Considering that you can now get married in Starbucks if you so fancy, it’s fairly safe to say that when it comes to nuptials pretty much anything goes. So when bad ass woman, Yasmin Eleby, from San Antonio Texas, went through with her pledge to marry herself if she couldn’t find anyone else worth marrying before she turned 40, the internet pretty much went, right on, lady.
And right on indeed. Eleby wore a fabulous purple frock, cut her own huge cake and had all of her favourite people in the room to witness her supreme sense of self.
While it’s not yet legal to marry yourself in Texas (WHY?!) Eleby had her minister sister officiate the ceremony.
On Facebook Eleby had this to say:
“I’m doing so many things that I only dreamed about and never thought would be possible. I want to encourage each of you to spread your wings and fly! You are not too old and it’s not too late to try something different, learn a new skill, travel to exciting places, etc….Don’t be afraid to take risks. Thank you once again to each and every person that took the time out of their busy schedule to help me celebrate turning 40! A special thanks to all of my beautiful sisters, sorority sisters, and friends that stood up with me.”
These are the kind of vows that we can get behind.
Eleby isn’t the first person to marry herself. Nadien Schweigert, another American woman who married herself told TV host Anderson Cooper of her decision,
“I feel very empowered, very happy, very joyous … I want to share that with people, and also the people that were in attendance, it’s a form of accountability.”
Meanwhile British woman Grace Gelder said that promising herself to, er, herself has given a much better sense of who she is as a person.
“My self-married status – meaningless though it may remain in the eyes of the law – has also given me this great sense of clarity. I seem to sense much more clearly than before if something is worth pursuing or best left alone,” she wrote in the Guardian.
An enterprising American couple have even come up with a ready made kit for self weddings called Self-Wedding-In-A-Box, where for US $300 you get a ring, some vows and a daily affirmation to keep the flame of self-love alive.
For Bonnie Powers, one half of the (married) couple behind the idea, it’s about maintaining your self-worth, even when you feel crummy,
“It’s one thing to think about yourself and say ‘I know I’m special’ but that doesn’t always last. When life throws you stuff that isn’t easy to deal with, you can [look at the ring and] remember, ‘I’m solid, I’m good, I’m worthy,'” she told the Daily Mail.
It’s easy to dismiss the idea of marrying yourself as a little narcissistic, but when you consider how much of the wedding industry is fuelled by appealing to our inner narcissist, well, it kind of makes sense. Plus, without all the fraught tensions that comes with merging two families and friendship groups under one roof with a free bar, you’re just left with a really fun party.
Besides, as every person in a relationship will tell their single friends, you can’t love someone else until you love yourself, so why not make it official and put a ring (of your choosing!) on it?
Oh, and don’t think that Yasmin Eleby is going to miss out on the best part of getting married: the honeymoon. She’s taking herself on a holiday to Cambodia, Laos and Dubai next year, where she will have the king bed entirely to herself.
