We decide, over Christmas, that we will get married. We both want to. But there’s a big difference between getting married and having a wedding. We agree instantly on the ceremony aspect of things, and agree, after arguing (because being engaged is not all about necking fizz) that we want to have some sort of celebration, to mark the day and have our families and friends celebrating with us. A small party, we both say. Tiny, in fact. Restrained. No ice sculptures. No owls bearing rings. But we are still unsure. Neither of us feels it is natural to celebrate ourselves.
We set a date, the minimum three months from the date of our licence. People seem chuffed for us, and express themselves with such sincerity we know we’ve been right to include them. “You must be so excited,” they grin, uncorking with abandon (because being engaged is partly about necking fizz).
In the face of their chuffedness and sincerity, I am graceless and awkward, and perhaps inappropriately honest: “Actually I think I’m dreading it.” The grins drop. I don’t think any of my mates have been expecting to have the Are You Sure About This chat with me. “Not the being married bit, the getting married bit. Getting trussed up in a frock. People staring at me. Listening to us doing something private. Seeing how much weight I’ve lost, or whether I’ve managed to make my hair look tidy.”
It takes my sister to be appropriately brisk. “What do you mean, people looking at you like that? Who the hell are you asking to this wedding?” She is right. I realise we have not actually invited anyone who works for the Daily Mail. “Just do what you want,” she says, and friends echo her.
We are both Dubliners, and want a city wedding.
We keep numbers small, but when it is announced that the Obamas will be in Dublin (and Moneygall) in late May, I send them an invitation, along with a gift for their daughters, a secondhand book I think may amuse them. They do not reply. How am I to know whether to include them in the vegetarian option? Perhaps they have been offended by the mention of Teddy Roosevelt.
There will be no big white dress. I have been married before, and am pushing forty, or brushing lightly against it, anyway. I decide against bridesmaids. I will not be given away. Can I be given away a second time anyway? We decide against a first dance, a cake, speeches. We change our minds. And back. We are like willows in the wind.
Despite the simplicity we intend, I have to go shopping. I realise there will have to be some sort of dress, or at least that I will have to be clothed. I listen to other people and pay for a dress that doesn’t suit me; my patient sister mops my tears over the wasted money, the foolishness, and takes time off work for a mercy shopping dash. I enter younger sister mode, plodding behind muttering sulkily how pointless it is, but she ignores me and marches around Brown Thomas collecting armfuls of dresses for me to try on.
“Just try it for shape. Just try it for colour. Just try it for length. Just try it for the beading.” We find two dresses, and when I buy one for the wedding, she buys me the other “because you always need a party dress”.
I try a spray tan. I cannot stand the look of fake tan. I know this as I make the appointment. I do not want to be brown but I want to see if my skin tone will be evened out. I stand like a starfish in front of a beauty therapist who mists a chemical all over me. “This one has no smell,” she says, gesturing for me to turn my thighs out like a ballerina. It reeks. It makes me bright brown and does not give an even skin tone.
“Are you wearing fake tan?” asks the man I am about to marry, partly amused and partly horrified.
“Yes – it’s a trial run.”
“Please don’t wear it for the wedding,” he says kindly. He rarely sees anything negative in the way I look; when it comes to me, these words from his lips are as harsh as they come. My shins are patchy, my wrists and heels grubby. My brown hands on the steering wheel look old and stained. Pippa Middleton and I would struggle to find common ground. I will have to spend a week exfoliating. Down the plughole with thirty euros in the shape of scrubbed-off bits of dyed epidermis. At least I will be married in my own skin, though.
I cannot find a cream leather shoe or sandal. Friends text me pictures covertly snapped in shoe shops around Ireland. One suggests I go barefoot. “Romantic,” she points out, and it would be, were I eighteen, with daisies woven into my waist-length hair.
My sister phones. “I was thinking about that dress last night. You need a wrap. I can make you one if you like. I have to go now, I’m at work.”
A friend organises a makeup lesson and invites my sister and mother as well as other friends. She provides supper and wine and refuses to let the visiting makeup artist do her face or eyes. “Nope. This is for you,” she says. “Bridie.” I have known her since we were about five. She offers to make me a necklace for the wedding day. We neck fizz.
I have a hen night. We neck fizz. A friend has come over from London. My future sisters-in-law have made me a collage of photographs of my future husband as a child. A friend gives me a bag of luxury beauty treats. Someone who has returned from India brings bindis, and we decorate one another. We have dinner. More people come. Someone fastens a necklace around my throat. Everyone is good company and looks beautiful and I am delighted that they are my friends. I neck more fizz and start to witter softly and tearfully about how much I love them all. I am that sort of drunk. My shoes are killing me and I cannot walk to the nightclub. A friend produces a pair of pumps from a bag and I spring about Dawson Street. I dance in the pumps until three in the morning, when my bindi slides away on a film of sweat. The following day I have barely swallowed a coffee before a friend has emailed around Bracelet of Friends, a commemorative hen night poem she has composed.
After the hen night I know I am looking forward to the wedding, though I still feel traces of awkwardness about being the centre of attention. I have not been a bridezilla, but my reluctance and awkwardness have been another form of self-obsession. When I raise my eyes from my own irregularly tanned navel I am overwhelmed by the generosity, good will and sense of celebration that surround us.
The 30-Day Shred has improved my arms (slightly), but even in the dimmest candlelight they could not be confused with Michelle Obama’s. Perhaps it is for the best that she is not coming. Anyway, a stranger’s face would be out of place among those of everyone we love.
Yes, I am definitely looking forward to it now: our exchange of vows, our bracelet of friends.
Next Saturday, when Leinster wins the Heineken Cup, we will be married.
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Particular congratulations, Antonia, on the elegant self-administered rapier-thrust of “my reluctance and awkwardness have been another form of self-obsession.” (Like the vanity of the reluctant-to-be-photographed.)
I hope that you and the man you’re about to marry have a great time on Saturday no matter what the result of the Heineken Cup.
What a lovely, honest, bitter-sweet post, Antonia. Thanks so much for sharing something so intimate, and best of luck on Saturday.
Thank you, Jennie!
Thank you for this refreshingly honest piece about weddings. I think brides often confuse weddings with marriage, and those who have the biggest ‘do are the most disappointed with life afterward (a huge generalisation I realize but am basing this on what I’ve observed).
That said, I think it’s nearly impossible not to get caught up in some of it so don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re seeing this as a fun, fab party celebration with your closest friends and it’s completely normal to want to get a little fancy for it…you’d do that for most special occasions anyway, I’m guessing. But I’m with you on the spray tan!! Did it once (for a friend’s wedding) and will never do it again.
Best of luck on Saturday!
Yes, Clare – I am seeing it as a celebration. One of the odd things about weddings is that there are usually two such different events (personal, intimate vows / public knees-up) combined into one.
Even since yesterday somebody’s twiddled the dimmer switch on my tan, so I should be down to a whole new layer of skin by tomorrow, but that is one lapse of judgment that will not be happening again here either…
I got married this Xmas; or rather I eloped. Myself and my husband also did not want to have to ‘perform’ in front of people (no even not friends and family) so we just went down to the registry with 2 friends we’d roped in the day before. We told everyone on Xmas day, and despite reservations that we might be excommunicated from family rituals forever more, people were delighted, although they took a bit of convincing that we did not actually want a big party; they ended up throwing us a small surprise one anyway, which was sweet, but we would have done without any such ceremony ourselves. My only regret is that I never managed to find a dress I really liked to wear on the day (but that’s for no reason other than because I like dresses). All the best on Saturday!
Congratulations, Sara. Sounds as if your friends & family were grown-up & generous about the whole thing – no doubt because they saw you were happy, and that pleased them. (Sounds a bit Biblical, sorry.) People do generally turn out to be remarkably good eggs on the whole.
Re. dress, do you mean you didn’t wear a dress, or wore one you only half-liked? I think the half-liking thing is pretty common, but perhaps because of the weight of expectation that lies on The Wedding Dress, which is supposed to be the dress of your dreams and so on. There are some BEAUTIFUL and complex and grand and elegant wedding dresses around but I’m glad I’ve gone for something straightforward and in my own style (even thought it’s described on the website as something suitable for a wedding guest to wear!). It’s not the nicest dress I’ve ever had, though, and is not going to transform me into a mad beauty – but my God the shopping would have taken a long time if I’d held out for that…
It was from Zara, customised with a ribbon! Doing it on the sly meant sacrificing impulse for something more ostentatious.
Lovely – congratulations and have a lovely day!
I have to disagree with the equating ‘reluctance and awkwardness’ with bridezilla-type self-obsession (and also disagree with David on the vanity of the reluctant-to-be-photographed).
Yes it’s easier for everyone else to paint those that are more reserved than the average in these hyper-extraverted times as being ‘just as bad’ as the most narcissistic, but being true to yourself rather than going along with the crowd just to make them feel better is courageous, not selfish. Reads to me like you have struggled with finding the balance between an occasion that is meaningful and fun for you and your husband-to-be and also for all those who love you, how lovely!
Dee, I too disagree with the vanity of the reluctant to be photographed. I genuinely hate being photographed (I once cried – not in public – because I was so uncomfortable about being photographed for work, as happens every so often if you’re a journalist) and didn’t particularly want to have a photographer at the wedding. I had to basically ban my aunt from taking photos at various points of the day because she annoys everyone at family dos with her insistence on shoving a camera in people’s faces (we all hate it), and there were no photos taken by anyone during the actual ceremony because I found the whole idea seriously very annoying and didn’t want to be annoyed and uncomfortable when I was getting married.
I’ve never heard anyone who consistently didn’t want to be photographed explain it in terms other than “not liking how I look.” I’d be sympathetically interested in deeper responses.
I can easily imagine not wanting a particular occasion recorded, like a wedding ceremony where photographs can’t actually capture the essentially intimate nature of what’s going on, even though they pretend to. Like conductor Sergiu Celibidache reportedly described a recorded performance as being a poor shadow of the experience, “like a photograph of love-making.”
(And hopefully we all sabotage wherever possible the shutterbug who tries to take command of the family narrative.)
We get born, our noses begin to look odd in profile, we proclaim our undying love, we laugh with food in our mouths, we die. In public and frequently, thanks to the democracy of the camera, recorded; we don’t have to be able to afford Velazquez anymore. What the hell, it comes with the territory.
I find it intrusive and unpleasant – I don’t particularly like how I look in photos either (I used to have a byline photo that was so unflattering people who were familiar with it didn’t recognise me when they met me), but most of all I find being photographed feels like being pushed into performing when I don’t have any desire to do so. When my aunt gets going with the camera around the dinner table and telling everyone to smile for the camera, much as I love her I just want to tell her to fuck off and leave me alone. And as I just hate being photographed in general, I didn’t want flashes going off and being made aware that it was going on when I was trying to say my wedding vows.
I think having to do it for work has made it much worse – I used to find it mildly irritating, but if you’ve ever taken part in a professional photo shoot you’ll know that even with the nicest photographers (and they’re almost always nice), there is something horrible about being told to stand or move or smirk in a certain way for ages (usually at least 40 minutes), as you get more and more self conscious and uncomfortable. It feels like harassment (not of the sexual kind, obviously), even though it’s not. I have no problem with being the object of attention on my own terms – I spent a huge chunk of my youth performing in bands, and I’ve given lots of talks and been on telly – but I only like being there when it’s because I’m actively doing something, not just standing there like an eejit.
I know what you mean, Anna, about actively doing something; I once had my photo taken by a – very nice – professional photographer and found the process as weird as you describe.
And I don’t mind the aunt who goes around snapping so long as she doesn’t ask everyone to stop what they’re doing so she can take a Velazquez. And I can hack the few minutes for the group photo necessary for posterity to wonder at who the hell that guy is third from the right. But smiling is out.
And I’ve gotten used over the years to the incredible disparity between the fat eejit in the photos and how I look in reality . . . .
Dee, thanks, that was exactly our struggle.
I am a reluctant subject too, when it comes to photography, and it IS partly because of looking crap in a snap for ever and ever and ever amen (largely due to frozen, unnatural camera-face), and partly because of hating the ubiquity of cameras and the “OK SMILE now look as if you’re having fun, FLASH, now one for Facebook, FLASH” requirement to stop life and be present in a photograph. And I hate the Facebook thing of publishing 30 photos of a night out before you’ve even taken your paracetamol – it’s really not fair.
I love taking photographs, though, and have thousands of my two boys and my two dogs. For every twenty I take, nineteen are so bad in composition, so unfaithful to the real life of the subject, that they have to be deleted. I was looking at ancient family snaps at the weekend (19th century ancient) and they are all posed, only two snapshots. They are so fascinating, these rare and tiny images – our great-great-grandchildren will have a whole external hard drive of images of this generation, which will reduce the fascination factor by a pretty considerable amount, I would think.
Argh, I hate admitting this stuff (it’s really personal and makes me out to have been such a weird kid) but also hate the assumptions made here about fear of photographs, so just the once, here goes…
My phobia of cameras and video cameras is severe – I haven’t willingly been in a photograph since the age of fourteen and am in my late twenties now.
When I was fourteen I was somewhat introverted and overly imaginative. I went through a phase of questioning my own existence and for a while became unsure of whether or not I was a real person, like everybody else. I used to get freaked out when I caught my own glance in a mirror, not being sure who was staring back. I would go into the attic and get old photos of myself as a child to try and understand who I was, but inevitably when I looked at them I’d start to ask the same questions and get freaked out about who was staring out at me from those pictures. I’d always end up taking my lighter out of my pocket and burning them, just so the freaky things didn’t exist anymore.
This was a very odd phase of childhood/early adolescence that passed within a few months – it was probably an unusual symptom of trying to cope with a particular stress at the time. However, it left me with an aversion to cameras and mirrors: though I pretty much stopped asking irrational existential questions, images of myself triggered a sense of nervousness and discomfort. I initially avoided mirrors, but needed them to check outfits and apply makeup, so gradually became accustomed to looking into them again (though it did take quite a while to be able to look myself in the eyes without being freaked out.) The only remaining residue of that phase was channelled into photographs, which I didn’t have to deal with on a frequent basis. While the lack of dealing with them frequently was a boon in the short-term, it made it a little more difficult in the long term, as my fear developed into a full-blown phobia.
As a teenager this phobia caused blistering arguments with my parents on holidays etc – initially I’d just take flight and run away from the camera as fast as I could, but then figured that I wouldn’t have to be scared of being in a photo if I had the camera and so worked my way into being a kind of family documentarian. In other social situations my avoidance mostly involved finding a reason to leave the vicinity anytime I sensed a camera was about to come out, claiming some other important task or pretending to be on the phone if people asked me to join in. People started to notice I was never in them and I eventually had to explain that I was uncomfortable and would rather not – after repeated cajoling, they’d usually let me go, though often resenting me for spoiling the mood and being difficult.
Thankfully most people are reasonable if you discreetly explain that you have a phobia, however some people are awful and don’t take you seriously, interpreting it as a mere show of reluctance. I’m generally a tolerant person but I despise those people and the threat posed by their behaviour raises my hackles. The worst reactions I’ve had to a camera going off in my face include going into shock (face white, lips actually blue, shivering, unable to speak) or screaming and crying uncontrollably. Once I just shrieked and turned around and ran as far and fast as I could, collapsing into tears when I couldn’t run anymore. Once I lunged at the person with the camera, grabbed them by the throat and wrenched the camera from their hands so I could delete the photo.
I’m generally a quiet, reserved person so I find these reactions hugely embarrassing, let alone traumatic. They’re honestly beyond my control, I just get such a bad fright that I can’t cope and something inside me takes over. I’m the one who has to apologise for being a weirdo when they’re the one who messed with my phobia, though generally they’re so shocked at my behaviour that they apologise profusely for triggering it, thinking me a total looney.
I have improved somewhat over the years. During college the only way I could register and get my annual student ID picture every year was to drink heavily and take drugs enough that I would be totally anaesthetised to the experience. Since growing up I’ve tried hypnotherapy to help me get over it, as I needed to take passport and driving license photos and was too afraid (every time I went into a booth I’d start crying and have to go leave.) I don’t think it was really successful for that, in so far as I had to take a few Valium to do it, but the therapy did help me to adjust to old photos of myself as a child – I now enjoy looking at them in the same way most people do. I am also able to take photos of different parts of myself – my hands, my feet, and (a massive step) the back of my head. Now I am sometimes brave enough to ride through my discomfort and allow myself to be photographed, as long as it’s not sprung on me and I can hide my face. My face and especially eyes still freak me out but I’m getting used to my body representing me on film. If somebody springs a photo on me or flashes a camera in my face these days, I can often hold the reaction inside until I can get away and let it out, which often means running to the bathroom and secretly hyperventilating and crying for half an hour. The funny thing is that though I handle the immediate trauma much better, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief afterwards (as though something has been torn from me) that stays with me for a very long time.
I have been forced into two family occasion formal group photographs over the years, each of which it was guilted into me for months beforehand that my presence would have to be recorded (e.g. once to commemorate someone who was dying.) Each time I was plagued with nightmares for weeks afterwards and often broke down sobbing from the sheer terror that a picture of me exists out there somewhere. I have a function with thirty-five people coming up in three weeks and I’m terrified – the party is too small to strategically go missing when photos are called and too large to be the sole person wielding the camera.
I realise how irrational it is, but that’s the definition of a phobia. I hope to get over it in future – when I do, I might occasionally feel self-conscious about the way I look in photos but it will in no way compare with the embarrassment of being the person who’s seen as precious, vain, selfish and difficult because she refuses to get into pictures. Worse yet, the embarrassment of being the freak who runs a mile or starts crying when a flash goes off.
I feel the need to add that I’m rational and well-adjusted in most other ways. (I hope!) Sincere apologies for hijacking the thread with an essay, but I feel the need to explain because it seems to be a relatively rare condition with the absolute minimum of relevant information available – treatment and support for extreme fear of photos usually falls under phobias in general or is specifically related to social anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder, so I just feel the need to get my alternative narrative out there in reply. Thanks.
No need to apologise at all, tiggyt, for what was a thoughtful and fascinating comment, one that was relevant to the discussion.
Oh, I can relate to this. As my wedding approached I realised I was looking forward to the honeymoon more than the day itself (and we had a relatively low-key, city centre wedding – I can confirm that the room upstairs at Fallon & Byrne is a great venue, and was relatively cheap – €50 a head; at least, it was back in 2008) because I just wanted a nice, peaceful holiday. I hated a lot of the “fuss” aspect too (as does my husband – I think he just wanted us to “be married” rather than actually have to get married – and he said in his speech that he felt like we were married already and the ceremony just confirmed it). In fact, far from the bridezilla stereotype, in my experience I think a lot of people feel very ambiguous about all the fuss and “big event” stuff.
But we did have fun on the day, and, perhaps more importantly, so did our guests. And the actual ceremony itself (at the Unitarian Church, conducted by the awesome, now retired, Minister Bill Darlison, whom I’d interviewed for work a few years before and really liked) was absolutely lovely and made me tear up a bit. And when the whole thing was all over, I was both relieved and very glad that we’d done it, that we’d made the commitment to be together in the presence of our families and lots of our lovely friends. Over the same year several of my good friends got married or civil-partnered, and I was delighted to be at all of the celebrations. I bet all your friends will feel the same way. Good luck!
I remember having a lovely conversation with your husband the morning after our civil partnership where I confessed to an awful oh-my-god-we-had-a-totally-self-indulgent-day-of-us-ness-they-must-all-hate-us and he knew exactly what I meant. So comforting!
(I also confirm the loveliness of Anna’s wedding!)
Ha, I’d forgotten about that whole post-wedding psychic hangover! I had it as well – I suppose it’s not surprising that we end up thinking “oh god, we just made everyone basically come along and pay homage to us, didn’t we?” It definitely wore off, because now I’m just glad we were able to have a nice party with our friends. And we all had a fabulous time at your civilisation, too!
Lovely piece. Congratulations. You will have a ball.
I’m married just over a month myself, and I had the big day. But thankfully, because we wanted it. We wanted all the fuss and the glitter and the cake and the car and the flowers and the shite that goes along with weddings. We paid for it ourselves, we could afford it with no debt, so we had it. And we had the best day of our lives.
I have heard horror stories though of brides being forced into the big day when all they want to do is elope. Suffering the big dress and all the fuss and hating every minute. To me, that is a travesty.
I loved every single second of my day. I don’t remember ever feeling so happy, so loved, so celebrated as I did on my wedding day, it was a real highlight for me and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Do pause and take in all that good will from your friends and family. Because it’s wonderful. When you say your vows, there will be this… stillness from behind you. As everyone shuts up and strains forward to hear you say ‘I do’. The vows are always my favourite part in any wedding and it was the favourite part of my own day too. It gave me chills.
Relish it!
Well if it was fuss & glitter you wanted, right & good that you should have had it – how nice that your wedding day was just as you wanted it to be. (And congratulations!)
Re. paying for it, it would never have occurred to us to ask someone else to pay for it! Eek, shivers.
We will try and relish it, as you say.
absolutely how I felt about getting married – but you know what, we are nine years on now and I know it was the right thing to do – navel gazing and an ‘emergency bottle’ aside. Best of luck for next weekend.
Thank you – so many people have said they felt exactly the same.
Was talking to someone at work yesterday who is 36 years married. I’ll make sure I’ve something drinkable in my emergency bottle and not fake tan…
People opt for the ‘big day’ for a variety of reasons. I found it had its advantages and disadvantages. It was the first wedding within my immediate family, so we all enjoyed the build-up and can laugh now about the stuff that went wrong. I don’t think I could have denied my parents that, to be honest. My husband and I thought of it as pretty much the only day in our lives when we would have everyone together under the same roof – family and friends – and it was worth doing. A lot of care went into the planning of our day and we had friends and family doing as many things as possible.
I identify with the sentiments in the article in respect of being the centre of attention on that one day – it did feel odd. Yet, my husband and I had some lovely moments together.
What did stress me out and cause me upset before and after the wedding was the tyranny of the ‘anti-big-wedding’ brigade, which consisted of some friends and family. I felt judged at every turn by these people. ‘Oh, you’re having 140 people – that’s a lot,’ etc.
So, different aisles for different styles, I say. In any case, I have a feeling that these people wouldn’t have given us credit even if I showed up dressed as Bo-peep and he as Peter Pan, in the bid to be ‘different’ and ‘individual’.
Yep, aisles for styles. It’s pretty lousy of people to have made snide or disparaging remarks to you – while I’ve been to lots of weddings, I can’t remember EVER thinking “Oh why on earth are they doing it THAT way?”- it would just never occur to me that it was any of my business. I am usually too busy salivating over the menu anyway, or getting high on lilies.
So beautifully written, Antona! Enjoy your day.
Thank you very much, Deirdre.
So lovely to read a different voice on this subject Antonia – brilliant piece and congratulations!
Catherine
I was fortunate to be a guest at this reluctant bride’s wedding. She and her charming new husband were the perfect hosts. Her dresses were beautiful, as were the non cream shoes and her elegant sister gave Pippa a run for her money! A delightful event which everyone smiled through from beginning to end!
Thank you and congratulations Antonia, it meant the world to us both to be with you all!
Mary-Jane