Weddings, weddings, weddings...

I seem to have arrived at the age where everyone is getting married. In the past few years I have been to weddings in Ireland, in Canada, in Scotland, Chinese weddings, weddings I've been in, weddings I've simply attended, weddings of friends, weddings of family. I've been to more weddings than funerals (which is saying something since the Irish have a long history of bringing children to funerals), and so I've seen a wide array of brides and wedding styles.

On the whole, I'm not that big on weddings, especially religious weddings. The white dress, father walking her down the aisle, giving the bride away - the whole women-as-property aspect of it really just sets my teeth on edge. Especially in the UK and Ireland where the bride never speaks - I find that especially irritating as not only do we have the bride on display with the vestigial indicators of purity and property, but she doesn't get a voice either. Ugh.

But recently, I've been enjoying myself more and more. And I'm not sure if it's because I've been attending the weddings of people I know and love, or if it's just that, well, I'm getting older and as a prof of mine said recently, none of us is bigger than our culture. Sure, weddings might be originally a property transfer sanctioned by the given religious inst

itution, but they are also just great parties celebrating the love of two people, which means even more if you know the people and their history. They are also great reunions - like the wedding I attended in Edinburgh in June. Folks that I knew during my Masters were there, some returning from various parts of Europe just for the occasion. There was a steampunk theme, which could have gone either way but most of the guests had fun with it and so it worked. It was a humanist wedding, another plus, and then the reception was in a pub, and included a ceilidh (pronounced CAY-ley), a Scottish dance.

And the bride made a great, if slightly drunken, speech. We danced, and drank, and ate (delicious) vegan food.

Oh, and the bride wore turquoise.