Weddings are emotional voyeurism taken to new, giddy, tender heights. You are invited to stand at the window of someone else’s relationship and have a peer in through the curtains. Aside from all getting dressed up in black tie and taking it in turns to peep in through the keyhole of the delivery room, it doesn’t get much more intimate than this. It is overwhelming in all the small, magic ways you couldn’t possibly imagine. There are moments during a wedding to be loud, and moments to be quiet. Times to let your eyes glisten over, and times to let laughter win. To make sure you get invited back for the Christening, here’s Ditzy’s guide to doing it right.
1. Don’t, under any circumstance, fuck with the photographer or his double holstered Nikons will be catching you at 3am on the wrong side of 17 margaritas having a cross-eyed wee in the bushes
2. Do immediately regret your excruciating footwear: curse your womanhood, your shoe optimism, curse Kurt Geiger and curse your mother for bringing you into existence
3. Do watch the faces during the ceremony; marvel at the open pages of human emotion written clearly for you to read. See their hearts swell and burst into creased smiles, and a surreptitious tear
4. Do have a dangerous encounter with a stranger. A truthful one. Talk about your hopes and dreams. Share a cigarette. Then tip your hat to them and move off like two cowboys passing on a dust-bitten track in opposite directions
5. Do think carefully about the propulsion angle of your confetti. An excitable over-arm throw will result in your handful landing petulantly on the ground in front of you like a toddler throwing a bowl of baked beans on the kitchen floor
6. If you’re going to insist on honking back 4 champagnes at the reception, do factor in time for a power black-out in the ladies loos before dinner
7. Do pretend to look and enthused and not cripplingly awkward as the bouquet catchers gather. As the bunch starts its descent, perform a spectacular goal-keep dive out of the way
8. Do prop yourself up at the bar and watch people’s orders. You’ll be able to tell a lot about them from their drinks -
Quiet, happy, imagining their own wedding to the hand resting on their lower back: white wine with ice
Restless, whirling with a future yet untold: tequila shot
9. Dance, dance, dance until your back sweat and your butt sweat meet in beautiful union
10. Do not speak to any grown-up folk from the wedding party after 11pm lest you reveal yourself for the fool that you are
11. Do revel in the ULAs (uninvited life audits) triggered by such a landmark event in your friend’s lives. Join in the mass hysteria of your single friends - laugh, cry, drink
12. At some point retire to a chair with a large block of cheese to have a calcium refuel and get enough fart power up to propel you across the dancefloor as Shaggy’s “Wasn’t Me” hits the speakers
13. Do revel in the dad-dancing that is allowed due to the high concentration of actual dads in the vicinity
14. When you get back to your room in the wee hours do fling off your devil shoes, shake your hair out, put on that song that makes you happy and do a little bottom wiggle dance. Then collapse into bed with cake splattered down that top you absolutely weren’t meant to borrow from your mum
15. Hobble home on Sunday morning, cripple shoes in the bin, top you weren’t meant to borrow caught in your bag zip and trailing along the ground. Do reflect on the magic those two people just made. A wonderful protest against the transient, impermanent nature of our existence. A protest of certainty, stability and belonging
Written and illustrated by Jess Bird