Bouquet Tradition Should Be Tossed Out

Also available on the Calgary Herald Q

I went to a wedding this weekend and there was no bouquet toss. Being the only two single women at the wedding, my friend and I expelled a HUGE sigh of relief. The bouquet toss for the thirty-somethings is the equivalent of getting a cheek-pinching from an ancient relative who doesn’t realize that you’re too old and it’s no longer appropriate.



One of my friends mentioned that there has been no bouquet toss at the last three weddings she has been to. Hallelujah. Hopefully this means that this horrible tradition is on its way out the window.

You know who loves the bouquet toss? Old, married people.

We single women are there, same as you, to support the union, celebrate the newly-married couples’ joy and get our groove on. But what was once seen as a fun and playful tradition seems to me to have turned into a cringing moment of agony where thoughtless and inconsiderate relatives elbow you and follow it up with “Hey, you’re single.” Jabjabjab. “Head on up there.” Pokepokepoke. Like we needed the reminder.

And then they look at you with that what-are-you-waiting-for look. You know the one—with the popped-out eyes and ridiculous grin and frantically shaking head. They can’t possibly imagine why we aren’t rushing the stage to be the very *lucky* girl who gosh-darn and shucks, might get her grubby little paws on that bouquet.

Dontcha know that it means that you are going to be the next to get married?! What’s not to like? You’re single, arentcha’?

Actually Aunt Ida, I am having casual and unprotected sex with a variety of different men, so I don’t really consider myself single.

I was joking with the bride that maybe she should throw wilted, dried flowers for all us spinsters in the crowd. As if to say, "these flowers are past their prime, you know. Just like you."

The times they are a changin’ and women are waiting until they are older to get married. Like my friend pointed out: the bouquet toss is fine when you’re 19 and half the crowd is single. But any bride over thirty is playing with fire. The last thing your female guests in their late-twenties and early thirties want is a bright, flashing neon sign reminding them of their destitution. Not that we see it that way, but the slanty heads and the furrowed brows from unnecessarily sympathetic onlookers is one thing single women everywhere are *happy* to avoid. Yes folks, let’s round up all the hunchback, hair-lipped second-cousins and herd them like cattle to the centre of a crowded room and see if we have any takers. Can we start the bidding off at Fifty? Do I hear Twenty-Five?

We don’t need your pity. And we sure as hell don’t need your bouquet either.

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