Tuesday 24 June 2008

Tying the knot...or everything else?

"When I get married, I won't be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I'll put a full Body-Bind Curse on Mum until it's all over" - Fred Weasley

Do wedding ceremonies these days make you go, "Oh, what the hell??!" If not then you'll probably not understand the rest of this post. So read at your own risk.

Personally, I love weddings. The food is usually great and....yeah that's it. I've been unable to find any other good reasons to attend them. I know that many are going to say, "But don't you even feel happy for the newly wed couple? Don't you share their happiness, you selfish brat?" Of course I do, but let's stick to the topic of wedding parties, shall we? Once I watched a report on BBC about the lavish wedding ceremonies held in India, and how many families go bankrupt over them. Even we're heading in that direction I suppose, especially these days when people are so obsessed with taking loans.

Let's start off with invitation cards. Basically, they let the invitees know about the date, time and venue of the ceremony. Simple right? Well, apparently not. The cards should be unique, that is to say, totally different from those made for other weddings. These invitations are usually made by an expert on designing stuff (who wouldn't care less if the whole ordeal is ridiculous or not: they make money by doing this, see). I think there's a high probability that invitation cards alone cost more than weddings used to 20 years back.

The couple are next. The bride will usually be caked under layers of makeup and sporting a cross between I'm so pretty! and I can't believe this is happening! looks. She will never laugh, but have a permanent-looking smile plastered to her face. If a situation where she just has to laugh arises, she'll just gasp extremely softly. Most people aren't able to hear this. The guy, well they say men are easier to read. He'll just have the simple When will this darn thing end so we can go and... look. The couple won't even realize you're right there in front of them, shaking their own hands until they run through the photos several days later.

What about the excessive unnecessary stuff? My best friend rang me up last year while he was at one such party and told me about a chocolate fountain. I thought he was talking about a new type of dessert, but it just happened to be that...a chocolate fountain. Not for edible purposes. A wedding I attended had fruits carved out in fancy ways as decoration. Fruits, for heavens sake! Totally fail-safe methods of throwing money out of the window!

Lastly, the giveaways. These are usually stuff that have no use whatsoever, and I just can't wrap my head around the idea! Sometimes this makes me wonder whether people are just looking for more ways to inspire from riches-to-rags stories. If I live long enough to get married and someone asks me for a giveaway, I'd probably say, "You've just stuffed yourself with food I gave away. What more do you want?" I've received all sorts of ridiculous stuff from weddings (or rather, had them stuffed in my hands) and they always go where they belong; into the dustbin.

People forget the real reason of celebrating weddings these days, don't they? The process where two people are tying the knot is paled into insignificance, but what comes after are deemed to be of utmost importance.

And two months later, the couple get divorced. The typical Maldivian wedding..


This is Ms Apple Slut. I received her as a giveaway at a recent wedding.

9 comments:

.mini said...

i was gonna write about weddings but you did it first
personally, i don't like weddings at all, mostly because of all the fuss like you've mentioned in your post
and if cousins are getting married, i have to wear matching dresses and hang around that place for the whole night
my cousin is gonna have a "happily ever after" theme wedding and i have to look royal, and when i asked munshi for an idea, she went like, theres no princessy stuff for burugees!
i still dunno what im gonna wear
i so hate weddings!

Unknown said...

that has to be the weirdest give away i have ever seen.

and ms apple slut? seriously?

Anonymous said...

Whats all this about anyway

paperclippenny said...

i like ms. apple slut. She's the best giveaway present i've seen so far.

moyameehaa said...

nice. exactly what i think of these weddins. so human and so hypocritical.

i think the dress they wear should be comfortable.and they should be them. not someone else.and they should be happy to be there with each other..and enjoying the presence of friends and family. and these friends and family should be enjoying the weddin. i think a real party and maybe some good music (western or boduberu) and everyone goin crazy would be good.

sigh.maldivians. monkey see monkey do. mokey dunno monkey's fenvaru.

Imma said...

i knw what u mean mini coz my cousin got married last year n i had to hang around the place wearing green..

yes bulhaa, ms apple slut..funnily enough tats the only give away that turned out to be useful

hudhumaa said...

well yeaa .. poor bride n groom ... but u know ... for the ppl related to the bride n groom .. sometimes its sorta fun ... the extra money down the drain is .. well ... n the invitations on pieces of wood n cd s are .. extremely psychotic ... but from my experience ... weddings are fun ... n same typy dresses are fun too :P ...

Afu Latheef said...

i did it in court, in a top and jeans... and i had no problem with it :)

Imma said...

that is simply awesome :D