So You’re Getting Married? That’s Really, Really Cool.

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It’s official. I have entered into that hallowed, honorable age bracket of people around you falling in love and getting married. How wonderful for them. And I love weddings — I love the pomp and circumstance, I love the hopefulness, I love the free cake, it’s all fine by me. But up until now, I had a rosy, dream-like vision of what weddings entailed and how fun they were for those even peripherally involved, unclouded by actually having to deal with anyone going through the process of planning a wedding. Now that I’ve seen it first hand, I am considering eloping to Vegas when my time comes, if only to spare everyone my secondhand agony.

It’s so strange to me how people with full, interesting, thoughtful lives can at once just devolve into a series of cliches and minor frustrations about caterers. Being a blushing bride-to-be seems to ensure, without exception, that your Facebook, Twitter, and any other human contact — real or electronic — from here on out will simply be an ever-more-tedious list of things you have to get done before the wedding, and how stressful it all is. (But you wouldn’t have it any other way, of course! <3) Things I get the pleasure of reading about, every day, from people who used to have an occasional original thought:

  • The width of the ribbon used to tie the little tinkling bell to the invitations being far too wide to fit through the little heart-shaped hole.
  • The tawdry, whorish shade of puce that the bridesmaids dresses came in, when they were specifically ordered in mint.
  • The amount of weight being gained as 10 different variants of lemon silk are tasted for the filling of the second-tier of the cake.
  • The surprising structural integrity of fondant as a pastry cover.
  • The deep, spiraling, unweidly, Godless hellhole that apparently is seating arrangements.
  • The endlessly difficult task of picking out a playlist for the reception. (By the by, you can all stop kidding yourselves, you’re all going to have the same 30 songs and Jump On It or The Macarena, depending on regional tastes.)

Before social media, I imagine that the kind of smiling and nodding expected by listeners over the course of months-long planning was limited to close friends and family. Now, even that dude you met at the concert two years ago can listen to you ramble on about trying to please both sides of the family with the bed and breakfast you chose. As the months plod on and the complaints get more frequent, more frantic, and more anxious, it seems to the readers as though this wedding will never come, and when it finally does, it will be nothing more than a giant sigh of relief that you won’t hear any more talk about veil length and you may eventually hear an interesting anecdote from this person again.

I don’t want to begrudge anyone their happy day, and I can’t wait to fulfill my duties as bridesmaid for my sister and close friends one day. But I fully accept that with that title will come a lot of tedious errands and, more importantly, a lot of listening to a woman in my life that I love ramble incoherently about the unbelievable incompetence of her tailor. It’s part of the gig. But for people whom I barely know, people whose weddings I’m not attending, people who used to post cool videos of snakes molting or whatever and now only talk about fabric options — I implore you, get a grip. Limit yourselves to one status a day complaining about your limo service, and maybe try and sprinkle in a thought about a current event or comment on the weather, if it’s not too much to ask.

Best wishes!

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image – julian wylegly