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I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my own Pinterest board full of white dresses, centerpiece ideas, and dream engagement rings. I’d also be lying if I claimed to never have uttered the words “I just want to get married.” It comes with the territory of having ovaries, and, as a woman, I have accepted these terms and conditions. Now that engagement season has died down, wedding season is coming in hot, and women of both the single and taken variety are feeling the urge (or even the pressure) to get married. The essence of postgrad problems is losing your wing man/woman to a spouse. For women, however, it’s much, much worse. I’m not sure if it’s this lifelong dream or the intense FOMO that occurs when your friends get married, but so begins the whining about wanting to get hitched as well — and I just can’t take it anymore. You whine when you’re drunk, you whine when you’re sober. You whine when you’re single, you whine when you’re taken. You whine when you’re happy and you whine when you’re sad, and you pin, pin, pin until you settle for the first asshole who gives you attention.
Ladies, I’m telling you. You don’t want to get married.
“What?” you say, confused and offended by the random internet stranger telling you what you do and do not want in your life. Well, I don’t care. Listen up: there is a difference between wanting to get married and wanting a wedding — and I’m willing to guess that the majority of you fall into the latter. Wanting a marriage and wanting a party are two very different things, and for whatever reason, it seems as though girls these days have forgotten that.
I mean, I get it. Who wouldn’t enjoy a giant celebration in your honor where you get to wear a beautiful white dress and dance to The Village People at an open bar? Who wouldn’t to receive a pretty ring and the promise of eternal love? Who wouldn’t want a six-tiered white fondant masterpiece and an engraved Kate Spade cake knife and matching server?
Every girl wants these things. It’s why the wedding industry is booming at over 40 billion dollars a year. It’s also a contributing factor to the 50 percent divorce rate. You can be the girl who gets married for the sole purpose of having a party, but you’re also going to be the girl who should pencil divorce court into your five-year plan.
I know there is pressure. I know there is Pinterest. But weddings are just ceremonious. You can get married here, you can get married there. You can get married anywhere, Sam-I-Am. But, a marriage is a commitment to a person, not a dress. It’s for better or for worse, not for pastels or earth tones. It is a state of being united to another living, breathing, feeling person — the same person who is going to be there when all the rice and bubbles and sparklers settle.
You don’t want to get married. So stop saying it until you mean it.
Respond
@lnsayers
@lnsayers
This is why I am glad I am a guy. Never have that pressure to get married.
I clicked because of Game of Thrones.
Amen to that! My friends who’ve spent the most on weddings are also in the unhappiest marriages.
Deep thoughts here. I had hoped this would be obvious to anyone past the age of 12.
Yea, I’m gonna follow the Clooney path. Savvy mother fu**er.
What if they’re rich? Gotta lock it down.