The rite of marriage comes with many a step. The decision to marry, then finding the right person, still electing to get married, putting out familial fires – cus’ of course someone has to shit on something – then finally comes the grueling process of getting married.
Of all the processes I did not expect the marital function to be the hardest part, like come on how hard can saying a few words and signing a piece of paper be? Very hard apparently, more so than strictly necessary. For many the marriage functions is all sparkles and shine but if you are anything like me – a certified hermit and an introvert – it’s an extremely painful process especially when combined with tradition-loving relatives.
The worst part is you cannot even wing it in this scenario, there are whole ass steps to this process, steps that you take in an orderly manner and execute while praying to Satan. My ideal wedding plan involved: The guy, then me and a volcano. What was I going to do with the volcano? Not important; I had plans, but instead I got a bunch of people I did not know, a swarm of photographers and makeup artists armed with hairsprays.
But I guess I am getting ahead of myself, so this all started when I met a dude who liked books, but we met through the route of families or also known as arranged marriage. Guess we weren’t thinking much of the marriage part but boy then did it come into the picture.
Funeral Bells
So, I won’t get into the long-drawn-out process of what to or not to do, I’ll just narrate my grueling journey. It was a nice and sunny day, a wonderful morning truly, except I had to wake up at an ungodly hour of 5 am in the morning, what is so sad about it you may ask? I am not a morning person. Anything before 10 am is of the devil himself.
There I was, a veritable human marshmallow, staring at the ceiling and drifting. The funny part about marriage? You do not realize you are married until you are married. It took me three days for it to register and I am still registering it.
But dear god did the time fly, within a span of few hours I was tied to a chair – this happened because apparently, I could not sit still – and painted upon. I can only call this painting because anything that takes more than one layer is painting and you cannot convince me otherwise. That was just for the face, after freezing me into a permanent but stunning grimace they decided to wrestle my hair and GLUE it into place.
I looked great but folks let me tell you this comes at the cost of losing one night to painful scrubbing and removal process. But yea if this aftermath doesn’t scare your man away, nothing will.
After using enough hairspray to kickstart the global warming process on a Sunday I was led out towards the hall where I was promptly blinded by the flashing lights.
Photographic Hive
One photographer, acceptable. Two photographers, acceptable. Three photographers, still acceptable but eight photographers? No, just no. Completely unacceptable. The glaring lights alone blinded me for a while. Imagine this coupled with teary and itchy eyes from the make-up, it was quite the experience.
Not one that I am dying to repeat anytime soon.
The problem with this scenario is that I cannot smile to save my life, I am an awkward laugher at best and a downright frozen plastic lump of coal at worst. So, to ask me to forcefully smile? Not the best of ideas. What happens you may ask? Well now I am going to have an album full of pictures with me looking both like a zombie and like a hyperactive child who’s had a bag full of candies.
And you know the worst part? Having a photographer who is as passionate about taking pictures as I am about not taking them. This man – let’s call him The Bearded Thor who’s weapon of choice is his camera – decided to chase me passionately throughout the ceremony demanding that I at least stand still long enough for his camera to focus on me.
The cherry on top?
My loving fungus – my husband (ɔ◔‿◔)ɔ ♥ – is also the same.
So, the sad scenario is two people who hate photos are required to build a whole album, this is going to end well. The poor photographer realized this soon enough and made it his life’s mission to stalk us persistently throughout the day.
He was so passionately persistent that I decided to hold off on going to the bathroom for fear of being followed in there.
PTSD Kick – Start
A marriage never gets over within a day, not for me at least. It took me week to recover and then some. The first thing that carries on for a while is the blinking and flashes of light. I developed an absolute aversion to pictures for a while, not that I liked them anyways before but after the ceremony, I felt like running for the hills every time I saw a camera.
That’s not the greatest part of it though, the biggest difference is the disconnect that you feel from your environment, a sense of too much has happened in too short a time because in managing everything else you kind of leave yourself out of the whole thing. The fallout of this largely depends on the people around you; the biggest thing that we tend to forget is that this is about celebrating two lives coming together, nothing else.
No matter the glitter you throw on a rainbow, it’s still a rainbow. Sparkles don’t add much to it other than to satisfy your own needs.
And for all the sparkles I added, I can hardly recall it all. For me it’s only about a handful of people and the person that I married, the rest is background noise.
What was first thing that we did? Get away for a while and sleep. Loads of it.
At least till the people came back.
The Tea
Okay so the event might not have consisted of the exact number of volcanoes that I might have wanted but it did consist of the people that I wanted, which is what matters the most. In hindsight we forget a lot of things but it’s those tiny moments that stand out and that is what makes the day special.
In a year I might forget the make up removal trauma, or the number of photographers but I’ll definitely remember giggling with my friends or trying to make awkward eye contact with my husband or rolling my eyes at the poses we struck.
It’s not the big things that matter but the little moments, so though it wasn’t as exciting as the red wedding, it was almost close enough and I can live with that.
