https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/26/why-marrying-yourself-is-a-truly-awful-idea
Right now in Rotherham, a woman called Lynne is organising two hen nights before she gets married to herself. Fine, Lynne. Book your fireman stripper. Go wild. Buy your penis straws and skinny prosecco twice, book your pampering day with extra soap, and then stand in a massive white dress holding hands with yourself. But that’s it Lynne. Let yours be the last wedding of a woman marrying herself.
My first thought when I see another story of a woman taking control of her destiny through “sologamy” and a wedding for one, remains: “Poor cow, she doesn’t have a decent friend who is brave enough to sit down with her over a plate of chips and explain gently and firmly why, however many Stylist articles attempt to tell you otherwise, this is a plan that makes you look bonkers and will end in tears. Also – possibly this kind of thing, this is why you haven’t met someone.” Lynne doesn’t need a wedding – she needs better friends.
The whole event is mired in the same swamp of sad anxiety where people buy fake babies to feel like real women
My second thought is a memory, spring, standing in the lift at King’s Cross station with a woman who was introducing me to her Reborn baby doll. There was no way out, so I nodded, and said he was beautiful. The trend for marrying yourself feels mired in that same swamp of sad anxiety where people buy fake babies to make them feel more like real women. This is a woman’s game. We don’t see men caring for these rubberised babies, so real they come complete with eczema, nor do we read about men’s solo weddings. Because it’s only women’s value that is knotted up in the family they raise, and marriage is part of that contract.
Of course, all celebrations are worthwhile. All cakes matter. Ceremonies have purpose. I can see the beauty in a ritual that says: “I’m 40 and my life looks different to how I’d planned it, but there you go.” So, Lynne, have a party. Have a huge, hilarious party, with balloons that spell out your name and complaints from the neighbours about laughter too late. Ask for toasters. Go on holiday. Be single. Buy some really nice bedding. Iceland sells its party platters all year round! You can buy salted caramel crisps now. Weddings, marriage, whatever problems we have with it, are something different. As illustrated by the grasping argument some sologamists make that these weddings should be recognised in the same way as same-sex marriages. A campaign that seems practically Ukip-ian in its offensiveness.
Almost as offensive is the idea that the solo wedding is brave and meaningful. A feminist decision, an act of empowerment (that word, that word with its one-inch punch in the middle, that word which has woodlice living underneath), that this is a radical intervention, a middle-finger up at the system. No, Lynne. Rather than kicking the system over, and saying: “I don’t need a man to feel whole,” it reads as, “but I do need a wedding.” It’s the ultimate endorsement of the system. It recognises marriage as the only way of becoming whole.
But rather than a romance between bride and groom, this is about the romance between bride and wedding itself. The wedding industry must be dancing a drunken jig right now. They must have felt like they’d really exhausted the thing. They’d normalised the £20,000 party. They’d sold the idea that if you didn’t throw everything you had at one, perfect day, then you didn’t really love your partner and also that a bit of trauma, a “wobble”, an overdraft, was not only inevitable but important.
They created expensive traditions which today go unquestioned – in the 1940s a copywriter called Frances Gerety came up with the advertising slogan: “A diamond is forever,” which led directly to the tradition of a diamond engagement ring. But even the biggest cynic couldn’t have predicted there would be no ad campaign necessary for the newest addition to the wedding market, the single women who don’t even have to call home before they confirm the flowers.
Lynne. Enjoy your big day. Enjoy the dancing, the buffet – get a cab home, OK! Wring every drop of fun you can from the hen parties, the wedding, the honeymoon, the sex. And then pull up the drawbridge, burn the plans. Let this be the end of solo weddings. From April, let’s let single people live in sin.
Right now in Rotherham, a woman called Lynne is organising two hen nights before she gets married to herself. Fine, Lynne. Book your fireman stripper. Go wild. Buy your penis straws and skinny prosecco twice, book your pampering day with extra soap, and then stand in a massive white dress holding hands with yourself. But that’s it Lynne. Let yours be the last wedding of a woman marrying herself.
My first thought when I see another story of a woman taking control of her destiny through “sologamy” and a wedding for one, remains: “Poor cow, she doesn’t have a decent friend who is brave enough to sit down with her over a plate of chips and explain gently and firmly why, however many Stylist articles attempt to tell you otherwise, this is a plan that makes you look bonkers and will end in tears. Also – possibly this kind of thing, this is why you haven’t met someone.” Lynne doesn’t need a wedding – she needs better friends.
The whole event is mired in the same swamp of sad anxiety where people buy fake babies to feel like real women
My second thought is a memory, spring, standing in the lift at King’s Cross station with a woman who was introducing me to her Reborn baby doll. There was no way out, so I nodded, and said he was beautiful. The trend for marrying yourself feels mired in that same swamp of sad anxiety where people buy fake babies to make them feel more like real women. This is a woman’s game. We don’t see men caring for these rubberised babies, so real they come complete with eczema, nor do we read about men’s solo weddings. Because it’s only women’s value that is knotted up in the family they raise, and marriage is part of that contract.
Of course, all celebrations are worthwhile. All cakes matter. Ceremonies have purpose. I can see the beauty in a ritual that says: “I’m 40 and my life looks different to how I’d planned it, but there you go.” So, Lynne, have a party. Have a huge, hilarious party, with balloons that spell out your name and complaints from the neighbours about laughter too late. Ask for toasters. Go on holiday. Be single. Buy some really nice bedding. Iceland sells its party platters all year round! You can buy salted caramel crisps now. Weddings, marriage, whatever problems we have with it, are something different. As illustrated by the grasping argument some sologamists make that these weddings should be recognised in the same way as same-sex marriages. A campaign that seems practically Ukip-ian in its offensiveness.
Almost as offensive is the idea that the solo wedding is brave and meaningful. A feminist decision, an act of empowerment (that word, that word with its one-inch punch in the middle, that word which has woodlice living underneath), that this is a radical intervention, a middle-finger up at the system. No, Lynne. Rather than kicking the system over, and saying: “I don’t need a man to feel whole,” it reads as, “but I do need a wedding.” It’s the ultimate endorsement of the system. It recognises marriage as the only way of becoming whole.
But rather than a romance between bride and groom, this is about the romance between bride and wedding itself. The wedding industry must be dancing a drunken jig right now. They must have felt like they’d really exhausted the thing. They’d normalised the £20,000 party. They’d sold the idea that if you didn’t throw everything you had at one, perfect day, then you didn’t really love your partner and also that a bit of trauma, a “wobble”, an overdraft, was not only inevitable but important.
They created expensive traditions which today go unquestioned – in the 1940s a copywriter called Frances Gerety came up with the advertising slogan: “A diamond is forever,” which led directly to the tradition of a diamond engagement ring. But even the biggest cynic couldn’t have predicted there would be no ad campaign necessary for the newest addition to the wedding market, the single women who don’t even have to call home before they confirm the flowers.
Lynne. Enjoy your big day. Enjoy the dancing, the buffet – get a cab home, OK! Wring every drop of fun you can from the hen parties, the wedding, the honeymoon, the sex. And then pull up the drawbridge, burn the plans. Let this be the end of solo weddings. From April, let’s let single people live in sin.
