First, allow me to admit that I’m an awful decision-maker. I’m quite possibly the worst decision-maker in the whole world, and that is no casual boast.
For example, I will totally forgo having a meal if I can’t decide what to eat, because copping out is just easier. I could write a whole post about this affliction of mine but I can’t decide whether I should.
Well, let’s just say that a long history of bad decisions on my part has led to crippling fear and inability in the area.
So, this wedding thing has plagued me for two months now. Piers and I were married quietly in Singapore on 7 October 2013. We planned to have a wedding in England on 14 June 2014. I planned to start planning the wedding once I returned to England on 21 November 2013.
Every day I sat down and did research and thought about what I wanted for my wedding: dress, invitation cards, cake, type of food, etc. After a month of doing this, a great mounting fear overwhelmed me. I was never going to get anything done because I couldn’t decide on literally ANYTHING.
I couldn’t decide which invitation card design to pick. I couldn’t decide what type of necklace to wear. I couldn’t decide whether to have champagne at the ceremony or later. I couldn’t decide what bloody time to start the wedding.
Piers, seeing how stressed I was, said, “We don’t have to have the wedding, you know. There’s no point spending loads of money on it if we’re gonna be all stressed and not enjoy it.”
So I started giving that option serious thought.
Every day for a month, I thought about it. I discussed it with Piers, with my friends, with his parents. Everyone gave a lot of suggestions and ideas. They helped, and they didn’t. Because, in the end, WE still had to decide stuff ourselves.
One moment I was convinced I wanted it, the next I was convinced I didn’t. Every day, I got more and more stressed that the deadline was looming and everything’s going to be fully booked by the time I decide I want it.
We drew up a pros and cons list and assigned scores to every item on the list. The cons ended up with double the points. Pro: 400, Cons: 825.
The main pro is that it’s our once in a lifetime special day to share with family and friends, and mine are flying all the way to England for that.
The main cons are stress and cost. Even the most basic celebration would cost £8,000. (An average wedding in England costs £20,000.) We find it hard to justify spending any money on a wedding when we are in fact already married, plus we’re also planning to buy a new house and move out at the same time.
Still, even with the scores so clear cut, it was very hard to just say no and scrap the whole thing. And Piers refused to make any final decision because he said weddings are a girl thing so I should have the last say. (He’s as good as I at copping out.)
Then, a week ago, I told myself, “Enough of this tomfoolery! I MUST DECIDE BY TOMORROW.”
To my credit, tomorrow came and I decided yes, we must do it because I don’t want to regret not ever doing it!
When Piers got home, I told him, “Yeah, by the way, I’ve decided we should do the wedding.”
His response was totally unexpected. He said, “WHAT? When did you decide?!”
“This afternoon!” I said.
“What! Why didn’t you tell me!”
“I’m telling you now!”
“Oh no, now I’m stressed!”
Then he started going through all the cons again (which did have higher marks).
I rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, let’s NOT do the wedding. I’m so cool with that.”
He said, “No! We can’t!”
“WTF.”
Long story short, it turns out he’s so undecided himself he can’t even accept a decision from me no matter which option I pick. And he also succeeded in making me unmake my decision so I felt fickle all over again.
Do we deserve a Guinness Award for the most indecisive couple ever, or what.
He wanted more time to think about it, so I gave him time. Days passed. We didn’t make any serious effort at deciding because it was just too difficult. We gave ourselves a deadline for decision. The deadline came and went and no decision was made.
The day after the deadline, when I pressed him, he told me I needed to give my answer first, then he’ll decide whether to go along.
I told him that I had decided first the last time, so it’s his time to decide first, now.
He said, “Seriously, I’m more or less 50-50 on it.”
I said, “Well, me too!”
Then, he said, “Let’s toss a coin tonight. It’s the only way we can ever decide.”
I said, “Okay.”
And that was how we ended up deciding that the best way to decide whether to have a wedding or not is to toss a coin.
To be continued (after coin toss)…
