I recently got engaged. For me, this means I have found the person to whom, before the Universe, I will swear never to leave. Even if, for the rest of time, he never puts his dishes in the dishwasher or wipes his toothpaste out of the sink, I'm staying. Best I can tell, the things I will need to accomplish this are patience, love, kindness, and fortitude. Best I can tell, the things I won't need to accomplish this are a dress, ugly dresses for my friends, cheesy gifts that will take their place in the ranks among other candles and koozies, and GOD DAMN mason jars. So you can imagine my surprise (this is a lie, people don't surprise me any more, it's just the word I use when I mean, REALLY PEOPLE?) when the first words out of everyone's mouth are, "Have you set a date?
Now that we've been engaged a couple of months, I at least understand a little better why this is what people want to know, but in the first round of congratulations we received just days after the ring was on my finger, it gave me panic attacks. What do you mean when? I haven't even called all my relatives yet!
More than the (implied) pressure of feeling like I've failed myself because I don't have a boring old beige hall booked where I can live out the same BORING dreams of a million girls who came before me, I dislike the pity eyes. The ones that say that we probably don't love each other enough because we haven't set a date. That David is probably really NOT so committed to me, because we haven't set a date. That I, as a woman, am probably not going to be able to keep it all together if I have been engaged for 15 minutes and don't have a lame square room with a basic dance floor under contract. The condescension in all this is rivaled only by my favorite other question about when I'm having kids.
Look, I get it (I actually don't at all and think girls are REALLY dumb about weddings). Chicks dig weddings. And most chicks have had some like, grandiose plan for their own wedding since they were like, 4 and Pinterest has filled in the rest. Well in my house, at 4, I was outside playing in the woods. I didn't play house. I didn't have dolls. I never got dressed up or played princess or wedding and whomever this Prince Charming guy was sounded like a real drag to me. Like him showing up was the end of something, not the beginning. And I watched as all of my friends (seemingly) went knowingly into a LIFELONG union after college, right around the time I was figuring out how to pay my rent AND drink every night. Being a wife was never my dream. In fact, being married a mere 3-5 years after being a teenager is the opposite of my dream.
Here's the honest truth. I haven't set a date because I don't care. I haven't set a date because I think weddings and the amount of money we spend in our culture to say, LOOK AT ME! I'VE CONFORMED! I'VE COMPLETED ANOTHER LIFE STEP THAT SAYS I'M JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! GIVE ME GIFTS AND MONEY FOR MY LIFE CHOICES! are completely atrocious. I haven't set a date because in that list of things I need up there to make my marriage work, most of them will take a lifetime and I don't want them trivialized or made to be ceremonial by one fluffy day where people bestow platitudes upon us about how they hope now is when we love each other least and to never go to bed angry. Let me tell you something. If you get out of marriage never going to bed angry, your relationship sounds boring to me.
I bet you're reading this and thinking back about your own beautiful wedding and how you would never trade it for anything. Maybe you're even offended by this post. Well here's what offends me. The idea that a wedding is what's important. The idea that the day is what makes this special. Especially when every bride does the same exact thing. Please don't tell me how you're so super unique because you set up some extra cute mason jar centerpiece on a bail of hay at your rustic chic barn wedding. Please don't.
Stop asking me about my date. Or rather, stop looking at us like we're assholes when we say we don't know. Stop forcing us to look sheepishly at one another and shrug our shoulders because we've been so busy living our awesome every day lives that sitting down with a calendar sounds like a pain. What I want for my "wedding" will take exactly 2 hours to coordinate so I feel certain we can pull this out. That said, if we can't and don't get married this year, I'm not sure what changes for us. If we don't get married next year, I'm not sure what changes for us. Nothing changes because the wedding isn't what makes this.
I PROMISE I will let folks know if I have a date. I will yell it out into the Universe to let everyone know I have been validated by establishing a wedding day. I will send out Save THIS VERY DATE magnets. Followed by invitations with the same date on them. We'll have a date. Then a wedding. It's the 50 years that follow that I choose to be excited about.
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