To a wedding

Just returned from a wedding ceremony and reception, the first one I attended since 2016.

Weddings have gained notoriety in the summer of 2020, as several of them were hotbeds of COVID-19 infections, leading to several participants being quarantined and some, sadly, hospitalised or deceased. Needless to say, a wedding is the last event during which a sanitary regime can be stuck to. I turned up there fully aware of risk and supposing that most guests (especially those who do not reside in Warsaw or around) have not been vaccinated. Well, hopefully with still low daily stats of new cases, we have not run across a super-spreader.

The one to get married was my girlfriend’s cousin. The nuptials ceremony was called off two times and finally the day named as restrictions eased. It was the first wedding since many years in their family, hence the excitement was palpable. For me, truth be told, such events are a no big deal I do not feel tempted to have my own memorable, lavish reception. Instead, I prefer a modest ceremony for family and friends. Besides, spending between fifty and one hundred thousand zloty for a one-night show appears to me as a far bigger waste of money than buying a SUV (though a wedding does not harm environment as an SUV does over its life cycle).

The wedding we attended was a typical zastaw się, a postaw się (literally run into debts to impress guests) one, albeit the expense was decreased by the venue of the reception which was in the middle of nowhere somewhere beyond Wyszków (fortunately, close to S8 expressway, whose proximity guarantee a fast comeback in the middle of the night).

I must admit this was the most weird wedding reception I have ever attended. As a company to my girlfriend, I knew nobody except for her, her mother, brother and his girlfriend, but truth be told, most guests seemed to know nobody except for their closest companions. On top, my girlfriend and her relatives shared my opinion nearly everybody had turned up to the reception treated their attendance as an unpleasant obligation to be ticked off and left behind. This was visible particularly on a dancing floor, where droves of people definitely were not witnessed. Also most people pushed along just after midnight to put themselves out of misery and return home early enough not to spend the entire Sunday morning sleeping off the event.

I wonder how many couples manage to tie a knot before restrictions are imposed again, if the Polish government decides (or is forced to) to bring some businesses to a halt if hospitalisations and death toll on account of COVID-19 begin to rise. Look at the approach of the British government which is set to lift all restrictions in a week, despite more than 30,000 new infections daily reported recently, with hospital admissions just creeping up (they rose 3 times, while new infections rose 16 times since trough in early May 2021) and deaths holding low thanks to vaccinating the 50+.