Unbridal Joy
Who knew the happiest day of my life could be so stressful?
All you Rhetoric-heads out there are gonna flip when you hear this new lore drop: I’m getting married. You know that mysterious “partner” I’ve spent the past few issues assaulting with scalding hot showers and pure citric acid? He was secretly my fiancé the whole time.
And by “the whole time,” I mean since New Year’s Eve, so this isn’t exactly a new development. But with everyone ugly-crying over Taylor Swift’s recent engagement, I thought now might be a good time to take all those raw emotions and make them about me.
Of course, if we’re comparing wedding budgets, Taylor’s got a few bucks over me. I don’t normally cry about not being filthy stinkin’ rich, but anybody who’s ever planned one knows the word “wedding” might as well be an anti-discount code. What’s the difference between a photographer and a wedding photographer? A venue and a wedding venue? Apparently an extra digit on the price tag. Maybe they think I’ll have too many hearts in my eyes to notice.
I get that lots of little girls grow up dreaming about their wedding day and are willing to spare no expense in making that dream come true. Little Rheya never saw the point; as she understood it, there was gonna be a whole other person next to her on that day, with his own lifetime’s worth of interests and experiences. How could she envision something that stood for both of them when she didn’t even know his favorite color yet?
Well, now I do know his favorite color, along with every other minute detail of his existence, and it turns out he’s as chill about this whole wedding thing as I am. So far, his only requests have been “can the ring bearer be a possum” (no) and “can I wear khakis instead of a suit” (hell no).
So we’re piecing together this once-in-a-lifetime celebration based almost entirely on vibes — something I suppose I should have expected. What I never could’ve expected, though, was how much our laid-back attitude would set the professionals on edge.
If I may make one observation about the wedding industry, it’s that the “happiest day of your life” seems to be an ordeal that elicits dread in everyone involved. The bride and groom are terrified of their big day being utterly ruined by a stray gust of wind. Everyone around them, meanwhile, is constantly walking on eggshells to avoid summoning the matrimonial cryptid known as Bridezilla. Like beautiful gremlins, those little girls with big wedding dreams transform into living nightmares if anyone dares to rain on their parade.
I’m not gonna pretend I don’t care how it turns out. Especially now that we’re just six months out, and the ideas we’ve had are starting to take shape. And there’s plenty I have known from the beginning; I know who I’m marrying, arguably the most important detail. I know who we’re mailing invites to, and who we actually want to come. And I know that when the time comes, I’m going to say “I do” and everyone’s going to cheer.
Everything else is just icing on the cake — which had better be cheesecake, or I’ll scream.
