Letter 606: He Didn't Propose, I Didn't Say Yes...

... but apparently The Thing is on. Yes, The Thing. I say that like it's some venereal disease, but in all honesty, The Thing called Marriage is far more complicated than any STD's. You would remember not too long ago that I'd ranted about my resistance to marriage and weddings. In all honesty, it took me a few weeks to reconcile with the idea of getting hitched. Which was probably why there was no bended knee, no ring, no proposal. Just a very casual Sunday night statement that materialised out of the blue from the pile of laundry in front of the TV.

I still haven't said yes-- or agreed to his statement, to be exact. One which spelled out something like We should get registered on 12/12/12, to which I threw him an incredulous look and a snort and continued folding away my panties while Bruce Willis blows up some skyscraper and causes a 4-car pile-up on the freeway while attempting to hijack a military chopper in his famed Die Hard movie re-runs in front of us.

The next few days the subject was raised again, so I thought it was a good chance to do a bit of sleuthing, see what this wedding business is like, before I committed myself to something of legal and cultural consequences. Now, the marriage part is easy. Everyone knows it-- just sign on the dotted line in front of a civil celebrant and a couple of witnesses and you're legally husband and wife. But then comes the wedding part, which freaks me out. First up, apparently one needs to get dates and venues sorted pronto!! before deciding on anything else. The more popular places and dates are booked at least 12-18 months in advance, if not earlier. Are you shitting my pants here?? 12-18 months ahead!!?? Effing hell I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow, let alone 12 months down the track!

But no, oh no. It's disastrous if you don't start planning early. So, armed with a handful of bridal magazines on loan from the public library and no thanks to Google, despite not being officially engaged, despite not giving him my answer to his Sunday night statement, I started enquiring about venues and dates. What do you say to one wedding planner on his question How long have you been engaged? I find this whole thing quite by-the-book. Why do people normally assume you're engaged? Just because you're planning to get married doesn't mean you have to be engaged, right? I answered, We've been together 11 years. Not formally engaged. And I almost wanted to hurl, Does it make a difference? 

Anyway, we got the date sorted. And no, it's not 12/12/12, but sometime in November, perfect for a Whitsunday beach wedding.

Now, our intention was to keep it small, keep it intimate, keep it simple. Only close family and friends were going to be invited. No traditional Chinese wedding fanfare of taking a dig at the groom and his groomsmen while they attempt to fetch the bride from her parents' house, no tacky, lavish, extravagant Chinese wedding dinners, no yuuuuuuummmmm seeeeeeeennnngggg long into the night. Just The Other Half (well, he's now being upgraded from The Boyfriend, but he's not exactly The Fiance either, I suppose, since we're not officially engaged), our parents, his siblings, a handful of relatives and friends. No more than 20 people on a private island in the Whitsundays.

Sounds good? Sounds perfect. But the problem is, marriage-- and, by extension-- a wedding, is not just the business of the couple involved, but of everyone else around them as well. Even Elizabeth Gilbert acknowledged that fact. Which is why when it comes to weddings, it is culturally polite to invite your aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, cousin-in-laws, nieces, nephews, second cousins, second cousins' other halves and their ketchup-squirting 2-year-olds, grandaunts, granduncles, granduncles' mistresses and their illegitimate lovechild et cetera, et cetera. And this is just family. We haven't even got to the friends part yet. Kill me NOW.

Who wouldn't panic at the mere thought of having a wedding where you don't even recognise half the people who turn up-- much less any gatecrashers-- but are expected to put on a show for them, serve them cornstarch disguised as shark fin soup, provide free-flow Hennessy VSOP to them, and then, when the circus is over, gush in mock excitement, exclaiming "Thank you so much for coming to our wedding!!! We hope you've truly, truly, enjoyed yourselves tonight!!" while shaking their hands vigorously and suppressing the urge to ask them "Who the FUCK are you by the way and what the FUCK are you doing in MY wedding anyway?! You owe me 3 bottles of Hennessy VSOP, 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label, and a bottle of vintage Louis Roederer Cristal champagne, you fuckhead!"

So, in order to overcome this aversion to an unbearably ostentatious display of holy matrimony, we have hence decided to keep it small and simple. It's our day, after all. Why can't we do it the way we want? Looking back at my older rants on marriage and weddings, if I had it my way, it would be anti-tradition to the core.

Don't forget, the marriage is not just about the couple, some may remind me again. And surely aren't weddings. I see their point, but I would also argue that in fact, the marriage belongs entirely to the couple involved. Who are the ones promising "to take care of each other in sickness and in health" and "till death do us part"? Certainly not between the couple and their guests. Who are the ones who cry in silent when one party asks for a divorce? Your melodramatic great-grandaunt who attended your wedding 3 years ago? Puh-lease.

Now, as the marriage belongs entirely to the couple, it is, of course, the onus of the couple to preserve the sanctity of their marriage to the best of their abilities. And I would say that in this case, it gives the couple the right to organise their wedding however they want it. If they want to invite only 10 people rather than the whole clan, so be it. If they want to get hitched overseas rather than do it back home where most of their families and friends are based, so be it. If they want to wear black and be glamorously goth, so be it. If they want to do it on Post-Its  a la Meredith and Derek, let them be! The key here is to respect the couple's choices, rather than trying to bend it and manipulate it to suit the wants and needs of guests.

I don't do tradition. I don't even do weddings in the first place, although lately I have gradually come to reconcile with the idea of marriage until all that talk about traditional ceremonies surfaced. How do you reconcile with tradition? Ok, let me re-phrase: How do you reconcile with meretricious traditional elements like the custom that everyone turns up 3 hours late to a wedding dinner? Or the expectation that one has to invite half the town and almost every distant relative to the wedding? Seriously. How do you reconcile with these elements?

You don't. I don't. I can't. I won't.

Which is why Plan B, is to elope to Tittybong. Or Timbuktu. Seriously. Fuck this crap. Fuck this whole marriage/wedding crap.