The Unwedding : Remaking the Personal Fairy Tale

The UNwedding: 

 Remaking the Personal Fairy Tale

Once Upon A Time, there was a little girl. Despite her hideous bowl cut, lackluster thrift store clothing, and love of mud-puddles, she was, as many little girls are, a Princess. The little Princess’s ears were filled with fairy-tales, and stories from adults about a thing called ‘Married’. It didn’t really register as anything except what adults do at some point, and being one of the few exceptions that would cause her mother to dress up (which of course made it seem like a Party of some sort, which seemed like a great idea.) When the other little girls played house, they thought a great deal about this wedding-thing. They seemed to know even then, that this was their ultimate Cinderella Moment. They would meet their handsome Prince, who would dance them till their shoes wore out, kiss their hands, and give them everything that a daddy did, and more! The first step to this happily ever after was The Wedding.

One day, the little girl became a grown-up. The other Princesses spoke as constantly as they had as children about the time they would be WOMEN. They began to ask our now grown Princess what her Wedding Fantasy was? They would go around the table, and start with phrases like, “I’ve been Planning my Wedding since I was a Little GIRL!”, and “This is the dress I’ve been Oogling since I was a TEENAGER!”, with many squees and oohs. To this she would blush and mumble my responses, finding that she was deeply embarrassed that Marriage was not something that she had thought a great deal of. She began to thought, is this something so important? Her confusion lead to frozen moments of horror on the Lady’s faces when they realized that she was not simply being shy, but had no great ambition for being Married (or the things that followed).

The Princess would spend time daydreaming about what all this meant. She examined every aspect of herself, and slowly discovered memories of being a Bowl-Cut Princess, and spent her time convincing her Childhood Husband-To-Be (Sigh! Brad!) to stay home with the kids while she STRUCK OUT into the world to be the Breadwinner, Spy/Ninja/Archaeologist/Treasure Hunter/Adventurer EXTRAORDINAIRE!

She was raised in a time that, to an outsider, might have been confusing. Her mother’s generation had reinvented feminism, they played the role of ultra-women who were equal parts Donna Reed and Murphy Brown. These women often evaded giving their daughters Barbie dolls (unrealistic exceptions of womanhood), Baby Dolls, and seemed perpetually uncomfortable with rituals of girl-hood. At the same time, these Mothers clung to tradition, marrying, having families, obeying, honoring, and doing their duty.But this couldn’t be all of it, for there are good reasons to get married. Legality is one, by bonding yourself to another person you enter into a contract that binds your households and futures. Health-care, taxes, Finances, Someone to leave your junk too, someone to have legal rights to your mutual offspring. Officialness, most Parents will take marriage as being serious, a sign of one of the stages of Adulthood, readiness to settle-down. Broader than that, marriage is a celebration for your tribe, dancing, eating, an event to mark the occasion of a bonding, a necessary ritual to give people something to really remember. Lastly, for the religious, it’s a contract with your deity, a promise to live by the rules you were raised with, a guarantee to pass on beliefs and ideas to your children. The Wedding’s deeper gift seems to be a girl’s true transition into Womanhood. Its her ritual, which is why women go all to pieces over her one moment to be the Queen Princess Fairy, in her dress, the center of attention, Holding Court… her one big moment before settling down into a life that frankly, no matter what social strata she is from, will be difficult to say the least. Wife, Mother, Housekeeper, Whore in Bed – Ice-queen at Work, Career or not? Both? ALL?

Well, the Princess thought, these are all fabulous reasons for most people to get married! Why am I still unmoved? Why does everyone else seem so eager to tie their knots and I feel dubious at best? Perhaps there is a doubtful side to these good reasons. Maybe sometimes the ‘Really Good Reasons’ to get married end up being swept under the rug as women RUSH toward the Alter to have their Ultimate Party. How many girls did she know who got married to have the Fairytale Romance? How many got so caught up in that and overlook the lack of enthusiasm in dude they are marrying just to get it? Even worse, the PRESSURE! From the moment that she got a relationship functional, elders and parents would begin the tickling questions. Some of her Princess seemed so confused and put off by her reluctance to get married, that they quit her quickly, she supposed because its supposed to be a Woman’s ENTHUSIASM for the thing that drives him into the ball and chain? What about that is a Happily Ever after? Forcing some poor idiot to marry her? On top of it Weddings can crack a relationship apart, like so many dream-houses pressed into dust. It HAS to be the PERFECT moment, as though there’s a lump in her throat that nothing will ever outlive the epic-ness of her wedding. Picture perfect, something to look back on, something that often, without a Wedding Organizer running everything, can be enough to make a girl grow ugly tumors of bursting stress. What happened to the party?

And so the little big Princess was at an Impasse. She found herself on the outside Traditional Religion, was Keen to Pursue her Career (without the distractions of wife and mothery), and plain couldn’t cope with all the Role Play that goes with the word ‘Wife’, did she never deserve to have your ultimate party? There are many women that have chosen to never Marry, but do they ever feel like they are missing something? Maybe some girls wanted their vows to be something personal, maybe the legal piece of paper is all they needed? In this day and age she’d rarely heard of many Daddy’s around to foot bills, or omnipresent dowries to suck Wedding Money from. After much thought she realized, If she is paying for her own moment, couldn’t it be on her own terms then? Why not just throw herself a beautiful party, with the biggest dress she could afford, a band Wedding DJ, and a humongous cake? Her own very special Cinderella moment, on her very own terms.

Auntie Wicked PRESENTS : The Unwedding

Remember your Through The Looking Glass/Disney’s Alice in Wonderland?

Ah! How crazy right? Having a Holiday when it’s not actually a HOLIDAY? Shocking. Crazy? Maybe. Lets say our Ladies and Men’s decide to start throwing their own Fairy Princess Unweddings. Saving up that 6000$ to have a Dream Wedding and have what they’ve actually always wanted. How many nosey Aunties, Mommies, and Husbands-to-be would be able to boss you into rolling into the groove of convention if your party was on YOUR terms? Would you have to be the MOST elegant woman in the UNIVERSE?

In the short moments I’ve spent trying to come up with an answer to “What is YOUR Dream Wedding?”, I found myself stuck in the seriousness of it all. I found my frivolous side wanting a meringue dress, something that Madonna would Roll around the Floor in. My nerves would jump right into my throat! YOU can’t have that… this would be YOUR ONLY PRINCESS DAY! The pictures, THE WEDDING the SCENE! Maria in Sound of Music … OMG! How much would it cost to get an enormous hoop dress and be married in a quaint chapel in Austria? Ugh. too much. And what about what I want? What If I do want some Tacky Goth Wedding with Lydia’s Dress or even something just plain beautiful!?!?! It makes me want to bleed from the Eyes!! So the key to me is to take the finality out of it. Why can I NOT choose when and where I’m going to be the Ultimate Princess Fairy Queen? Why can’t I choose to do it any-time I want? Why is there a dress hanging in the back of women’s closets that is their MOST beautiful and expensive dress, and they never EVER get a chance to wear it again? The Practical Person in me SCREAMS!The Solution is the Unwedding! We women have long needed more time to find peace and bonding rituals. We don’t party enough together, we jealously guard our most glamorous moments, and occasionally stain them when someone upstages us with a prettier dress (or date). Enough of the reasons! Here is my rough list of Rules for the Unwedding.Unwedding Rules/Traditions:

• Any Theme is Acceptable. It is YOUR personal dream!

• Your Dream Dress should be the aim, but if you are poor, dig deep to find your sense of humor, and find the most marvelous meringue thing you can find within your budget.

• Tiara’s/Crowns are not Negotiable.

• Those who have been Brides before MUST wear their wedding dresses. As badges of HONOR and Pride, and to stand proudly with the Unwedding Queen. 

• Anyone Else must pick out the most FABULOUS colorful amazing Bridesmaid Gowns they can find. (Or those beautiful dresses that are too fancy to wear anywhere else!)

• All Friends and Family are invited. (?)

• * Invitations should be discount holiday cards, scrawled notes, or even hyper formal invitations (how awesome would it be to be FORMALLY invited to an UnWedding?)

• You must have the most awesome/terrible DJ or Cover Band you can find – Also, Karaoke for the poor drunk bastards left alone at the end of the night.

• Free Food & Booze are required. If you are on a budget, make it a Food and Booze Potluck.

• Hire a Clown/Cowboy/Fairy/Stripper to conduct the UnWedding ritual.

• Indulge any Traditions you Love. For instance, in Finnish weddings, the bride is abducted by the Groomsmen at some point in the wedding. The Groom must then either set to task to find her, or complete a task, like writing a poem before getting her back.

Long-winded UnWedding Ideas/Suggestions:

• Write a proclamation, play court games Simon sez, or crown yourself Prom Queen, complete with long-winded speech about this being the most beautiful day of your life. Maybe even declare yourself ‘Miss Mars’, and have someone ask you contestant questions. Whatever it takes to make you feel super special.

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• No matter what, there must be a grand parade from the place of Ritual to the Place of Party. Will it be your own Mardi Gras? Will you throw candy in the crowd? Will you spray silly string? Maybe conga line from the field to the stopping point, or make a long like of bikes with flutters at the handlebars.

• Party Games? Catering? Shimmery Jacketed Wedding Singers? A dance floor? In any case, one must have the Dance of the Brides. Don’t be shy, the Bride will have her dance, then she will be joined by anyone else who has been a bride before. IMAGINE! A sea of white gowns. Then the real party will begin. Dry or Drunk, make it exiting! Rent a Karaoke machine, get a friend to DJ, make it gloriously lame or meticulously elegant. Either way, demand everyone be in character. If you get real froggy, you could conduct mock weddings for the single friends you want to match-make to one another, or hold a drag-fashion show and vote on winners!

Ah! But you ask, Auntie! What is YOUR dream Unwedding? That’s the easy part! My Imagination, it OPENED up the moment I stopped resigning myself to the Final Destination quality that a Wedding of srs buizness holds in my brains. That’s the easy part! My Imagination, it OPENED up the moment I stopped resigning myself to the Final Destination quality that a Wedding of srs buizness holds in my brains. If Auntie had an unlimited budget, she would fly friends from every corner of existence, and invite half the county to a Winter Queen Unwedding. Her dress would be a pearly gray empire-number conjuring the Baroque Austen-Byronic Romantic Eras, dripping with exotic orientalist silks, lace, curls, a tall bronze crown, and a train as long as tomorrow (as befitting a Neo-Classical Fairy Queen). She would swear in front of everyone to Love until she didn’t Love anymore, RARELY obey, contractually agree to only do dishes in the dishwasher, flirt with cute waiters, cook smelly food, and run away from home whenever she wanted. She would then insist her partner (or partners), and a friend or two, make a long-winded speeches, poems, or songs regarding her magnificence until she was pleased, then lead a raucous parade of people from the ceremony grounds to a tented Party that would make the Ali Pasha PALE with jealousy. There would be a polka gypsy-punk band, fairy-lights, floating candles, and tables full of food from every corner of the world.

She would insist on shimmy dances, coin belts, glow-sticks, drag Queens, and possibly Karaoke.  Her cake would stack to the sky, all blue icing and white flowers (for Auntie isn’t fond of fondant). Wine & cheap pink champagne would flow from fountains, and fancy martini drinks served by bartenders with blue skin and six arms. There would be screaming laughter and sheer marvelous worldly delights that Bosch would paint as though he’d seen the visions in his mind’s eye. 

If she was lucky, she might even be indulged in the age-old Finnish Folk tradition of kidnapping the bride, and if she was very lucky, her kidnapper would be a handsome pirate-king who would whisk her off to fabulous weekend of bubble baths, foot rubs, and fun-under the shadow of the Carpathians, the Alleys of South London, or maybe some nice restful spa-time in the Bermuda Triangle. 

So lets toast, to variety, parties, Princesses, and starting out your life journeys on your own terms (whether they be fulfilling Bridal Dreams, Choosing never to Marry, or throwing an EPIC Unwedding) Here’s to making YOUR dreams come true!!!

As Always… Questions, Trolls, 

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