final blog post

This past weekend at my hotel bartending job I worked a very large wedding for a 22 year old girl. As usual we spent the evening gossiping a chatting about the details of the event. What do we think of the bride/groom, decorations, how much did this run them, will they tip extra? One of the female bartenders opened up the conversation about weddings and the subject of marriage which I found to be very interesting. She explained that she felt it was foolish for people to get married at such a young age when they still have so much to accomplish. "If I do get married I'll have the rest of my life to be that way,I don't know why everyone is in such a rush". I thought this was profound of her to say and she seems pretty enlightened on the subject. When I asked her to elaborate she explained that she thinks it stems back farther than a girl's twenties. Beginning in college kids our age often pick a major that has no practical application for a job. As a result upon graduation thousands of resumes go out with all the same general skills "good with people" "excellent organizational skills". They don't get the dream jobs that they see on television and thus they fall short of their adult careers that they'd always been encouraged to achieve. Reality hits hard and so in order to gain a sense of accomplishment they rush into marriage thinking it will give them the sense of adulthood that they are lacking in their current lives. I thought this was really insightful of her, and although I'm not sure I agree I think she makes a good point. What really fascinates me is the idea of a "dream" wedding and the wedding fever that seems to be sweeping the nation right now. There is an industry out there making an absolute killing on the institute of marriage. Dresses, caterers, DJs,bands, event planners, diamond merchants...you name it they can help make your special day into a wonderland. There are entire shows dedicated to this stuff that my Mom is totally addicted to. She watches some show called My Fair Wedding, which just portrays a wedding planner giving a somewhat taudry event a makeover and some show called Say Yes to the Dress. That show is entirely about women trying on gowns for their wedding. Imagine sitting through a marathon of that. During the one I worked the father gave a speech and he said that his daughter was planning this day for years and that he was just happy that he could make his little girl's dreams come true. I found this to be a kind of sad sentiment. While I certainly believe in celebrating big accomplishments in one's life there is too much pressure placed on the day and not enough on the marriage. Following my co-worker's argument, I feel that there should be more to look forward to in adulthood than simply a party where you get a ton of gifts an attention. When I hear that little girls have been dreaming of this day for their whole life it makes me dissapointed. They should be dreaming about the wonderful successes they will achieve eventually rather than the day where they get treated like a princess.