Why I Will Never Have a Wedding

Premise: Weddings are freaking nightmares.

Yes, we’ve seen all the movies. My Big Fat Greek Wedding taught us that true love can withstand even a tightknit family. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers taught us that the best way to get a woman is to kidnap her and cause an avalanche so she would have nowhere to go if she did escape. The Princess Bride gave us the most iconic line in the history of romantic cinema: “Mawwiage is what bwings us togewah today,” which is such a great line because you can use it for any occasion – graduations, birthdays, funerals… But whether it takes standing outside the girl’s window blasting a boombox or riding into the a sunset on a lawnmower, they always get their happily-ever-after.

I’m talking about real-life weddings in the late 2010s.

Point 1: Dresses are expensive.

In high school, I bought all of my formal dresses at one of two places: Goodwill or Salvation Army. I think the most expensive one set me (read: my mom) back $40. (That may seem tacky, but to be fair, the only dance I ever went to was the Governor’s Ball hosted by a statewide government club and held inside the Tallahassee Antique Car Museum. Every year, I took a photo next to the Batmobile and a display case of pocketknives.) In college, on the rare occasion I attended some fancy soiree, I usually borrowed a dress from one of my sorority sisters.

Well, now, I’ve graduated college. I’m a 22-year-old working as a corporate communications coordinator in St. Petersburg, Florida, so the odds that I will invited to the Met Ball Gala – or any gala, ball, promenade, sock hop, or disco, for that matter – is extremely slim.

Some would say nonexistent, but I’m still holding out hope that I will one day run into Dan Stevens, and he will realize that we are meant to be together.

But unless – or until (Simon Sinek says positive thinking is the only way to achieve your goals) – that happy day comes, I will never have an excuse to wear a fancy ball gown again in my life, ever.

So not only does that mean that I already have two floor-length dresses that cost upwards of $250 hanging up in a closet in my parents’ house, but, if I were ever to have a wedding, I would (easily) be spending upwards of $1,000 on a dress designed for me to wear only once in my entire life.

Call me a Goodwill-hunting pack rat, but I honestly cannot wrap my head around that.

Point 2: Pre-wedding hoopla is insane.

The first time I was a bridesmaid, I twisted the combination of my school mailbox, opened the metal door (probably on the third try), and invitations to five wedding showers fell out. Five. For the same girl.

Now, I don’t think she reads this blog, but in case she ever does, I want her to know that I don’t judge her; I know that she didn’t plan them. And, to be fair, she had just graduated college and was working at Starbucks until her wedding. But as an introvert with a full-time job, I can’t imagine doing a bunch of pre-wedding shindigs.

And it’s not just the showers. Proposals have to be such an elaborate affair – emotional and intimate (but with a photographer close enough to capture everything) – plus a surprise engagement party with family, friends, balloons, cake, and a photo booth (pics or it didn’t happen). It is such sentimental rigmarole. Whatever happened to the days where a man just offered the girl’s father a goat? When did we decide we needed to bring pageantry and romance into this transaction?

And it isn’t just the future bride who gets proposed to anymore. Now there’s “bridesposing.” This is when the bride-to-be woos her friends into being her bridesmaids by presenting them with a small gift, typically jewelry.

Literally. It’s proposing to your friends.

(Although, as a bridesmaid, I realize I probably shouldn’t complain about this.)

Point 3: Lingerie showers.

Listen, we lived together three years, I never learned what type of underwear you like, and I don’t want to know now.

Point 4: The ceremony is just a freak sideshow in the social media circus.

I already mentioned the engagement brouhaha. So, let’s talk about the big day.

It takes a least three Facebook albums to capture the average wedding day: the pre-wedding primping, the family/bridal party/groomsmen/couple pictures, and the ceremony (which, honestly, are the least exciting pics). Not to mention all the wedding countdown photos (I know one girl who started post 400 days before her wedding – you read that right, a four followed by two zeroes. That is over a year!), the “I said yes to the dress” picture, the snapshot when you get the marriage license, the wedding hashtag, the bachelor/bachelorette party pictures, the wedding video, the anniversary video…

Conclusion: Let’s just get away.

Beneath all the Pinterest-inspired table settings, when photos are sucking at every gigabyte of phone memory and the send-off sparklers are nothing but ashy metal sticks, the important part of the wedding is that two people have vowed to love, honor, and cherish each other for the rest of their lives. I understand that it’s an important day, but in the grand scheme of things, it is one day.

Plus, I know a lot of people who say they don’t even remember the wedding. I recently had dinner with a friend who told me the only thing she remembers from her wedding is that one of the guests ripped his vasectomy from dancing. (I’m working on selling that story to Hallmark.)

All that to say, I’d rather save money for the honeymoon, so we can go somewhere exotic and start our life together with amazing memories and peeling, sunburned shoulders.

So if I ever get married, I’m going to elope. But not in an unplanned, harum-scarum, run-baby-run, kinda way. (Hello, it’s me.) We will be organized and logical about this. We’ll make travel reservations and toodle down to the courthouse on a pre-arranged date.

Heck. Maybe it’ll even be an excuse to wear one of those bridesmaid dresses again.

Sounds like happily-ever-after to me.

Do you hate weddings? Does emotion make you snarky? I think we’ll get along just fine. Click the “Follow Me” button or type your email address into the widget on the top right of the screen!