Tital stolen from the Gogol Bordello song
I’m not the type of person who gets invited to a lot of weddings, for a number of reasons – not all of which are my fault. Firstly, whether it’s because they’re iconoclastic, or cynical my friends aren’t usually the type for such quaint traditions. But I do get to hang out with a pretty diverse group so sometimes they do occasionally, for whatever reason, feel the need to tie the(mselves in) knot(s). Even then though, I’m still (almost) never invited. I suspect this might have something to do with my usually having fucked at least one of the people at the altar. It’s most often the bride but really no one’s safe, not even the person performing the ceremony. (Some say promiscuity will get you Absolutely Nowhere but at least it gets you uninvited to a lot of weddings). Also, I can be pretty unpredictable, especially when there’s an open bar. (What a beautiful phrase. Open is a wonderful word. Bar is a great one too. Put them together and I just want to be showered in their synergism.) One can never tell if I’m going to give an eloquent, heart-felt speech, or be standing half naked on the open bar shouting some brilliant diatribe that’s really mostly only slurred expletives. And finally there’s this pesky little thing I have about being against marriage, and preaching against it as often as I can. So when the magic moment comes and the person performing the ceremony asks, “Does anyone know why these two shouldn’t be legally joined in matrimony?” everyone holds their breath and all eyes turn to (oblivious) me, throwing my clothes down from the open bar, covered in 151, lighter in hand.
“What?”
When I say I don’t get invited to a lot of weddings, there’s two things you should know. One: I totally get it, you don’t want me to ruin your nuptials, and I don’t want me to either. And two: It’s not a complaint. Not just because they’re usually soul-crushingly boring either. It’s more that the whole thing makes me feel like an alien. I wander around reading all the happy faces and none of them seem to think there’s anything at all strange about the whole getting wed-locked thing.
In this day-and-age where, I’d guess almost 100% of couples live in sin for months or years before making honest souls of each other, and then after the reception head right beck to the place they’d been shacking up, one has to look at their special day and wonder, “What the fuck was the point?”
It’s basically renting someone to help them (Wedding planner $3,262) pick a beautiful setting ($12,300-$14,000) to fill with flowers they paid to have someone grow and murder for them that will be taking up space in a landfill next garbage day ($1,600), to play dress-up ($1,350 for a dress you’ll only wear once plus hair & make-up for $250), and have their portraits taken in ($2,800). Then they get to make messes of themselves and each other by gorging on overpriced food ($12,800) and cake ($440), followed by dancing to songs a stranger thinks they might like, or at least want played ($990).
Ah, but really, what price can one put on an entire day of being the center of attention, getting gifts, hearing everyone compliment and tell cute little anecdotes, and lie about how your union will always be as full of love as it is that day – because your love is so special, because you’re so special? But while they’re saying this they’re trying to hide that they’re all secretly wishing you two lovebirds would disappear and go fuck already so the rest of them can relax. Yes, everyone there is (un)consciously thinking about you two passionately playing each other’s organs. Especially your family. What price can one put on all this? Well the wedding industry would say about $26,600.
I’m all for folks finding good excuses to party and have their foul ways with each other but I bet you can think of some less opulent and narcissistic ways to go about it.
Not counting ones I’ve performed (yes, it’s true. I’m not proud of it) this week I went to only my fifth wedding, and for someone who’s almost forty, I feel that’s quite a feat. I do have to admit though, all the ones I’ve been invited to have been pretty great, and non-boring. It’d obviously have to be a non-traditional ceremony to have me on the guest list.
Traditional is a word we often hear paired with marriage. But traditionally marriage wasn’t about love; it was a calculated business, political, or tactical venture, a way of legally binding two tribes, so basically trading your children for peace or wealth. The idea of choosing the person you’d spend your life with was unheard of. Which, in a way, might actually make more sense. I mean really, who would’ve been so blissfully in love… they needed lawyers and government just to make it even better? But somehow it all came to be, and now it’s tradition and if you don’t give it a whirl, society says you’re strange at best, and pitiful at worst. So you better move quick, or the good ones will be gone!
So you’ve decided it’s time to settle down. The first thing you’ll need is a ring. I hope you’ve been living below your means or have a high enough credit limit because that left-hand decoration is supposed to cost 3 months salary. I haven’t allowed myself enough space here to go into all the reasons those little finger-rocks are compressed evil and suffering so I’ll just stick with why they’re traditionally iniquitous. In Ancient Greco-Romeia they believed the ring-finger was connected to the heart. The ring was like a little collar that the giver would put over the heart strings to keep it from wandering away like a stray. Gotcha! It also, of course, doubled as proof to the world that this heart already had an owner – besides the person who was actually born with it.
But whatever, now it’s official! You’re getting hitched to another person! Next you get to look over all the happy and hopeful faces of your friends and family and tell them all which one you love more than all the others! This part can be stressful enough to make you long for the time before bridesmaids were bullied into buying hideous dresses they’d only wear once just to make the bride look better by comparison. Back before maids of honor, the gaggle of them all tried to look and dress identical to the bride to confuse evil spirits who wanted to fuck up the lucky lady’s happy day. So perhaps you didn’t want to pick your bestest friends to do it, but who else was going to risk being possessed by Smegnarrok the Infernal Lord of the Hell’s Taint for you?
My unsettling hypothesis is that all ‘demon possessions’ that took place around weddings were just people’s way of explaining away the brides ‘cold feet.’ And by cold feet I mean sheer terror at spending the rest of her life, legally and religiously, bound to the man who was about to rape her. You see, in Medieval Germany courting was a lot like what we’d call today, “kidnapping.” During the ceremony it was literally the job of “the best man” to stand by the groom and keep and eye on the crowd and make sure none of the young lady’s family “objected,” and fend off anyone who tried to rescue her. So again you might not have wanted your closest friend as much as your most intimidating henchgoon.
Taking all this into consideration, I don’t want to delve too deeply into why it was the groom had to carry his bride into her new home, but my guess is that many of them were kicking and screaming. Some blamed women and their weak souls for being possessed by Smegnatron the Hellish Supervisor of that Nether Place again, and others say they just didn’t want blushing brides to seem too eager about losing their virginity. That happy one’s my favorite.
Virginity until marriage (for women) used to be a pretty big deal. In the Old Testament, The Good Lord commands that if a bride is accused by her groom of not being a virgin, she had to come up with some proof she was, like bloodstained wedding-night linens or something, or “she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous“. Perhaps this is why in some centuries lucky(?) members of the wedding party got to follow the newlyweds into the honeymoon suite and actually witness the consummation. And when it was all over but the screaming, it was their job to take the young lady’s besmirched garter out into the reception and hold it up as proof.
Mazel Tov!
