Toastmasters - Organize Your Speech - Here Comes the Tide

 I intended to give a speech on motivation and how it’s impeded by distraction, and then I got distracted. I thought it’d be a good idea to go get my mail before I started preparing my speech.

It was not.

Because in my mail I received what I believe is the social equivalent of a jury duty summons.

I’d been invited to a wedding.

Now I have nothing against the institution of marriage so long as it’s between two consenting adults regardless of racial, sexual or religious orientation. What I am a huge proponent of is the 3 ring circus of madness that signifies the kick-off of the marriage.

So instead of today’s topic being about motivation, it’s going to be the result of motivation.  Specifically the three motivating factors that contribute to my utter disdain for weddings that I’m invited to.

Now I’m not trying to be an iconoclast or a purveyor of cultural genocide. I’m just a simple man with a simple plea to stop the insanity or at the very least, stop the insanity from inviting me to spend time with it.

So without further “I do’s”…

1^st Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re boring.

Let’s be honest, nothing exciting happens at weddings. Everyone knows how it’s gonna go down. They’ll be some music, they’ll be the exchange of vows and then there’s the whole “I now pronounce you husband and wife…or husband and husband… or wife and wife.”

Listen, either way, despite the miniscule nuances in gender, it always ends with the couple being married. There’s no drama, there’s no sudden plot twists where the groom realizes he’s been dead the whole time we’ve been watching this play out. It’s literally the same thing over and over. A re-run with a variation on set and cast members.

The average non-denominational wedding clocks in at about 25 minutes. Now I think the fact that it takes more time to have your car’s oil changed, get a pizza delivered or take your lunch break at work is a testament to the fact that even the bride & groom know their wedding ceremony is the prattle of the dead and even THEY themselves want it to be over faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

And let’s not discount the side effects of boredom which are; Excessive alcohol consumption, over eating & an increase in bad decision making. I think we can agree that all three of those things happen in abundance & repeatedly throughout the night at the wedding reception which peruses the ceremony.

2^nd Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re expensive. 

I’m talking obscenely expensive. Obscenity taken to such heights that even Caligula, The Roman emperor of depravity would blush at such obscenity.

A typical wedding’s cost is ballpark $23 grand…for one day. Actually not even one day, more like 15 hrs which equates to $1,533 per hour. This is lunacy at its zenith. In fact this is $500 MORE than what O.J. Simpson was paying his attorneys per hour during his murder trial.

So not only could that amount keep you from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell, but it could also be spent towards a myriad of more enjoyable things such as an incredible vacation, furthering one’s education, investing in mutual funds, stocks or 401K, putting a down payment on a home or starting a college fund for when the children arrive.

But instead of using the financial capital for something long-term & meaningful, it’s spent on invitations that get thrown away or go unanswered, renting uncomfortable tuxedos & buying an expensive gown that will be worn once and then put in a box.

Then there’s the whole paying the church, renting a hall for a reception and hiring a DJ so you can watch your aunt that’s drunk on the booze you paid for whose way too old to be twerking, attempt to twerk anyway, throw out her hip and then send you the medical bill since it happened at YOUR wedding.

And let’s not forget those of us that have to take off work to attend an event in which we KNOW two people will say “I do.” Yes, I know you do; in fact, you’ve been doing long before you got married. How about we focus on the “I don’t” as in “I don’t get paid for taking time off to attend your wedding, I don't want to have to buy you a gift and I don't want to sit at a table full of strangers at your reception."

3^rd Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re stressful.

There aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the calendar year for me to elucidate on the myriad of things that can be stressful about a wedding. But more often than not, a good percentage of weddings never or almost never happen ipso facto (I really hope I used that adverb correctly). What I’m getting at is that a lot of would be weddings self destruct because of the stress that comes from the planning of it.

And if that’s not enough, there’s always the dilemma of only being able to invite a finite number of guests. This means some people that know all the other people that were invited will not be invited.

That in turn puts a burden of guilt & secrecy on those that made it to the invite list which causes THEM to stress out over keeping the wedding hush-hush as if it were some CIA cover up that will ultimately end up on social media anyway leaving the invited guests the ones held responsible for explaining to the uninvited guests why they weren’t invited in the first place.

Those invited suddenly find themselves cast adrift in an ocean of deceit; stress & anxiety that will inevitably drown them in its undertow or crush them by its tide. 

In conclusion I hope that I’ve made a valid argument for at least the personal reasons why I detest weddings and all that they usually encompass. 

And As I’ve stated before, I completely condone and support the marriage of two people wanting to spend the rest of their lives with one another and making each other a better version of themselves.

I just don’t think a wedding is the healthiest way to start off a marriage, especially when I’m invited to it.