Victim of Love

« This poor lycra-clad bastard is about to get married but only after he dresses up and sells sexy photos of his lycra-clad self to giggling onlookers having a beer. He is a polttarit victim. »

I'm not really sure why every time that I mention to people that Jarkko and I had the best wedding ever when we eloped to Las Vegas they either giggle or have a look of disbelief as though only drunk celebs, drunk white trash or drunk white trash celebs got married in Las Vegas. I have three older sisters and two of them had frightfully expensive weddings which included the usual mind-numbing details such as dresses, catering, etc. and, by the time the wedding day came, they were too tired and stressed to really enjoy it. Some do the big wedding out of vanity, some do it out of tradition, but I've never quite understood the value of spending $60k or more on one event whose main purpose is to impress the mother-in-law, immediate family and those attending.

Eloping to Vegas was fun. I remain rather disappointed that Jarkko drew the line at my vision of going to the drive-thru chapel service in a classic convertible with Tom Jones in the back singing Sex Bomb, but saving the whole circus that is the modern wedding was worth eloping to the blinking neon oasis for under $1000. We drove through the southwest for a week afterwards for our honeymoon of sorts before heading to a conference we attended every year. I don't think I've entirely forgiven him for commenting that 'If you've seen one sandstone formation you've seen them all.' somewhere in the middle of Arizona as I had already seen the southwest but thought that it might be fun to show him around and considered leaving him on the side of the highway enroute to the nearest spa hotel. Somehow, he managed to remain inside the vehicle and live. We even recently celebrated our fourth anniversary. :)

A bonus of elopement is no bridal shower and no stag or hen parties or, as they're called in Finland, polttarit. It seems to be a very popular form of torture for Finnish guys to dress up the groom-to-be in something really rather unflattering and parade them around downtown for maximum humiliation while trying to unload something onto people with enough pity to buy up what they have and get them off the hook for the evening. One guy a while back tried to sell me a rather unimpressive selection of porn tapes while wearing a sombrero and a cape. It was pretty hilarious but I still think it's an odd form of cruelty to make a guy do this to prove he's willing to walk down the aisle. I suppose, too, it's just a good excuse to get drunk, wear lycra or women's underwear, amuse the adults and scare small children, but friends should not let friends sell photos of themselves wearing a lycra leotard in a cool breeze for pocket change to random beer drinking strangers on terraces as someday, when the guy runs for political office, the picture will resurface and it will appear in the paper with the word "shrinkage?" underneath.

Las Vegas is a lot more fun where the only ones wearing lycra are the Elvis impersonators. Elope before it's too late! :)