Pop Culture Potpourri

Hey there! Welcome to this week’s installment of Pop Culture Potpourri. This week I’m talking about my favorite bridal reality shows, the return of Glee and more.

Let’s get down to business. First up are my favorite bridal reality shows My Fair Wedding, Rich Bride, Poor Bride; Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings.

My Fair Wedding

It was uncomfortable watching this week’s episode. I love the color pink as much as the next person, if not more so I thought that everything looked beautiful but I don’t think I’d want cancer to the theme of my dream wedding.

Her wig was beautiful and seeing it styled to suit her on her wedding day gave me hope that I’ll be able to find a wig and a style that’ll suit my day-to-day life.

I have to say again that I just don’t think that I would want cancer to be the theme of my wedding day. I want this all to be over and done with and put in the past. I would want my wedding day to be full of happy thoughts and plans for the future not sad and scary remembrances. It was a beautiful wedding and she looked very happy but it was not for me.

Moving on to less serious topics …

Rich Bride, Poor Bride

Oh my God! Rich Bride, Poor Bride; I don’t even know where to start. Oh yeah I do. I’ll start with the truth. Money can’t buy you class or taste.

Holy hell this week’s bride, I think her name was Michelle (M for more) looked like a rooster with that awful feather headpiece on her head. Whoever told her that looked good was seriously pulling an Emperor’s New Clothes job on her. Sheesh! The hat she just had to have to go with her nighttime look was equally awful. I suppose she felt the same way because I never saw her wear it.

And, seriously wasn’t she just a bit too old for the whole “my daddy will write a check” shtick? I think by age 31 you should have enough sense and maturity to understand that money does in fact not grow on trees and that there are things that you might want but that you just can’t or shouldn’t have.

C’mon now. $3,000 for a wedding dress for a photo shoot with her dog? Really. I love my cats, truly I do but no way would I spend $3,000 for a dress to take a picture with them in. In fact if I really wanted a wedding photo Cuppy and Snowy I’d take it after the wedding in my actual wedding dress. Why would you spend more money on a dress that you’re going to wear for an hour that no one is going to see? As it turned out you couldn’t see the dress in the photo anyway.

I think people who frivolously spend money like that don’t understand or care exactly how much money $3,000 is and how much work it takes to make $3,000.

A person making minimum wage in NJ ($7.25) makes $1,160 before taxes and benefits. That means it would take more than 3 months of full paychecks to save. If you were to save only have of the approximately $986 per month (after taxes) it would take more than 6 months and if you could somehow scrape together a quarter of your take-home pay for savings it would take more than 1 full year to save $3,000.

Speaking of savings, with $3,000 you could buy 4 shares of Google at $624.50 per share; 8 shares of Apple at $356.85 per share; 69 shares of Disney at $43.41 per share; 105 shares of AT&T at 28.47 per share; 140 shares of GE at $21.33 per share; or 178 shares of Yahoo at $16.85 per share.

You could splurge on a long weekend (3 nights, 4 days) in NYC and stay at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in a 1 bedroom suite on the concierge floor and have enough left over for two people to eat the most expensive items on the menu (appetizers & entrees) and each have dessert and coffee and still be able to leave a 20% tip at the Russian Tea Room.

The entire wedding cost $96,950. The original budget was $72,000. That means they were over budget by $24,950.

For $24,950 you could buy every employee at Google a $1 soda from a fast food joint with $4,329 left over to spent 3 nights and 4 days at the Waldorf Astoria, eat dinner at the Russian Tea Room and still have more than $1,000 left over to go shoe shopping at Jimmy Choo.

For $24,950 you could take 249 families out to a $100 dinner and one family out for a $50 dinner.

You can buy a 1.5 carat Tiffany Legacy engagement ring.

You can also buy a 1.5 carat emerald cut with tapered baguettes engagement from Tiffany.

Someone making $12 an hour makes exactly $10 more in A YEAR before taxes.

That’s 2 years of rent/mortgage with $950 left over for utility bills or savings.

That’s 1 semester of education (4 classes) at Harvard with $7,462 left over to put toward books and next semester’s tuition.

Say Yes to the Dress

I’ve been losing interest in this Friday night program but this week they featured an unusual but gorgeous red wedding dress complete with red veil and detachable ball gown skirt. Oh my gosh the red itself was a gorgeous red and the dress was simply magnificent with a huge ball down skirt for the ceremony and a straighter shorter skirt for the reception.

“We Can’t Help You Unless We Know”

I find the consultants take themselves too seriously. Rodney and Debbie’s talking heads were laughable this week. They were beside themselves because their bride neglected to tell them she’d seen a dress somewhere else and was just at Kleinfelds to look at more dresses. So what if she wanted to see what Kleinfeld’s had to offer? Maybe she wants to see your perspective and fashion sense. What if she wants your fashion advice? Please get over yourselves.

Four Weddings

I loved Deyana’s $150,000 Egyptian wedding. I can’t believe she lost. But again I have to go on about ridiculous spending. Her family sold land in Egypt in order to pay for her extravagant wedding. It’s one day! One day. My gosh that’s more than my house cost. For that kind of money the happy couple could have bought a house without ever having to shoulder the burden of a mortgage. What are people thinking?

There was a huge financial disparity this week. Danielle’s modern Italian wedding cost $50,000 while Dee Dee’s Thai wedding cost $22,000 and Julianne’s Brazilian Puerto Rican carnival cost $20,000. I guess more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better. Go figure. (yes, kids that’s sarcasm)

Moving on from bridal (non) reality …

Holy bad makeup Batman! It’s the Glam Fairy! Did anybody see this mess on The Style Network? The premise of this episode(?) was she had set up a photo shoot for a sorority. I think it was a membership drive type thing. I’m not sure who they were trying to recruit but the vision of the Glam Fairy was to dress them up as naughty school girls and give them trashy hair and makeup. This was a train wreck. Those poor girls, I hope they didn’t pay for the photo shoot, clothes, hair or makeup. The Glam Fairy needs to rename herself the Hooker Fairy. She might actually find a niche market for her Glam Studio. *shakes head*

I must be maturing or reality TV is getting even more mindless. I can’t seem to bring myself to sit through Holly’s World and I watched every season of The Girls Next Door and Kendra. And Oh.my.God Joan and Melissa is totally unwatchable. I made it about 5 minutes into the first episode. I thought I might enjoy Stand Up Mother but I was asleep a few minutes in.

I guess I’ll have to wait for The Next Great Restaurant and Celebrity Apprentice for more good reality TV.

Gleeful Glee’s Back !!!

Sooooo? What’d you think? Did you love it? Was it worth the wait? Did it live up to the hype? I loved the Super Bowl episode. I must have one of those blue wigs! Those were awesome with a heaping side of great.

I was however a little disappointed in their rendition of “Thriller”. It actually took up very little time of the episode. It was however a great story line and I liked that it wasn’t happily ever after TV fantasy. It was a sad ending and I appreciated the realistic writing.

Well kids that’s it for this installment of Pop Culture Potpourri. Thanks for reading. Stop by again next week!

Love,

~ Carol Anne