By BJ Roche

While in class yesterday, I found myself talking to students about a group project  in a way that brought me up short. When I thought about it, I realized I was talking like Randy in the TLC reality show, Say Yes to the Dress, which, each episode, follows three brides-to-be of varying degrees of fitness, sanity, narcissism and wealth through the process of choosing a wedding dress at the New York City salon, Kleinfeld's.

If you watch the show, you know that Randy is the hugger and the dandy who pops into the dressing rooms at just the right time, and, with humor, understanding and a positive vibe--okay, he's a bit of a hustler--calms the indecisive brides-to-be and helps the saleswomen close the deal.

I know and love Randy, because since I started subscribing to Dreck TV, I have become a compulsive viewer of wedding reality shows. It's a genre sends all the wrong messages, not just to young women, but the families who must foot the bill for $8,000 dresses, $12,000 rose bowers and shot glasses made of ice.

Media critics and sociologists could write books the class, culture and consumerist issues that these shows inadvertently (or vertently--sometimes it's hard to tell) explore. Most of the weddings and plenty of the brides on display are creepy, vulgar, environmental disasters.

And I can't get enough of them.

It started with Randy and the salesladies at Kleinfeld's: nothing pleases me more than turning on the tv guide and seeing a three-episode trifecta of Say Yes to the Dress on tap for the evening. From there, it was a slippery slope to Platinum Weddings, in which no excess is too excessive.

While Platinum Weddings takes a totally non-judgmental view of the young suburban princesses, brides of athletes and "entrepreneurs" and Eurotrash who spend upwards of a half-a-mil of someone else's money on "their special day," Bridezillas is a show about brides--mostly low-income-- behaving badly. Like really badly.

Likewise, My Fair Wedding, in which professional planner re-makes a bride's wedding, features low-income brides and mostly brides of color, and makes a good bit of sport trashing their low-budget plans before kicking the whole thing up a few notches.

Rich Bride Poor Bride cuts a middle ground. The show follows a couple through the planning process, as they argue about cost. The definition of rich or poor is pretty relative: most of these weddings edge up into the $40,000 range. 

This show illustrates how this happens; the producers kaching in with the price tag on every decision, including necessities like videographers, belly dancers, Swarovski Crystals (Jesus, what's with these Swarovski Crystals?), more flowers than the freaking Keukenhof, and backdrops that make the head table look like it's set in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Of course, the every-wedding-must-become-a -coronation syndrome isn't limited to the reality tv demographic. The New York Times recently featured a story about ostensibly intelligent, upscale women who had bought several wedding dresses.

One downside of being on such a show is that you are open to critiques on every aspect of the wedding, not just from the usual suspects: your girlfrenemies,  in-laws and sisters, but from several million viewers attending the affair while sitting on the couch in their pajamas, sipping a little Malbec.

I am very glad that my wedding, like the courtship that preceded it, was a cheap backyard affair, and was not televised. This means that, unlike Christine, who appeared on a recent episode of Rich Bride, Poor Bride, I'll never have to read a post like this about my dear husband:

OK, so I really need to contact the bride of "Owen" on Rich Bride, Poor Bride...This guy is the biggest douche bag I have ever witnessed.

On the other hand, what is sad, really sad, is that I saw that episode, and I couldn't agree more.