Wedding rant of the day...

So... as a young, modern, unmarried and career driven lady I am finding it increasingly difficult to politely deal with this outbreak of "wedding fever" that has recently occurred.


Now, by "outbreak" I don't mean the usual trend of "people in the same age group find someone they love and after careful consideration, they enter into holy (or unholy depending on your religious views, and your views of your new mother-in-law) matrimony, surrounded by their friends and loved ones". Oh no, this recent "outbreak" goes more along the line of "people in the same age group meet some random stranger and after about six months of dating they get engaged and nauseating chaos ensues".

Now this "nauseating chaos" ( in my recent experience) takes the form of the following:

1. Engagement photo shoot;
2. Engagement parties (sometimes more than one and in different cities);
3. Bachelorette parties (again more than one and often with its own photo shoot);
4. Rehearsal Dinner (again it must have a photo shoot);
5. Actual wedding day, at some remote location necessitating a weekend away for every guest (complete with videographer and various photographers);
6. A honeymoon (I will not bash the honeymoon - everyone deserves one)
7. A trash the dress shoot; and 
8. If we thought that the fever had subsided then please have a look at what popped up on pinterest.... after all of your friends get married you can put your wedding dress back on and do yet another...wait for it...photo shoot!!!!

[Now the wedding fever generally descends into baby fever which also includes about five different photo shoots and a "babymoon" but that is a blog rant for another day]

But before you call me a bitter old hag who has no chance of every marrying and has decided to take it out on the whole world, please just read on.

I totally support the institution of marriage and weddings are one of my favourite things. I think that there is nothing more beautiful than two people taking the decision that they want to have and hold each other for better or for worse. And there is nothing braver than walking into a marriage knowing that it will be hard, and that you will have to work at it everyday, but that other person is worth all of that hard work.

And that is where my problem with all of this "wedding fever" arises... when did the "glamour" of a wedding day begin to be more important than the marriage itself? When did it become the norm for one event to necessitate about five different parties and three separate photo shoots? And what are we teaching our children when we treat a wedding as the equivalent achievement of winning the Nobel peace prize (that is the only time I could justify one event necessitating all that hoop-la)? Bearing in mind that I am sure that even  if I ever did win the Nobel peace prize, if I tried to throw more than one party, have a photo shoot and kill the Facebook news feed with all of my photos, people would probably  think I was being ridiculous and boasting about my achievement. (Something along the lines of "look at that biatch shoving her prize down our throats...get over yourself already").

And that is just my point, a wedding day is not an achievement a long and happy marriage is. Maybe keep your photo shoots for your 50th wedding anniversary ladies...sure you wont be as young and lovely...but then you will actually have achieved something.

xoxo
Miss la trick