November 6, 2006 by Amy

Marketing

Ahhh, back to work on Monday morning!

Weekend was good, if relatively uneventful. M worked his tushie off outside, on the Christmas display of course. It’s going to be really great this year. Well, it’s really great every year, but it’s going to be really super fantastic great this year. You’ll just have to wait and see what the new addition is!

Went to Grammy’s yesterday to help with The Wedding. The Wedding would be my sister’s upcoming nuptials with Shawntay, forevermore to be referred to as The Wedding. My wedding has been The Wedding for quite some time now, in two of the three sides of my family, simply because it was the last wedding to take place. Now, thankfully, on my mom’s side, there is another one, so mine will become “Amy’s wedding” and Beanie’s will become The Wedding. Lemme tell ya, between one indecisive bride and one high-strung mother-of-the-bride, this is a new exercise in event planning!

Don’t get your panties in wad, Mama, because I called you high-strung. Believe me, if I had to plan an entire wedding I’d be high-strung too. It ain’t nuthin’ personal! I know this about myself, which is precisely why I let you plan my entire wedding. It was a great theory, really, to let someone else plan my wedding, except that now that I have a daughter of my own I realize that it’s going to come back to bite me in the butt and Zozo will probably turn into Bridezilla when it’s her turn to wed. Oh, I forgot, her daddy says she is never getting married, because she will never be allowed to date, because she’s going to the nunnery as soon as she’s of age.

So we had a discussion yesterday at Mom’s, when in the course of planning the wedding, about the term “marketing” and such. Mom says that we’re not “marketing” the wedding, because that’s cold and impersonal and a wedding is all about love and personal relationships and all that crap. So I’ve been thinking about what “marketing” means, and I think that most aspects of our life are really just marketing opportunities. When you go for a job interview, you are marketing yourself. You are trying to sell yourself to a prospective employer. Maybe I’ve been doing marketing and events too long, because I totally think that planning a wedding is just like marketing. You are marketing who you are, and who your fiancee is, to your guests. In this case, we are marketing the “Beanie and Shawntay” package to the world. Every item is carefully chosen to reflect the tastes of the bride and groom, to reflect who they are and what they believe, to everyone else. If that ain’t marketing, I don’t know what is.

When you invite people over to your house, you are marketing. Everything from the invitation to the theme of the party, even to the food you serve, sends a message, whether you like it or not. I’m not saying this is rocket science, or that you should freak out over every little decision. I’m just saying it is what it is.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, this theory that life is all about marketing. I don’t think that marketing is cold and impersonal, unless it is done poorly. If it’s done well, you don’t even think of it as marketing, really. You don’t even realize it. You just say, “Hey, great shindig” or “nice house” or “wow, that’s a fantastic outfit.” Or, on February 3, 2007, you say, “Isn’t she beautiful?!” and “Isn’t he handsome?!” and “They are so much in love!”