Planning a Wedding Can Leave a Couple Fit to Be Tied

The men and women are beautiful, the platform is lit and Olympic music fills the air.

These aren’t the Winter Games, though. At least not the ones in Japan. The scene is a Woodland Hills bridal show. The theme is a “Salute to Nagano.” The models showing bridal gown designs wave tiny American flags. The model grooms wear red, white and blue cummerbunds.

All around, a horde of mothers and daughters takes in the latest wedding fashions. Eggshell ivory dresses. One-hundred-inch long cathedral veils. The Euro-tie, a disconcerting mishmash of neckwear sartorially situated somewhere between an ascot and a cravat.

My girlfriend and I shift uncomfortably. After eight years of dating (we wanted to be sure), our marriage is set for June. The fancy gowns, the $10,000 receptions, the acre-of-frosting wedding cakes, even the word “fiancee.” None of it quite fits our style.

Plus, we apparently aren’t setting any records in the planning competition.

“How exciting,” one vendor says brightly when she learns our nuptial date is five months away. “Everyone else I’ve met today is getting married in 1999.”

Great. Still single and already a year behind.

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Millie Annenberg is a razor-sharp woman in an industry that thrives on gauze.

Got a $600 wedding budget? She can deal with it. Think you look good in the all-white Vera Wang? She’ll tell you the truth. Want your wedding on the beach?

“Those people are crazy,” Annenberg says. “They get all wet, people are in their nice clothes, everybody’s sandy.”

A self-described Ralph Nader of the $35-billion-a-year wedding industry--about the same size, coincidentally, as the trash disposal industry--Annenberg runs Wedding Dreams, a wedding gown store that doubles as a sort of clearinghouse for wedding vendors.

The vendors pay her a fee. She showcases and evaluates their services. She gets no commission, so no single company is favored, she says. She promises free advice and straight talk to novices caught in the maw of The Big Day, where $30,000 buys you an “average” event.

“At least 75% of the people have no idea what a wedding costs,” Annenberg says. “We give them a rude awakening.”

This is the busiest time of year for Annenberg’s shop, which lies near the west end of the San Fernando Valley’s thriving wedding district along Ventura Boulevard. Shops specializing in Latino and Armenian weddings dot the Valley’s east side.

In 12 years, she has helped some 15,000 couples to the alter, er, altar. And she has learned what makes Valley weddings different.

First, there’s the gown. Back East, they still may do the high-collar, high-dollar, 3,000-sequin Princess-Barbie gown thing. But in sunny Southern California, simplicity is in.

Sleeveless gowns, low-cut dresses. Heck, even a white bathing suit will do.

Still, most brides like to show off at least a little, she said.

“It can be a backyard wedding and there’ll be a train from here to New York,” she said. “That’s fine. That’s what they love.”

Second, there’s the guests. You’re lucky to get 75% of the invitees to show for a wedding in Erie, Pa., in December. But California’s status as a year-round vacation spot guarantees a much higher turnout of distant relatives.

Indeed, for our wedding one guest from England is selling shares of stock to make the trip. She says it’s her affection for us. I lay bets on our proximity to San Francisco.

Then there’s the wedding party. In Anytown, U.S.A., there’s a best man, a maid-of-honor, groomsmen and bridesmaids. Here in the Valley, Annenberg once helped plan a wedding for an animal trainer in which the bridal party consisted of an alligator, a bear, a pig and a dog.

“They all had floral wreaths,” she said. “I didn’t think the alligator would look nice, but it turned out OK.”

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So far, my wedding plans are more or less typical, Annenberg says. Mostly, that’s because I haven’t done much of it. Instead, my fiancee and her mother have been grinding away, choosing the caterer, the deejay, the wedding site, the photographer and the videographer (one boasted of “Broadcast Quality!” I thought: “America’s Funniest Home Videos” are broadcast quality. So is “Cops.”)

Then there’s the general horror at the whole froufrou wedding scene. I shudder at the idea of my girlfriend, the soul of simplicity, in a gown with lace and sequins and big shiny beads. It would be like seeing a piece of Shaker furniture in Elvis’ Jungle Room.

And though I felt penguin-like in the various tuxedos and morning suits I tried on, a woman looking at gowns with her daughter at Annenberg’s store on Thursday dismissed my complaints.

“You have it easy,” she said. “You’re the groom.”

Finally, though we felt after the bridal show that we had fallen behind, we’re actually on track, schedule-wise.

But it’s just a lull in the storm, Annenberg says. The real work comes in the weeks and days just before the actual event. That’s when the details must be hammered out.

Do the butterscotch yellow roses match the dress? Do the tuxedos all have bow ties? Does the deejay have a CD of “Unchained Melody”?

Annenberg smiles knowingly when I tell her we have yet to run into such problems.

“There’s such a thing as everything going perfectly,” she says.

I’ll risk it.