whose dream wedding is it anyway?

What is your dream wedding?

If you say, your dream wedding is getting married on a beach, just before sunrise, surrounded by all your loved ones. Then kissing your groom just as the sun rises and running to the water to meet the soft waves of the early morning tide, and stumbling into the sand and kissing some more.

I would have exclaimed, ”oh, how lovely’.

But nowadays, dream wedding has become more of a lavish social event put together by popular wedding vendors, exotic destinations, elegant ballrooms, landscaped garden venues, top designers, make-up artists, event stylists, caterers, planners and coordinators. Wedding niceties like fireworks display, Swarovski crystals on the wedding cake, intricate beadwork and delicate lacework on the bride’s gown, imported and expensive blooms, complicated lighting, elaborate setup have raised the bar for dream wedding standards.  All the glitz and glamor, all that jazz. But are they really the stuff dream weddings are made up of?

Some will probably say I’m just whining because I can’t afford that kind of wedding. Hmm, defensive as I may seem, but no I’m not. Honestly, even if we have the money, my dream wedding doesn’t involve a huge amount nor I would want to spend a huge amount for it anyway. But I understand. A wedding, like all the other celebrations in one’s life, is part of a lifestyle. You have an extravagant lifestyle, you would naturally want an extravagant wedding. Nothing wrong with that so long as you can afford it, right?

What I’m probably lamenting is the fact that wedding, though not all of them, is fast evolving into another ‘dress to impress’ occasion where the main, albeit undeclared, purpose is to leave the guests in awe.  Even I am guilty of this. We want to showcase our wedding more than celebrate it. We crave for admiration, for people to talk about and remember how beautiful our wedding was. But whose dream wedding is it anyway?

But as I’ve said,  I understand to some extent. I am a bride-to-be myself. We have our fairy tales, our dreams. Although I wish that we can also have the simple yet romantic perspective of  men on wedding. When asked what their dream wedding is, most grooms, at least those who know how to answer, would say:

“Marrying the woman of my dreams.”

Now, isn’t that what wedding is all about?