Pre Marital Affair
A bride and a bouquet full of veiled comments.
Disclaimer: All brides may or may not testify to these statements. Family members can keep looking at gold prices.
I have heard about people enjoying being engaged, being a fiancé etc. But when they talk about being a bride, I’m not so sure. Because really, there are absolutely no expectations from a bride. Really, none. Oh nobody says anything to a bride other than she looks gorgeous and relaxed every day. A bride doesn’t have to be perfect in every way. With the advancement of technology in these modern times, the work of a bride has become so much easier. There is Pinterest that throws so many ideas that you get excited by each and every one of them. There is online shopping that certainly has your aunts wonder why it hasn’t won a Nobel yet. Of course you need to spend all the money you saved on clothes and on jewelry that will get the town talking. How could we forget the many posts on FB and WhatsApp, where everyone is obliged to give an opinion?
The Juggle
Nobody looks at the groom, they say; even if he is a handsome bastard. So obviously with women empowerment and all, the bride calls the shots. She has to keep up with her demanding job, bargain at every store as she goes shopping, learn to cook and clean, balance the books, and strive for world peace. Mothers today want their daughters to learn how to keep the office and not just the house now.
The Struggle
Being a bride is easy. You need to have to- travel far and wide to get the perfect trousseau. When are you booking tickets to Mumbai? Did you hear about that Bridal sale in Delhi? No she found that darling piece in Turkey. Or was it Mallorca? The Benarasi saree you get here is not expensive enough. Jewelry, don’t even get me started on this one. The shiny yellow metal that has made exclusive showrooms, with lakhs worth interiors, into a market. Not the fancy ones you stroll through, but the ones you elbow a grandmother out of the way, much like the Mumbai local trains. Out come the calculators, your aunt’s inquisitive eyes and your father’s look of disbelief. All you can do is come back and cry a little on the phone with your sweetheart who pretty much has the role of a counselor. This is how you learn to adjust, through good times and bad; is the advice from the proverbial others.
Being a Muggle
Adjust seems to be the word a bride keeps hearing a lot. You are constantly trying to read everyone, your folks and his, so that at the end of the day you won’t get tagged as the bridezilla. Wait, your bosses and colleagues are in this list too. I can hear a sympathetic sigh from my married girlfriends. Apparently, I need to have a suitcase full of new clothes (sorry trousseau) to impress his family when we go visiting after the wedding. Not that I already love them and hope to have impressed them with my winning character already. He just needs ironed shirt, pants, shiny shoes and constant nods to impress mine. He has already impressed me and I really want to just shout “I don’t care”! But I do, because my parents are both happy, my whole family is coming to town, our cousins are just absolutely wonderful, my sisters are excited and I get to marry the man that keeps me sane. Ah, The things we do for the Society! Maybe it is time that I start doing what my yoga teacher so strongly recommended for brides, Breathe.
Text: Maria John Photos: Various Sources
