Someday, I want to get pseudo-married. I've been dreaming of this for years (seriously). I have it all planned out. I'm a veritable pseudo-Bridezilla. Here's how it's going to go down:
For the ceremony, we're going to pseudo-elope. We're going to run away to Vegas for a long weekend, drink and gamble ourselves stupid, catch Penn & Teller and Zumanity (this isn't exactly part of the fantasy; it's just something I have to do if I'm in Vegas), and at about 3 AM we're going to stagger into the 24-hour Elvis quickie wedding place. And then we are not going to sign papers. We're just going to tell Reverend Presley that we'll pay him to go ahead and do up the whole ceremony, walk me down the aisle and stand us up at the altar and say the words, but not do anything legal.
It will be the happiest day of my life.
For the reception, we're going to do it formal and proper, sometime in my life when I have enough money to do it right. (So maybe not right after Vegas. Hell, maybe not with the same person. Doesn't really matter who my partner is for this as long as they're into it and understand my intent.) You know how people's first weddings are usually their most lavish and elaborate? That's what I want from my zeroth wedding. I'm going to pick colors and hire a planner for all those little details and rent out a banquet hall and get a caterer and a DJ and a photographer and invite all my friends and relatives and I am going to wear an absolutely ludicrous dress. We're going to have a gigantic formal party until late into the night and I'll obsess over every detail and it'll be an absolute blast.
Then comes the pseudo-wedding night. Oh baby. Here's one part we're not faking.
Although I'd like to do these things with someone I at least like, honestly, I don't care if we stay Together Forever or whatever. Maybe I'll do that someday with somebody, but that's a totally separate thing. And whether I ever make it legal with someone is probably going to have more to do with legal or financial practicality than with fairy-tale romance. But that doesn't mean I don't want to have that fairy-tale day every girl supposedly dreams of. I just want only that day.
I don't want a marriage. Just a wedding.
Yeah, the idea of a beautiful, lavish party with pretty dresses really appeals to me waaaay more than actually getting married. Maybe I should just host masquerade balls.
ReplyDeleteYou know, it's not even necessarily about "appeal." I just want them to be separate. "I want to throw the the most fabulous party of my life" and "I want to commit my life to someone" are completely different and unlinked desires for me.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind having a very lavish party, but enh, me and Mac got hitched without much money to spare. We didn't have anyone to back us.
ReplyDeleteOur unlegal wedding ended up with us renting space at a nice tiny chapel in the woods by lying our ass off about our purpose, (gay marriage is illegal in Texas, never mind OUR marriage), a few of our closest friends coming in, us baking the wedding cake ourselves, and putting on parts of a rented suit and having vows and embarrassing stories told about us. And then there was Thai food and Rifftraxx. (And homework. Cutting class for your wedding is Not Allowed.)
Honestly, as much as I would've liked my parents to come, I don't think I would've liked the huge party. Planning those things always seems so stressful. (Though jeez, being able to CELEBRATE with all my friends ever, without fear of money... *wistful sigh*)
I did make a ridiculously sappy scrapbook with my husband afterward, though.
--Rogan
Sometimes I wish I had done just that...other times I'm glad I did both!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds AWESOME. I'm pretty sure I want marriage myself (I'm a long-term monogamy type person who wants to have kids, and I've been with someone for a few years who I probably want to do that with in a few more years, so the legal/financial practical incentives are likely to be a factor), but even if I didn't, I think I would love a party like that.
ReplyDeleteThat...sounds amazing. And like totally the opposite of what I did (backyard BBQ. Explosives were involved. Also somehow 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' was playing during the ceremony and the entire wedding party almost cracked up).
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who's planning to throw a "look how fabulous I am" blowout party for herself if she hasn't had a wedding by age 40. I think it's a great idea. Everyone will probably have more fun when the host admits they just want to throw a great party celebrating themselves (as an individual or a couple) than when they have to satisfy every distant relative's pet tradition.
ReplyDeleteYou know, it's interesting! I've never really dreamed about huge lavish weddings growing up, and I still prefer the idea of a smaller, more intimate ceremony now. Immediate family, a few close friends, and minimal expenses.
ReplyDeleteBut that totally does not stop me from giddily planning everything from the color scheme to the music to the wedding dress to the invitations to the cake toppers and everything in between.
I guess regardless of size (and cost), a girl just wants to make her wedding day meaningful and special.
i've honestly never given my dream wedding any thought (maybe because i have no interest in being married?), but i have to admit having the reception be a costume party really appeals to me.
ReplyDeletei mean, shit, we all have to get dressed up for that stuff anyway, right?
It's nothing new. Look:
ReplyDelete"No;" 'tis no use," she said. "I don't want to marry you."
"Try."
"I have tried hard all the time I've been thinking; for a marriage would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that, But a husband ----
"Well!"
"Why, he'd always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there he'd be."
"Of course he would -- I, that is."
"Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can't show off in that way by herself, I shan't marry -- at least yet.
From "Far From the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy (Full text on-line)
Don't sit anywhere near the front at Zumanity unless you want to participate.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up on stage. This is not the best place for an inveterate introvert to be, but somehow I aplombed my way through it.
I just got married, because...well, I love him lots and I wanted to make it difficult to get away from him (state-sanctioned bondage?). We both kinda wanted a big party, but then we also didn't want to pay for one or organize it.
ReplyDeleteSo we just went to a restaurant and everyone paid their own way. I still wore a pretty dress, but it was just a pretty dress and not bridal.
But this is why I like OTHER people's weddings. Party, minus me planning it!
I always thought a drive-thru Elvis wedding would be awesome. Bonus points for a Cadillac convertible.
ReplyDeleteI know at least one divorced woman who seems to have only wanted a wedding, not a marriage; I think we all wish she'd done this!
ReplyDeleteflightless
Honestly I never dreamed of my wedding, but apparently my Future Husband has dreamed of the wedding night for years. And it will happen....
ReplyDeleteHe wants to use a sharp knife/scissors and cut me out of my wedding dress and then have his way with me. No saving that dress for something else. And he insists that I'm to get attached to it. He wants waterworks. Sounds hot.
I don't want a wedding I want a proposal. It will happen at one of those fetish parties that I go to. After the opening remarks the aparty organizers will say my Dom would like to make an announcement. And he will walk to the center of the room bringing me with him. When we get to the front of the room he will ask for me to get on my knees. And he will look up and say, "I have a question to ask my lovely lady.", and he will look into my eyes and pulling out a collar from his leather jacket will ask "[insert full name here] will you marry me?", and I will respond with a resounding "Oh God yes", and he will then lock the collar around my neck, and we will continue with whatever activities we had planed for us that day.
ReplyDeletep.s @ lunaKM I like the idea of being cut out of the wedding dress.
ReplyDeleteI'd like a Saint Andrew's Cross and restraints set up in the private room for the bride and groom to get to know each other.
To bad I don't have the man yet :(
The interesting thing about an alegal wedding is that you can go ahead and do a poly wedding.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure someone somewhere has already thought of this.
I'm pretty sure you're "doing it right." The line about wearing a "ludicrous dress" actually made me bust out laughing, as did my eye catching "Holly Pervocracy is fucking insane" in the tags immediately afterward.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to have a wedding dress with all the proper foundation garments and accessories. I'm not really interested in any other aspect of a wedding--I hate huge parties and anyway, the whole idea of people getting a party and thousands and thousands of dollars in gifts as a reward for following the correct heterosexual life script weirds me out in the extreme--but I really, really want one beautiful, perfect dress.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually hosting an Unwedding in a few weeks. My friends and I aren't interested in the wedding part (they're mostly single or poly, and I'm in a LTR with no plans for marriage), but we do like the idea of a party with cake and fancy clothes. We've got a BBQ planned and we're gonna take fake schmaltzy reception photos. I'm actually kinda weirded out that you posted this so close to our event...it's like you're in MY MIND!
ReplyDeleteYou want to live on TV?
ReplyDeleteI started reading this because I was like, "Wait, why would she want that?" and now I am half convinced I should do this too someday!
ReplyDelete@lunaKM I think you gave me a new fetish.
@Voldemort13 I've been to a couple weddings but the only time I've really felt moved was at a formal collaring ceremony at Winter Fire.
Also, I can't help thinking about the end of Secretary where they have "a June wedding" and she's wearing a black dress and he's fucking her while she's tied to a tree!
Molly Ren - That part of Secretary always made me kind of sad actually, because it sort of implied that she couldn't have her family there and couldn't have a traditional white wedding because they were kinky and had a "forbidden love."
ReplyDeleteI mean, maybe that's just the way they happened to want it, but still. You can be kinky and still want to keep ties with your family and your culture.
@Holly Awww, I never thought about it that way before. : ( I am going to be stubborn and still like that part of the movie. ;)
ReplyDeletePS I have been debating whether or not to "come out" as kinky to my parents for just that reason. People have told me "they don't need to know!" but I'm like, "I actually *like* my parents and I celebrate holidays with them, I want to be able to talk about my boyfriends with them!"
i sort of eloped. if taking my dad, step-mom and sisters counts as "elopment" [the thing was, i was 17, and apparantly it's NOT legal to get married at 17 in Alabama without BOTH parent's permission. and since the whole point of getting married THEN, instead of later, was so that my mother could NOT get custody back...]
ReplyDeleteand i wore plaid.
now, i threw a HUGE party when i got my divorce papers :)
but... yeah, i, too, want an actual wedding. not a BIG one, and i want to be married in red, but - an actual wedding.
don't care if it's a "legal" wedding. just a wedding.
*shrug*
I wanted the marriage, not the wedding. The marriage is great! I love it! And the wedding was pretty fun too... except for the part when i nearly had a panic attack bc there were too many people, too close, making too much noise :-/
ReplyDeleteI have to say, much as I love my marriage, I fucking LOVED my wedding. Weddings are just fun. I love ceremonies and I love planning them, and I love that years later people are still telling me that my wedding was one of the most beautiful they've ever been to. (The fact that it was also probably one of the cheapest and most stress-free is a happy coincidence.)
ReplyDeleteMy long-term girlfriend finds formal dress as a concept kinda disgusting and classist... but she's also seen *the dress* she wants to get married in and it's a traditional wedding dress (except blue and glittery). My solution? She gets to wear the dress she wants and I wear jeans the same colour :-)
ReplyDeleteMy fiance and I are going to a judge in a few weeks and having as unceremonious a marriage as possible (just sign papers and a couple of witnesses). Not because I don't like ceremony but because I want our committing to each other to be without all the baggage everyone in either family might feel sanctioned to attempt to commit. (and because I don't want our committmentness to get bogged down on 'is my makeup right? are the flowers right?' f that shit) That and at present there is no particular ceremony that 'feels right' yet and despite that we are both clear that we want to be legally united at this point and don't want doing that held hostage to finding the ceremony that 'feels right'.
ReplyDeleteThere will be for certain two gatherings-to-celebrate this year (one here where we live, one out east when we go get My Stuff that's currently in storage) (although, depending on what time constraints we end up with the second may be a "let's all meet at the storage unit for hot dogs and soda and while we're celebrating can you throw a couple of things into the truck?")
And at some point in the future when we feel like it we will have occasional re-commitment ceremonies of whatever tradition feels appropriate at the time and involving communities that we belong to at that time. (Because I really really really don't believe in the idea of "this one day establishes eternity" but "this one day establishes the start of eternity" with periodic re-commitments)