Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree bossy Pants would
be a great choice. There's also, and I think we've
sided this on the podcast a couple of times, but
(36:49):
Caitlin Moran's book How to Be a Woman. She is
a funny lady, and so that could be another, maybe
not maybe a more subtle way for your young cousin
to get entered us to the ideas. Yeah, approaching feminism
with humor, because I believe it or not, we do
have a sense of humor um, and any suggestions from listeners.
(37:09):
We'd love to hear them as well. Shoot us an
email mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, or send us a
message on Facebook because I'd love to get a lot
of recommendations and compile a list so we can share
them with everybody over at our website, Stuff from the
Original You dot com. And speaking of which, if you
(37:31):
want to find all the links for our social media,
all of our blog post, videos, and podcasts, there is
one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, does it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Supports
dot Com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and
I'm Caroline. And since this is unofficially wedding week or officially,
should we say officially totally officially, Yeah, it's officially wedding
week on Stuff Mom Never Told You because this is
(00:26):
the beginning of June, which is also the beginning of
wedding season. That's right. And earlier in the week we
talked about gay weddings, and today we have a fantastic
interview to share with you from the writer Jen Doll,
who recently published a hilarious memoir called Save the Date. Yeah.
(00:48):
Her book actually stemmed out of a post on The
Hairpin a couple of years ago where she basically recounted
all of the weddings she had attended. And I read
it in awe because I mean, I've I've been to
a good chunk of weddings, but nowhere near the number
that she has attended. Yeah, she's been too. I think
(01:08):
there were seventeen listed in that Hairpin post, and she's
been to even more than that. And so in the interview,
one of the first questions I asked her is how
she's managed to go to so many weddings. Um, do
you remember the first wedding you went to? Caroline? Oh? Gosh, Um,
probably my uncle No. Oh, No, I was the flower
(01:31):
girl for the wedding of um We. We grew up
next to a Greek family in Marietta, or I grew
up next to a Greek family and I was their
flower girl for one of their daughters. And it's funny
because you know, everybody in the entire church had really
dark hair, and I was here's like this little blonde
girl walking down the aisle, you know, throwing flowers out,
(01:52):
and people are like, who did she belong to? But
you didn't care? But I didn't care. No, But yeah,
that was That was my first wedding experience. The first
one that I remember was when my oldest brother, who's
significantly older than I am, got married and I was
a bridesmaid. And it felt like prom for me because
(02:12):
there was the whole process of getting fitted for a
dress and doing hair and getting to walk down the
aisle with my very cute soon to be sister in
laws a younger brother. Saought it was a very big deal,
the only downside of which was that it happened in
August in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and thus it was a
(02:34):
swamp outside, hot swamp. My mother says, I'm not allowed
to get married in the summer. Yeah, because she'll be
too hot. Yeah, that's the funny thing about how many
summer weddings there are. It's just I've sat at an
outdoor wedding in Atlanta in July and melted. Yeah, I
remember coming in. It was in June. It was a
June outdoor wedding a couple of years ago, and I
(02:55):
came in completely sunburned. Thanks a lot. Well, I probably does.
My fault should have put on sunscreen. Let's be real.
Let's be real. Well, and since speaking of real, let's
toss that a few relevant wedding season statistics, because Jen
dolls memoirs Save the Date is all about her experience
as being a wedding guest. So for a few numbers
(03:17):
to kick things off in the two thousand thirteen wedding season,
according to the Wedding Site, than not the average number
of wedding guests hundred and thirty eight. Really big wedding
is it? I have no I have no concept that
feels like a lot to me. Yeah, I well, I
know that one thirty eight is probably low compared to
(03:37):
some people out there, or it feels low compared to
some people out there who I know. For instance, my
friend her in laws got kind of carried away with
the guest list, so I think she wanted more like
a hundred and thirty eight, but I think ended up
with closer to three. Who who I know. Well, well,
so you have to spend a lot of money for
all of those guests and all of that fun time
(03:58):
that you're having. But if you're do in in Manhattan,
which is the most expensive place to get married, you're
going to spend an average of eighty six thousand, nine
hundred and sixteen dollars. That's nuts. That's nuts, um. And
apparently one of the trends of late is that spending
on your wedding guests is increasing. So well, maybe part
(04:21):
of the explanation for that eighty six thousand dollar tab
in Manhattan at least is the fact that spending on
wedding guests is going up. So not only are people
who are getting married spending a lot of money on
a venue and dresses and texas, but now it's also
guest entertainment. Apparently, in two thousand thirteen couples spent an
(04:44):
average two two dollars per guest. Yeah, and this whole
guest entertainment category is apparently growing at at rapid speed.
In nearly one and three couples provided additional guest entertainment,
compared with just eleven percent in two thousand line. So
is this like, does this include the favors, the band,
(05:05):
the I don't know. That's what I'm thinking, And I'm
just gonna go ahead and throw this out there, Caroline,
for people listening who might be planning a wedding, if
you want to integrate a live podcast or a fee
into your guest entertainment, we will come. I I work
for food, I do know. I will work for food
(05:26):
and cash wants. Or maybe if we could just do
like a blind selection of one of the gifts on
the wedding gifts, Yeah, we could totally. We could totally
do that, so just let us know. But more importantly,
I'm really excited to share this interview that I got
to do with jendall Um. There is, by the way,
some some background noise because we actually chatted outside at
(05:49):
a cafe in Fort Green. Um. And so don't mind
the noise too much, folks. It's it's not too bad,
but just it's more like an outdoor podcast. Yeah, like
like we're all together outside at a cafe. Yeah. And
I just like, close your eyes and picture Kristen and
Jendall surrounded by hundreds of podcast listeners just staring at them,
(06:11):
just staring at us, not creepily at all. So, with
no further ado, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce
you to Jen Doll so Gendall. For people who aren't
aware of Save the Date and your Wedding attended tabit.
(06:32):
How many weddings have you been to? Just to start
off at this point, I've been to approximately thirty um,
and I think there could be more that I don't remember,
but thirty are the ones that I can actually count. Um.
The book deals with seventeen weddings because I joked that
like otherwise I would have been writing the War in
(06:52):
piece of weddings like that was in page book. We
had to cut some of them out to make it,
you know, a narrative arc that people could actually read
and not have to carry around like some sort of
giant home. So how does one go about getting invited
to the wedding and also not experience the wedding pictinue
(07:12):
because it seems like in a book you don't reach
a point of wedding exhaustion or bankruptcy related to having
to buy some many wedding gifts, right, I mean, I
guess to some extent, you know, for me, my my
feeling about weddings changed as I kept going to weddings
in my lifetime, and some of the bankruptcy stuff that
(07:33):
maybe I should have thought about more early on in
my wedding going life wasn't an issue for me. I
was not that I didn't not that I had unlimited funds,
but simply that I thought if I was invited to
a wedding, I should go to a wedding, and it
was such an important thing and I would never miss
any of these friends weddings. UM. Later I started to realize,
I'm like, I wish maybe someone had told me back then,
(07:54):
you don't have to actually go to every wedding you're
invited to. UM. There are some that maybe you should
pass up for various reasons, But at the time I
just went to all of them, and I thirty weddings
in a lifetime. Really isn't even the highest number of
weddings I think people go to. I've talked to people
now who were like, I've been invited to thirteen this year,
and I've been to twenty five and I'm twenty three,
and I'm like, oh my goodness. So I'm definitely not
(08:18):
the Guinness Book of World record holder for the most
wedding attendances. But I do think that I've felt so
many different emotions at all of the weddings I've been to,
and also I have gone to them in many different states,
you know, states of life, like as an unemployed person
in my thirties, and as a person without a boyfriend,
(08:38):
and as a person with a boyfriend bringing the boyfriend,
and and I just really thought about how it makes
such a difference. You know, every wedding you to go
to is different because of the state you're in and
the age you're in and the things you're feeling. Yeah, well,
speaking of sort of the emotional experience that is wedding attendance,
one thing that jumped out to me when I was
reading the book was when you say that we're vulnerable
(09:00):
at weddings, So I was wondering if you could talk
a little bit about that and how weddings in particular
make us kind of vulnerable. I think of it as
like prom for adults, um. And it's one of the
few times in adult life that we get to repeat
these um, really orchestrated, formalized affairs and we dress up
(09:21):
and photos are taken and it's very important. It happens
less regularly than a birthday maybe, um and but it's
and they're always different. And I just think when we're
going to these things where love and romance and togetherness
and a spirit of bonding not just with a couple
but of the entire group of people there, um, we
(09:42):
can't help but feeling really heightened emotional states at the
same time. And it's all very dramatic. It's like the
Oscars or a movie or you know, stuff like that.
So we feel vulnerable because when we see people doing
this thing, we think about where we are in life too,
and maybe we don't measure up. And I think it's
very hard ever to feel like you've quite done it.
(10:06):
You're you've got there, You're great now, You're there's nothing
wrong with your life, there's nothing more you want Um,
the funny thing is, I'm sure that people who are
getting married feel the same way. It's not that just
getting married means suddenly you're there and everything you've ever
wanted has been a tie. If you keep wanting things,
you keep growing. You're vulnerable as humans because you have
desires and emotions and you know you're living life and
(10:28):
life is complicated. So but I do think that weddings
presented this really interesting ecosystem upon which to lay out
the different emotions that we feel, and our vulnerability is
to know whether it's that we just broke up with
someone and now we have to go to a wedding
and we feel really complicated about that and possibly fraught,
and possibly we're gonna get really drunk. There's definitely the
(10:50):
benefit to the open bar aspect. But yeah, Um, one
of speaking of those like fraught emotions that can come
up with weddings, one of the most heartbreaking anecdotes in
a way was about your friendship with Jenny, who ended
up wearing a guy that you really didn't like. And
I think from my conversations with girlfriends as we get older,
(11:12):
it's kind of a common thing of girls sort of
you know, hang in for the long term with guys
that we don't think you're the best for them, right, So,
looking back now on your experience with that, what's your
advice when you know you're supposed to celebrate their love
but you are an exactly a fan of it. Yeah,
this was like probably the hardest thing to write about.
(11:33):
I was much more comfortable writing about my mistakes, my
drunken mistakes, my foibles. And I was writing about this
friendship that I lost because, um, friends are some of
the most important people we have in our lives, you know,
sometimes more than romantic partners, um. And we don't expect
to lose friends, yet inevitably, in growing up we grow
(11:55):
apart with some of them. And I included that part
of the book because it is to me a universal thing.
I'm maybe not all of us have been have lost
friends through the people they've married, but I think all
of us have had an experience with a friendship where
we've grown apart because of a romantic relationship on one
side or the other. And we don't always love our
(12:16):
friends husbands or boyfriends. UM. And so in writing about it,
you know, I really wanted to get across how it
made me feel and I think that what I should
have done differently, you know, kind of like as a
lesson to people, maybe if they read about it, they'll
feel a little better about what has happened to them
as well. But also um that that honesty is such
(12:39):
an important thing, you know, you hear that it's kind
of like whip service, But like, really, when people are
heading into these grand events in life and and weddings,
we tend to think that we're supposed to just stop
talking about anything bad. Um And I think for me,
it was very difficult to oppressed the stuff that I
(13:01):
knew and to not address it. And I wish that
we had just found a way to communicate about it,
because I think that would have helped immeasurably. Maybe we
would have grown apart anyway. But there was a kind
of like repression of the feelings and the story, you know,
like we weren't talking about the same stuff anymore that
had really sustained our friendship and being honest with each
other and talking about our our relationship difficulties. It was
(13:24):
like that all got covered up because there was this
wedding on the horizon. And I just think it's important
to keep talking about those things in as honest and
kind way as possible, and also not to just get
really drunk and then start to address it, because that's
never going to go well. Like don't address it at
the wedding, which is something that I kind of did, um,
(13:44):
but but really try to like be upfront about what
you're feeling and then also what your friend is feeling
and acknowledge that we're different people and we can feel
different things and we can choose different partners. Um, we
can't decide who are friends Mary, but we can at
least decide how we're going to behave with regard to
that and like whether these friendships are worth keeping and
(14:05):
how we want to try to do that. And So
for someone who's now, you know, you've been to so
many weddings, so we also hear so much about weddings, marriage,
the wedding industrial complex sort of how do you square
the two? Is it's like fine to have these like
indulgent celebrations of ourselves. Where are we reinforcing the patriarchy?
(14:27):
Where's the line of that? Yeah? I think the line
is really blurry, and I think we have to the
most feminist thing we can do is make the decisions
for ourselves as fully aware, autonomous, independent, smart people. Um.
I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a grand wedding.
But if you're simply going through the motions because you
think that this is something that you're supposed to do
(14:49):
and you're not really being self aware about it, I
think that's a problem. I think you could be a
problem for your relationship too. But UM, I think it's
hard because one of the chapters in the book that
really addressed this was about my parents marriage and about
why they got married, and about how marriage and weddings
have changed from the time that they got married to now, um,
(15:12):
and how it's become less of unexpected. You know, you
don't have to get married um. And especially if you're
a woman or a man living in like an urban area,
you're probably getting married a lot later than your parents
got married and you can do those things and the judgments.
You know, maybe there's some stigma and people are still
(15:33):
being like, oh, what's wrong with her, she's not married,
she's thirty eight, But like, it's far less than it
ever was, and you do have the freedom to choose.
So I think that to be a strong feminist you
need to actively choose um and do the things that
you think are going to be good for you. Um.
I also think that if you're having a wedding and
(15:57):
you have single women who are attending your wedding, like,
be careful about the bouquet toss because it does seem
to perpetuate certain stereotypes about how we all want this thing,
and maybe we don't all want this thing, and certainly
we don't all want to like grapple for some flowers
that were thrown at us. I mean it's like maybe
the most undignified tradition that it still carries through. Although
(16:21):
which is worse the garter belt, oh god, or the flowers.
The garter belt might be worse because it's so sexualized.
But also, I mean maybe I approve that more because
it's like, yeah, for surely the bride and groom are
probably going to have sex. That's great, um, But like
the bouquet toss and the assumption that this is the
(16:43):
pinnacle of what a woman's life should be, so we're
all going to fight for this bouquet to be the
next to go down that aisle is to me rather demeaning.
Maybe if all of your bridesmaids and all of your
single women friends are like really dying to do it,
then go for it. But again, I think that the
other thing about being taking an independent kind of approach
(17:05):
to weddings and a pro woman, pro man, pro everybody,
pro grown ups approach to weddings is that we all
can do whatever we want and that's okay. But again,
be open about it to yourself and to your friends
and family. And now back to the show. One thing
(17:29):
I really appreciated about the book was that there wasn't
the rom com esque narrative park of you having to
end up by the end of the book going down
the aisle yourself and just out of curiosity. Was that
something when you're going through the publishing process that maybe,
like editors were expecting you kind of requested to sort
(17:51):
of massage the narratives. My publisher is awesome, and they
would never have done that, I mean, thank god. I'm
sure that that is something that people have experience, and
I think that it might be a more hollywoodization of it,
you know, like with the occasional I don't know. There's
been like a few talks that I've had with potential
(18:13):
movie people and and they seem to be a little
more pushing or rom COMI you know, I mean, I
think that's just what we expect in rom coms, that
you're going to end up with someone in the end.
I I was with someone in the end of the book,
although you wouldn't know it from the last chapter necessarily,
Oh god, this is a spoiler. But um but I
(18:36):
really wanted to have the storyline not be about ending
up with someone romantically, but about choosing to be the
you that you most want to be and knowing that
whatever state you decide, you know, cared up or single,
it's good. It's like you're you're you're experiencing life, you're
(18:56):
having the adventures, and you're like living the lights that
you have whether you're married it or not, and and
both of those things are good. So I definitely it
was a conscious choice not to end with some sort
of wedding. Also, like I wasn't proposed to at the end,
so it's a it's a memoir, so it had to
be true. Um, but yeah, there was The last wedding
(19:17):
I go to in the book involves a guy I
was dating and going to this wedding with his friends
where I didn't really know anyone besides him, and how
that shifted my perception on bringing my bringing dates to
weddings like throughout the course of my life. Like I
was like, Oh, that's interesting, Like this is another side
of it. And I think that that's something that I
(19:37):
hope people get in the book also, that there are
always different sides to these experiences and we don't always
we're not always aware of them until we experience them ourselves,
or maybe we read a book about it and that
can get us to start talking about it too. Um
and sort of along those lines, Uh, in your experience,
do you think that we, especially I as women, are
(20:02):
coming more to a place to where the societal idea
of what happily ever after looks like is evolving beyond
just well you've got to be married at some point, ladies.
I certainly hope so. UM. I do think that there
are still beliefs in stereotypes and um things that continue
(20:23):
to exist, Like there is kind of this default notion
that we should end up paired off with people. However,
I think that there are all of these new ways
of being paired off and partnered and maybe even just
having a really strong support group of friends. Um. And
there are a lot of great writers who've been talking
(20:44):
about how people live single lives for a really long time,
and how those lives often are happier and more productive
and more tied to the community and things like that.
Um I think that if anything, just the progression and
the openness which wild with which we look at relationships
in society is it's impressive, and it's like we're moving
(21:07):
forward in that degree, and I think that's really good. Well,
it sort of along those same same lines in terms
of us moving forward. One of the chapters in the
book is about going to you know, the gay wedding
in New York that Mayor Bloomberg officiated, And we actually
did a podcast a couple of weeks ago on gay
(21:28):
weddings and how they're often treated as this trend where
it's something new and yet still the same tradition. And
the question we were asking ourselves in the podcast was
sort of when we'll just a wedding via wedding. UM So,
just for your take, is someone who's been immersed in
wedding culture by being just so many I mean, how
(21:50):
do you think that this inclusion of same sex marriage
will have a lasting impact on the tradition of weddings.
I mean, I guess I think a wedding will never
be just a wedding because they are too orchestrated and
emotionally I don't know, fraud, but also significant and uh,
(22:12):
we place a really high importance on them in society.
I think that with gay weddings, it's just amazing that
we can all have different kinds of weddings, and and
they can even look the same but have different couplings
and mixed sort of relationship types and UM. One thing
that was really fun with my book is that looking
(22:34):
back at it, UM, there there were gay marriages, and
there were interracial marriages, and there were um marriages of
people who were in their early twenties and marriages of
people who were in their later thirties. And I really
like that there are all of these different possibilities and combinations. UM.
I just think with gay marriage, we're probably just gonna
see more marriages, and that's great as long as they're
(22:56):
good marriages exactly. So what is something than that going
to all these weddings has perhaps taught you about yourself
and about your relationships romance. I think that when we
grow up, and I'm speaking as someone who's a woman
so like as as little girls, you know, we think
(23:19):
about weddings in this very particular way, or we tend to.
Not all of us do, but a lot of us do,
because what's put out before us in society are like
these pictures in these um storylines and the narrative of
like a bride and groom walking down the aisle, and
how that's what we want to have to And I
think in going to so many weddings and seeing that
(23:41):
they exists in so many different forms, it was like,
you don't have to do it that way. There's always
kind of like a weird disconnect with me. I think,
thinking this is what I'm supposed to do, but like
do I really want to do that? And doesn't have
to look this way? And um, can you like have
love without a wedding? Can you? Just because I think
(24:01):
love is more important than weddings honestly, But um, and
I guess that that idea that we can that we're
living our lives, the whole lives that we live. It's
not like it starts or stops when we get married.
That's just another component. And that if we can approach
everything with kind of as much openness and like open
heartedness and spirit of adventure, then we just lived more
(24:25):
enjoyable lives. Um, and to kind of not be I
guess another lesson is just to not repress our feelings,
but to try to address them, especially before intense moments
and perhaps wedding exactly. And yeah, so one thing I
also lived about the book was how it sprinkled with
(24:47):
all of your your wedding tips. Uh, if you had
one wedding tip to bestow upon listeners, what would it be?
Always get the French fries because um, and I mean
that metaphorically as well as specifically. But you know, there's
a scene in my book when I'm hungover after rehearsal
(25:12):
dinner and we've ordered food and I think I can't
remember if I get them or not. But the tip
is to get them because you just want to experience
life as wholly as you can, and you know, barring
any sort of French fry allergy, should probably get the
French fries. It's a good tip. So in September, I'm
(25:33):
officiating my brother's wedding, which is um funny because in
the book, you know, my brother and his fiance are mentioned.
They've been engaged for several years, and I think I
have some comment about how, um, my parents have stopped
asking when I don't know if this book was a
push to get them to actually do it. They probably
would hate it if I said that, But um, they
are doing it, which is really exciting, and they've asked
(25:55):
me to officiate, which is going to be a new role,
a new wedding guest role that I've never gotten to do,
and I'm really excited about. So obviously, since it's a
memoir as well, get pretty personal and I'm sure that
some people's identities might be masked a little bit. But
how was the reception of the book from say, ex
boy friends, friends that you might have had difficult who's
(26:18):
with which family members? Um? Some of those stories, I mean,
all names are changed except for my immediate family members,
and I wanted to respect that when when you're invited
to a wedding, you're the people inviting, you probably don't
think you're going to write a book about it. Um.
I also wanted to be very clear that these were
(26:39):
my memories and my experiences, and that's a huge point
of the book, that the experience at a wedding is
not the same for everyone, and it's not always this
you know, Lacy walked down the aisle sort of story
that we see perpetuated in movies and TV. It can
be many different things, so I just I wanted to
(27:00):
be clear about that, and I wanted to be respectful
of the subjects from the characters. UM. I gave most
of the brides and grooms a chance to read early
drafts of the chapters as a fact checking move as
well as you know, f y, I, this is happening.
I hope you're okay with it, and the majority of
them wanted to read, and also we're really really excited
(27:22):
about it. UM. I think the other thing about the
book is that it's really not any kind of snarky
expose on weddings. UM. You may people may have that perception,
but really it's about most of the weddings in the
book were incredibly enjoyable. I may have made some mistakes
of them, but they were pretty lovely weddings, and most
(27:42):
of the couples are still together and very happy, and
that to me is really moving, and I wanted to
um kind of honor them in writing the book, not
tell them that they're dirks or that their cakes tasted bad.
You know. UM. I did also reach out to you
some ex is, including one who is probably the longest
(28:05):
term x I had. His name is Jason in the book,
and he was like, oh my god, I'm so excited,
which is amazing. UM. And he's always a really great guy.
And it's just an example of the kind of people
who they might be great people, they might be great friends,
but maybe you're just not supposed to end up with them,
which is I think a good storyline to remind ourselves
(28:27):
of we haven't messed up by not getting married to
those people. We've actually done them and us a service
by admitting it. You know, you need to be with
the right people. Um. Now he's married and has a
baby and has a dog, and it's like super happy.
And also it was like, this is amazing. I've never
been in a book before, so that was really fun.
I UM, I do worry about some of the other characters,
(28:48):
but because not everyone is always depicted in the most
perfect way. But I think that of all the bad
characters in the book, I'm probably the one who has
depicted the worst. So I acknowledge that. And I also
um made sure that identities were kind of shielded in
other cases, because the point is not to you know,
(29:08):
de story someone's life or anything like that. It's just
to tell an honest story. And the things that I experienced.
One thinking of that honesty, was it ever challenging the
process of writing the book to either sort of push
yourself a little bit more forward, to be more honest
and open with the reader, and also maybe giving you
(29:30):
pause about things that you had done but maybe you
weren't necessarily proud of, which you're also very honest about
in the book. I think I went into like a
weird view state law writing it, and I didn't actually
think about other people reading it, which might be necessary
for any kind of memoir writing, where if you're thinking
about people reading it and how they're going to judge
you for it, you couldn't do it. And I just
(29:53):
was like kind of in this protected, really focused state,
and I wrote what I remember doing and feeling, and
I tried to be totally. I guess it's interesting because
when you write a memoir, you capture yourself in a
particular time and place, and there are people who have
(30:14):
commented things like Amazon commentors or things like that where
they're like I think Jen has a drinking problem, like
get help. And I think that that's really amusing and
kind of not very nice, but because but it's also
a little bit shortsighted because clearly I wrote this book.
I put together weddings, um where there were open bars.
(30:37):
If you look at my whole life, I wasn't drinking
the way I drink at weddings every day, because that
would have been probably a really hard way to write
a book. UM. And the the sentiments that anyone gets
from a memoir are exactly what the author has put forward. UM.
So it's really interesting to me that that's just like
how memoir works. UM. I I didn't think about reviewer
(31:02):
comments or negative reactions when I was writing it, because again,
that would have been probably devastating to think about. And
it was only until the memoir was about to be
out I think that I was like, oh my god,
people are gonna think I'm a jerk. And you know,
if they do, they do, and I have been a
joke in my life. So, UM, I don't know. I
(31:22):
just you just live and deal with it, I guess exactly. UM.
I realized that this is horribly clichiate question, but I
do have to ask if you were to have a
wedding in the future. Is everyone asking you this question
now about this book? If you're gonna have a wedding
at some point, do you have an idea of what
it would be able to just go to the courthouse
(31:43):
called a day have a big, black, lavish affair. Um.
I've been asked this question a couple of times, and
I actually love it because it's really funny. I mean,
I would definitely have my wedding at a circus and
ride in on an elephant. I'm just kidding. I would.
I don't really think about what my own wedding would
look like other than I would probably well, I would
(32:06):
definitely have an open bar, and I would want to
have all the people who I love around me for it,
because I think that's the most powerful thing about weddings
that you're bringing You're bringing together all of these interwoven
relationships and friendships and um people to share in this
experience with you. That's the key thing. And I also
(32:28):
would want to marry someone who I like, really liked,
But basically that's it. Well, Gendall, congratulations on saved with
Date and thanks so much for meeting with me in
Brooklyn and chatting about weddings. Thank you so much, it's
been really fun. Well, thanks again to Jendall for speaking
(32:52):
with us. It was awesome to hear her perspective on weddings,
especially as someone who is a seasoned wedding veteran. Kristen,
do you have any weddings kind of up? I do
have a wedding coming up. In fact, one of my
best guy friends is getting hitched and I don't know
if it's official or not, but I've been asked to
be a groomsman, So I'm really hoping I get to
(33:15):
rock a lady tux. That's really my only condition. We
haven't really hashed out the details, but if I can't
wear a tux, I don't think I'm going to do it.
I love it. No, dude roommate told me that if
and when he ties the knot with some special lady,
that he wants me to be a groomsman. Yeah. There
should not have to we should have to have these
gender divide. Well again, I just wanna give a huge
(33:39):
thanks to Jendal for meeting up and chatting in folks.
I do highly recommend checking out Save the Date if
you're looking for a fun read this summer, and you
can find it on Amazon. You can also head over
to Jendall's website, which is jendal dot com to learn
more about it and also find other places that you
can pick it up. And in the meantime time, you
(34:00):
can also read Jen Doll's work at The Hairpin, Vulture,
and The Atlantic, as well as other places. She's everywhere, folks,
and to keep up with her, you can also follow
her on Twitter at This is Jen Doll. And speaking
of Twitter, if you want to keep up with Caroline
and me, you can find us at Mom's Stuff Podcast.
You can also message us on Facebook as well. Be
(34:22):
sure to like us while you're at it, and we've
got a couple of Facebook messages to share with you
right now. Alrighty well, I have a letter here from
Brenna talking about our Women in Animation episode. She says,
first off, thank you. I was thrilled that you did
an episode on women in Disney Animation. However, I noticed
(34:44):
that while you talked about present day women in directorial roles,
you didn't discuss much on those working in the visual
development slash artistic roles in animation. There happens to be
a fantastic group of Disney associated artists. Their names are
Claire Keene, Laura le Beau, Victoria Yang, Helen Ming, ju Chen,
Brittany Lee, and Lisa Keene that are releasing a book
(35:04):
of their personal work. I highly recommend checking out their
work individually, as there aren't many celebrated women artists and
animation and it's important for other women to have contemporary,
positive and successful role models in a still male dominated industry.
The book is called Lovely Ladies of Animation and she
says that you can go on Amazon and the book
(35:25):
is available for preorder. So thank you so much, Brenna
for that heads up. And speaking of books, I've got
a letter here from Jacqueline asking for feminist book recommendations.
She writes, I'm writing because I want to see if
you can help me. My youngest cousin is eighteen and
about to graduate high school, and she's kind of a
(35:45):
girly girl. She's going to college in the fall, and
I wanted to give her a feminist book as a present.
I don't think feminism is something she really thinks about,
and I want her to. I want her to value
herself for more than her looks. So I wanted your
help and perhaps the help of the listeners and finding
a book to give her. I want something that's accessible
to someone who is not familiar with feminism and that
(36:06):
isn't too heavy on feminist theory. So can you help me?
Thanks for any help you can give um. So one
recommendation I have that might seem a little bit random
is Bossy Pants by Tina Fay, because it's hilarious memoir,
but it also has a lot of feminist undertones of
(36:29):
her kind of dealing with her looks and her body
and choices in school and in balancing work life stuff,
and so that might be a good kind of sneaky
primer I think, Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree bossy Pants would
be a great choice. There's also, and I think we've
sided this on the podcast a couple of times, but
(36:49):
Caitlin Moran's book How to Be a Woman. She is
a funny lady, and so that could be another, maybe
not maybe a more subtle way for your young cousin
to get entered us to the ideas. Yeah, approaching feminism
with humor, because I believe it or not, we do
have a sense of humor um, and any suggestions from listeners.
(37:09):
We'd love to hear them as well. Shoot us an
email mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, or send us a
message on Facebook because I'd love to get a lot
of recommendations and compile a list so we can share
them with everybody over at our website, Stuff from the
Original You dot com. And speaking of which, if you
(37:31):
want to find all the links for our social media,
all of our blog post, videos, and podcasts, there is
one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, does it how stuff works dot com
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