It’s hard for me to believe that Ahmad and I will be celebrating our second Wedding anniversary in a little over a month- where has the time gone?
Sometimes, a picture or a post from this blog will re-appear and send me down memory lane, and depending on how I’m feeling that day, I’ll either reminisce fondly or go into the futile exercise of picking out the flaws.
But I do this in private (or occasionally text Ahmad), because hey, it’s been two years and nobody needs to be subjected to my memories or thoughts of an event long gone. The bottom line is that we had a fantastic and happy wedding, which eased us into the most important thing, the one thing that matters to us: married life.
The same cannot be said for some of the Social Media feeds I randomly stumble upon, where the phenomenon of the “forever bride” shows up. I came across this term as I was browsing the internet and I can’t believe how great it is at getting the point across.
I mean, if your wedding’s budget equals that of a small country’s GDP, of course you’re going to want to share it with the whole world six months or even ten years down the line, even when you’ve already got dedicated albums (yes plural) online that were uploaded as soon as you got your hands on them, sometimes as the event was ongoing.
Talk about wanting attention.
I feel like these people cannot wrap their heads around the idea that their expensive and ornate wedding dresses were meant to be worn for one night and then banished to a closet for all of eternity, so they post one photograph after the other- different angles, different areas of their venue, one cliche pose after the other.
Sometimes the same photograph will even be repeatedly put up- we get it, you have a favorite!
They’ll caption each one with a different romantic quote or declarations of love and wonder. They might even choose to make into a series: the dress, the groom, the decor, the food, the parents. Whatever it is, it just has to be from the wedding or it doesn’t matter.
And I understand if it’s done on anniversaries- we’re all guilty of upping up the cheesiness when our special days come around. But what’s the point of bringing it up on one random summer or winter day? Is there really nothing else you have to share?
Better yet, do you absolutely have to share? I blame the advent of those Snapchat/Instagram stories for that- that we just have to post our every second of every day, and that should we fall flat on content, we dig into the archives for the “happiest day of our lives.”
Maybe it’s just keeping appearances.
In the age of social media, everybody wants their profiles to scream “Look at me, I’m so happy! Look at me, I’ve got my life in order! Look, we’re just as in love today as we were when they took this photo! Look we’ve got the money to pull off this lavish event!”
But rarely does it reflect what’s going on behind the scenes: that marriage is hard work. It doesn’t come with an instruction manual and can often be a roller-coaster of emotions with long, drawn out periods of confusion.
It’s a reality we all go through but few speak about. And I guess in some rare instances, some may choose to stay in the “forever bride” mode to cope with all the changes. It is, after all, the one night where you seemingly have control over everything.
Still, I don’t think it justifies for spamming us all to hell with a single party of a few hours.
However, if there’s one thing that’ll make a forever bride disappear? Well, that’s none other than a bundle of joy on the way. Given the sheer amount of posts involved (announcement, gender reveal, baby shower, birth, first photoshoot, bringing the kid home, etc…), you’ll actually begin to miss the wedding posts- but that’s another story for another day.
