My fiancé, Etienne, and I have under a month until the big day D-day. We’ve had over a year of planning, months of organising, weeks of panicking, days of cutting and gluing and ribboning. Trust me, when you plan a wedding, ribboning really does become a thing and there are moments of utter insanity.
I will never look at a menu, or napkins, or a wine farm (or my mother-in-law) in quite the same way again. If there’s one thing to scare you off divorce and incentivise you to make your marriage work, it’s the prospect of planning another wedding. All over again.
So in all of this chaos and crying and spiralling costs, downtime has become precious. And downtime with Etienne (when we’re not busy fighting over the first dance or guests’ favours) has become indescribably sacred. Which is why now, in retrospect, I’m not quite sure why we made a pact not to have sex. Well, at least not for the six months leading up to our wedding. (We’re not that virtuous.) And especially not when our wedding is timed, well, just a few days after Christmas. Talk about a way to kill the festive spirit…
It all started when my parents (and his parents) couldn’t stop banging on about how we were living in sin; how we were spoiling our wedding night (who ever had good first-time sex on their wedding night anyways?); how we were tarnishing the vows we’d one day make to one another. And no, we don’t believe any of that rubbish. But yes, we’re both a little superstitious, and a little affected by Catholic guilt. And yes, I admit, I thought that if we made a no-sex bargain, I’d wield a whole lot of you-take-out-the-garbage-before-we-do-anything power in the months following our nuptials.
But one thing that neither of us really thought about at all: that this whole no-sex thing would include the month of December. The season of merry and jolly and… naughty Santa outfits. The time of year when you actually have time to have sex. Add in the fact that passionate lovemaking is possibly the only way to smooth over pre-wedding feuds with your partner, and I think this is perhaps the worst decision Etienne and I have ever made.
So we’re back to feeling like fumbling teenagers again, not quite sure how far is too far – all the while buying each other ridiculously adult (and boring) Christmas presents like a new iron and a fancy-schmancy carpet cleaner. We’ve had to learn to talk out our disagreements about who sits where on the seating plan (yes – talk!) and find other ways to while away hours of load-shedding (thanks Eskom). On the plus side: Despite all this bizarrely-consensual abstinence, there’s something electric – and thrillingly awkward – between us now. Like those moments when we were first dating and still flirting like mad.
Yes, I’m probably having the most disappointing Festive Season ever and – dammit – a truly terrible New Year’s. And yes, I won’t get to unwrap the present I actually want to unwrap. But by heck, I’ll be feverish for that wedding night. My guests can leave the wedding reception at midnight prompt, thank you very much. After all, we’ve got a lot of making up to do – no matter how tired (!) we are.
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