Premarital Hermiting

For anyone getting married soon, I have two words for you: Premarital Hermiting. What does that mean? It means that if you're getting married in the next few months, you must lock yourself in your house and stop meeting people until after the wedding. 

Why must I stop meeting people, you ask? Because anyone you meet now will present a huge problem for your wedding guest list. Don’t agree? Consider this example: Let’s say a new woman starts working in your office. She seems nice enough. She starts joining you and your work friends at your lunch table in the cafeteria. Of course, one of the popular topics of conversation is your upcoming wedding. Let’s say your wedding is a month away and invitations have already gone out. Let’s say that all the other people at your lunch table have been invited because you’ve worked with them for a minimum of one year and they’ve been along for the ride with all the ups and downs when you were still dating the guy who would become your fiancé. 

What do you do? Should you invite this new woman to your wedding? You’ve known her for all of a week, and every person at your reception will cost $40 for food and drinks, not to mention messing up seating charts that have already been figured out. But if you don’t invite her, discussions about the wedding will get progressively more uncomfortable as the event looms. Then afterward, there will be conversations about what went on at the wedding, again calling attention to the woman’s exclusion.

So let’s say you decide to invite her. Do you mail an invitation to her? You don’t know her address. You don’t even know what town she lives in. Does she have a significant other, and does she get a “plus 1”? Do you bring an invitation to work and hand it to her? Then you run the risk that she won’t look too pleased about getting an invitation to spend an entire Saturday with a (nearly) complete stranger AND be expected to buy a gift? Will she offer some lame excuse right then and there in front of the rest of the lunch table? How embarrassing! 

What if you invite her and she says yes, then in another week, she starts sitting with a different group of people at a different lunch table? It happens. She’s new at the company and might still be looking for a group of people who she “clicks” with. Then what? Do you rescind the invitation since the two of you aren’t really “friends” anymore? Or do you assume she won’t come since you’re not work friends anymore and write her off? Or do you figure she’ll come, but everyone you know from work will feel weird about it because they don’t want to hang with someone at a wedding who can’t be bothered to spend time with them at work? 

Problems like these don’t just crop up at work, either. What about a new neighbor? A new addition to your book group? Your yoga class? Anytime you have a tight-knit group that suddenly adds a new member to its ranks, it will cause you trouble if it happens too near to your wedding.

So what can you do?

Starting approximately three months before your wedding day, stay in the house. Take a leave of absence from work. Don’t go outside, and don’t allow anyone you don’t already know to come inside. No, your maid of honor can’t drop by to introduce you to her cousin from Ireland. No, you can’t give your mother and her new pal from senior aerobics class a ride to the mall. That senior aerobics buddy will end up on your guest list faster than you can say, “Per-plate cost,” and when she and your mom stop speaking to each other a week before your wedding, your mother will tell you, “Well, I never liked her and I don’t know why you invited her in the first place.”

Trust me, you’ll be so much happier if you just turn yourself into a hermit in the months leading up to your wedding. There will be plenty of time to make new friends after you’re married. And think how relieved all of them will be to learn that they escaped having to buy you a wedding gift! This new concept can be called “premarital hermiting.” It’s sure to be the newest trend for smart brides and grooms. 

You can thank me later—after your wedding, of course.