By Jessie Fillingim, Columnist
My first wedding took place on the playground in first grade. It was marriage by force—I managed to chase him and hold him down long enough to hold a wedding ceremony, complete with music, vows, bridesmaids and groomsmen. Needless to say, the marriage didn’t last long.
Now, 18 years later, I am a couple of months away from getting married for real. I didn’t even have to use (much) force. In fact, my groom-to-be wants to be involved in every wedding-related choice, from what color ribbon to put on the boutonnieres to whether the cake should have key lime or strawberry filling. Despite my marital aggressiveness in childhood, I hate making wedding decisions.
On top of the stress of planning a wedding, engaged couples today face the daunting task of reconciling tradition with modern values. Every time my family tells me what I’m “supposed to do” at my wedding, all those women’s studies classes I took in undergrad remind me that I am perpetuating a patriarchal, heteronormative system.
I know the last thing anyone wants to hear is a bride-to-be complaining about how anti-feminist weddings are. But I mean, is it just me, or is it just completely inappropriate that a groom is expected to reach up the bride’s leg while their families watch, take off an undergarment, and throw it to his buddies? My fiancé insists that this is one of those things you are “supposed to do.” We’ll see.
More married women are keeping their last names these days, but there’s still an expectation that a wife will take her husband’s name. At each florist and bakery we visited, my fiancé was asked for his last name, but I was only asked for my first name. And to be honest, I always planned on dropping my impossible-to-pronounce last name when I got married. But again, Intro to Women’s Studies rears its ugly head, and I worry that I am sacrificing a part of my identity to adopt my husband’s.
Whatever name I choose, it won’t be the “right” choice. You can’t choose your own name without also choosing how you want the world to view you. To others, my name reveals whether I think it’s more important to be seen as an independent woman or as “one” with my husband. I can’t have it both ways. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve doodled my married name in every variation possible. I even considered taking my mother’s maiden name and hyphenating it with my fiancé’s, a half-hearted challenge to patriarchal lineage. In addition to securing a lifetime of guaranteed eye rolling whenever someone asks about my name, my name choice suggests that I care more (or as much) about my politics than I do about my marriage. But alternately, if I follow tradition, I symbolically concede that our family’s identity is solely his identity.
The bride isn’t the only wedding planner who gets the shaft from tradition. My groom-to-be is totally jealous that I get a shower and he doesn’t. Since I’m keeping tradition by not giving him clues as to what I’ll be wearing on the big day, he refuses to tell me what he will be wearing. And although I kind of hate to admit it, this is his wedding too. If I want equal treatment, I have to give up some of the perks of being a bride (like having the final say on every decision).
Even though I hate having to decide which customs are too sexist, I’m glad I have options. Tradition isn’t always bad. After all, the wedding itself is a tradition. And despite its downfalls, a wedding celebrates one of life’s most meaningful creations—a new family. That’s something worth celebrating, as long as I can keep my garter on.
