'TIL DIVORCE DO THEM PART
Getting Tips For The Big Day From "My Big Redneck Wedding"
'M GOING TO BE FRANK. I HATE REALITY TV.
I love to hate it because it's shameful to love. It is a futile passion best enjoyed behind closed doors, much like an éclair.
When I got engaged almost a year ago, of course I was very excited. But I didn't know the inevitability of wedding shows, perhaps the most humiliating sub-genre of reality TV.
To date, I think I have seen them all -- Platinum Weddings, Bridezillas, Rich Bride Poor Bride, Bulging Brides, and Martha Stewart's Weddings Show.
Each is fascinating enough, I suppose. Rich Bride Poor Bride has given me budgeting tips and Bridezillas gives me stunning examples of what not to be. Martha Stewart, in all her tempestuous glory, has sterling do-it-yourself suggestions.
But, in the midst of the cake toppers and bouquets, Country Music Television's My Big Redneck Wedding is by far the most compellingly bizarre wedding show I've witnessed. I can't get enough of it; I confess that I succumb to viewing reruns online.
The nuptials of Melissa and Bradley, from Van Wert County, Ohio (a location embarrassingly close to my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana), is especially trash-worthy TV.
There was the mud-jousting and pig-chasing, the pudding-filled diapers and the bed of a pick-up truck standing in as a wedding altar.
Bradley wore a wife beater with a bowtie and buttons drawn in black marker. His handwritten vows had desperate echoes of Snoop Dogg.
Melissa's first draft of vows (read: demands) included sex "wherever, whenever I say" and "wiping my ass when I can't reach it." Immediately following the ceremony, a buxom Melissa tore off her dress to reveal her own wife beater and some really, really low-riding cut-offs.
Did I mention that Tom Arnold provides "comedic" narration to the show? Really, it's sickening.
Of all the wedding shows I've consumed, BRNW takes the horse-shit-shaped cake. (Note: see Anna and Carl's wedding from Season 1, Episode 1.)
I think I'm in danger of having all this 'klass' rub off.
Because while I may not spend my first married night in a Winnebago with "Honeymoon Sweet" painted on it, I haven't dismissed the possibility of a Harley-Davidson-riding preacher.
Sophia Ulmer is a creative writing major at Columbia College in Chicago. She enjoys drinking copious amounts of wine, riding her vintage bike, and snuggling with her kitty-cat, Gretta. You can check out her cooking blog at feckinfranchtoast.blogspot.com.
Posted January 29, 2009
Home
