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Seems the veil is coming off. Whether the bride decides she's too young, the bridegroom realizes he's not ready, or both agree they're just not meant to be a couple, the would-be wedded are coming out with their premarital fears and grievances. In chat rooms on--of all places--wedding websites, the topic is fretted over and hotly debated. TheKnot.com the mother-in-law of all wedding sites with more than 2 million visitors a month, includes articles like "Calling It Off: Real Brides, Real Reasons," amid more registry-friendly fare. Message boards on Indiebride.com go by titles like "Runaway Brides" and "Okay, I'm Ready to Ditch." The site's founder, Lori Leibovich, says the subject is among its most popular. "In this day and age, when people are older and often live together beforehand, it's amazing to me how many people get engaged--and then start questioning the decision," Leibovich says.
The reasons behind the trend include the lengthening period of engagement; the vogue for mega-weddings, with their attendant stresses, expenses and complications; and the fear of divorce. The longer the engagement, the more time for disillusionment and the greater the likelihood that the wedding will be called off. A Bride's magazine poll found that the average period of engagement rose from 11 months in 1999 to 16 months in 2002. Sometimes, an engaged couple want to live together to test the relationship (6 in 10 live together before marriage, according to Bride's). By the time they're halfway into an engagement, the couple complain they already feel as if they're married, sometimes for better but often for worse.
Moreover, the hoopla of wedding planning, even if not of Bennifer proportions, often ushers in the jitters. Millie Martini Bratten, editor in chief at Bride's, calls wedding planning "boot camp" for marriage. "You realize that even though you've been living together, you may not have discussed all the fundamentals you need to work out before getting married," she says. "All these questions arise during the planning process that bring up deeper issues: Do we have the same attitudes toward money? How do we face problems? Do we know how to argue and resolve differences?"
When disputes arise during the planning stages and couples realize they can't agree to disagree, they call off the wedding altogether--the wisdom being, better now than later. Wedding planner JoAnn Gregoli says that in 15 years, she has never seen so many cancellations as in the past year--many of them far into the engagement. "Nobody wants to settle," she says. "Women who marry today are older, more educated and more self-sufficient. They would rather go through the ordeal of canceling a wedding than make what could be a huge mistake."
Susan Piver, author of The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do" (Putnam), claims the pre-wedding period is "like an incredibly sped-up marriage, with all the emotions, stresses, pressures, hopes and fears," with divorce one of the biggest anxieties. "A lot of engagements are called off because people are afraid of getting divorced," she says.