WEDDINGS ARE NO CAKEWALK, EXPERTS SAY
The Importance of Choosing to Value Ourselves
By Melissa Cassutt
www.bonitanews.com
Monday, February 19, 2007
Munching squares of cake and sipping plastic champagne flutes, hundreds of brides-to-be hunted for perfection.
They're scoping out the latest trends for gowns (ivory is in). They're searching for the tastiest cake (buttercream is out). They're looking for the perfect set of plates, the best photographer, the loveliest bouquet of flowers - anything short of the perfect man.
He's the one detail in their dream wedding they don't have to worry about. He was also, in many cases, dragged around Germain Arena on Sunday for the largest bridal show in Southwest Florida.
But God love him, that's why he's the perfect man.
"I'm still testing him," joked LaBelle resident Gaetana Giambanco, 23, of bringing her fiance to the show. "He's very supportive. He puts up with a lot."
Giambanco is one of few who didn't really need the 81 booths scattered across the wood-covered ice rink. Her November wedding is already planned and booked. Sunday was all about final details, decorations and a little bit of tweaking.
"I want my last three months sitting on my high horse, not worrying about anything," she said. "You make the amount of stress that you have."
The pressure of preparing a wedding, which is often largely left to one person, can become detrimental if couples lose their relationship in the details, said Cindy Ricardo, a Coral Springs-based relationship therapist and mental health counselor.
"You can get so caught up in the wedding and making it perfect that you forget what it's really about," Ricardo said. "You're making a commitment to this person for the rest of your life, not just this one wedding day."
Tampa resident Natalie Burkle, 30, said communication has helped ease her relationship with her fiance, David Codella, to the next level. The couple, who have been dating for a year, are planning on marrying in September.
"We don't go to bed mad," she said. "And we laugh a lot."
"I also think you waited," added Burkle's mother, Sarah. "You got your career started ... you have settled your roots. We raised you to experience before settling."
The median age in 2005 for women entering their first marriage was 25.8 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Twenty five years preceding, the median age was 20.8 years, the study said.
Ricardo credits a successful marriage to an individual's ability to learn from their partner, an important skill at any age, she said.
"It's not that you're not going to have arguments," Ricardo said. "It's learning to be able to understand that your partner does see the world in a different way, and not being threatened by it."
She blames the divorce rate - which was reported as 57.8 percent statewide in 2006 by the National Center for Health Statistics - on a lack of understanding.
"I would say the divorce rate is people don't know how to connect in a different way so they just think, 'I picked the wrong partner' and they just go on to the next relationship," she said. "In any relationship you're going to have conflict."
Wedding photographer John Mansika said husbands and wives often use their wedding tape to resolve that conflict. One couple Mansika filmed in his 20-year career pulls out their wedding tape during an argument for a refresher, he said.
"Part of them making up was to pull out that video and look at their vows," Mansika said. "The whole feeling of that day, why they were so in love ... (remembering) the focus of their wedding is their life-long commitment."
As for Giambanco and her fiance, they're ready for the hard work, Giambanco said.
"We don't want to be the statistic," she said. "We don't want to be the couple that breaks up a year later. We both made the commitment."
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