That Touch of Formality

Sounds like it won't be long before I'll be caught and cross-examined by the relentless heartless hounds AKA my matchmaking aunts with their wicked ringleader, my mother, again. Not only is my birthday approaching fast despite my attempts to outrun it but just two days ago, I received an urgent writ of summons via e-mail to appear at my cousin's wedding at the end of the year.

Always the groomsman... Don't get me wrong. I love weddings but this time, I certainly will attract some amount of flak since I'm the pathetic missing link amongst my bevy of married cousins, one of the few remaining unattached right smack in the center of all the helplessly adoring couples, the lone eligible bachelor with all the prerequisites of a home and a career but no wife to manage it all.

Oddly enough my lack of a partner has everyone else quietly assuming ( or should I say loudly gossiping ) that I'm the one desperately in love with my hectic career when it's actually the opposite. Seriously doubt they could find anyone more willing to leave the bloody office behind to take up a mop and a broom. Not to scare my poor Charming Calvin away with talk of serious commitment and matching platinum rings but really I just can't wait to be married. Seriously. Just not to a blushing virgin in a white veil.

Perhaps one with hairier and wider shoulders.


Wedding bands!
Not sure why modern couples today all want that ill-planned, barely choreographed slipshod wedding - sadly it has almost become perfunctory and meaningless for most of them who just want to get the whole boring deal over with as soon as possible. That's a direct quote from a bored blasé bride, believe me. You can easily imagine my horror - and my barely repressed urge to strangle the idiot who's able to get married legally while it's tantamount to sacrilege for me to kiss someone I love. But let's not get on that particular sociopolitical bandwagon now.

That bridezilla certainly wasn't joking about the ASAP bit. Hastily booking tables at the nearest makeshift restaurant, jumping into any damned white gown for the cheapest bargain photo session and catching the closest holy man just isn't going to do the trick for me. Life's certainly gotten more fast-paced these days but shouldn't there be time to slow down for things that are important? What happened to meticulously planning that most beautiful day ever? Sobbing over the fact that the caterers can't make that perfect though improbable wedding cake? Quarrelling with the groom over the flowers and the infamous guest list?

Just like every fabulous gay boy, I want that amazing Vera Wang inspired fairytale wedding. Evening garden wedding at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel terrace. Tables beautifully decked out in shades of cream and hints of gold ( not so much that it resembles a gaudy tacky wedding pls! ) with bouquets of elegant calla lilies and diminutive sprigs of lavender. Little handmade placecards for each individual guest with their wrapped wedding favours. Five-man jazz band playing unobtrusively in the background as the prettily dressed guests - all in light pastels holding their gilt-edged letter-press invitations - mingle in the courtyard. A staff photographer who'll shoot the impromptu images in moody black and white for the wall I've reserved just for it.

Ah. A wedding. I think I can hear Calvin running screaming just about now :)