25 Sep Slutty Wedding Singers
My daughter lives in Nairobi and I keep in touch (partly) about what she is doing in terms of life and work through a new project which she has launched. Being a media producer, her expertise, online journalism made it an easy decision for her to start her own online magazine. For the past 10 years Miranda has lived in different places around the world, gathering stories, reporting on people’s lives and collecting many professional contacts along the way. These contacts, writers, film makers, artists, journalists, photographers and muscians are all happy to contribute to this creative enterprise.
Zena’s story about slutty wedding singers captured my attention and I found it so enchanting that I am sending you the link to read it for yourself.
www.thehumangeographic.com
Zena was a bridesmaid at my daughter, Miranda’s wedding and I know the comments she is making are reflections on Miranda’s ceremony. I am also confident that she would love me to create the perfect wedding ceremony for her.
We have a sympathetic understanding of what she values and we both know that I could deliver exactly what she would desire, that is, if she felt that she had the freedom to make her own choice….oh dear, do we ever let go of our parents expectations.
Adding to this confidence is the fact hat Zena shares my link to my website in her article. How amazing is the world, Miranda in Nairobi, Zena in Cambodia and Mary in Sydney all invested in each other (always with love)…..
If you need a creative slant on your wedding ceremony and live in Sydney please contact me, Mary Ord, marrymemary, Sydney Marriage Celebrant, so that we can make it happen!!!
I hope you enjoy the story and perhaps you will have the inclination to troll through the rest of ‘The Human Geographic’, Miranda’s magazine.
“Oh, by the way”, Jason my boyfriend said, “I told everyone at work that you’re my fiancé”.
Apparently, he didn’t know how conservative Cambodians are, so he erred on the safe side and said we’re engaged because we’re living together.
He’s only now telling me about our engagement (we’ve been living in Phnom Penh for three months) because I’m about to meet his workmates for the first time and “something might come up”.
“Are you going to get married?” is something that does comes up a lot. It’s a question people are happy to ask me now. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m 28 and I’ve been going out with Jason for four years. Which can only mean one thing, it’s time!
I’m totally up for marriage (eventually), but weddings, well they scare me.
All that expectation.
All that stuff you need.
All that attention.
All that work.
People will tell you, “Do whatever you two want, it’s your day” and you can try, but weddings can get out of hand quickly. Mantras like “You only do it once” can have you justifying all sorts of things like belly-dancing fortune-tellers.
I recently went to a wedding in Cambodia where they had slutty wedding singers. Just like cutting the cake, or the first dance, slutty wedding singers are part of the Cambodian wedding package. In high heels and short skirts, these girls took to the stage to the sound of men stamping their feet and cheering. In between songs, they’d return to their mirrors to add more lipstick to their already overdone faces, only stopping to pout unselfconsciously at their reflections. How any bride would agree to have this kind of competition prancing around on a stage in front of all their guests is beyond me.
In Cambodia, guests don’t go to the ceremony, just the reception. So it got me thinking about how much I like the wedding ceremony. Sure, the dancing and drinking to celebrate afterwards is fun, but you so rarely get to see people like you do during the ceremony. It’s people at their rawest. Standing in front of everyone, declaring their love and commitment to someone else, it’s moving. But a lot of the weddings I’ve been to aren’t about the ceremony; they’re about the reception, the slutty wedding singers.
If I get married, I’m going to start with the vows and pick a fantastic celebrant (like this one) who’s more concerned about the days meaning than being there to just sign the marriage certificate. But, you see, I can’t get married by a celebrant because it would upset my Mum if I wasn’t married by a priest! And I love my Mum and that’s just how the wedding planning compromises begin… But I don’t need to worry about any of that yet because I’m not really anyone’s fiancé.