Antique jewellery, designer clothes, exquisite venue, candid photography, more-than-a-normal-person-can-eat-course-buffet, celebrity make-up artist, posh cars, radiant flowers and to fulfil all the wishes – the fairy God man, the event manager and of course to get all this done all we need is a lot of money!
Well, this was the to-do list I had in front of me when we decided to take the next step in life, to get that dream come true day, the happy ending to the fairy tale, The Wedding.
Now if you ask me, who made the list?
He and I are two people who fell in love with each other’s simplicity, two people who is very realistic in life, and two individuals who does not care what the world thinks. And about our families, they obviously raised us to be this way, two normal families, who are very proud of the way we both grew up to be, who respected and loved every decision we made in life.
They were thrilled and welcomed our decision to be married. Normally it is the Malayalee family who wants to show-off to all the world. But our family left it all to be done in our way, trusting that we know what’s good –and it was a list of dreams that needed to be executed.
Now the question is who created the checklist?
Each person we invited to join the big day, shared an opinion, gave many ideas. So many group chats on WhatsApp discussing about the day and sharing links about what to do, whom to get hold of. My gallery was literally full with all the pictures I got from various people showing me how others got their big day done.
Taking every tom, dick and harry’s opinion into account the check list was ready. Nowadays, the term fairy tale wedding has somehow got into all these girls around the world. Back in the days it was parents or elders in the house who decided the venue, most probably the church hall, invited few relatives – go to the Saree store – pick any random bright color – buy some flashy gold – find any caterer who makes good Biryani and call the still photographer who has his studio in the town and the day was done.
But the era which I had to get married, things got complicated. The age where everyone wants to win that rat race and cannot compromise on anything, everyone wants to be the best. I could not be exempted. The preparations for the engagement bestowing perfection took my sleep away.
Googling about every little thing gave me more and more ideas. The amount of time I had invested on getting my dress done – if I could have saved it, I might have cleared my UPSC. Suddenly the color of the theme, the fabric on the table runner, and the curls on my hair… every little detail became so important to me.
Each time a friend told me about a new concept – I made sure we had it added on the list. We booked a five star hotel, picked every dish in the menu, had a designer dress stitched, hired an event Manager, got the slot for the makeup artist …we did it all!
But what happened in the end of the day?
All those little things I paid so much attention and spent hell lot of money – no one bothered to look at, All that the people could do was find faults. And what did I miss out in between all this – I probably forgot to check whether my fiancé (at that time) and I were we really happy standing there and shaking our hands with random strangers and pretending to smile to the camera the whole day? What was the whole point pulling up this show? Was it worth it? Did it make me happy?
We had a gap between engagement to wedding, a buffer time of six months! Now I started thinking, like the real me, like an independent strong women, who understood the fact that the big day is about me and him only. All these petty things that comes in between should be ignored. All the opinions should be smiled at and not taken seriously.
This time things were treated differently, we decided to keep the crowd limited to only close friends and family, people who would not be judgmental about anything. I became the bride who never got to choose my wedding attire and assigned the task to the parents to decide. No designer and no shop to shop checking for accessories. No discussing and exchanging ideas on messengers. No event manager who can give unrealistic ideas. No waiting list for the candid photographer. No fights about colours. No kilogram gold to impress the Malayalee crowd.
This time we focused on finding happiness for each other, we enjoyed the process of working things out together. We came to the realisation that nothing else matters – but love and that is something that money cannot buy for weddings. Even if something goes wrong – does it really matter?
We stepped aside from stereotypical mallu wedding ideas. We hosted the marriage in Dubai, reason being, the place was very special to us – every street in Dubai has a memory for us to remember, this is where we met, this is where we decided to live life together.
The next question was – we need people to attend the wedding – who cares if we don’t have all those uncles and aunties who weigh the gold I wear or check which posh car the groom comes on? We knew that, all those people who actually love us and want to witness our very special day will definitely make it if it is in Dubai or in Mars – and luckily parents agreed. In fact they were thrilled too and excited to travel all the way here (btw our parents don’t live in Dubai).
We had an amazing group of friends (which includes our siblings) who did most of the planning for us, they came up with very creative ideas. At the end of the day, we witnessed the most happiest day in our life, not just us, we could see happiness in the eyes of all the people who joined us that day. It became a memorable day to all those who attended.
It is not really money or grandeur that will make your marriage a memorable day – having people around who really matter to you and sharing your joy and happiness for finding each other is the sole reason of hosting a reception for the wedding and it is not the day you show off how rich you are.
Someday when you turn the pages of your wedding album – you probably won’t remember how good the dress looked or the number of the people who were invited – all that you will remember is how you felt that day – how happy did you feel.
Finally, do you want a wedding or marriage? Sometimes we spend so much energy on wedding planning that we forget about marriage planning. After every wedding there is a marriage – that happens the day after, all the lights are turned off and all the makeup is removed and the honeymoon is over – when we enter reality – where two individuals discover the differences and start living life – where there is no family or event manager to share opinions. The day we all begun to understand that we need to focus on preparing ourselves on this aspect of marriage – then probably there really exists a happily ever after.
“People are made to be loved and things are made to be used. The confusion in this world is that people are used and things are loved.” — Author Unknown.
