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Everything wedding-related is the most expensive
Just shoving the word ‘wedding’ on to another word automatically warrants adding a thousand million zeros to the price. Take “photographs”. Ordinarily, not something you would have to harvest an organ to procure.
There's not even a particularly rare skill-set involved. We all take photos for free on our phones every damn day. Even if you need a photograph for official purposes, you can get a full set of ID snaps done and dusted by some old pharmacist for R80.
Add the word “wedding” to “photographs”, however, and suddenly it’s like the images of your face are being printed on to individual Krugerrands.
Here’s another example. “Cake”. You can march down to your local Shoprite right now and pick up a gorgeous cream cake for R40. It’s delicious. It will make you happy. Insert the adjective “wedding” in front of “cake”, however, and get ready to sell your car.
There are way too many invitations that need detailed instructions
You would think that since you don’t have to lick a stamp and send an invite off anymore, the invitation process for a wedding has become pretty easy. Send an email and off you go. Right? Wrong.
If you can’t afford a graphic designer, getting people to your wedding means slogging in front of InDesign or PhotoShop or a free online tool like Canva, until it feels like you’re losing your eyesight.
There is a lot of pressure for things to look as bespoke as a hipster’s monogrammed monocle. Even if you opt for Paperless Post, it’s not just one design you have to work on.
You have to send a “save the date”, then you have to send the actual wedding invite months later, and then of course, if you’re having a separate ceremony, you have send an additional invite for that.
Also, if you think you can just insert a time, date and place and be done with it, think again. Invitations have to have hyperlinks.
Guests have to be able to click on it so that they can be redirected to a Google map, or a gift registry, or the app store where they can download Uber.
It’s a process. It’s probably easier to lay out the entire September issue of Vogue.
You have to become an overnight craft hobbyist
Double sided tape, string, pegs, assembling wall hanging thingies for photos… These are just a few of the bits and bobs it takes to make what is already a venue, look like a wedding venue.
Being handy comes in handy, especially if you’re throwing a bit of a DIY wedding because there isn’t some trust fund just waiting to hatch wedding planners. It’s necessary, because your wedding isn’t just another dinner party at a restaurant.
Apparently, some degree of a sense of occasion is required.
You haven’t planned a wedding until you have untangled fairy lights. It’s one of the prerequisites. The god of weddings checks it off a list before you can even say “I do”.
You also end up reading every single listicle on life-hacks the Internet has to offer. Mostly so that you can find out that instead of going to a fabric store, (when you have never been in one in your life), to purchase draping, you can instead use a large tablecloth for the same purpose.
Pro tip: tablecloths are marked for shape and size on the packaging. Just in case you end up buying a large circular one, instead of the rectangle that you actually needed.
Just before your wedding, you will feel almost physically sick with fear
This applies even if you have been dreaming of this day since Grade 3. Even Amal probably felt like she could do with a tiny vom moments before getting hitched to George Clooney.
There is just something about telling your partner in public exactly how much you love them that is extremely stressful, unless you are a rom-com character. It is like starring in a very embarrassing play.
At the moment when you are most overcome with nausea and anxiety, your closest friends will tell you: “Don’t worry! Everyone is here just for you.” This will have the opposite of the intended reaction, since that is precisely what is making you sick with fear.
There will always be some small drama. Embrace the drama
A family member will loudly complain about something. A couple will fight. Unsuitable people will pair off together. Ideally, none of these scenarios will involve you or your partner. As long as that is the case, accept and enjoy. It will make the next day’s debriefing much more spicy.
It is almost impossible to get very drunk
There are exceptions to this, obviously. Everyone knows a bride or groom who ended up retching in a flower bed. But you really have to work very hard to achieve that outcome.
Despite your best efforts, you will probably remain just the right side of sobriety throughout the evening. Partly this is because you will keep losing your glass when you are dragged away to talk to someone or dance with someone much drunker than you.
Mainly this is because weddings create a magical metabolic alcohol block in the people getting married.
Your body, which has let you down on so many occasions in the past, will finally come through for you. You will not always be happy about this. At a certain moment, you will find yourself hissing “GET. ME. WINE” at your best friend.
Nobody except you and your partner will notice most of the things you agonise over
So the bunting didn’t hang straight. So the venue forgot to put candles in the places you asked for. So the champagne glasses ran out. No guest in the history of weddings has ever given two hoots about these things, unless they are required to do so because they are starring in a reality show where they give strangers’ weddings marks out of 10.
Wedding guests care only about the following: seeing you happy; having something to eat and drink; good tunes. The only people who will notice small flaws in décor and planning are you and your partner. Be less like a bride or groom, and more like a wedding guest.
