Chapter 3 – Big Day

The title makes it clear what’s coming. The wedding. This chapter was written for Meyer to indulge her fantasy of the ultimate dream wedding for her beloved self insert. Get ready for blatant self-indulgence and trivial obsession over inconsequential details. This is Meyer’s fantasy, and we’re just along for the ride.

Bella wakes up gasping, freaked out by her dream. She also sees the fastest sunrise in history. “The sky outside my window turned gray and then pale pink while I waited for my heart to slow.” This all happens over the course of a few minutes. If the sky had been gray and then turned pink while she watched, yeah, sure, I’d be fine with it. But for it to turn gray while she watches means that it was completely dark when she woke up. Apparently the sun just boings up into the sky like a cartoon or something.

Bella then says that it was just a silly dream she was having and immediately forgets about it.

How many times now has she had a symbolic dream of that very clearly reveals future events in some way? And this one is a dream about a baby the night before her WEDDING?

Bella burns off some nervous energy by cleaning the house and making Charlie a pancake breakfast. She doesn’t eat, though, she’s too tense. She Charlie to remember to pick up Mr. Weber, Angela’s father, who is also a minister and going to be officiating the ceremony. Charlie replies that he won’t forget because that’s pretty much the only thing he has to do for this wedding.

Bella reminds him that he also has to be “dressed and presentable”. Can’t you stop being a bitch for five minutes, Bella? Then there’s some sorcery or the timeline shifts or something because Charlie isn’t eating pancakes anymore. “He scowled into his cereal bowl…” Editing? What’s that?

Alice shows up, and it’s time for doing Bella’s makeup and hair. And she’s a rude bitch about it. “I've only allotted so much time to make you stunning, Bella — you might have taken better care of my raw material.”

[img] http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1318613746593_287542.png[/img]

There’s so much pointless bickering that I’m just skipping over because otherwise I will eat my own fingers. They get to the Cullen house and Bella asks if Edward’s back from his bachelor party. Alice says no, but assures her that he’ll be home in time. However, she says that they don’t get to see each other until the ceremony is taking place, because Alice wants everything traditional. Bella scoffs at that, because how dare Alice apply the word traditional to Bella and Edward! They are, after all, more specialer than you and shouldn’t be constrained by the traditions of normal human beings! Alice ignores her, and Bella says that it doesn’t matter anyway, because Edward has probably already seen it in everyone’s minds. Alice says nope, she made it so she was the only one who ever saw Bella dressed up for a reason—she’s been keeping the image a secret and not thinking about it so he can’t see it.

This is all so fucking boring. Do you see anything interesting here at all except for thcontinuity good over Charlie’s breakfast? Because I don’t. This is so fucking tedious. There’s no emotion or relevance. It’s two people getting the bride ready for a wedding. This could be anyone. It doesn’t have a cutesy romantic comedy feel like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This is just Alice going “I’m going to dress you up” while Bella just takes it. I can’t even tell if this is intended to be comedic, or tension building, or what. I’m usually pretty good at picking up on what Meyer is TRYING to do, but this is so bland and generic and empty.

They finally arrive at the Cullens’ drive, and Bella comments that Alice got a chance to reuse all of the white lights that she used for the graduation party in Eclipse. I didn’t cover, but Alice wrapped these white lights on all of the trees along the Cullen’s drive, which is three miles long. On the Olympic Peninsula…which is a rainforest with lots and lots of big trees. Meaning that this represents an ungodly number of lights and extension cords and electricity and money. But not only is she using them again, but she also accompanied them with white satin bows. So now all the trees are covered in ribbon, and lots of it. Even more money.

[img] http://s2.postimg.org/ij0csb8t5/Love_Of_Money.jpg[/img]

Alice then tells Bella that she is not going to get to see the decorations inside of the house because she wants it to be a surprise when she walks down the stairs for the ceremony. She covers Bella’s eyes before they head into the kitchen, and Bella immediately smells something.

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/51fc2237ea8f69c590171d5f15329d5a.png[/img]

Dear god. I’m no decorator or olfactory artist or anything but I know for a fact that nothing about those combined scents is “subtle and flawless”. Not at all overwhelming? The fuck? Orange, freesia, and roses are all powerful fragrances and don’t smell similar to one another at all. Given those three powerful scents, how did Bella even smell the lilac at all? This combination of three centerpiece fragrances is going to give the guests sinus headaches to say nothing of those with allergies.

Also, Alice, why are you impressed that Bella got two of the scents correct? She missed two questions in a four question quiz. That’s a grade of 50%. That’s an F.

Also, I just want to point out that when Royce the Rapist was courting Rosalie, he sent her roses every day so that she was bathed in rose perfume. Nice touch, you fucking bitch.

They get to the bathroom and Alice starts using fifty bajillion things for her face and hair and makeup.

[img] http://s2.postimg.org/ij0csb8t5/Love_Of_Money.jpg[/img]

You’ll see why I gave it a point in a second. Bella whines that Alice doesn’t need to do anything because she’s going to be so plain next to Edward no matter what. Fortunately we’re allowed to skip the entire process through a bad transition and jump past lunch. Rosalie shows up, and Bella starts whining again. “[Rosalie] was so beautiful it made me want to cry. What was even the point of dressing up with Rosalie around?”

SHUT THE FUCK UP BELLA. This is supposed to be your wedding day. You should either be creaming your jeans in anticipation or freaking the fuck out because WEREN’T YOU AFRAID OF MARRIAGE? The ceremony is hours away, and you’re obsessed with being the prettiest one here. Why do you even care? I thought you didn’t want the attention.

Rosalie announces that Edward’s back and Bella is overjoyed. Alice reminds Rosalie to keep Edward out, and Rosalie then offers to do Bella’s hair. Bella about has a heart attack.

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/d22104a3bf1fed85f2d1804fd601f136.png [/img]

Can I make a list?

[list][li]Despite what happens later in this book, Bella’s freaking out that one person in the universe doesn’t like her. Because we need that now, apparently.[/li]

[li]Rosalie’s loving family? Have you seen how they treat her?[/li]

[li]No, she wouldn’t trade it all to be human. She’d trade it all to have a baby. You obviously weren’t listening when she gave that massive speech back in Eclipse.[/li]

[li]“And here I was, callously throwing away everything she wanted in life like it was garbage.” So you admit that that’s what you’re doing. That’s how I’ve always described what Bella’s doing. So I can’t add anything more to that here. You said it yourself, Bella. Thanks![/li]

[li]You’re stunned that Rosalie would do this for you out of the kindness of her heart? Maybe she’s just trying to bury the hatchet. Maybe she’s trying to make peace with you. [/li] [/list]

All of this is crap, basically. Alice directs Rosalie how to do Bella’s hair. And after she’s finished with it, Alice has to check it over and okay it. Meyer is trying to tell me that Rosalie, the vain girl who obsesses over her looks and actually has long hair is nowhere near the stylist that Alice is, who does not have long hair and never did. Eat me.

Alice orders her around some more, making her get the dress and get Jasper and greet the guests. Alice and Rosalie continues to dress Bella while Bella just lays there like a lump and does absolutely nothing. And I have to add this:

Bitter, Much?

Do you know why I awarded it a Bitter point? The way everybody is catering to Bella, the way she never had to lift a finger to do anything, didn’t have to worry about the guest list, the catering, the dress, the

honeymoon, the packing, the marriage papers, the rings, the decorations or anything. All she had to do was sit there and moan about how hard it is to be the bride who had all of her dreams come true and had to endure all of this rich stuff and how she had to get married to the man she loves most in the world and who is way hotter than you.

Yeah….it comes across as someone bemoaning the wedding she never had.

Bella tries to tell us that she’s nervous and scared and shaking, but considering all she’s been doing so far is whine about how everyone’s prettier than she is, and that the writing is completely devoid of emotion and is just a laundry-list of some genericness I don’t buy it.

Alice tells Bella to calm down, and then she runs off to get her dress on. Bella deliberately avoids looking in the mirror—just so we can have the big reveal that we know is coming be all the more dramatic, of course. Bella ogles Alice for a while because teasing the slash writers is a hobby of Meyer’s, and Alice brushes her off, saying she won’t be the center of attention at all. Bella scoffs.

Alice threatens to use Jasper to drug Bella PLEASE STOP DOING THAT and then confirms that yes, Jasper being back means Renee is also here, because he picked her up at the hotel. Alice tells Bella that Renee is on her way up, and Bella reminisces a little about how much Renee has been enjoying herself with the decorations and all that nonsense and how she’s having so much fun. “In a way, I felt almost as cheated as Charlie. All that wasted terror over her reaction…”

Wasted terror is the phrase you use? How about wasted time? I have to have a drinking game for wasted time for this fucking book.

Renee walks into the room and immediately starts blathering on about how beautiful everything is. She says Bella looks like something out of Jane Austen in her dress.

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/77fe5f2dffc4b9610dbdb5b1544c429b.png[/img]

I’m not going to yell about Renee getting the period of the dress wrong or anything like that. Mostly I love the last sentence. It’s all about Edward, not Bella. She’s playing no part in this. If Mr. Cullen is going to be such a wedding Nazi, he should wear the damned dress himself.

Charlie comes up to tell Renee that it’s time for them to go downstairs and get into position. Renee gives Bella a gift. It’s part of the something old and blue tradition; Renee gives Bella her grandmother’s hair combs, which have small sapphires that Renee and Charlie paid to put on them.

I’m not awarding a Love of Money point here, because this is a heartfelt gift from Bella’s parent on her wedding day. I talked about them being poor back in Twiligh, but this is something that they could have done for their daughter. This isn’t some ostentatious nouveau riche display. And Bella, being the ungrateful bitch that she is, gives it a perfunctory “[Y]ou shouldn't have.” She doesn’t actually say thank you, doesn’t say she loves them, doesn’t say or narrate any particular emotional response. And we never hear about them again. Why should Bella bother with mentioning them when she talks about all the awesome expensive stuff the Cullens give her.

All I’m saying is that Bella treats everything from her human life, including her family and her family heirlooms, like garbage.

Then we go to an inappropriate joke:

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/6bff64e31276900e09cda12c8bdfafe0.png[/img]

Yeah, I’m just going to point out that Alice literally ripped out people’s throats for thirty years and leave it at that.

Remember how I gave a Love of Money point for all the makeup and beauty products? Here’s why:

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/7322fe3e3c7aead4a636776e45e5cffa.png[/img]

Yep. They bought it for no reason. All Bella needed was a tiny bit of color. Because she’s so beautiful and stunning she doesn’t NEED makeup to accentuate or hide anything. Makeup is for dirty girls like Jessica and Lauren. But aside from Love of Money and wanting to buy stuff and show it off, there’s no reason why Alice bought all that stuff in the first place.

Alice crawls under Bella’s dress to put her garter on, and Charlie walks back in at that moment. He gets a look of surprise and maybe confused arousal on his face at the thought of Alice performing cullenlingus on Bella NO I WILL TAKE THAT BACK but then it’s time. The music starts, and it’s the traditional wedding march from Wagner, except they felt the need to “[surround it with] a flood of embellishments”. Because that’s what vampires do! They take things that humans do and make them better, as if a mere human could make anything that is timeless or beautiful on its own. So much for a traditional wedding.

Bella goes down the stairs and she looks up and sees all the decorations in her searching for Edward. And here I want to pause and quote all of the decorations back. Everything from this chapter and from Chapter 4:

[quote]Three miles of drive were once again wrapped in hundreds of thousands of twinkle lights. This time, she’d added white satin bows.

…

For a brief second, I was distracted by the profusion of white blossoms that hung in garlands from everything in the room that wasn't alive, dripping with long lines of white gossamer ribbons. But I tore my eyes from the bowery canopy and searched across the rows of satin-draped chairs — blushing more deeply as I took in the crowd of faces all focused on me — until I found him at last, standing before an arch overflowing with more flowers, more gossamer.

…

The lights in the trees glimmered as Edward led me through the glass back doors, making the white flowers glow. There were another ten thousand flowers out here, serving as a fragrant, airy tent over the dance floor set up on the grass under two of the ancient cedars.

…

I was blinded by flashbulbs as we held the knife over a spectacular cake — too grand, I thought, for our relatively intimate group of friends and family.

…

With pursed lips, he studied the shimmering glow of the reception party, the graceful whirl of the dancers, the fluttering petals falling from the garlands; I looked with him. It all seemed very distant from this black, quiet space. Almost like watching the white flurries swirling inside a snow globe.

…

The car was decorated with more flowers that trailed in streamers along its length, and long gossamer ribbons that were tied to a dozen shoes — designer shoes that looked brand-new — dangling behind the bumper. [/quote]

[img] http://s2.postimg.org/ij0csb8t5/Love_Of_Money.jpg[/img]

Bitter, Much?

The Love of Money point is obvious. But the Bitter point…I’m just getting that vibe. Meyer is not writing a fantasy wedding so that her self-insert can have the best of everything. No one puts this much time and attention in a little escapist fantasy. She put serious thought into this; she’s writing the multi-million dollar wedding she wished she’d had.

And Bella’s statement that the floral scent is subtle is bullshit. Alice put flowers on everything. There are literally thousands of fragrant flowers everywhere. As someone who gets sinus headaches and has allergies, I know for a fact that there were guests who wouldn’t be able to sit through the entire ceremony without running out for air.

Bella spots Edward with the minister. She has the “the world falls away” moment when she does, and this would have more of an impact if she didn’t do that every time she sees him. Edward sees her, grins, and then:

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/3d15b879f33462b4da5aa2f9b43f3b09.png[/img]

That happens. In just four little paragraphs, we did away with all of Bella’s talk about how she didn’t want to get married. How she thought marriage was an outdated institution. How marriage freaks her out and scares her. How she she couldn’t wait for this wedding to be done and forgotten. All of her protests of how she didn’t want to get married young, thought it was an immature move.

All of that is tossed out the window. Because now she can’t wait to be married and marriage is the best thing ever.

Dear lord. The aversion to marriage was essentially a pathological fear based on how exaggerated it was. And not just because of what Charlie and Renee would think; Bella had lots and lots of reasons she didn’t want to get married. Only high school dropouts who get knocked up get married at 18. She thought that marriage had ruined her own parent’s relationship. Yes, her reasoning was stupid, but it was established and drawn out and consistent. The aversion to marriage is why Eclipse lasted as long as it did. Bella has done nothing but talk about how marriage is horrible, how much she hates it, how much it scares her, and how much she does not want to do it. Her only reaction to this wedding has been dread and resignation. The only reason she agreed to it in the first place is because getting married to her was the only way Edward would turn her into a vampire and fuck her. Let’s look at some goddamned quotes:

[quote]I looked away, out the dark window, trying to control the panic before it gave me away.

"Look, marriage isn't exactly that high on my list of priorities, you know? It was sort of the kiss of death for Renée and Charlie."

--New Moon, Chapter 24

...

"Would this have gone better if I'd had time to get a ring?"

"No! No rings!" I very nearly shouted.

--New Moon, Chapter 24

...

"I'm not that girl, Edward. The one who gets married right out of high school like some small-town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend! Do you know what people would think? Do you realize what century this is? People don't just get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people! I wasn't going to be that girl! That's not who I am…" I trailed off, losing steam.

--Eclipse Chapter 12

...

"The thing is, Edward," I said in a shaky voice, avoiding the question, "in my mind, marriage and eternity are not mutually exclusive or mutually inclusive concepts. And since we're living in my world for the moment, maybe we should go with the times, if you know what I mean."

--Eclipse Chapter 12

...

But I knew he was going to stick to his marriage scheme like glue — because a delay was what he was clearly after and it was working so far. I tried to imagine telling my parents that I was getting married this summer. Telling Angela and Ben and Mike. I couldn't. I couldn't think of the words to say. It would be easier to tell them I was becoming a vampire. And I was sure that at least my mother — were I to tell her every detail of the truth — would be more strenuously opposed to me getting married than to me a becoming vampire. I grimaced to myself as I imagined her horrified expression.

--Eclipse Chapter 14

...

"Aren't you happy at all?"

He kissed me again before I could answer. Another too-persuasive kiss.

"A little bit," I admitted when I could speak. "But not about getting married."

--Eclipse Chapter 20

...

Maybe it wouldn't bug me so much if I didn't know that I would probably be gossiping just as condescendingly as the rest of them if it was someone else getting married this summer.

Gah. Married this summer! I shuddered.

And then, maybe it wouldn't bug me so much if I hadn't been raised to shudder at the thought of marriage.

--Eclipse Chapter 20

...

In my happy place, the whole wedding mess was over and done. Behind me. Already repressed and forgotten.

--Breaking Dawn Chapter 1

...

My last night in my room. My last night as Isabella Swan. Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen. Though the whole marriage ordeal was a thorn in my side, I had to admit that I liked the sound of that.

--Breaking Dawn Chapter 2[/quote]

Bella’s fear of Renee’s reaction? That was Deliberately Wasting Your Time. This? FUCKING BULLSHIT IS WHAT THIS IS. Her pathological fear of marriage is just wiped out by the sight of Edward at the altar? She sees him and is all like “LOL I was being silly. What was I thinking?” You were thinking of WASTING THE READER’S GODDAMNED TIME.

This was the reason I decided to use the Deliberately Wasting Your Time drinking game. This is the first and by no means last of the examples that prove that Meyer never intended to write New Moon or Eclipse in the first place. If you didn’t know, Meyer first wrote Twilight and then almost immediately began writing long epilogues that she eventually collected in an unpublished and unofficial sequel called Forever Dawn. Parts of Forever Dawn made it into Breaking Dawn. Part 1 of Forever Dawn IS Breaking Dawn. Meyer went from the end of Twilight to Bella’s wedding. And I know this from the FAQ at the end of New Moon. A quote:

[quote]The biggest non-YA thing I'd done with Forever Dawn was this: I'd pretty much passed over the rest of Bella’s high school experience entirely, skipping ahead to a time in her life with more mature themes. So, as I began to sketch out New Moon, I went back to Bella's senior year of high school and asked my little cast of characters, "What happened?"[/quote]

And then she wrote what happened and what happened was to drag out the plot by making Bella pathologically afraid of marriage. The only problem with this is that Meyer had already written Forever Dawn, and was happy with everything in it, because Forever Dawn contributed these chapters to Breaking Dawn, and we know from the interviews and FAQs that Meyer wrote the end of the series first and then went back and filled in the gaps. Some authors can write like that.

MEYER CAN’T.

Forever Dawn had Bella and Edward getting happily married and SHE WAS NOT GOING TO CHANGE THAT. She wanted the perfect wedding and romantic kiss so she didn’t care one bit New Moon and Eclipse both completely contradicted the happy marriage she wrote. Her problem is that she wrote New Moon and Eclipse with new events and characterization that required the last book in the series to be changed. And she refused to change it. She stuck as closely as possible to what she wrote in Forever Dawn and that means that a lot of the subplots, characterization, and actual plot points in those two books become this:

[img]http://s24.postimg.org/q94x7xmp1/Wasting_Your_Time.jpg[/img]

I’ll say this again; this is the first of many, many times where this happens. Meyer only wrote New Moon and Eclipse because the publishers made her as part of her book deal. And she intends to make it clear that those two books don’t matter as many times as possible in Breaking Dawn.

And now the uncomfortable point. Some people, not necessarily me, theorize that Bella’s hatred and fear of marriage is actually Meyer herself venting her own frustration at having gotten married early. Since Bella is Meyer’s avatar and she has admitted that Bella is pretty much everything she wanted to be but didn’t get, it’s not totally unreasonable. But the last passage I quoted, about how Bella goes from Marriage-bad to Marriage-awesome so quickly is like Meyer not having the guts to go through with it completely. She couldn’t just have had Bella get married for the sake of immortality and then just sort of stoically bear it. You can’t just get married and not be happy in it, so Bella is all like marriage-yay! Now.

Anyway, wedding is still going on, but most of it is summed up and brushed over. Yeah, despite the big buildup to the actual event and the obsession over all of the decorations and making us go forth and look at all the money the Cullens are clearly spending on Edward’s Alice’s Bella’s special day, the payoff is a few paragraphs.

A couple of them are worth mentioning, though. First, I already quoted the part about their vows:

[img] https://i.gyazo.com/cd87f60928ed77e205d156b28475db72.png[/img]

1) Notice the dig at couples who aren’t Bella and Edward? They’re the most special and amazing couple ever.

2) She’s trying to pass off “as long as we both shall live” as some sort of unique and singular alteration to the wedding vows. AS LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE IS MORE COMMON THAN TIL DEATH DO US PART, YOU VAPID BINT! They used ALAWBSL in 101 Dalmations for fuck’s sake!

Then there’s this:

[quote]I tried to comprehend, through the film of tears blinding me, the surreal fact that this amazing person was mine.

...

He kissed me tenderly, adoringly; I forgot the crowd, the place, the time, the reason… only remembering that he loved me, that he wanted me, that I was his.[/quote]

Bitter, Much?

This is making me really uncomfortable. Meyer is a married mother of three, and it’s one thing to have fantasies despite being married, but it’s it’s quite another to write them out like this and then tell the world at large that yes, you would gladly abandon your family if this guy showed up on your doorstep.

When they finally kiss, Bella makes it way too long, of course, because that’s classy. “I clung to him, ignoring the titters and the throat-clearing in the audience.”

So, everyone is clapping and cheering. Bella just stares stupidly at Edward the whole time. They get crowded then, everyone coming up to hug her and shake hands. Bella pays zero attention, but finally snaps out of it to end the chapter on a stupid note: “One scorching hug stood out from all the others — Seth Clearwater had braved the throng of vampires to stand in for my lost werewolf friend.”

Oh, right, because we’re still going to pretend that there’s a love triangle. Remember, Bella misses and loves Jacob. Never mind that she hasn’t thought of him once in the past two chapters and all of the narration about how Bella is marriage-yay makes it clear that not getting to be with Jacob doesn’t matter to her.

And now Chapter 3 is done. It was completely pointless. It did not advance the plot, added nothing to characterization, and was nothing but a laundry list. Bella woke up, got picked up by Alice, went to the Cullens’ house, got dressed up for her wedding, was given a gift from her parents, and then got married. That’s it. Nothing important happened. Nothing worth noting happened. Nothing that affects anything later on down the line happened. All that happened was that Bella got married. That’s it.

Even in New Moon a it’s wheel-spinnging-iest, the chapters were dumb and filler, but Meyer at least attempted to make them matter somehow. They would advance the subplot or give characterization or bad foreshadowing and setup or something. But Chapter 3 of Breaking Dawn? It was worthless. It was absolutely Meyer’s wedding fantasy. This was authorial self-indulgence.

[hr]

BOOK I COUNTS

Love of Money Is the Root of All Evil: 8

Lasombra Would Be Proud: 2

Shut Up, Leah: 2

So You Kill A Bunch of People: 3

Wasting Your Time: 4