T.04.03 Big Day

In Which Bella Gets Married. Apparently.

So here we are. Another climax, another chance to make Bella stand out. Another chance to thrill the reader and what do we get?
The worst wedding I've ever read about.

Bella wakes up, chats with Charlie and is picked up by Alice. She's blindfolded and taken upstairs where they get her ready.

So no description of the house. No description of the place where the big, climactic wedding ceremony will take place. We've no idea what it looks like yet. Instead, we get a smell. That's actually a good thing if we get a big description later, let's find out.

Bella gets her hair & makup & dress. We then get descriptions OF EVERYONE ELSE'S OUTFITS. We get Renee's, we get Charlie's, we get Alice and Rosalie of all people! We get half a sentence about Bella's buttons, a single-word description of her garter and a pair of blue hair combs.

So, big entrance. Bella is distracted and nervous, which is the only reason I can imagine Meyer not describing the room at all. Honestly. She mentions tons of flowers and says there are some chairs. Great, chairs. One assumes people are sitting in them, but you'd have to assume. She doesn't bother to tell us who's there other than Edward and Charlie. We get a short version of the ceremony and a few sentences from Bella about how she feels and it's over. We cut to the reception in the next chapter, but every word telling us about the wedding after Bella gets dressed is done with in 3 pages.

SumUp F

I'm honestly in shock. This is a climactic moment, a moment the reader has been waiting for since the first chapter of the first book. Meyer doesn't have to describe action or conflict or tension, she doesn't have to resolve any problem or tension. This is a place where descriptive fluff can be ladled on with abandon. We want it, give it to us! Meyer can do descriptions, I've seen it. Meyer can do conversation, I've read it.  So why, why, why does she lock Bella down to the point where she can't tell us anything about her own wedding!?

By the way, has any bride in the history of modern weddings NOT looked at herself in her wedding dress?
 
Yes, Edward fills her vision. Yes, it's a narrator with a singular focus. But even if we accept her blindness during the march that doesn't mean she can't look around AFTER the kiss! If Meyer had to have Bella fixed in this tunnel-vision, why not break it then? Why not describe the relief, the thrill of the moment? Have Bella tell us the faces she sees? the room, suddenly revealed? SOME bit of visual information for the reader? She has a license to go on for pages and pages about the gorgeous decor, the amazing faces, the joy Bella feels. Instead, it's all blind, stumbling, boring Bella trying to not collapse in the mysterious fog and then woosh! reception.

Inexcusably lazy.