Recently I have tried to remember the topic, but I don’t exactly remember what or how I thought about marriage during my childhood. I suppose that with other subjects and crucial moments in my life I saw things that I didn’t know with more clarity More clarity about what I did believe in and what I didn’t do, what I thought was my creed. I know I never dreamt of a princess wedding, with a big and pompous dress and thousands of overflowing flowers everywhere and pastel colors that invaded the scenery speaking literally and metaphorically.
I had to accept it, I am part of the crowd!…-
I know that a couple of times my sister and I played with the Barbies wedding and with the clan that we had with her and my cousin, the idea was to recreate the wedding of famous people and we used to dream we had our dream wedding. I think I did that more to please them than to please myslef, it was a tacit agreement: I played the marriage game with them, and that the beautiful but unrealistic dolls got married, in exchange they played with me hide and seek and they humored me with the endless observation races that I proposed to them and every time I made it more difficult, I suppose it was boring for them.
After, came the time for our first loves, the illusion… the stupidity that we have all gone through at a time of our lives: “I am going to elope, I am sure that is the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with”… I experienced that chapter in my life, I fell into the trap, but it never took form.
Yes, we did talk about getting married but I never stopped to think as how I wanted it to be. The closest I came to think about the topic was when I once saw in the magazine the style of a dress I would like to get married in and I embarked in an imaginary competition with my sister and best friend, they also wanted to use the same dress, (15 years later, some or a lot of kilos after, when in effect I put on the white dress, it didn’t even cross my mind for obvious reason to use that style of dress).
After a while, I don’t exactly remember when – or if I was with my initial boyfriend who I dated all through college remained and lasted a long time- if you ask my superego of back then, which sees things somewhat prudent and at a realistic distance, it will say this relationship lasted more than it should have. Well, we made a bet between my friend, my sister, and myself that whoever got married first would invite the other two to an all-expenses-paid trip.
From that moment on, I had faith in myself. I thought that even though they were younger they would get married a long time before I would, to the contrary I wouldn’t have made the bet. I think that in my head, the fact that I wasn’t going to get married soon made perfect sense, and maybe without even saying it I might never get married.
Note to the margin, for those who gossip and are asking themselves what happened: in effect, the two of them got married before me and I am still waiting for my promised trip, the excuse: “We did the bet because you were with that guy and you were older than both of us so we swore for obvious reasons you would be the first to get married from the three of us”.
Time kept passing by and I saw so many failed marriages and so many social events where the only ones that seemed unhappy were the bride and the groom. Those who were in debt for years to come because they wanted to please the guests, to think that probably more than half of them, they didn’t even know or didn’t even like, every minute I convinced myself that that wasn’t for me.
The idea of pleasing the guests was on the correct path, but to hope this would only be with the served banquettes, was a huge mistake. Weddings provide an excuse for a number of unemployed people to criticize everything from beginning to end: the food, the bride’s dress, the groom’s face, the groom’s mom, and if the dad of the bride went with his new acquisition or not.
The couple makes a great effort, they pay millions, and they search for the best and most exclusive places to invite a lot of people due to social commitment and in the meantime, the happy guest criticize and compare it with the last wedding they said they went to, but probably only saw in magazines.
Let’s say that the relationships that I had during my 20’s and 30’s weren’t really characterized to be functional and it didn’t help that in my mind I would have to concentrate and plan a wedding, it was out of reality.
I was diagnosed with a syndrome that many of us women suffer during this age, when I was alone for a long time, the more independent I became, I enjoyed more my freedom and didn’t want to get close anywhere that smelled like commitment.
My friends, they were convinced, all gradually, that there wouldn’t come a day when they would see me step into a church or get married in one. My family didn’t tell me, but they had the same perspective and were a bit the same and had given up.
My mom always told me since I was very young that she thought I would marry quickly. Which meant that I would meet someone and within months would go to the altar, she was right about that. But given that there were no “viable prospects” in the world, she had to make peace with the idea: I was going to be the fun aunt, who traveled across the world, who knew and enjoyed, but especially the one that nothing nor no one would hold her back.
Meanwhile the few times I thought about marriage, the ceremony itself if it ever happened, was to be completely distanced from any social convention: I was not up for such “ridicule” and said I wanted to marry wearing jeans in a village near the town with only family and close friends. All of them would-be told at the very last minute at the last minute thinking that in this way it would only be me and those who really wanted to be there and they had endeavored to do so.
From this romantic that never came to be, something wonderful remained: the way that my hand was asked in marriage. We were in Villa de Leyva, the town wherein a joking manner I just said it was where I was going to get married and after several … perhaps after many margaritas with my boyfriend we decided to make a joke to the people close to me and tell them on the phone that the real reason we had traveled was precisely to make get married in secret but at the last minute I had regretted being alone and wanted the people closest to my affections to accompany me.
There were all kinds of reactions: the strict friend who got brave and refused to be part of this madness, aunt matchmaker who assured me that would accompany me but she tried to persuade me that there was no need for it to be hidden, the friend who cried at the other side of the phone and even reaching arming trip and pack her new boyfriend on the bandwagon who just saying aren’t you sure there probably just playing a joke on you and she replied: “Hey you do not know Juana, she is able, of course, it is possible, Let’s go!” The joke went on, we laughed to no end and the next thing I remember is my boyfriend kneeling on the stone plaza of the town saying that he liked the feeling of announcing and wanted to marry me.
In the times of social media and of immediate information, after I accepted, we went to sleep our hangover away, thinking, sleeping would be an option. People started calling and asking all kinds of questions and sent a lot of messages that we didn’t know how to answer them and we didn’t know when the matrimony would be. We had to start with those who had been the victims of the fortunate gossip that this time it was serious and that we weren’t going to laugh afterward.
My disbelieving friends wrote asking how it was possible that he claimed the four winds that I would never marry was not announcing commitment and after a few days sending save the date cards. I feel it has touched them to make extra paperwork as she told Carrie Samantha in Sex and the City after she announced her unexpected of waiting to marry Big and she told him, that only had in her head a file of those friends who they never were going to give the yes.
The incredible person who made me change all my thoughts and believes about marriage deserves a chapter of his own. There is enough space to say that he is an amazing person with such bizarre thoughts and unique as mine and we complement each other in such an unreal way that no one can imagine.
Certainly, that is the word that describes us or was copied from a movie that also will be known as our favorite movie.
The phrase that best describes this story and that was the hashtag of the event and the holder of all that was design for marriage: Surreal but nice and so everything which surrounded the event, engagement and marriage was, from the mere fact that I who was the most allergic person could exist the hair of animals can carry around a year living with two furry cats they are like my children now until indeed my mom was right and commit ourselves to 2 months together and were married a little more than nine months after what seemed anything but a birth.
But, I ended up getting married to 160 guests, in a church, dragging a long vaile white dressed, at the rhythm of the wedding march and obviously in the arms of my dad, while my friends cried as Magdalena’s and some assured that they knew I would always get married.
What? How did I get to this? I don’t know exactly. I suppose that the same collective enthusiasm and seeing everyone so happy panning and dreaming around, that the joy was contagious all around us, I think when it is becoming an opportunity, maybe unique one in life to be with that person all the time and stages of life reunited in the same place, gathering around you at an important time inevitably you begin to plan, to dream, to run and to spend, but definitely worth it. As my boyfriend said in his acceptance speech “Seeing the faces of all of you, I understand that of these things it’s not meant to be done hidden for any reason.
Definitely, my marriage was not a princesses ceremony, it had our stamp printed on each and every one of the details that people admired but who became exhausting, each brand positions was handwritten with a personalized message with anecdotes that we delay more thinking and choosing than writing, each guest had to find a table that was located looking a picture of him or her with us, which was also part of the reminder and also marked a personalized way. It was also a different and unreal dance instead of waltz we danced to a rock song from Muse as the one that we also did choreography theater environment we think we would ridicule ourselves and apparently everyone loved it.
We left at two, the bride and groom and their respective entourages with the long city and seeing that we were next to the place of the ceremony and were still more or less two hours decided the two and agree to stop on the road to eat sandwiches in the same place, obviously I could not go down and my parents had to hide me in the car so he would not see me after this I ended up eating sausage and arepas in other whereabouts in which all who stopped by wanted to take photos and see the bride eating sausage with hand, minutes before getting married.
If one or two years ago someone would’ve told me or I would’ve guessed the destination and told me I was going to get married and everything you would do. There is no chance that I would have thought it. I would’ve believed that they spoke to me about a completely different person, but to remember the happiness of being with so many important people, having celebrated the surreal but special love that I found, and seeing that people wanted to celebrate genuinely with me this happiness. I would say yes a thousand times…..And that’s how I went from being a Runaway Bride to getting married, enjoy and make this day something unforgettable.
