Spring has arrived: the trees are leafing, the flowers are sprouting, taxes are falling and the first air conditioning vans are driving coolly through the suburbs. This is the time of romance and it is or should be the time for spring weddings.
The wedding season was a bit subdued this year. Long white limousines may be the perfect means of social distancing, but they haven’t been seen much so far. The Wall Street Journal reports that many couples think twice about the big, expensive events they had planned or postpone the date until an extravaganza with hundreds of guests is less risky. So the epidemic has affected everything everywhere, including traditional love rituals. In China, a provincial government is offering 100 free weddings, dresses, receptions and red flags to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party and to encourage young people to marry and, presumably, produce small communists.
A wedding is of course an important ritual, but rituals easily degenerate into mere performance. In a large wedding production, something deeply personal becomes conspicuously public and even theatrical. The main actors are helpless in the grip of the wedding machine, so carried away by the script and the staging that they can hardly resist.
Large weddings, like exotic vacations, exist primarily for photography. These are stressful occasions where emotions tend to be high along with alcohol consumption. So surprisingly often, wedding receptions end in fighting that some wedding planners hire security guards. It is a risky event for everyone involved. But until now, no one has been deterred by this, or by the divorce rate, or by popular television programs showing domestic life as a war zone. Most brides also don’t seem concerned that the wedding will be the highlight of their lives. Who wants to peak so quickly? Some brides realize this after a long look at the man behind the mask and run away before the ceremony to look elsewhere for their climax.
The pandemic added a pause for reflection. How big and therefore how risky does a wedding have to be? It’s hard to prove, but my guess is that small, intimate weddings where the bride and groom only invite the people who really want to see them (who may not be) give couples a better start than the big staged events that do cost an average of $ 30,000. and set impossible expectations. An expensive wedding with hundreds of guests doesn’t necessarily guarantee happiness to the end. The most spectacular example of this was Charles and Diana’s multi-million dollar wedding extravaganza in 1981 that only led to misery. Almost every Hollywood wedding tells the same story.
The stripped-down, COVID-conscious wedding fits the nature of modern marriage, which is more personal and less social than it used to be – and usually shorter. Men with their less developed social brains can understand and attend a small wedding in ordinary clothes. A quick and humble ceremony, religious or non-religious, relieves both parties. It’s not much worse than going to the DMV. Masks can be removed in a small gathering, reducing the chance of marrying the wrong person and eliminating the need for security guards.
Our wedding decades ago was as small and simple as possible, and I couldn’t be happier with the marriage that resulted. If someone suggested a white limousine, tuxedo, and catering hall, I would still be a bachelor.
Copyright: David Bouchier