The Drunken Blog

You may have noticed that I have been posting infrequently.  The reason for this is four fold.  First, I assume that I’m writing to myself and that nobody actually reads my blog (except of course for the bots that spam the comments of my posts, but I don’t consider them to be sentient, so they don’t count). 

I’ve been working a job since mid-2007 that blocks my blog, making it difficult to upload posts during work, which I did quite frequently at my last job.  Unfortunately, I like this job too much for that to be a compelling enough reason to quit.

Also, since I started dating a girl seriously back in early 2008, I’ve done fewer debaucherous things, not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t need to.  Why go through the hassle of flying to Hawaii for vacation when you live in the Caribbean? 

And finally, my girlfriend has become my fiancée which means, to complete my analogy, I just ratified the contract on my Caribbean house and I’m just waiting on the bank for the financing to come through.

I mean that in both the literal and analogous sense – I’m locked in to getting married, but damn is it expensive.  Seeing as I’ve made less than $100 in the two years this blog has been operational on ad revenue, money is somewhat of an issue, especially when you consider how much a wedding costs.

I’ve been debating, in my mind, about whether or not it’s worth it to have a full blown wedding or to elope, or to do something in between.  It’s hard for me to justify spending anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 for one party, albeit a bitchin’ one.  And costs aside, I started wondering why it is that the royal we even throw down so much coin for one party – what is it that we’re celebrating exactly?

I don’t bring up that question with the intention of implying that marriages suck – far from it.  I bring up that question because what’s the difference between the day before your wedding and the day after?  For me, it will be very little.  My fiancée and I already spend about every minute we can together, the only reason we aren’t living together is because we haven’t found a house we like enough yet, we have our separate checking and savings accounts, but all the money we make is essentially ours to share.  Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, but finances and living situations are typically the biggest two changes for married couples.

Big wedding receptions don’t make as much sense in this day and age.  Back in the “old days,” the huge wedding reception made sense as a byproduct of shortened engagements where a man would meet a woman, ask her out on a date, propose to her on that first date, and have a wedding 3 months later.  In that situation, a wedding is a life changing event. 

In my situation, a wedding will simply be formalizing our relationship – something I am looking forward to and very excited about; however, we will have dated for two years and been engaged for another year before our wedding so the time crunch factor doesn’t exactly apply to us.  And don’t get me wrong, I still want to have a bitchin’ wedding, but in society today, it seems like it would make more sense if the wedding reception was just a reception, and it was thrown at a different point in the relationship.

Here are some potential times that a reception would have been fitting for my fiancée and me throughout our relationship:

The First Date: I’m not gonna lie, our first date was pretty amazing.  We went to dinner and then had amazing seats for Spamalot.  This practically was a wedding reception, just with a bunch of strangers instead of family and friends.

The Second Date: On the second date, I received a sign from the Chinese gods that said she was the one.  The fortune cookie I got wasn’t even subtle – it said something to the effect of “An unexpected relationship will become permanent.”  I’d say that is a reason to celebrate.  (Fun fact – I held onto that fortune and gave it to my fiancée when I proposed to her nearly two years later.)

The Day I Proposed: With emotions already running so high, it would be nice to share in it with friends.  Also, we could do it on the cheap, I mean after the proposal, I could have hosted the party in a condemned building with Cheez-Whiz as the only beverage, and she would have thought it was an amazing party – not because of the party, but because of what it was celebrating.

That’s what a wedding and reception are all about, celebrating with your friends.  I guess my point in all of this is that every day that I’ve been with my fiancée has been a celebration, and I look forward to 80 more years of celebrating with my bride-to-be, even if it means I only write in my blog occasionally.