Is That "I Do" or "I Did"?

No matter the dollars spent upfront or the massive US wedding industry calling the shots, when you waltz down the aisle there's a good chance your marital bliss could end in discord. What some report as a devastating trend, ruinous to family values (moral emphasis on values, not happiness), is encapsulated in the oft-touted divorce figure of 1 in 5 or its recently elevation to 2 in 5. Big hair, big dresses and big bands aside, there are an awful lot of big days gone awry. A quick snoop around eBay turns up enough wedding dresses – both second-hand and those that didn’t quite make it to the altar – to fill a David’s Bridal warehouse.

Frankly I’m surprised there isn’t a little more superstition surrounding that. A friend of mine completed the “something borrowed” tradition with a loaned wedding dress from a recently divorced friend. Sadly, it also brought her “something blue” when her marriage foundered in under a year.

Everyone from CNN to Vogue has over the past few years snorted and exhorted over the spiraling costs of the average US wedding (an estimate that ranges from $24,000-$40,000 depending on your source). More quietly, but thoughtfully armed with a big stick, the push toward marriage equality was gaining traction in the wings. (Mostly fueled by the noble pursuit of human rights rather than tulle or a wedding checklist on TheKnot.com.) The nattering naybobs vehemently opposing gay marriage envisioned the bill to be as virulently catastrophic to the sanctity of marriage as a medieval plague. Now, with its safe passage into law, the worrywarts should look on the bright side. Most of New York's first-into-the fray newlywed gays have been together longer than many heterosexual marriages last. At this rate they may quickly sway marriage statistics for the better. Family values rejoice!

I recently read that divorce parties are gaining in popularity, mostly in California where so many extraordinary trends take root. (We can thank sunny CA for Suzanne Somers’ Thigh Master and the Atkins diet, for starters.) Divorce parties themselves are, of course, not new. Divorce invitations and cakes (often complete with a livid cake topper bride trampling on her ex-) have entered the realm of availability although if I haven’t, so far, been invited to any actual parties. And now there’s a new breed in town. Company-run divorce parties, perhaps building on the success of so many clutter buster businesses and television shows, are hinged on an A-Z model, from initial consult to final sale. Sympathetic ladies in shining armour swoop into the divorcee’s home to help her to unclog her fabulous single self from the memory-provoking trappings of the marital home. The newly-ex keeps only the items that represent her true, future self and parts ways with the rest. Out with the old, in with the new.

Of course, since you’d have to be financially able to call them in in the first place, it stands to reason that the type of loot is something worth passing on. After the cathartic cleansing, the company arranges the party, a glorified private tent sale where people can snap up designer bargains. As it happens, there will be four winners: the buyers who pick up clothes, jewelry, and furniture for a fraction of their cost; the divorcee who makes some easy moolah, the divorce party company that takes a percentage and, wait for it, charities of choice. Yes, just to keep the karmic ball rolling in their favour, a designated percentage of the profits are earmarked for one or more charities. Take the actress, Kim Basinger, who sold her jewels and gave the profits to an animal shelter after divorcing Alec Baldwin. So what if it was one of the nastiest protracted celebrity divorces in recent memory? (Until Paul McCartney was taken to the cleaners by Heather Mills, that is.) At least we can rest assured that when one marriage fails another charity is counting its blessings.

All this hoopla over marital sanctity and divorce coagulated in my mind when my vacationing family exited the Oak Bluffs carousel. A comical tribe of young bachelorette partiers had been poured into their ‘LBD’s with mixed results, and were sporting the type of five inch heels more typically seen on drag queens. While we were stared, one pulled a Naomi, toppling from her stacked heels but saving her ankle from snapping in half at just the last minute. The bride-to-be was being helped along by an amorous male friend. I gave the marriage six months.

Don’t get me wrong. Bachelorette parties are by now as much a right of passage as the supposedly risqué, often tame by comparison, bachelor parties. With girls are dishing out the almighty dollar for male strippers, novelty straws and gummy worms shaped like body parts, I’m guessing the market, like the wedding industry, is only going to continue to grow. Luckily for me, with an October wedding looming, I’ve been invited to the bachelor party. Not because I’m any better friends with the groom, but simply because groom and groom are looking forward to making honest men of each other.