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| For Richer, For Poorer for a Reasonable Amount of Time..... |
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| Dump the Wedding Extortion |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, May 26, 1999. I received in the mail today what at first appeared to be either the recently found autograph of Christ Jesus or perhaps the Kosovo Peace Accords, in vellum, several envelopes within each other, the whole in a delicate plastic mailer. The envelope was addressed in a perfect handwriting, so perfect it obviously was not a human creation. After I tore open the plastic mailer, opened the large main envelope, withdrew the goodies inside including maps and directions and a list of hotels and brochures from local businesses there was another pseudo vellum envelope with just my formal name on it, no address. Breathlessly I pulled forth the contents. No doubt you all know what it was: an extortion letter. Perhaps you call it by its traditional name: the wedding invitation. Oh, and there was an entirely different and smaller envelope asking me separately to the Reception, which was being held in some part of New York beloved by Ichabod Crane. The entire package came, naturally, from the bride's parents, who lived - you already know - in Stamford, Connecticut. Just too perfect. Noting that the bride's parents probably would not provide any recycling bins at the festivities since the invitations for my family alone would have defoliated the coastline of Brazil, I spent a few enjoyable moments envisioning what the procedure for this horror would be. Coming speedily into focus, I shuffled through the morass and found yet a third vellum envelope addressed back to Social Climb Central and sent my regrets. No doubt they will all be crushed. I hate weddings. I was married ten years and I didn't have a wedding, tied the Gordian tangle by declaring in common law which, by the by, is no less meaningful in this country than if we had flown over the Pope, Dalai Lama, Metropolitan of Byzantium and the Ayotollah of Persopolis to perform the magic act. We received three wedding gifts, all from family, and that was unavoidable and fine. On the other hand, my wife and I broke up after ten years; I don't remember her being upset about getting married for tax reasons. We were in love and would be together to death anyway. Uh huh. We mostly believed that. Mostly, and so not entirely. It made little ethical sense for us to pretend we were forever, throw a bash, gouge the wife's family for a festivity that we weren't sure meant a damned thing, solely so we could have a free Aren't We Young and Wonderful party and count wedding gifts. Like not having children, it is one of the few things of which I am unabashedly proud: I put nobody in a financial pickle, played no role in filling six more women's closets with brides maids gowns suitable only for black and white photographs at a great distance and preferably blocked by those hideous and rather scary vegetations that caterers bring to distract conversation away from their cadaverous poultry servings at these absolutely repulsive festivities called weddings. Oh stop it. Statistics show that over half of all weddings end in divorce. Divorce is reserved for those of us not wealthy enough to intimidate the Holy See, like the Kennedys in this country and Princess Stephanie in hers. The Catholic Church will, after much ethical investigation, simply annul the proceedings where Christ was told these two had entered into Holy Matrimony. It was a mistake, it was never consummated, the three children - two born after the wedding - notwithstanding. Don't get defensive, they do it. But my point is that weddings don't mean anything anymore, probably haven't for a century, and perhaps never did. They are simply social climbing events wherein the parents of the bride get to show off, fortunately at their own expense. Receptions come in two types: drunken, hideously embarrassing orgies of alcoholic consumption or boring tea parties where you end up talking to the most attractive woman there, nearly always the wife of the deacon who performed the ceremony. She is into bowling and heads up the Vince Gill fan club, has not known a dentist for two decades, and likes formal moo moos. Always. And nobody attends weddings anymore: they come to record and document it. There are three marches down the church aisle. The hypothetically virginal bride and her legally sober father in the center and a bustling throng of relatives, sorority sisters, and demented aunts with video and digital cameras clicking and hissing along each side of them all the way up. The hum of cameras is palpable in the echoes of the church. Imagine Princess Diana's funeral with a flapping movie film in a projector to appreciate the sensitivity of the moment and to catch the respect people have in their heart of hearts. Everyone in the pews eventually looks towards a camera and smiles, which is a retina searing event when the deacon's wife catches the excitement wave and pulls back her horse lips. They do not attend a holy sacrament, only a photo op. People, isn't there something wrong with a life when the wedding is the high point? Or worse, when the high school prom is the high point? Isn't that a warning sign that, at the age of eighteen or twenty-two or whatever gloriously young age she is at, a woman is demarking her downward path to the grave? Is this healthy, reasonable, sane? I propose that weddings be abolished, and that June cease to be a month celebrated for its weddings and become celebrated for its anniversaries. Fine, get married, small ceremony, no presents beyond the hearty handshake from the justice or pastor. In seven years, when traditionally the Wild Oats Market reopens in both parties, if the two of them can look each other in the eye in front of family and friends and utter words of love and forever and ever and convince themselves, each other, and the guests that love is there, hey, all the more power to them and shower them with gifts. They did it, they're in it for the long haul. They deserve it, and each other. But you know, and I know, that few if any of the couples with which we are acquainted could pull that off. But, problematically for this screed, we might know a few who could. Even so, I tell you, not one of the women would claim their wedding day as the high point of their lives, or would want to relive their high school days. They're looking forward to something. That is why funerals are often so cheerior than weddings. Everyone, including the corpse, is looking forward to something. At too many weddings, the ceremony is a stake in the ground. |
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