Marriage is a beautiful thing that changes your life! For example, I used to eat cheese off of a regular plate, but now that I’m getting married I’ll eat it off of a bamboo board in the shape of California. And, even though I’ve spent the past twenty years pouring cream from the paper carton directly into my coffee mug, going forward, that cream will make a pit stop in the belly of a small white ceramic cow.
Oh! That reminds me. I’m going to start spinning my salad now. So I need a salad spinner. Single people don’t spin their salads. They just let them sit, stationary. Like idiots. Married people take their salads for a ride before dinner. (If someone’s already snagged the white one off the registry, I’ll take a second one, in lime green.)
Keep using the silverware we bought three years ago? Um, let me ask you this: How broke’s your brain? Now that we’re getting married, we need all new silverware, and it needs to be the kind that our friends and family paid for. With fancy little embellishments that look and feel weird but make a fork cost double what it should—so we know you really love us.
We’ve never once invited anyone over to our studio apartment, but now we’re going to start hosting fancy dinner parties on a weekly basis. They’ll be Zoom dinner parties, of course, so we won’t actually need more than two settings, but we’ll still take forty charger plates, because that’s what married people do and also because we want to make sure the cousins have something on the list that they can afford.
While we’re on the subject of things I need: fifteen crystal champagne flutes. Actually, make it an even forty, because I plan to break twenty-five of them almost immediately. If I don’t get the flutes, what will I keep on the highest shelf in my kitchen? The one you need a step stool to reach? Make sure to get us a step stool, too. We have one, but not the kind that married people use.
Don’t get me started on the bread maker, which I also need. Once I’m married, I’ll get up every morning at 6 A.M. and start making bread. I swear to God. Throw in an apron that says “Kiss the Baker.” And maybe a couple of those paper hats that bakers wear? I think we have room to store at least twenty toques under the sink.
Oh, shit. I almost forgot that I need a pizza stone and a pizza peel and a second apron that says “Kiss the Pizza Chef.” I hate pizza, but we need at least a few things from the “International Dining” section of Bed Bath & Beyond or else our marriage won’t last. And get us a gravy boat. A yacht, if they have it. And a set of extremely sharp knives. You know the type. The kind that’ll cut a penny clean in half. Married people are always cutting pennies.
Let me also get a giant porcelain bowl. It’s got to be different from the punch bowl, which I also need. Sorry—we also need. The giant porcelain bowl should be the type of bowl that sits in its original cardboard box collecting dust until my future children finally take it out while preparing for my estate sale and think to themselves, I bet our parents used this bowl for a lot of fun times. Nope. Never touched it.
Don’t forget about my big metal tray! I want it to be as long as my coffee table and as wide as my coffee table and, when I unwrap it, it should be so shiny that I can see my reflection. Then I will never, ever clean it under any circumstances. I’ll look at it in a few years and say, “Wow, I didn’t know something could get so tarnished.” What’s the tray for? Maybe holding fruit! Literally doesn’t matter. The world is my fucking oyster.
And throw in a sewing machine, just in case. I’ve never sewn anything, because why would I when fast fashion is so affordable? But I can use it as a doorstop. Actually, you know what? I’ll donate it to Goodwill.
Thank you in advance for spending an in-person-wedding amount of money on my virtual wedding, which is only going to be forty minutes long because I didn’t upgrade to a premium Zoom account. And don’t forget that I have a year to send a thank-you note, but I might need a second year because I’ll be so busy jamming all my new stuff into a storage unit down by the river. See you (virtually) in June (for forty minutes)!
