There’s an old adage that goes: “Every little girl dreams of her wedding day.”
Not me. I never dreamt of my wedding day. The idea always struck me as odd. Why would I want to slowly walk down the center of a giant room, with everyone I’ve ever known watching me? And why would I want to wear a floor-length poofy gown—I don’t even like gowns, let alone poofy ones—with a veil interfering with my eyesight? And why—why?—would I want to snog the person I love in front of all our family and friends? Also, they’re costly. I’d rather travel, or put some money towards a house. Whenever someone told me they were getting married, I’d think: That is lovely news. But it couldn’t be me.
Or, at least, that’s what I thought until I met someone. She was never big on marriage—and by extension, weddings—either. It was something neither of us thought we would do. Except when she asked me “How about it?” on a beach in Ibiza one pastel-colored morning over glasses of orange juice, it was the easiest yes of my life. We never needed marriage as a commitment, but that almost made it more romantic, like a rebellion against ourselves. It’s as if we were saying: it’s okay to break your own rules for the right person; it’s okay to surprise even yourself.
But then the wedding day started creeping up. “Should I wear a hat?” people joked good-naturedly, and I’d feel my chest constrict as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. “What song are you going to play for the first dance?” they’d ask (reason #10,792 why I’ve never wanted a wedding: everyone watching you do a weird, slow dance that you’d never do in any other scenario). I’ve never even liked the idea of a birthday party (throughout most of my twenties, I went to New York alone on my birthday), so the fact that I’d agreed to get married started feeling increasingly ludicrous. Whenever I tried to envision the big day—me hurtling a bouquet into the sky, an uncle getting drunk with someone I went to school with, all that towering cake—I felt like I was picturing someone else’s life. Nice in theory, but nothing to do with me.
Eventually, something had to give. I couldn’t go along with whatever people thought I might go along with. Fortunately, my fiancé felt the same way. And so we agreed: there would be no guests. There would be no wedding dresses. There would be no aisle or “giving away” of the bride (not sure how that works in a lesbian wedding anyway—do they push us forward at the same time?). Instead, we settled on eloping. On a beach in Formentera. Both of us in white bikinis and cowboy hats. Maybe afterwards we’d dunk ourselves in the seawater. Whatever felt right at the time. But crucially: no guests! No one watching us engage in this ceremony that is simultaneously the most well-established yet bizarre tradition in the world.
