Is it the hardening of one’s heart that makes one less and less impervious to envy with each passing issue of Martha Stewart Weddings as one’s wedding clock ticks and ticks on? My wedding clock admonishes, “Nine months left, young lady!” and with that I book and book, plan and plan, dig and dig myself further into the buttercream trench, and I find now that looking at Martha Stewart Weddings doesn’t quite arouse me like it used to. Certainly, there wasn’t much to lust after in the Fall 2015 issue; perhaps because if you’ve seen 17 footed, Japanese maple-stuffed urns, you’ve seen them all, or perhaps because I’m not that into the tawny shades of autumn, or perhaps because it’s as I’ve suspected: I’m so deep down the rabbit hole now, the only wedding I can see is my own.
Fortunately, I still found plenty of insane things in this issue. I’ll never go blind to those, because they’re funny. Without further ado:
This Bouquet’s Hellish King Protea (p. 112)
This couple’s destination wedding in Mexico could have been revolting, like many destination weddings in this periodical tend to be, but it actually sounds almost very great. There was tortilla soup, a private villa, an intimate guest list, and tiny bottles of tequila. What could possibly go wrong? The enormous gaping maw of a king protea erupting from bride Krystal’s bouquet, that’s what. Look at that toothy thing! You know trypophobia, that extremely real phobia of holes side-by-side in a pattern? Which I have? There has to be a sister-syndrome that causes a similar skin-cartwheeling reaction to plants like the monstrous king protea here, because I feel all sorts of ill every time I let my right eyeball even creep over to Krystal’s bouquet. Also, these “flowers,” which at once look as if they could poison you, insult you, and trick you into thinking they’re pretty for a split-second and then turn into evil ghosts that suck your soul out a second later, are becoming increasingly more popular, which is—I cannot stress this enough—insane.
Krystal tells the magazine, “Sayulita is so us,” of the Mexican town in which she and her husband married. “It’s small, casual and just so charming.” If I were a hungry plant cursed with teeth hewn by vicious desert winds and decades of loneliness, I’d prey on small, casual, charming people first.
This “Secret” Source (p. 102)
We all lean forward in anticipation, elbows on knees, chins on hand-heels. Martha is about to tell us a secret! This is the kind of thing we’ve come here for—sure the well-lit photography is nice, and yes, the recipe for spice cake and the stationery edge-painting DIY are practically indispensable, but this is the Big Times—one of those breath-catching moments when the room falls silent and the keys stop tapping and the phones stop ringing and all the heads turn toward Her because she is about to serve us up one of those Martha-only morsels that only she, she of better-pancake-batter-dispensing, she of stronger-sandcastle-plaster-packing, she of plumper-pumpkin-painting, she of the world-wider-wedding-web could possibly know, and that’s what we’re here for, so lean in and listen, here it comes! The secret! Here it is, shh:
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