[What follows is my worst anti-marriage mood. I get in one about once a year, following a wedding. And sometimes, even I, lil' ol' me...want to *cough* *hack*...wed. Lawfully or no.]
This summer I had the pleasure of attending a 50th wedding anniversary in the U.P., Michigan and a wedding in central New York. The anniversary took place in a church addition, where daycare and Sunday school were to be held the following day. As my grandmother flitted around the room pointing at things and expecting their removal, I noted that she was essentially eliminating Jesus from the premises. The missionary brochures swept off a table and stashed, the bookcase covered with a white piece of linen, the podium turned to face away from the room. “There is no place,” says my grandmother, “for Jesus at this party.” To which I respond, “You are asking for somebody to get smote.”
My younger sister’s proposal came on her 21st birthday. She was ecstatic when she called to tell us. I was somewhat bewildered to hear that she and her husband-to-be had set a date for 2010, some three years in the future. Why so far in advance? The engagement is a status symbol amongst women. It says, “he loves me enough to do this, what’s yours waiting for?” and rarely is the ring-thing (and the many unspoken expectations it brings) reciprocal for both partners.
I have more or less given myself over to the image of me at 85 surrounded by thirteen mewling, puking cats and draped in multiple cardigans to keep warm. And why? Because I don’t buy into the wedding-home-kids-minivan-will-make-me-happy-sippy-cup-stuff. The idea of merging anything until death with someone gives me the heebie-jeebies. The idea that one thing or another that I’ve chosen in some careful way will make me happy is, to my mind, delusional. (Yet, seek we must, because we’re all sort of stuck with that this lifetime.) [Ok. If you looooove weddings, you might want to stop reading now. For serious.]
As a bastard child, I may not be the best one to ask on matters of wedding and ceremony, but my mom made things legit a year and a day after I was born. So, there. I guess you could say I was brought up in a very Conservative home that was more Liberal in practice than it wanted to let on. We all have our deep, dark secrets.
A marriage isn’t complete without a wedding, for most, and this summer has been one long, sweaty wedding. Most of my friends have either announced one, attended several or have tried to think up ways to get out of their “duties” as friends. And a wedding costs, on average in America, $28,000. You could take a year-long trip around the world for that money and still have some left over to donate to the Red Cross.
The Quiz
When you send out a wedding invitation you are:
a) inviting more stress into your friends/relatives already busy lives
b) asking your invitees to foot at least part of the bill for your drunken debauchery
c) sending it with at least the expectation you will receive a gift from the recipient
d) expecting this day or weekend to be the day/weekend of your life, to be recorded forever in pictures, videos and etched forever in the minds of guests
e) all of the above
If you’re a bride-to-be and you don’t choose the letter “e” you fail this quiz.
Why Weddings are Usually Unremarkable
She was getting her photo taken by nearly two dozen friends and a semi-professional photographer in front of the flower garden. Hundreds of flowers bloomed pink, orange and golden behind her. “I feel famous!” she exclaimed. “That’s because you are!” replied her photographer.
I rolled my eyes. Not because I wasn’t happy for her. Just because the whole set up was artificial and contrived. Of course she isn’t famous, but every bride wants to feel famous for one day. One day? No way!
When I want to feel famous I hit up my local karaoke bar and sing my guts out. Or I write a post and digg it myself. Or I go on a twitter rampage. Of course, I *know* I’m not famous, but feeling famous is mostly about setting things up so it looks/feels that way. I don’t want to spend $30,000 or more (because I Go Big Or Go Home) to be famous for a day. I want fame in more creative, remarkable ways.
The final sticking point for me is all the build up. Build up to this one moment, this one day. It has to be just SO. That has to go there and this has to happen like that or else it will just BE TOTALLY RUINED OMG!
Build up is dangerous because it sets us up to be disappointed. One flower out of place, one misdirected glance from a family member, one drink too many. That’s it. It’s recorded for eternity into the book of wedding flubs. And unlike in a blog where we hit Apple+Z to make it all go away, this will mar your record for-e-ver. For-e-verrrrr.
It’s All About Attention
It really is. If you want to work on your attention stream, get creative! Better yet, skip the word “wedding” altogether and call it a Grandiloquent Get Together or a Getting. Because that’s what it’s really about, getting.
I know, you must think me a bitter naysayer.
I am.
If I were to have a wedding it would be a debacle of the most magnificent proportions! I would have to hire someone to walk me down the aisle. And have a seance during the ceremony to summon my mom. Ooh, maybe we could all wear black.
That would be pretty indie.
I guess.
[PS, As we speak I'm devising a list of some incredible alternatives to proclaiming your love that do *not* include saying your vows in front of a justice of the peace. Stay tuned, lovers and loved ones. It's coming soon. Just so you don't think I'm all "love is dead" and whatnot.]
Ha ha, I’m with you 100 percent. The Wedding Industry is just that, an industry with profit at the bottom line, not people. Good for you for seeing through the haze!
Thanks man. I needed that dose of reality. I watched “Becoming Jane” this weekend and spiraled into a “I’m going to be a spinster forever” funk. Whew! Good to get back the perspective and see through all of the crap.
“And a wedding costs, on average in America, $28,000. You could take a year-long trip around the world for that money and still have some left over to donate to the Red Cross.”
YES! I’ve always wanted to ask people why would one bother spending the money that could be used for so many better causes. Especially since, in America, “the law” says you’re married after a certain period of time anyway.
wait, did somebody let Gwen into the special club all us dudes go to to talk about this kinda thing?… This has been my take on the whole wedding concept for quite a while, somewhere around the time, oh, my parents first divorce. Its a safer perspective for sure. but perhaps only part of it.
Last summer I went to an altogether different kind of wedding. My good friend invited ME to officiate, all the groomsmen had different colored pasted thrift store tuxedos, bridesmaids wore whatever dress they wanted, they rented some cabins in the mountains for like 400 bucks, the brides brother made an arbor out of woodland twigs and stuff, hair and photos were done by friends, and they timed the whole shebang with the blooming of the wildflowers in the mountains. There was food and beer and everyone had a place to sleep. I bet the whole thing was less than 2k. It was the best wedding i have EVER been to…and i and been to a lot(including one that was nearer to 100k.)
I agree with G, if you are gonna get married, put some creative effort behind the whole thing and do it up right. Whatever you do, don’t look at a Brides magazine for chrissakes.
Personally, I will never spend money on a diamond. If thats gonna be a problem, pass the cashmere.
here kitty kitty.
haha, I love this…I agree. My one friend got married, spent $20,000 and split two years later. The second time she got married, she flew to Vegas and had a blast.
I have another friend getting married this September…at a pond on the Appalachian Trail and the reception is at her house in the backyard. His father is marrying them. They built a rock climbing wall (they met at the local rock climbing gym) and it’s going to be one helluva party!! It’s also Jazz Fest weekend in our little town, so the place is going to be rocking’ Something different, fun, creative, that speaks of them as a couple. I can’t wait to stand with her (no huge bridal party with awful dresses). Just me and I was able to choose my own dress. A wedding CAN be a fun thing and not some boring day that really looks like everyone else’s!!! Rock on.
“It really is. If you want to work on your attention stream, get creative! Better yet, skip the word “wedding” altogether and call it a Grandiloquent Get Together or a Getting. Because that’s what it’s really about, getting.”
I AGREE! Thanks for sharing Gwen:)
Here’s an idea for the ‘other’ ways to proclaim undying love…
You know that $28,000 that could be used for a trip around the world? Hey… there’s an idea. :-D What better way than to take that trip with the person?
As a survivor of one marriage, I feel that if you are doing things for other people, you are doing them for the wrong reasons. So many weddings these days are thrown to show off or to allow women the fulfillment of some sort of childhood fantasy. What about simply declaring to the world that you love one another? Why does doing that have to cost so much? My first wedding took place in the Sierra Nevada mountains after hiking the John Muir Trail. There were 25 people there and we probably spent less than two hundred dollars. It just goes to show that having an awesome/cheap wedding doesn’t guarantee any greater measure of marital success than expensive/lavish ones.
O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends
and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded
just wait to get at the drinks and food—
And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated
asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?
And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!
I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back
She’s all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!
And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on-
Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes
Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!
All streaming into cozy hotels
All going to do the same thing tonight
The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen
The lobby zombies they knowing what
The whistling elevator man he knowing
Everybody knowing! I’d almost be inclined not to do anything at all!
Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!
Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!
running rampant into those almost climactic suites
yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!
O I’d live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls
I’d sit there the Mad Honeymooner
devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy
a saint of divorce—
[
from "Marriage" by Gregory Corso
http://wanderingstan.com/poetrynight2002/poetrynight2002.html#Stan2
]
Ha ha, I think you’ve struck a chord here Gwen, look at all the comments! Maybe there are a lot more of us anti-white wedding people than we think. We need to be more vocal and actually change this madness!
Thanks Gwen for showing me quirkyalone. Survey says that I’m “VERY quirkyalone”. Shocker.
Thanks again!
coming up on 6 years of marriage next month. i am throwing a surprise wedding reenactment for my husband — who insisted on a stupid wedding (most fun wedding of all time, thanks to me). my mother also insisted on a wedding. i wanted to elope. we got a buddy ordained on the internet, and my parents threw me a $60K wedding thinking it was real — except we were legally married my a JOP the day before in a girlfriends living room because billy wasnt legal in the great state of virginia — after spending $30K to send me to grad school where i met my husband. it cost SOMEONE over $90K for me to find and marry the man of my dreams. and you know what? we really and truly couldn’t be happier.
which is to say, none of it means anything because if you’re gonna do it at all: it’s not about the wedding, it’s about the marriage. and that’s a huge crapshoot to begin with. if i weren’t this totally and ridiuclously lucky, i would have written this post one day.
weddings are a HUGE 4-hour waste of money. right up there with diamond rings, “shower” parties, bridesmaidism and all the other attendant bullshit that comes with nuptials. i hate weddings. i always refuse when asked to bridesmaid.
i like it when you get angry, tall hottay.
I know this guy and he basically used to talk up the male equivalent of this anti-marriage rant when I met him in 2001 and he was 32. Everyone who knew him, and that was a great many people would swear that would NEVER get married. In 2002 I caught up with him and his wife after only 9 months they were married. This guy I am talking about, is the still happily married Stuart Davis.
Hey J,
Stu and I have actually had a conversation along these lines. My guess? He probably would take issue w/very little that I said here. But I’m happy to shoot him an email and ask. ;)
(2 daughters later, I think he prob. has more to say on fatherhood than husbandhood anyway…I’d be curious to know…) Stu, if you’re out there…
Know what’s funny?
Oy, this blue type is distracting.
What’s funny is, I looked at the title of this post and thought, “Whoa. We have NOTHING in common.” I confess, I’m married for life, four kids, the minivan, the whole works. But I agreed with almost everything you said. Not about marriage, but about weddings. It confirms what I’ve felt for a long time, that the majority of American modern-day brides have absolutely sucked the meaning out of weddings.
It is meant to be a holy ceremony where two people commit themselves to each other, meant to be shared with people they love. Years ago, guests were treated as…well, guests! Not subjects, not contributors and not fund-raisers. It took place in a church, not because it makes a pretty background, but because it reflected (or was meant to reflect) the beliefs of the couple.
I have to say, though, I think the root of this evil is not the weddings themselves. It’s a generation of people who were raised to believe that the world revolves around themselves.
I think the value system and complexity of our times has made the 50 year wedding anniversery likely obsolete. Awesome discussion in this thread.
Great comment Gwen! Totally agree with you! I’ll join you with the pile of cardy’s and cats (^^)v