dear wedding bloggers: carry on, nothing to see here

If you read wedding blogs, or you're on Twitter, then you'll probably have seen this over the past couple of days.

It's a post by an anonymous photographer about how, in a nutshell, wedding blogs and their detail-orientation bias are stressing out brides and making them feel inferior. It's a plea for more of a focus on 'normal' weddings. And by that, they mean ones that are plainer.

I don't know if anyone has noticed this (the photographer perhaps hasn't) but actually, there are already blogs that feature weddings from the entire spectrum - from four people in a register office (or for our American friends, the courthouse) with no moustaches on sticks to ginormous traditional weddings with 500 people. From plain to elaborate. From handmade to out-of-the-box. And yes, some of them have had mason jars and bunting. Trends come, trends go. People like trends because they are exposed to them.

Of course, some blogs only feature thin, model-like brides. C'est la vie. Or rather, c'est la media in general. But if that's all you can find then you're not looking hard enough. I've seen weddings featuring people of all religions and no religion. Of all shapes, sizes and colours. In this wonderful world of acceptance, I've read about Pagan weddings, elopements, weddings that happened on the spur of the moment, second weddings, weddings abroad, weddings on farms, weddings in back gardens. Every single one of these has been celebrated.

Look at A Practical Wedding, Offbeat Bride, Any Other Wedding, Love My Dress and so many more (and people are setting them up as we speak) - and if you check out the comments on these blogs, you will find they link to personal blogs from thousands of brides (and some grooms too) who run their own corner of the internet, mulling these issues daily.

They curate their own idea of what's important, and if they care to do so, they can define what they find attractive. They can control the pretty, redefine it and call bullshit.

Blogs - in all their guises, whether they focus on the pretty, the dress, the groom, whatever - are what has given the confident voices to all of these women (and men). Blogs and the blogging world reinforces the idea that they can make up their own rules, and they can do whatever the hell they like for their wedding. Remember - just a few short years ago, all weddings largely looked one way. That they now very much do not all look one way - despite the fashion for mason jars and dressing up boxes, these sort of weddings are still a minority - is because of the popularity of the blog and the confidence it has given people.

(If you want to see how things have changed in three short years, its worth reading a little about Rock n Roll Bride's own wedding, as she explains how different the options available were in 2008.)

People who get stressed out because their wedding is "too plain" would find something to get stressed out about if there were no blogs. Because some people are just like that.

In short. Bloggers: as you were. Keep up the good work, team.