No clouds allowed in the sky
Thunder!
In 2017, my job in marketing for a university made me go to a wedding fair and pretend to be a future bride. The university was opening a hotel, and they wanted to check out the sales pitches from wedding venues, and find out what was normal.
Normal. Wedding fair. THESE ARE NOT THINGS WHICH HAVE MET.
Add in the fact that it was me going to this wedding fair, and the effort was doomed. My feelings about marriage were informed by:
· An abject horror of being the centre of attention, ever
· A deeper fear of cameras
· Being a bridesmaid to my two eldest sisters when I was ten, and thirteen (pictured)
Bridesmaiding led me to assume that that marriage was one of those grimly inevitable life duties that took you away from your home and your little sisters and that it would be my turn to do at some point, however hard I resisted, like wearing clicky heels to the office and sex with boys.
On reflection, this may have been a clue to other reasons why marriage (in the sense that was legal then, kids) might not have been on my list. I didn’t know! I just thought I was weird!
I’ve been to many lovely weddings since being a smol person in a frilly dress sewn by my mum. But later, when I’d figured out the you-don’t-have-to-have-sex-with-boys part, it still seemed weird, hung up on those little-kid worries that I hadn’t ever grown out of. The day itself, a parade of attention and trying to be pretty. After, a life that wasn’t yours any more, to do with what you wanted. Things that were aspirational and fun if you knew what was good for you; scary if not, shameful if not.
I went to the wedding fair with my boss. We agreed that I’d do the fake bride thing, and she’d be the fake bridesmaid (because she was already married, so of course she couldn’t pretend to be getting married!?), but I drew the line at a fake groom. If I was going to fake marry someone, it was going to be a woman.
From the giant MR & MRS light-up letters to the goody bag (Special K for weight loss, tooth whiteners and a bottle of foundation for white women who want to look beige), I clocked this wasn’t going to be the most inclusive of spaces.
I introduced myself politely at every stand, and politely corrected to, ‘Bride, not groom’ every time I was asked about my partner.
Nine out of ten presented gritted teeth, as if I was a secret shopper and they knew they’d stuffed their rating for the day. One beamed and showed me the special catalogue for gays, rainbow flags aflap. (No diss to rainbow flags aflap weddings. Some occasions and some guests require both that emphasis and that joy.)
‘Is it an accessible venue?’ I asked each time, to more dismay. ‘Is there a level walkway to the magical candlelit grotto?’ Non-standard questions, apparently, in a world where chairs wear sashes. There are no disabled people in wedding-land. There are only Wedding Jeans with diamante studs, and a hat section exclusively for mothers.
I left the fair mainly alarmed at my capacity to lie. (I am crap at real lies, but ask me to hustle a fake wedding with very specific parameters to 20 sales reps in a row and you should fear me. Not sure my boss every looked at me the same again.) But I was also relieved to have escaped my presumed fate, and grateful that I was never going to have to do any of that old bollocks.
I’m getting married next week.
Well, I’m getting a civil partnership (we’re getting one. It was my wedding day/It was our wedding day, etc) and I don’t know if it’s because I’m old enough to give us permission, or queer enough to mean tradition’s conveniently off the table, but we’re just doing the bits we feel like. Because all of it, we’re doing because we want to, when we want to.
We’re having family to the register office because they wanted to come, and once we knew that not having them there suddenly felt a bit crap. We’re having lunch because mmm, lunch. (Not ‘breakfast’ at 3pm, honestly, wtf is that all about.) I’m wearing a scarlet minidress. The Doctor will be wearing a colourful suit. At the end of it, no one is going to have to be anyone’s wife. We’re just saying a bit more loudly, on one day in particular: I love you, you’re my favourite, I like you best.
With lunch!
I wish someone had told little bridesmaid Susie you could do that. I wish everyone got told that.
I so wish I’d got to know you more when we worked in the same office. It would have made my days so much more bearable! Really enjoying reading this, and you’ve only done a couple!
Wishing you both all my best wishes on your forthcoming wedding. And look forward to the next instalment.
This sounds perfectly lovely -- congratulations to you both, for finding your favourite person in the world!
The entire wedding-industrial complex befuddles me by its very existence. Case in point: I once attended a wedding where the bride had eight (8!) attendants, all dressed in fuschia and gold lamé off-the-shoulder gowns, their exposed skin dusted with glittering gold body makeup. The groom wore a tux that made him look like a maître de. The reception was at a dedicated reception venue, with an open bar, a hired master of ceremonies who told everyone what to do when -- including dictating an incredibly awkward garter-removal by the best man -- and was just generally icky, followed by a five-course meal, and a live band with dancing until the wee hours. I was told the whole rather-tacky affair cost over $20K, which at that point in time was equivalent to the down payment on a house.
By contrast, I got married in the small side chapel of the church where I had grown up, with a deliberately very small guest list. My niblings provided the music as a string quartet, and one of them doubled as organist on the chapel's hilariously carousel-like electronic organ (I'm not sure he's ever forgiven me for not using the main sanctuary, with its concert-grade Rieger Orgelbau pipe organ). Additional little niblings took part as a flower-girl-of-honor, a pair of ring bearers, and a non-usher (his job was to pass out hand-fans on that sweltering, 93F day, and to tell people to sit wherever they liked; none of that "bride's side, groom's side" nonsense). The youngest nibling of all, in leg casts from a corrective surgery, was given the job of looking as cute as humanly possible, which she totally rocked. The local university runs a hospitality services training program; we hired them to do the food for the reception in the church hall; Mom helped me pick out the the flowers from a local florist, and the cake (lemon, my partner's favorite) from a small bakery that's a local institution. Skipped dancing or a band, and went with some great 1940s music on CDs, playing in the background while we just enjoyed talking with everyone. No bouquet-toss; I gave it to my mom, instead. She planted some of the ivy, and seeds from some of the flowers, and kept it blooming for years.
What I remember most, 17 years later, is just how much the whole day meant "family" to me -- something no wedding vendor could ever provide.
WIshing you an absolutely lovely Declaration of Favourites Day!