[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img] I hate weddings.
Not all weddings or even the concept of marriage.
Rather, I have come to hate the ostentatious, overproduced spectacle that has become the American wedding.
Right now, as I type this, there’s an overwrought, overly ornate and definitely overdue, invitation waiting for action on my desk.
Yes, I’m one of those people who RSVPs extremely late, leaving table seating up to chance. Weddings are not alone.
I hate funerals, too.
What’s up with the idea of having a party for people after they’re dead?
I’d much rather celebrate their lives, when they are alive and can appreciate it. The idea of showing appreciation with rare, polished wood caskets, hot house flower, and custom printed cards, is absurd. But weddings irk me far more.
When I was a kid, weddings were simple. They started in a house of worship, promptly at 11 in the morning.
A nearby luncheon reception finished up in the late afternoon. You threw (bird-killing) rice at the couple, and watched them drive away in their modest car, tin cans clanking discordantly along the road. We could make it home by dinnertime, high on sugary cake.
Now it is de rigueur to have nuptials at some far-flung destination like Hawaii, on an island in the Caribbean, or at a bare minimum two hours away in the Santa Barbara wine country.
Flyaway Weddings
Gone are the days when you could drive up to Malibu, hang onto your hat in the windy weather, have a finger sandwich and go home.
The last few invitations I received came with directions from the airport to the resort and questions about how many nights I planned to stay. If I have to get a pet sitter and a new beach wardrobe, I’m not much interested in going.
To be frank, when they were five-hour affairs, I still wasn’t a big fan of weddings. It dredges up too many memories of stiff dresses, stockings that bind up or roll down at inopportune moments, and uncomfortable shoes.
Now that the reality show image of Bridezillas has come to pass, what used to be a barely tolerable daytime activity has turned into a year-long fiesta. From the moment of engagement—accessorized, of course, with the largest diamond ring the affianced can afford (African conflicts be damned in the face of fashion)—to the wedding, the more extravagant the better.
First, weddings now are 10 times as long as they used to (or need to) be. Four hours has stretched into a 48-hour weekend celebration. I don’t necessarily want to drink and party with folks from 7 to 70 over a 72-hour period. Not only does it require clearing the deck of my life to swing with other people’s families and friends (often only a handful I know well), I just don’t have the stamina. At least two such weddings I’ve been to also had an after-party.
Extravagantly Excessive
When did we, as a society, decide that one party per day (or two), or three parties per marriage weren’t enough?
Three parties. Yes, at least three.
Weddings really start six to 12 months before the actual date of marriage. There are the usual bachelor and bachelorette parties (in their own destination, of course, often Las Vegas), plus the bridal shower. And many brides-to-be seem to be having more than one shower. Get ready to shell out for a food-themed shower – bring cooking gifts. A lingerie shower – bring on the Victoria’s Secret. A honeymoon shower – where you can buy the happy couple travel-related items – or even register to pay for their honeymoon and related excursions like free snorkeling or horseback riding.
When did weddings start costing more than a down payment? Friends and acquaintances seem to have no problem spending upwards of $75,000 to $100,000 on a two- to seven-day-long party (and the after party of course). Yet these weddings are curiously funded by the same people who claim they cannot afford a down payment on a house (or, at least, the house they really want) and don’t have the ability to pay off credit card or student loan debt.
Then there are the gifts.
The More Expensive the — What?
There was a time when you could get away with giving the happy couple a toaster or its financial equivalent. Now everyone seems to register at one luxury store after another seeking hundred-dollar martini tool sets (the glasses can be purchased separately) or imported European ceramics that will set you back a pretty penny. And gifts must be sent in advance as getting them from the tropical or other beach wedding destination to the couple’s happy home is a trial. When I found out stores sent out the gifts in one big batch, it became abundantly clear that charging each guest $10 for shipping and handling was yet another deceptive money- making scheme. Retailers don’t want to be left behind on the money-making bonanza.
Another problem with weddings is that they are a party where often you only really know the guests of honor, and they, understandably, are far too busy to talk to you. As it’s their day, they don’t have to be good hosts, either. Rather you have to fend for yourself at a table of spinster aunts and watch blowhard middle-managers do their best Dilbert imitations.
To top it all off, for most of the weddings I’ve attended, the couple now is long divorced.
The more elaborate the theme of the wedding, it seems, the more spectacular the divorce. The tackiest wedding I ever attended which topped out at a whopping $25,000. This was in the early1990s, before costs truly spiraled out of control. The happy couple emerged from the floor, amid pulsing disco lights in a swirl of mist from a smoke machine. A few years later, they headed into the most contentious divorce in our family’s history.
Lest you think I’m biased, you should know that I was not a fan of my own wedding, either. I let family pressure get the best of me. An occasion that should have been marked by the clerk at city hall instead became a copy of the lower middle class spectacle of my youth, including a rubber chicken dinner at the local Sheraton. And yes, my frugal heart still is lamenting the $5,000 pried from my skinflint hands for the occasion.
At least I’m still married to my husband. He hates weddings, too.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. She's a reformed lawyer, and full time novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course.This will mark the debut of our newest, and perhaps most charismatic, weekly essayist. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com.
