Wedding Gown Blues

We have just finished the month of June with weddings happening everywhere it seems. I have just a WEE bit of a gripe. Wedding dresses – Zippers should not stand out like a flashing placard! Designers, seamstresses, and companies could do a better job about this I believe. This rant is not aimed at brides but to the companies that produce wedding gowns. Granted not everything will be perfect, but this is a pet peeve of mine I guess. Invisible zippers cannot be used in all gowns, but one of my biggest gripes is when buttons are sewn on the zipper flap to create the illusion that the dress is buttoned in the back. That does absolutely no good if the buttons are flapping in the breeze where everyone can see the zipper! The entire illusion is lost. There are many ways to avoid this issue, but believe me when I say it CAN be avoided. And, don’t give me that adage, “You get what you pay for.” Just because one pays a few hundred less for a dress does not mean that it should not be beautiful.

I just had to get that off my chest. I have seen some beautiful gowns and dresses in my lifetime, but lately more of them have this problem. Depending on the material, there are ways to alleviate this issue from the way the zipper is sewn to adding the correct weight of interfacing according to the cut and design of the dress to having enough material for the flap-designed zipper, etc. So, if you are shopping for a wedding dress, be sure the zipper looks great when you try it on (and everything else). Be aware (or BE WARE) of the salesperson who says that it can be easily remedied if you do not love the dress at the time of purchase. Too many times sales ladies (and men) are only interested in selling a dress without your complete satisfaction with the product.

Ho-hum. I need to get back to the garden, but we really need to do a better job in the quality department and not just with wedding dresses. Ok, I feel better!

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Friend Me!

Surely you have heard these words, “Friend me,” and more than likely you have a Facebook account. We are an interesting species. We want to have friends, searching for that attachment with others yet we want to be individually different in order to stand out. While promoting relationships seems to be a good thing for all of us, most social networking sites are promotional propaganda that we seem to just buy into over and over. In other words, it is all about money and what others can get out of it. Varying websites have their own forums and ways to link people together while setting those who are different apart. I’m not sure that this is such a good thing.

People want to have individual ideas and thoughts to set them apart, but the more we ‘friend others’ the more we become alike and the less we stand out. Peer pressure plays a part in this, and this is not paranoia speaking; it is psychology. I am not against having friends, but it seems that the definition of friendship is being redefined through our social networks. Being a true friend means that one is often willing to forgo selfish things in order to put a friend first. The road goes both ways. While I am willing to do whatever is needed for a friend, I know I can count of them, too. I cannot speak for everyone, but many of these network friends are only connected for selfish reasons. This is not a friend. There is a big difference between knowing someone as an acquaintance and having a friend.

No, I do not particularly like Facebook and some of the other social networks. For one thing, I like to have that one-on-one contact (face-to-face) with people. I think we are losing our social skills because of our interactions through the internet (email, ims, text messaging, tweets, etc). Emicons or emoticons and such will not replace actual facial expressions or voice reflection. So often, it is the personal contact that makes the differece. And, we are forgetting what true friends are. We seem to be losing the depth of friendship, and I am concerned that we are becoming more callous and act with less empathy because of our increasing dependence on other forms of communication. This is dangerous in the “ME, ME, ME” world that we are in today.

When speaking about not having a Facebook account because I like other ways to communicate and the fact that I do not like how people and companies collect personal and non-personal information from the internet, someone told me that only people who have something to hide are the ones who do not have a Facebook account. What? How shallow was that? I don’t feel that I have anything to hide where this other person has a good bit. We should always be careful when we assume we know what is going on with someone else, and in order to have friends, we must BE a friend-a good one. Good words to live by.

Happy Gardening!

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