Weddings: Let's Start a Revolution
Let’s ignore the fact that the
world is going to Hell in the express lane and take on a smaller rant: mega-weddings.
The
average wedding in the United
States
While
visiting a friend recently, we started looking at old family photos and came
across a picture of her parents on their wedding day. Her mother’s dress was a lovely floral print
brocade, suitable for church, an afternoon tea or any occasion requiring what
my mother would call a, “nice” outfit.
It was not a formal wedding gown.
There was a time (as recent as my 1968 marriage) when a wedding was a
modest event. There would be a small
smattering of family and close friends.
The bride may have been in a wedding gown (like my mother’s) but it
wasn’t required, and invariably reflected the financial means of the
family. The service would be followed by
a reception (usually in the church basement or family home) that included cake,
nuts, mints and punch. If the family was
so inclined there might be liquor. If
the guests broke into song and dance, so be it.
But the marriage was legal, locked down and paid for by the time the
couple reached the church door.
Things
have not changed for the better.
When did we decide that weddings should be
expensive, expansive, and social occasion of pretentious proportions? When did we decide to feed all these people a
sit down dinner? Or have an open bar that
includes scotch too good to be appreciated by drunks? Or spend money on music and dancing? Or wear a dress fit for royalty? Or feed the coffers of the florist, the
photographer, or a, “wedding planner” for God’s sake!?! This—all of this—is an artificial, contrived
and purely egotistical affectation of unearned fame.
Why? What do we feel we owe our children that we
will give them this ostentatious display of conspicuous consumption? When did our children decide that their lives
must be perfect? Come to think of it,
please define, “perfect.” Certainly my
definition would not include spending money on a transient event when you
should be concentrating on a future together.
I do
understand that of all of life’s milestones: birth, marriage, death, that the wedding is
the only occasion where one actually has a conscious and active part. But that means we are even more accountable
for any mistakes made. Under these
circumstances, the bad taste that seems to be the life’s blood of mega-weddings
only becomes more egregious.
I think it is past time for a revolution in
weddings. It may start with the
participants; it may start with the parents required or requested to pay the
cost of the wedding; it may even start with celebrities. [The Bill and Melinda Gates wedding came in
under the national average! I guess if
you’ve got it you don’t need to flaunt it.]
I think the next decade of weddings should be something more than
statements of entitlement. How about a
small gathering of the people that really matter in one’s life—the one’s that
will show up without being wined and dined?
How about choosing clothing instead of costumes? How about an intimate group that comes
together and talks (not texts) to one another after the ceremony?
How
about choosing the right person and saying, “Our big day is ahead of us—one day
at a time?”
Think
small and keep the faith.
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