the state of love and its origin

Steve Martin has to be one of my favourite actors. Comical genius-ness aside, there are few men in my mind who can sport the white wizard look and get away with it. Oddly enough, he is one of them (although George Clooney ultimately takes the calamari with his trademark salt and pepper crop and of course, who could forget Sean Connery and his own enticing shade of grey).

I’ve seen Father of the Bride dozens of times while growing up and can honestly throw one hand on my heart, the other in the air and  unashamedly admit to loving this movie. For those of you who haven’t seen it, what are you waiting for? Lace your Asics, hot foot it to your nearest JB Hi-Fi and purchase this fine example of 90s cinematic history. Bigger than Ben Hur?…er…depends who you’re asking.

Granted, the sugared almond American interpretation of the pre-wedding journey may be too much for your average cage-fighting reality tv fanatic, but personally, I love it. With the exception of Farmer Wants a Wife, the idea of lending one, let alone 30 minutes of my time to reality based TV shows like Keeping up with the Khardashians, is enough to bring me out in a rash.  For someone with a naturally sweet tooth, the more sickly bonbonaire portrayals of life are what I prefer.

My ultimate in entertainment satisfaction is achieved by watching Steve Martin jump into his pre-marital tiny tux, as opposed to an attitudinally deranged bride wielding her cake spade at any non-conforming member of the bridal party. But maybe that’s just me.

During my 26 years, the observation has been made on occassion that I live with my head in the clouds and have an unrealistic perspective on love. Perhaps I would benefit from a little more Khardashian and a little less Darcy. Admittedly I am guilty of having an overly romanticised idea of…well, romance, but I’m convinced that on this topic, I don’t stand alone. Afterall, you can’t tell me that business has ever been better for the creators of the screen-print ‘I (heart) Mr Darcy’ t-shirts. Women the world over go bananas for Jane Austen’s hero. Men admire him for more than just the length of his sideburns and women adore the idea of his character featuring in their real life adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic.

Whether it’s Mr Darcy, Father of the Bride or reality based tv portrayals of the pre-wedding journey, the reality is that most of us love it: the romance, the drama, the fanfare and the opportunity to partake in it. But is this obsession with weddings the product of nature or nurture? Does it develop over the life span as a result of continous social conditioning, through the media and conforming to role-type behaviours? Or does it come out of something less tangible, a deep-seeded intuitive drive to find a like-minded soul mate? Someone to trust and protect – who trusts, protects and loves us in return. Is it the notion of reciprocal emotion that we are attracted to? Such qualities promote security, stability and warmth, after all.

It’s only natural to want things quickly. We are an impatient and increasingly lazy species. We live in an age that is dominated by the ezy-lift recliner and Bridget Jones type portrayals of single life beyond 30 – each offering an equally bleak outlook on the future in their own right.

The good news? The unrealistic expectation of being paired up and paired off before then is socially derived and self-imposed although granted, it does make it difficult to shake the idea of where we should be in our life and when we should be there, especially when such messages are continually reinforced in movies such as Father of the Bride.

Fighting the growing urge to relegate the self to a post-apocalyptic waste-land can be difficult in the current climate but not impossible; ten squats a day, a distaste for Vodka, rejection of Bridget Jones’s premonition of ending up alone and being eaten by an Alsatian, all aided your determination to live independently in the moment. A belief system such as this may help you take life and life’s course less seriously, and allow you to enjoy your own Father of the Bride moments.

(Image credit: 1.)