Oh, wedding-watching is one of my favorite hobbies! I read a couple dozen bridal magazines each year, and have since 1993, when I got married.

I remember buying my bridesmaids' dresses. "What is your color?" the saleslady asked. She was shocked to find out I didn't have a "color" but intended to let each girl buy the same dress in whatever color she preferred. "Well, that's certainly something no one has ever done before," she told me, rather feebly. Since I had cherished the idea ever since I was eight years old, when I read it in a Trixie Belden book written in the 40's, I knew instantly that the saleslady and her advice about "traditions" were phony.

You know, in 1993, wedding magazines didn't assume you planned a sit-down dinner for 200! It was possible to have an elegant morning wedding followed by a wedding breakfast. Or an afternoon wedding followed by champagne and cake and finger sandwiches. In 1993, the wedding favor was optional, and if you bought favors, no one expected anything other than inexpensive trinkets. In 1993, it was impossible to buy kid leather gloves. In 1993, one magazine advised that each member of the wedding party should wear the same shade of lipstick to ensure a military precision of appearance.

You know what I love best about bridal magazines? The advice columns. Here are some sample questions and typical responses.

Q: Dear wedding consultant, I am told that the shocking thing I want to do at my wedding will shock people. Should I do it?

A: Will it put money in the pockets of any of our advertisers? If the answer is yes, then go hog wild! Being shocked is so last year. Besides, what would your big day be without at least one close relative swearing never to speak to you again?

Q: Dear wedding consultant, is it really necessary to have a full bar, cocktail hour, sit-down dinner, heirloom favors, professional lighting designer for the site, and Oscar-winning director for my wedding video?

A: Well, your grandmother and her old-fashioned etiquette books might tell you that none of these things are necessary, but here at our magazine, we believe that they are all essential. After all, it's your Big Day and you want people to take you seriously, don't you?

Q: I'm told that asking for monetary donations is tacky.

A: Don't worry about that. Your friends already know you and your future husband are money-grubbing fiends.

Any Bollywood fan (I am one) could tell you: You don't kiss an Indian girl in public. Kissing on film is to a Bollywood star what doing a nude sex scene is to a Hollywood star; some of them do it, but it changes the way people think of them. What was Gere thinking? Doesn't he have handlers to tell him this stuff?

India isn't America. I was looking at photos from the recent wedding of Aishwarya Rai (the most beautiful woman in the world, according to some people) to Abhisheck Bachchan (son of Amitabh Bachchan, possibly the most famous Indian actor of all time). Lovely wedding. Lovely photos. Lots of pretty dresses, flowers, guys with machine guns, security guards beating people's heads in with sticks on the street. India is a place where famous actors get arrested, not just for drunk driving like Paris Hilton, but for drunk driving OVER four beggars sleeping on the sidewalk! India is the place where actor Hrithik Roshan's father was shot for failing to pay his dues to the mob. It's a place where making rude comments about the government can get you burned in effigy. It's not a place for an actor to go acting like an ugly American.

I put myself through school as a part-time seamstress, and have maintained an interest in wedding fashions. You're dead right, for about the last 8 years, wedding dresses have been stultifyingly boring. With the exception of very high-end couture and very low-end trailer park fantasy fashion, every gown advertised is strapless, A-line, usually matte satin. I don't know why, but it makes bridal magazines very boring to look at.

There's also a recent trend of brides who want to "look like themselves." These unfortunates don't realize that a formal dress requires formal hair and makeup for balance, unless you happen to be an extraordinarily naturally beautiful teenage model. A typical woman of marriageable age with her every day hairstyle and work makeup in a wedding dress looks like a dirty old mop wrapped in white satin.

Oh well - at least today's brides aren't wearing the fluffy extravaganzas which were popular when I was married in the 90's. I bought the only dress I could find which didn't look like cake frosting! All of the headpieces back then featured what my best friend called "bead weeds" - seed pearls threaded on fishing line, sprouting out of your head at odd angles. Better boring than horrifying, I guess.

Geez.

Introverted people are not autistic.

If you don't know the difference between autism and introversion, do some reading, please.

You know, I'm shocked by some of the responses I'm seeing here. If this friend had married a deaf man, or a man in a wheelchair, he might also be a difficult fit for a lake house party, but no one would be saying, "She should never have married him, it proves she's a fool, the marriage is doomed."

While I understand your desire not to embarrass the guy's wife, your concern strikes me as highly misplaced. Suggesting that this guy should be allowed to get away with misconduct because his wife is a nice lady isn't appropriate.

Who let this woman review this show? Everything I like about it, she hates, and vice-versa. Aren't reviewers supposed to be people with taste and something to contribute in the way of an interesting perspective?