Stop the Wedding!
“[Mistress], you’re late. Everybody’s in church for the rehearsal.”
I hurriedly dressed up in the simple black dress my mother handed me. As I put on the 3-inch sling backs on my well-manicured toes, she began ranting off a litany of things that she had to do for the day.
“I already told your sister that you’re on your way. Everybody’s waiting for you in church. I think the seamstress has a problem with your dress. But I think one of your bridesmaids has already talked to her. I think you should try to get in touch with her anyway. I still have to go to the printers because I need to have a few more invitations printed up since your groom had additional guests he had to invite at the last minute. And your father’s busy with the caterers so he can’t do it himself.”
Wait. What the F—. “Excuse me? Mom? What is this all about?”
My mother rolled her eyes at me. “Your wedding, iha. Please don’t joke with me right now. I am soo not in the mood.
I plopped down on the bed ungracefully. Did I just hear her right?
MY. WEDDING.
“My wedding? With whom?”
She looked at me exasperatingly. “Iha, this is not the time to dilly-dally. Now, chop-chop. Hurry. Everybody’s waiting for you.”
I felt like I was going through the motions as I rode the car that was bringing me to church for the rehearsal dinner. I vaguely remember hearing myself ask her again and again who I was getting married to but she took my lack of knowledge of the man I was getting married to as another one of my well-known cinematic ploys to joke and make fun of her.
“Can I take a look at the invitation, Mom?”
Maybe I can take a peep at this mystery man that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
“I don’t have a copy of it. We ran out of invitations, that’s why I have to go to the printers to have an additional batch reprinted in the first place.”
“Ma, who is this mystery groom? This isn’t a parental kind of thing, is it?”
She rolled her eyes at me again. “Oh, you! Why should I set you up with a parental? We’re not even Muslim. Stop playing these silly games with me, iha! I don’t have time to deal with this right now!”
God. I’m getting married tomorrow.
And to some stranger I don’t even know.
I tried desperately to search through my memory for my so-called groom. The most that I got was a medium-height well-built faceless guy in a black coat and tie. When my mother dropped me off at the church, I saw the line of men and women, mostly friends and relatives, waiting for my arrival. Several orange and purple flowered topiaries were lined in one side of the church. I cringed, hoping against hope that somebody will tell me that those are not for my wedding. SexyMama, one of my highschool classmates, approached me right away.
“[Mistress], there’s a problem with your dress. I’m so sorry. I’ve already talked to them and they said they can’t get you the dress you asked for to be ready by tomorrow. I know it’s my fault since I was the one who recommended you to them in the first place but they are willing though to have my old wedding dress resized to fit you and they’ll be able to deliver it to you as early as tomorrow morning.”
I just looked at her blankly. SexyMama was tall and extremely lanky. I, on the other hand, was petite and more curvy. It would take the best darn seamstress in the entire city to make me fit into her wedding gown. “I’m going to be wearing someone else’s wedding gown on my own wedding day?”
She smiled sheepishly. “Y-Yes…”
I have dreamed of my wedding my whole life and now, I’m going to be wearing someone else’s hand me down? “SexyMama, are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“I am SO sorry. The dressmakers totally underestimated the time it will take them to get all the beads and embroidery sewn into the dress. I think they only got the embroideries today so they still had to saw up the whole thing and your actual wedding dress will not be finished by tomorrow.”
“Okay…” As if I had a choice. I sighed in exasperation. “Ahmmm, SexyMama?”
“Yes?”
“Who am I marrying tomorrow?”
SexyMama rolled her eyes at me. “Stop it, [mistress]. That’s not funny. The two of you have been dating for almost two years. Don’t tell me you’ve somehow conveniently forgotten who you’re marrying tomorrow!”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to get any dish from her, I grabbed my sister’s arm as she was about to walk past us. She was busy trying to set up the entrance of the bridal entourage.
“Hey, you’re here,” my sister, SisterJ, exclaimed. “Finally, we can start the rehearsal. Places, p—“
“SisterJ, who’s my groom?”
“Oh, don’t be coy, [mistress]. We’re all too busy to go along with your lousy pre-wedding humor.”
“What the— I have no idea who I’m marrying! Can’t you just get me a copy of the invitation so that I at least know the name of this guy I’m supposed to be spending my life with, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health?”
I was freaking out, obviously. But I didn’t care.
SisterJ slapped me on the cheek. “Stop it! Get your act together. This is all just pre-wedding jitters. Why don’t you just go there and stand at the end of the line and wait for your turn to march. We’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour! We’ll start with the rehearsals. Now!”
The sting from her slap was like a cold bucket of iced water spilled on my entire body. It calmed me, yes, enough so that I was able to go through the motions of walking towards the end of the bridal entourage and waiting for my turn to march. I vaguely remember saying thanks to the friends around me who congratulated me for my wedding tomorrow.
“You must be so excited!” exclaimed Darna.
“You’ve been waiting for this all your life!” Janedoe remarked giddily.
“Who would have thought you’ll actually get married before you turn 30?” Funnyboy interrupted. “We used to think you weren’t interested in marriage until you’ve finally saturated your desire for your single blessedness.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I heard myself say to them. Like a robot. I still had no idea who I was marrying. And then I thought, They are right. I have been waiting for this for almost my entire life. Even if I somehow gave them the impression that I was okay with the relatively short durations of my many past relationships because I was still enjoying being single, at the back of my mind, I secretly longed for the long-term relationships that most of my friends had. I worried that I might become a spinster for the rest of my life. I feared that I may not get the happily ever after I’ve been dreaming of.
And then I thought, What the hell?! What girl in her right mind marries someone she doesn’t know?
So in the middle of my wedding rehearsal march, I stopped and I screamed at the top of my lungs:
“Itigil ang kasal!” (Stop the wedding!)
And then I finally woke up. It was just a really bad dream after all. Thank God.
* Parental – A Muslim custom of fixing up the marriage of one’s child to another child of another family after an agreement between the parents of both families, which includes the settlement of a certain amount of money or dowry that will be exchanged from the family of the groom to that of the bride’s in exchange for the services rendered in rearing the bride.
