I was deeply in love with my girlfriend and couldn't see spending my life with anyone else, so it was time to prove it, by listening for hours about which shade of white our wedding tablecloths should be.

I know more about wedding details than I want, but less than I should. I'm getting married next June to my fiancée, Michelle, even though she's an Aquarius. And for a lot of stuff Michelle wants my opinion, provided it's the exact same as hers.

This is a trend for modern couples, couples who are open about discussing at length things like feelings and hopes and fears and why it's not okay for me to wear gym shoes to nice restaurants.

In the old days, the groom would show up on whichever day he was told, put on whatever tuxedo had been rented for him, and marry whoever was dressed in white. Sure, the groom would often get the date wrong and marry someone else wearing white, such as another bride or a butcher. But it was an effective system, dammit, and never resulted in critical fourth-and-goal situations interrupted by hors d'oeuvre questions.

But now it's impossible to avoid wedding minutiae. Michelle's really into wedding-themed reality TV, and I have no choice but to watch it with her, because it turns out I like these shows.

Take Say Yes To The Dress, in which cameras follow customers and staff at a posh New York City wedding dress boutique. Every episode is essentially the same: we meet three or four brides; their family gives them a hard time as they try on dresses; they buy one for two times their budget and nine times the cost of a commercial airliner.

I originally thought Michelle wanted me to watch it so I would see how horrible some of the show's brides act and give her more leeway. But it's damn good TV. I've now got stronger opinions about wedding dresses than health care, though I can't actually express them because Michelle already bought her own dress, and if I criticize one too similar I'll be back on the dating scene within minutes.

We also watch cake shows like Amazing Wedding Cakes and Ultimate Cake Off. If I had to identify the central theme of these programs, it would be "Let's show pictures of delicious cakes to brides on crash wedding diets."

Note I said "pictures." The cakes on these shows look like gift boxes, or buildings, or flowers, but this is TV and they could just be actual gift boxes, buildings and flowers. Probably the producers go around finding random objects: "Hey, check out this old VCR. Let's say it's coconut cake, with chocolate buttercream icing."

It's amazing the hold these shows have. If they made a program about what stamps couples put on their invitations, Michelle and I would probably watch, and it would probably be good.

We still have a lot to plan for our own wedding, but for now it's easier to watch shows about people who already made their choices. I'm just glad it'll all be sorted out by the day next summer when I take that big step and marry Michelle. Or whoever.

Scott Green is an award-winning humor columnist who has written regularly for the Washington Post and CBSNews.com. In 2009 he was named one of the top 100 young journalists in America, and now shares his thoughts on pop culture, politics, sex and relationships at ScottSays.com. He lives in Chicago with his fiancée and their two TVs, ages 4 and 3.