There’s a reason no Hollywood film has ever had a wedding in the opening scene. Movies end with weddings, and we call them romantic comedies. If a movie began with a wedding, it’d be a horror film. A film where statistically speaking one hundred well-meaning couples enter the haunted house of monogamy and less than fifty come out alive.

Til death do us part. It’s a morbid contract no company would ever be so foolish to enter into. We’re going to keep being around each other until one of us is dead.

The outlandishness of this pact is covered up by the glamour of a big wedding. Standing at the altar, we have no sense of the marathon journey that lies ahead. It will be played out over the years as we choose a thousand times whether to stay connected to each other or connect to something else.

Hollywood is smart not to stick around to see what happens after the ceremony. There’s nothing dramatic, nothing Oscar worthy in these mundane moments of sharing life together.

Instead we have the drama of a wedding dangled in front of us like meat on a hook. We are sold the fizz of bubbling champagne and smiles of happy friends. There is romance in the air. It’s a beautiful day and everyone’s getting emotional.

But do you notice the cracks around the edges of these picture-perfect occasions? These beautiful and elaborate weddings must cost a fortune: the venue, the photos, the flowers, food, caterer, DJ, custom made dresses, and decorations. The out of pocket expenses will have the bride’s parents moonlighting at the local Taco Bell drive thru, just to make it through the winter.

Fancy cakes, exotic destinations, invitations to every living soul they’ve ever come into contact with, no wonder these weddings are a leading cause of bankruptcy. The poor bridesmaids pay out the wazoo for custom dresses they’ll never wear again and rare makeup that’ll end up in a box. They attend a bachelorette party at an Airbnb 900 miles away near some dumb winery the bride picked out.

The groom, being the degenerate scumbag that he is, has the audacity to get drunk with his buddies the night before the ceremony at their poorly timed bachelor party. The next morning, they force feed him Gatorade and ibuprofen tablets in the parking lot of the hotel before heading over to get hitched.

Instead of throwing petals, the flower girl should come down the aisle waving a gigantic red flag, for the warning signs are there. Turn back now, this isn’t a rom-com!

The decision to get married is not offensive to me, but these over the top weddings are. It’s like giving an Olympic gold medal to a middle schooler who just finished their first track meet. You don’t deserve some big celebration! You haven’t even done anything yet!

Compare the pomp of these weddings with the simplicity of a “renewal of the vows” ceremony I attended several years ago. The couple had been married for ten years and wanted to publicly declare they’d do it all over again. It was a threadbare occasion; the ceremony was in a park and people could walk around during the vows. Kids were running around and playing throughout, as we listened to their vows and had a small piece of cake in a nearby pavilion afterwards.

It occurred to me that this couple deserved a big party, not those above-mentioned jokers! They’d survived ten years in the haunted house and chose to keep hanging around each other. But instead a big blowout they just headed home afterwards and were glad for a few quiet hours away from the kids.

Maybe we need to start hazing couples, weeding out the weak ones who are only there for a slice of cake. Give them a little preview of the haunted house.

Instead of wedding bells, let’s get one of those bells that failed Navy SEALS candidates ring when they can take no more. We can put the bell on the set of a Survivor-esque show called “Who Wants to Get Married?” where dating couples compete for the prize of an all-expenses paid over-the-top wedding. But instead of being filmed in Fiji, the show takes place in Findlay, Ohio mid-February. The couples trade in their trendy dating clothes for parkas from Costco and “perfectly good” hand-me-down khakis from their uncle.

Then they do their best to complete the challenges, things like trying to leave your house but your car keys are buried under a metric ton of unfolded laundry or being locked in an escape room with a self-absorbed and unhelpful teenager who thinks you’re a moron.

At the end of it all, only a few couples will emerge and be deranged enough to still go through with the ceremony. But the television audiences will have long since switched the channel, even reality tv can only abide so much reality.

If that’s too outlandish, maybe we just simply rewrite the timeline of a marriage. Like a Hollywood rom-com marriage really would end with a big wedding, but you’d have to put in several decades together to get there. We treat the years a couple has been together like prize tickets at Chucky Cheese, as you amass more and more you can turn them in for better prizes. Example:

Day of the wedding: You are allowed 10 guests, the budget is $500. You exchange toy rings from the candy dispensers at Walmart. No honeymoon.

1 Year Anniversary: Congratulations, you’ve earned a honeymoon to Frankenmuth, Michigan, home of the world’s largest Christmas store, a fun place to putz around and buy cute knick knacks.

5 Year Anniversary: Congratulations, you’ve earned a fancy wedding cake! Though I doubt you’ll be smearing it on each other’s faces because that’s a waste of perfectly good cake. Instead you’ll have a piece and put what’s left into a Tupperware your carry with you at all times in your purse.

10 Year Anniversary: Everyone you know signs up for a registry, but instead gives you cash because at this point you may have kids and be TOTALLY BROKE.

25 Year Anniversary: Congratulations, you’ve earned a BIG OUTLANDISH ceremony! If you want to whine and moan about how nothing less than a $6,000 engagement ring will convince you that you are loved - feel free! You’re quickly approaching the right to feel entitled.

50 Year Anniversary: Congratulations, you can do whatever you want! Be a total Bridezilla or Dirtbag Groom! Act out, get drunk or have a total meltdown. Walk around crying and screaming at people! Shout in their faces “THIS IS MY DAY!!!” Spend money like today is your last day on earth. We’ll all give you a pass because you’ve been in the haunted house for five decades and clearly need to blow off some steam. After all, it’s your special day and this only happens once.

***

On my wedding day I thought I was “madly” in love. Perhaps I was. After all, delusion is a form of madness.

Or maybe I was simply “narcotically” in love. What the poets call “love”, medical professionals call “dopamine” and it was all around us that day as we took our lifelong vows. But as any couple will tell you, wait for that drug to wear off and you’ll wake up in mid-Winter Findlay. That’s the point you’ll know how deep this love really is.

I’d argue the longer we’re together, the madder we are. Two lovers looking into each other’s eyes, knowing the cracks and the blemishes, the pitfalls and the downsides. But somehow it all seems worth it just to be together. I’d quite literally rather be dead, than be away from you, so let’s stick around and keep hoarding these Chucky Cheese tickets for another year.

A reality infested, cake-less haunted house this may be, but being with you it feels like a real paradise.

Til Death Do Us Part