At the moment I make my living by editing wedding videos. The weddings are usually of the 50 - 100 K varieties. Yes, that is exactly what I mean, someone - many someones - are spending $50 to $100 thousand on their weddings.
In any event, I am working on a wedding this week and the bride - fresh from her honeymoon in Tahiti, or Rome, or the Moon for all I know calls up and talks to my boss. She asked if he got a particular shot, and he didn't, so now she's all mad.
What was the shot, you might ask? Well, it seems she wanted him to get a shot of the bathroom. "It was so pretty!" she said. My boss, being a man, is not in the habit of going in to the women's bathrooms to see if they are pretty. In fact, I'm not sure the thought would ever have occurred to him in this lifetime. I guess when you spend 50 - 100K on your wedding they decorate the bathroom too.
They should put gold toilet paper in there for that price. In fact, if I'm spending that kind of money on a wedding I'd better be shitting gold bricks, you know what I'm sayin', dog?
I feel as if we are all loosing a little perspective on what a wedding is. A wedding is a ceremony created for the purpose of forming a binding contract between two people. Preferably the two people love each other, but it isn't a requirement.
These two people agree to share their lives, their ups and downs, and all of the life stuff that comes along.
It is not an event that you put on in order to get presents.
It is not an event you put on to show off a dress that you probably paid too much for.
It is not an event that you put on so you can invite all your friends to come and see how much money you have and how much you have just spent on your daughters wedding.
Now, this all sounds a little cynical perhaps. If you are very rich and want to put on the bash of the century because you are ecstatic about your child’s wedding (or your own wedding if you are paying for it) then more power to you. I merely note that many people – women in particular – are taught “that this will be the greatest day of your life.” And so many people state that they “have waited their whole lives for this day”.
These comments scare me a bit. When you have set all of your hopes on this one day, what happens if something goes wrong? If you have waited your whole life for this day, what do you do the day after? What do you do when the fairy tale is over and you go back to the regular 9 to 5? A wedding is a happy time, no doubt, but I’d rather see people pinning their dreams on something a little less fleeting.
Making the marriage last, perhaps? Just a thought.