Here comes the single bride. Last week, Nadine Schweigert married herself in a symbolic wedding ceremony. The 36-year-old divorced mom of three wore blue satin and clutched a bouquet of white roses as she walked down the aisle before a gathering of 45 friends and family members in Fargo, North Dakota.
She vowed to "to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self," reports Fargo's InForum newspaper . After the ring was exchanged with the bride and her inner-groom, guests were encouraged to "blow kisses at the world," and later, eat cake.
First, this sort of thing is the province of old, haggy women with serious personality defects. The woman in question is 36; she’s a five at best in the looks department, and probably a four when she’s not dolled up for her self-marriage ceremony. She’s been divorced, and the fact that she’s not interested in settling (as evidenced by the whole “I was waiting for someone to come along and make me happy” thing) generally indicates a high level of narcissism and hedonistic tendencies, as well as having a rather tenuous grip on the nature of relationships, and perhaps even low impulse control. (Pro tip: when marrying yourself, make sure that your multiple personalities are compatible with one another.)
Second, I suspect that this will become a rather large trend, seeing as how women love weddings, particularly ones where they are the bride. Furthermore, women do not have to be as inclined to settle for a loser provider male by virtue of the fact that most women have a (probably worthless) job and be reasonably sure that the federal government that will provide for them if all else fails. As such, this will become a trend because it gives professional carousel riders a way to have wedding ceremony without having to bother to find a way to rationalize why they haven’t scored an alpha and are instead stuck with a loser beta. (Pro tip: when marrying yourself, make sure to invite all your cats to the wedding, else you could have a real mess on your hands when you get back from the honeymoon.)
Third, this should be taken as further proof that the institution of marriage is more or less dead, except for those who are committed to keeping their oaths because they pledged them before God. That anyone attended this, participated in this, or even came up with the idea should be proof that that there are a significant number of people who think that marriage is a joke. The current divorce rate should also prove that there are a lot of people who simply don’t take marriage seriously. In fact, gay marriage may now be a way to make the institution more serious. That’s how sad the state of affairs has become. (Pro tip: When inviting people to watch you marry yourself, Comic Sans is an appropriate font choice for the cards. And all other official wedding stationary, come to think of it.)
Fourth, the only thing that would make this story sadder is if it was a man that decided to marry himself. I’ve no doubt that some men will eventually try to do this very thing, possibly in the name of gender equality, or possibly as a precursor to an inevitable sex change operation. I suspect that a couple of real losers will give it a try. The first one that does it will be celebrated, and the next few after that may get some play in the press, but I suspect that after a dozen or so no one will actually attend any wedding ceremony of a man marrying himself, because that’s just sad. (Pro tip: any of the various free porn sites on the web make for wonderful honeymoon destinations after the ceremony.)
That such a thing as marrying one’s self is actually occurring is evidence of a society in moral decay. Quite simply, this act makes an even greater mockery of marriage, and is evidence of how narcissistic and ego-driven many people have become. It is the action of a shallow, stupid, ignorant, selfish person. This, of course, describes a large number of Americans, so expect to see self-marriage ceremonies become more popular. Fortunately, these ceremonies are ripe for mockery in their self-seriousness and rationalizations, which prevents this subject from being completely depressing.
