The Joy, Pain and Drama of Bridal & Wedding Message Boards

So you get engaged and you have NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

You get engaged and you DO know exactly what you want, but have no idea which vendors are best. Or you immediately have a wedding planning dilemma.

Where do you turn? Probably wedding message boards like theknot.com or brides.com or any number of other ones out there. They're filled with thousands of brides, sometimes local, often sub-grouped by area (etiquette, wedding party, budget, showers, etc.)

Benefits to Bridal Wedding Message Boards

•You can get a wide range of responses to any situation, dilemma, or question you have without anyone in your personal life being involved
•You can get a ton of fantastic, real-life examples of what brides are doing
•You can ask personal questions you may not be able to ask of friends
•You can vent to strangers about your friends and bridal party not doing their job
•You learn how varied weddings really are and how they are so personal based on region, income-level, family culture and personality type of brides
•You can get specific wedding vendor recommendations and learn who to stay away from
•You can talk ad naseum about a specific topic (wedding dresses, or flowers, or favors) in these special boards where in real life you may have nobody who cares
•You can get the emotional support knowing everyone else is having a tough time balancing wedding planning, life, and all the complicated relationships around weddings

Downsides and Darksides to Wedding Bridal Message Boards

•You can get such a wide variety of answers you are MORE confused than ever
•Your personal questions can be turned, twisted and thrown back in your face as you are accused of being selfish, bridezilla, or otherwise a spoiled brat
•Your vents can turn into a competition "you think YOUR bridesmaid is bad, listen to my story"
•You get mocked for a popular regional tradition (dollar dance, cash-bar, having or not having bridal registries)
•You ask basic questions that are asked every 15 minutes, but you're new and have no idea, so the responses, if any, can be really snarky and upsetting
•You may not really know who is giving you vendor recommendations (friend of the vendor? Someone who has very different needs or taste or budget?)
•If nobody has heard of your vendor you may get self-doubt about your choice and not have the perspective of realizing every town has many (sometimes thousands) of vendors and not everyone online will have used each one
•Talking too much about one topic can make you go a little crazy, or make you more obsessive than you otherwise would be, or put you in a bubble of irrationality
•You can say anything in the wrong message board and will be viciously attacked, without warning, without cause, and you will end up feeling SO helpless as you experience the "Lord of the Flies" online, with women who may not even be brides, but bored, angry online addicts
•Competition can get fierce as you feel badly (or superior) to others with very different wedding plans
•Advice can be given from someone with very toxic relationships to family but you have no way to guage whose advice is more grounded than others
•There is rarely room for nuance on wedding message boards. If you have a complaint about your groom, be prepared to be told anything from "mine is like that and he sleeps on the couch a lot", to "leave the bastard and move on because you deserve more."
•Since everyone is roughly the same age and generation you miss out on the perspective of others life experiences and wisdom that can only come with time
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