Call me selfish, but I've never really been all that keen on marriage. I guess it comes from having seen too many fall apart, and losing faith in the whole idea. If so many people can say "I do" and yet don't, what value does it have even if I stand by the statement?
Over the years, I've talked this over with Ween, and I think she understands. I would be more than happy to do something else to demonstrate commitment, but I haven't been convinced about that final step. I see the status quo as a broken system, and I'm not certain that I would want a part of it.
Yesterday we went to a wedding of a friend, and had a great time. Nothing too embarrassing happened (well, maybe it did, but I'll apologise when they come back from the honeymoon) and it was actually rather nice. I'm not saying that I'm warming to the idea, but it was a good day, and the couple are great together.
What did strike me as odd and reinforced the feeling of a broken system, however, was how forced the whole event was in places. The wedding proper took about half an hour. The various professional photographs, which required everyone to pose and stand around, took about twice that.
The photographs will be the lasting mementos of the day... and yet they are in my mind utterly false. There was no point in the day where all the girls decided amongst themselves to stand in a line and throw their hands in the air, and neither did the groom's friends spontaneously decide to show off their socks to each other... and yet the couple will have a record of both events, photographed as if they were a spur of the moment frolic.
Meh, maybe I'm just a grouch. However, if we were to get married or whatever, we set two ground rules yesterday:-
1. A maximum of two posed photographs.
2. No smoking. Even outside. (Yes, I am a grouch).
Moving swiftly on... anyone know how to install a chimney and fireplace?
6 comments:
If you're having a no smoking rule, you don't need a chimney.
You would really hope that I would have actually avoided walking straight into such a joke by properly proof-reading my blog.
At my brother's wedding, there was only the one truly 100% genuine photo. It's of Bro and I shaking hands (alright, that partiular bit *was* staged) and us both laughing uproariously at the punchline of a joke that I refused to let the photographer stop me telling.
All I said was "with gums like that I'm not surprised".
It's the one photo that my Bro has kept (the marriage didn't last long) and it is a treasured item indeed.
The piccies are a record of the day. The staged photos you describe are for the vanity of the photographer and as such bear nothing to the event.
When you choose your photographer, tell Stu that you don't want any silly photos like that! Stu is good enough to be able to take spontaneous photos without resorting to such artifice.
The present Mrs. B and I are still together, though god knows why she's still here! It depends on whether you mean it when you say "I do".
Failed marriages are still the minority, although more publicised. We have masses of unstaged photos from our wedding, but the posed group ones are cherished because so many of our family and friends have died, and they managed to avoid being 'snapped'. Just tell the photographer the sort of photos you want.
I agree!
Post a Comment