A Perfect Wedding

I have a strong desire to write about a lot of stuff that's going on in my mind... but it seems to be a little too personal to share with society at large. So I'm choosing instead, to do something exactly the opposite, in some sense. For the first time I'm putting up something on this blog that does not draw from any personal experience that I have had.

In Father of The Bride, Steve Martin says, "I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That's getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition."

I do not think he could have been more right. All over the world, weddings are a complicated deal. Planning a wedding is when one realizes that it's not just a girl marrying a guy, it's her entire family marrying his entire family. There are any number of customs, any number of social obligations, any number of relatives (including some really distant ones that you may actually see only on your wedding day) to be taken care of.

I would actually love to have a small, simple wedding for myself, with just close relatives and close friends. (Disclaimer: this does not mean that I do not want to dress up and look more beautiful than I've ever looked! But I want to look beautiful, not made-up and overloaded with precious metals.) I do not see the point of inviting a million people whom I do not know, have never met before, and will possibly never meet again in my life. I would like to share my special day with all those people with whom I've shared a lot else in my life. Those I've grown up with. Those I've partied with. Gone shopping with. Lent listening ears to. Received advice from. Given and received shoulders to cry on. I simply do not understand the concept of sharing this special joy with people you barely know. When I am invited to a wedding where I don't really know either the bride or the groom or a really close relative like a sibling of either of them, I never feel inclined to go.

I've also come to think that planning a large scale wedding, complete with a zillion pre-wedding and post-wedding ceremonies, is actually quite taxing on the two families involved. It actually takes the focus away from the most important thing - that there are two people here who want to spend the rest of their lives together and that's what actually matters. That gets overshadowed by arguments on auspicious dates and venues and what not. People end up spending obscene amounts of money on their weddings which could be put to better use by being spent on things the newlyweds would need, or being saved up for their children's education.

Oh well, this is just a random string of thoughts that cropped up in my mind. I guess these things will really matter to me only after I find my Prince Charming. Right now, the important thing for me is the search.