1. Why are you getting married?
Like the atrocities of other Western symbols, weddings as a symbol of a couple's birth into society, have become overblown and commercialized. My intention on marriage was idyllic (as an idealist this is true to my form). However, when faced with the full blown wedding details, I cannot help but want to elope, making this an intimate celebration between J and me. With each new challenge, like booking a facility, I find it harder and harder to separate out the commercial crap and what is meaningful to me. So that brings me to the second consideration...
2. What are your beliefs and rituals?
For the nonreligious, we tend to borrow rituals from different religions. Hold up, I AM religious, I was baptised and confirmed as an Anglican. Well, just as many weddings seemingly occur outside the awareness of the couple getting married (we'll just ladeda down the aisle and go along with whatever someone tells us to do), many religious people seem to be religious by implication rather than by practise. I do not practise Anglicism, besides feeling the Anglican influence on some firm foundational beliefs of what is moral and righteous. And from time to time using this to my advantage when certain religious people or questions come up where it would seem easier and maybe beneficial to just go along with the "Oh, I'm Anglican" label.
So how does one get married outside the context of their religion without stealing another culture's ceremonies? Isn't this the North American way? At certain mental moments, I have considered starting over in trueblue NAmerican fashion, with a diamond ring, a knee proposal, and a big ole Church full of family, friends and of course, your standard strangers that someone had to invite. That would be so much easier than figuring it out for myself. But it is too late, we cannot redo a lot of this (sorry J, no second proposal, I'm sure you were wanting that anxiety once more). So I am faced with researching potential rituals, and then pondering how they make me feel. Yet, as a purist when it comes to religion, I don't want to steal anyone's ceremonies and be left explaining to my children how white man stole many other things, why not some other culture's traditions for my own symbolic wedding? How about just borrowing..sigh.
I am a yogi, true. But unfortunately, where yoga was predominantly practised and taught, in the East, their relgious beliefs, be them Taoist, Hindu or Buddhist, where wrapped up in their yoga practise. So taking any yogic influence would inevitably be taking some Eastern Religion influence, and leave people pondering whether it was Krishna or Buddha who was presiding over our special day. Of course, yoga in the West is naturally influenced by the West's dominant beliefs, and that would be beauty and aesthetics. Oops, no ceremonial ties there, unless we wanted to follow our vows up with a hearty set up leg presses or crunches. Mmm...not so cool.
3. Ring exchange (Soap box moment)
If I get one more person glancing down at my hand to see the big rock, I'm going to go insane. I realize this is part of life, and when I'm pregnant for the first time I will likely make the same remarks about my body becoming a public forum free for all, but I think it is note-worthy to address our complete inability to express joy in a way that doesn't involve searching for some thing to confirm that what I'm saying is actually happening. Rather than a joyous hug, my friends would rather stay a foot away, looking for a ring, asking about concrete details like dates, places, dresses. Like being vegetarian and buying a veggie hotdog, then feeling I want to yell to passerbys "It's a VEGGIE dog!" I have the impulse to tattoo Canada's Diavik diamond mine on the back of my hand, with a note "I chose not to buy in to commercialism and environmental disaster". A cute little arrow pointing to my ring finger would top this whole image off, don't you think that would be just so cute? Us purists seem to be constantly justifying our choices, but more to ourselves than others I think. Maybe if our society kept its thoughts to itself more often than not, I wouldn't be feeling this need for justificaiton, but this is my culture, where everything is up to scrutiny, where people can say whatever they want, and I think I have internalized a lot of the comments.
4. The age old question of who to invite
Okay, I know this sounds old-school. But honestly, should my intimate, weird, dryad ceremony be open to friends who will want to mock, question and cajole me? When I mentioned "potluck" for a reception, I was greeted by many testimonials of those who had heard from a bride whose family chose to boycott their wedding just at the insinuation that they would have to bring a potluck dish to a wedding! And what about family? I have this devilish urge to invite half of some families, like the mom and son, but not the dad and daughter or other various combinations. Cherry-picking would be an appropriate word here. Okay, i have no solution for this, just wanted to complain.
5. Place and People
To reiterate on the people question, I want my wedding to be a celebration of our life together. It is not to rehash old haunts from my childhood. The little girl dream I had of marrying at the Saskatoon Berry Barn would be great, if J had I had happily gone there even once together. But we didn't. Now I have an understanding fiance, he would marry me on Venus if I convinced him that it meant a lot to me. But the point is for me to actually engage him in these decisions, so he feels the solemnity and intent of getting married too! They always say in books "don't forget, this is your wedding." So why would we get married in a place we've never been together? Or for that matter, in our hometown of Saskatoon, when we met in Calgary, live in Calgary, and the people we have chose to have in our lives (friends) are in Calgary and those who have to be in our lives (family from SK) will likely make their best effort to go wherever we choose?
As for the people, I truly hope that this ceremony makes it clear to those present that they are there to see the culmination of their support for us as a couple. Of course, some will be on the Bride's side (Aunts who encouraged me to keep looking for Mr. Right, somehow never telling me how wrong my Mr. Wrongs were) and some on the Grooms (J's friend shutting his mouth everytime I opened mine to criticize his lovelife, knowing how much J loves me). And hopefully we will have a few people who helped us along as a couple (oh the colorful neighbour who seems to see me and J as some sort of beacon of light for what is right in life). And all of those present will be asked to continue their support for us as a couple. I personally see this as a chance for those present to act as Godparents, knowing that if something should happen, they might very well be asked to step in and act as faith harborers for me and J, reminding us of why we are blessed. Wow, what a big question to ask of people, but isn't that why your wedding should be slightly more intimate than 350 people? Do they really feel responsible for you, or are they there to check out the chicks at the dance? Do people still say "chicks?"
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