What did it cost BFG’s

After months and months of my wife and daughter planning, and seconds of preparation from me, my daughter finally got married. If anyone ever wonders what it cost to get her married, my answer is simple. Picture me as Thanos in the SoulWorld at the end of Infinity War. Gamora asks the same thing of Thanos when he snapped half the universe in half. She asks “What did it cost?” I reply with the same answer as Thanos. “Everything.”

If I’m ever asked to a wedding of someone else, I shriek and wail and gnash my teeth like I’m being dragged down to hell by Satan’s spawns. I hate weddings. Marriages. Fully on board. I think marriage is a great institution for a lot of people and a great way to build families and repopulate the world. I’m in a great one myself. I have two great kids and a person who has stayed with me for 25, uh 26 years, despite being a difficultly bitter person. She has stood by me through thick and thin.

I tolerated my wedding. And only because it was pretty inexpensive, and pretty simple. The only thing I cared about at my wedding was a good cake. Not only did I not get a good cake, I got a horrible one. It was done by someone my wife barely knew as a gift, because they were practicing learning how to do cakes. We were their first. We called it the Leaning Tower of Cake. It may have had dog hair.

Sorry for the tangent.

Back to my daughter’s wedding. Hating weddings has nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage. If my daughter got married in simple ceremony in front of my wife and I and his parents, I would have been delighted. I can see why it is so easy to make movies about weddings, both in the romantic, comedy, or tragedy categories. Weddings are so…much…work.

The speed of “Let’s get married”! to the full blown disaster called a wedding is faster than The Flash. The premise of weddings starts so simply. Two people meet, fall in love, and then decide to get married. The first contact could meeting in elementary school or meeting your sister’s roommate. It could be a blind date finally going right, or meeting at a softball game.

Sparks could be instant, take a couple of months, or evolve over dozens of years. Engagements can take a couple of weeks, a couple of months or common law marriage amount of time. Even after the engagement, getting to a wedding can take weeks, months or dozens of years. Every wedding story is different. All I know is that the moment the date is agreed on, mayhem immediately ensues. The moment the blessed event expands past the two people, it turns into a group project in which there are epic battles about who is in charge. Speaking of my experience, but also most every wedding, most men start the opt out. Except for one part.

The father of the bride has a quiet, solemn and mournful funeral for his bank account. He says a tearful goodbye to his wallet, bank account, 401K, and turns that over to the wedding.

It then turns into a Clash of the Titans, where the bride, mother, mother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, wedding planner, and possibly any woman in the known universe orbit, have “conversations” about each of their visions of the wedding. It starts out with the bride saying, “I want a simple wedding with close friends and family.” Then the mother says, “We just want it to be a simple celebration where we can see our friends, family, and a few people in the neighborhood.” Then the mother-in-law says, “Yes, our friends, family, neighbors, and a few close acquaintances.” Then the sisters and sister-in-laws, and a few close friends chime in and say, “Yeah, all of her friends, my friends, all of both sides of our families, the entire neighborhoods of each member of the original invites, every acquaintance at school, work, every college roommate and their roommate, and they guys they met at the Cheesecake Factory…but no one else….except other people I thought of last minute.” You know, because we wouldn’t want to forget to invite the UPS driver. She might be offended.

Then, the venue is discussed. Bride: “We could just do it at a church for free.”

Mother: “Yeah. Or…we could just take a look at a few venues…

Mother-in-Law: “I know a few people that could give us a discount…”

Sister and Sister-In-Laws: “There’s this cute venue I saw on Tik Tok. It was only 50 grand an hour. But it was so cute!”

Then everything else that including flowers, food, dresses, decorations, cake, and photography, and much more, go the exact same way. Bride starts basic, and then a game of one-ups-woman-ship in which each woman in the wedding fights for her vision of the wedding, like its an 1800’s style land grab. The rights to the ownership of the flowers is fought for like the U.S. fighting for the Louisiana Purchase. It’s a passive aggressive game of Risk in which all ladies guard every territory they already have, while simultaneously trying to go after new territories, until they have it all.

In the meantime, the men are sitting behind trying to decide who to root for, while simultaneously breaking up the fights, smoothing over hurt feelings and overpaying for every territory, while gritting their teeth, hoping their wife and daughter doesn’t notice his wallet slipping through his fingers like water.

The day finally comes, and the reward for all the months of Clan Clashing, wallet siphoning, is a big smile on the daughter’s face, when she isn’t crying from the father advise giving speech. There was also dancing, pictures, loud music, reunions with friends old and new, food (lots of food), cake (lots of cake), laughter, and an exit where he finally gets a few words of gratitude, and a big hug, before turning over the care of his daughter to another man.

So what did it cost? Everything. Was it all worth it? Absolutely not.

It’s gonna take weeks to get our house back to normal, months to recover physically, and years to recover financially. All I got from this wedding was a lousy hug, a little gratitude and eternal gratefulness from my daughter for doing such a nice wedding? No thanks. Next time, I’m going to demand some stock, crypto, or at least a push my daughter out of the nest gift like a new. Or at least demand a GoFundMe.

In the mean time, I don’t owe my Bitter Readers anything, but for some reason, I’m giving you these Bitter Friday Giftures for free. But don’t always expect them to be free.

After months and months of wedding preparation…