Bridezilla Yourself

Everyone knows what modern marriage is all about — conspicuous consumption! At least that's the way Brides Magazine sees it. And they've created a new interactive web property, "Stoned and Dangerous" to let everyone experience the fun of spending like a bridezilla.

The first thing the app asks is to choose a photo.

Photo by Robert Wilson

Now, I'm no blushing bride, but with a little help from the late Michael Hutchence (as seen in the Sleeveface book) I can at least be 50% prettier.

Now it's time to SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! You get to choose from a variety of dresses, locations, cars, refreshments, even consumer electronics (???) as your extravagance is tracked as a percentage of what an average bride spends. (I have no idea what they're calculating.)

In the end, you are asked to choose a bridesmaid and share with your friends. I don't think I'll do that, though. I've so far avoided having to untag any pictures of myself, drunk and in drag, from Facebook.

So far, anyway...

So what's the point? To sell magazines, clearly, and to hype their advertisers' product categories. (I still can't figure out why the iPhone was in there otherwise.)

But do we really need to encourage more of this behaviour? We have reached a point at which, even in the face of recession, North Americans are spending money they don't have on stuff they don't need. And while it may buoy our retail and service economy over the short term, we are starting to see the terrible impacts of our unsustainable appetites for consumption — in terms of human rights and environmental catastrophes in the developing world, and in the loss of local entrepreneurship and culture at home.

In my opinion, today's bride needs to be less "Stoned and Dangerous", and instead watch The Story of Stuff.