It's My "Party" and I Won't Have It If I Don't Want To

To quote Cher from Clueless, “I don’t want to be a traitor to my generation and all…” but I don’t get weddings. I don’t. Marriage? I guess I can understand that. It’s not something I need, but I get it. I’m totally okay with people wanting to spend their life together, and wanting a way to signal that commitment.

You may be asking right now, “well, isn’t that what a wedding is, you giant, hypocritical ignoramus?”

Friends, in my opinion, it really, REALLY, is not. Hold the phone and read more before you start yelling at me.

Let’s start with the history of weddings. You probably just went through a few, because, ya know, SUMMER WEDDINGS!! Do you know why summer weddings are so popular? June is the month associated with Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage and childbearing. Weddings in her month were considered especially fortuitous and fertile. Considering how many layers the wedding party’s attire typically consists of, I find summer weddings a curiously sweaty decision, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m also not a big fan of Juno (the goddess, not the movie), but that’s because I neither like ancient Romans nor women who let their man cheat all over the place.  

Did you read pay attention to that last sentence? The ancient Roman goddess of marriage was most well known for getting to be “that wife” that continuously watched her husband cheat on her.  That’s actually pretty common in ancient mythology because the thing is, old-time marriage sucked. Women got the shit end of the stick. If they didn’t get married they were a burden to their parents. If they did get married, they were the property of their spouse and basically had to go along with whatever the man wanted. In most societies they had no legal rights. In many cases, they were trapped in the marriage with no end in sight unless the guy died.

Here in the United States, marriage today isn’t that bad. For starters, no one is forced to get married, it’s a choice. Legally, both parties are equal. Either party can dissolve the marriage. Yay for progress!

But did you know that almost all of our common wedding traditions stem from this history of marriage being sucktastic for women? Here are just a few, A FEW, examples:

·         The whole reason the bride’s family gets the fun job of paying for everything? Because way back when, women were such a HUGE inconvenience to life that a family literally PAID OFF THE GUY to marry their daughter. This was called a dowry, because that sounds nicer than something like “FUCKING TAKE THIS BITCH FROM US bribe money.”

·         Why is there a bridal party? Because even further back in time, the way you got a wife was to go kidnap her. For realz. So a guy would round up his buddies (the groomsmen) to go attack the family with the hottie daughter and steal her to be his treasured babymaker.

·         The tender moment when the father gives away the bride? More property-tradition in action! It reenacts the exchange of property, that the bride no longer “belongs” to her father, and now is the glowing goods of the husband.

I swear friends, I’m not trying to be all super-feminist here, but seriously? You want me to be excited for these things?

And that is probably the main reason I don’t get weddings. Marriage is fine and dandy and has progressed, but somehow, not only have weddings stayed steeped in really stupid traditions, but they are sold to little girls as THE THING WE WANT MOST* (until we start craving babies, that is). It is the BIGGEST DAY OF OUR LIVES! It is the day that THE BRIDE COMES FIRST! ALL HAIL THE BRIDE!

…but why?

If you are getting married and you treat your wedding as what it is – a celebration of two people committing to each other, that’s great! I am totes on board!

But instead, it’s treated as this massive achievement by the bride. Not the groom, it’s looked on for him as an ending. The end of fun, the end of freedom, etc. But for the bride? Huge achievement! She locked that dude down! Woot woot!

Wwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?  

There are many things about weddings that frankly, I just don’t like, and that is my opinion and very likely different from yours. I think though that the main issue I have with weddings is that they are the perfect example of the utter impossibility of being a woman. Sure, the institution of marriage may be better for us these days, but weddings still suck out the bride’s soul.

We treat them as this amazing achievement (as I already said and you may have guessed I’m not really thrilled about that fact either) for the bride, but we’re not there celebrating her. Oh no, we’re there to judge. That’s why she needs to look her best, why which china is used actually matters, and why the baker damn well better not f*** up the cake or shit is going to get real. Because the bride knows as she’s planning this “party” that for the rest of her life, people will remember and judge her based on how she looks, how she acts, and whether or not she played to their preferred traditions. They will complain if she doesn’t serve the drinks they like, or have their favorite dessert, or *gasp* if she bans children. No one will care that it’s her wedding. Oh, they’ll smile at her and say she looks nice, but you better believe the minute the ceremony is over everyone is gathering and comparing what they thought about it (i.e. complaining. There is a shocking amount of complaining at weddings).   

It’s not a celebration of marriage. It’s Day 1 of us judging this woman as a wife. And the best part for her? EVERYBODY gets to get in on the judgment. It’s not like Day 1 of judging her as a worker, which is limited to people at her job. Or Day 1 of judging her as a friend, which is limited to her social group. You don’t need to be married to weigh in on whether you thought the wedding was a flop or a hit. Hell, you don’t even need to have gone to the wedding to feel entitled to tell her that the dress is outdated and throwing rice is so passé. YEAH, BECAUSE SHE CAN CHANGE THAT NOW.

All in all, I’m surprised more women don’t turn into brizezillas and/or maim someone during the course of the wedding.

I’m sure I’ve ruffled a few feathers here and if I’ve been to your wedding, I swear it was lovely. No offense is meant. All I’m really saying is let’s be real and acknowledge that weddings are a ton of work, a ton of stress, and a matter of preference, and ya’ll need to stop trying to shove this idea down my throat that having a perfect wedding is the goal of my existence.