Get married in Vegas please

I have nothing against love, not even against marriage.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
29 May 2023 Monday 16:42
88 Reads
Get married in Vegas please

I have nothing against love, not even against marriage. Especially since this became a civilized country and with divorce, because, as Woody Allen said, there are marriages that end well, but others last a lifetime. This extraordinary tolerance on my part is not an obstacle for me to fear as typhus two of the events in which spring is lavish: bachelor parties and weddings.

I belong to a generation to which bridal affairs, beyond those that are practiced in the thalamus, inspire as much enthusiasm as a bidet: the freedom associated with the first years of democracy not only presented us with unforgettable images of Nadiuska and Susana Estrada. It also facilitated something similar to free love, which we sorely needed, and the possibility of pairing off as many times as necessary without going through the sacristy or the annoying process of a wedding invitation that smelled of mothballs. As you will understand, in those days a bachelor party that went beyond going to Zeleste or Karma and having a few beers listening to Sisa with four friends was a laughable anachronism.

However, in clear proof that progress can only be applied to technology, such celebrations live a moment of splendor. You will have seen those groups of drunkards who run through the city practicing strange gymkhanas, wearing headbands in the shape of a penis, wearing t-shirts with clever legends such as "Whoever doesn't fuck won't entertain" and surely you know what I mean. Some even come from abroad, and then one can only wonder what our authorities are doing to prevent these new barbarian invasions.

Another thing is weddings in the strict sense, celebrations that have gotten out of hand in such a way that whoever receives an invitation today can only experience deep concern. Weddings have mutated into inordinately long festivities that begin at five in the afternoon and end in the wee hours of the morning and are held in supposedly picturesque places where you have to go by car, which deprives even the consolation of catching a good drunk: the only way to hold out until the end.

Added to all this is an inexplicably formal dress code –even more so in days of the Catalan heatwave– which implies that male guests must dress like Mormon missionaries or funeral directors and sweat like galley slaves. In this way they will have to attend the strange rituals designed by some expert in protocol that have taken on a natural role in Spanish weddings. I don't know where the habit of starting to howl waving napkins in unison comes from, but you will agree with me that its inventor deserves a place in one of the circles of hell.

Add to that the new trend in terms of gifts consisting of making a deposit in the account number that appears indicated in the invitation itself. It is natural that the old custom of the wedding list in a department store has passed into history. Today, people who get married usually have been living together for years and already have their own coffee pot and ceramic pongos, but calculating the correct sum to deliver becomes a real ordeal. And it is that, unless a brother or a son gets married, it is not about having to choose between summer vacations or attending the wedding of a second cousin.

They will not deny me that the entry into the account is as cold as any commercial transaction and that, although it avoids the delivery of an envelope with money that was powerfully reminiscent of Connie's link in the first part of The Godfather, it implies a monetization of personal relationships a bit offensive.

To the point that a culture has been generated in the matter by which it is assumed that, at a minimum, the guest has to finance the price of the cutlery that they are going to serve. In fact, some go so far as to call the restaurant to refine the amount even more and everything ends up looking like some kind of business in which the bride and groom not only do not invite anyone but they are going to leave the banquet with more money than they entered with.

I end up thinking that the liberals of the eighties were absolutely right, and that whoever wants to get married has to go discreetly to one of those chapels with priests dressed as Elvis Presley that abound in Las Vegas. And send a postcard.