All that hoo haa on weddings

I don’t normally think about these things let alone write about them.
But in the light of so many of my friends getting married, there are a few things that do bug me.
There is nothing wrong with finding love per se – deep down, we all want to love and to be loved in return. Those who are single would know who much we all want this, even when we are only willing to acknowledge it privately. Viewed from this angle, those who found love are lucky. Weddings are a celebration of love (supposedly) and so I get that we celebrate weddings.
What I don’t get are the things surrounding the weddings itself, starting from the hen’s/buck’s night. So far, I have somehow managed to dodge this one and I have every intention do so for as long as I can. If we spend so much time and agony trying to find love, why do we have to mourn the last night of being single and have to resort to things like strippers? I am sorry, I find this particular event simply revolting. If I am getting married to the love of my life, I am going to be so happy that I don’t mind not being single anymore. This is because I know that I can only marry a man who does not restrict my freedom. If I want to go to a strip club, I will just ask him to come along with me and I am pretty sure he will agree to it. That said, I don’t want to go to one and I do not want to see a stripper anyway, really seriously. The real thing, aka making love, is way better than that. So no, I don’t see why I should spend a few hours and ridiculous amount of money to entertain my friend with strippers and penis-shaped balloons and blown condoms.
I get that we want to spend time together with our friends and family as a single person, and I am more than willing to participate in things that actually involve some real bonding activities – like a good meal, or some other event that does not involve degradation of human interaction like strippers.
Now onto the wedding itself. For once, I do not get how people successfully manage to put themselves into high five digits debt in the name of a wedding celebration. I would honestly put that money as a down payment of my house or investment property. What? That’s the logical thing to do. Life, or rather, my life, is challenging enough already, and I do not wish to put myself and my significant other through such kind of financial burden when we have barely started our lives together. How do you move forward when you have to fork out a handsome sum every week to pay for an event that is already in the past?
In the same line of logic, I do not see why a groom-to-be has to put himself through debt to buy the engagement ring. In the chance that my future husband is reading this, honey, please don’t buy me a ring that you cannot afford. I do not view the price as the ring as an indication of your love to me. And please DON’T buy me diamond. I think that stone is so overly overrated I can’t even begin to say why I don’t want it as my engagement ring.
Another thing I don’t get is couples who plan a wedding that requires their guests to travel. As a person who gets invited to events like this, let me just say this out loud: if there are two weddings at the same time that I am invited to, the one that is in Sydney gets higher priority. Why? It is less hassle for me to attend, I obviously receive invites for both weddings, so both sets of couples presumably want me to be there, and as such, I do not need to justify why I pick the one that is less hassle for me. Furthermore, the couple with the off-site wedding should not be offended if I decline to attend. Like really, surely you would know that the chance of people attending is somewhat lower if they are required to take time off and then travel just to attend your wedding. I don’t even want to start talking about those couples who demand so much out of their friends and family when it comes to their weddings. I get that this is a very important event in your lives, but really, it does not give you the pass to be jerks in the months leading up to the big day.
I don't think I need to say that weddings are highly commercialised these days - just like any event in life really. But I also believe that we have a choice in these things, something I'd like to call personal responsibility. And part of growing up is to be able to make decisions which consequences we can bear.
I guess I am just different. I prefer to enjoy my life some other way.