Shoved to Them
What is it about weddings that they seem to breed drama? Is it the pageantry? The emotions involved? Something more? Do weddings manufacture their own turmoil?
We have spent the last week trying to stay afloat in the rising tide of chaos that is a family wedding. There have been tears, recriminations, hurt feelings, and anger. It just seems so unnecessary.
Marriage is an institution created by God for the good of mankind. Weddings are an institution created mostly by women which, I fear, will be the death of us all.
Beautiful weddings create lovely photographs, but they don’t necessarily produce happy unions. In addition, the lovely pictures in the books never tell the whole story. They don’t show the emotional bridezilla, the controlling mother, the in laws who wail in the pews, the anger and hurt which seem to have become such a part of what should be a holy and peaceful day.
A wedding should be about love and joy. It should be more about the blessings of Almighty God on the joining of two lives and less about the flowers, the photographer, the unattainable perfection of just one day. It instead becomes about control, power, and pageantry. It becomes a spectacle and then the point of it all is lost.
I find that the older I get, the less interest I have in the weddings themselves. They can be fun parties, but more often they are tiresome social obligations. I am much more intrigued to watch the marriage. I find joy in watching people grow together. I like to catch the little looks between people who no longer have to say a word to each other to convey whole sentences. I like to see the bride who is still glowing years after her wedding day. I like to see the groom whose wife of 50 years turns him again into a smitten young man.
Weddings have a place in our society for celebrating the continuation and coming together of family. They are an acknowledgement of the importance of that central union in a family. Somehow, we seem to lose sight of the purpose when we start arguing over the shade of pink in a flower girl’s dress, the kind of jewelry attendants are “allowed” to wear, whether or not we have been seated at as nice a table as that nasty cousin we’ve never liked, and whether or not Emily Post’s rules have been followed to the letter.
Please don’t misunderstand, I do like the idea of weddings just not the angst that surrounds them. They just don’t interest me as much as the story that will follow after them. I’d just rather hear about the “Happily Ever After” than the “Once Upon A Time.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In