As an end-of-the-workweek feature, today we offer advice to gentle readers on how to conduct their personal lives.
Over our extensive lifetime, we have observed the rite of the marriage proposal take on epic proportions. Where once the prospective groom might simply take his beloved's hand and ask her to plight her troth to him despite his extreme unworthiness, thereafter placing on her hand a simple ring affordable to his modest means, today he is expected to offer a production that includes a romantic setting replete with expensive elements of stage production. One hears tales of such proposals being "cast" with various actors--some volunteer, some even hired--and "staged" with lighting, music and special effects. And in the end, the prospective groom must present a hunk of crystallized carbon of a value that could purchase a late-model Toyota or provide a substantial downpayment on a domicile.
Such seems to have been the case recently on Hilton Head Island, where an unnamed groom placed some 150 luminaria on the beach to provide the setting for his proposal. We assume he got what he wanted, as the Charolotte Observer reports that the gentleman and his gentlelady retired to their rented home, presumably with chaperons, after he popped the question.
But the illumined luminaria continued to shed their light, confusing sea turtle hatchlings for whom the evening was also momentous. Dozens of doomed chelonia apparently circled the unnatural lights before expiring on the beach, never finding their watery homes. Oh, the reptility!
Moral: keep the proposal and the wedding simple and concentrate instead on the marriage that follows. You'll do less damage and protect what really needs protecting.
3 comments:
I would add that the wedding itself be kept simple, too. Personally, I think a wedding in some memorable spot with a few guests is more meaningful than a huge hotel reception, $25 plus a plate. I'm sick of spending lots of time and money to attend weddings of couples that then get divorced two years later! Though I'm of course more saddened by the divorce than my own expenditures.
This sounds like it was written by a man who himself was roped in to being a part of a wedding proposal previously unaware only a month ago.
That's like a fairy tale at the end of which everyone dies. Sure it has a valid, touching moral to it, but darned if it's not rather macabre in getting there. Amanda says she's going to have nightmares tonight. That's probably an exaggeration, but still!
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