‘Marry Me’ by Aliya Ali-Afzal

24th May 2024

‘Is your fiancé not joining us? Not to worry, lots of grooms don’t come to the first appointment. Or is he just running late?’

Claire, the wedding planner, smiled, her blue eyes as clear as the Spring sky outside. She put an A4 notebook on the table.

I hadn’t expected this to be the first question. When I didn’t reply, her forehead wrinkled with concern. She had the opposite of a poker face.

‘Is everything OK?’

I nodded and sipped my coffee. I needed to tell Claire what I was planning but I didn’t know how. I had rushed to Richmond Park for this meeting, after sorting out a wrong delivery from the fabric supplier for my furniture shop and tried to summon up the energy needed for this conversation.

Although I was used to giving my ‘speech’ about my unconventional wedding plans, it was exhausting dealing with people’s reactions, which ranged from curiosity and confusion on a good day, to outright ridicule or disgust. I had contemplated explaining everything to the wedding planner in an email before we met, but I wasn’t sure if she would take on the job or even turn up if I had.

The café was right in the middle of Richmond Park and knowing that there was nothing but greenery around us for miles, I felt my shoulders relaxing a little. I imagined the slow saunter of the deer wandering the park, the trees that seemed as old as time itself, and the pond where we used to picnic when we were small, my sisters and me flying butterfly kites afterwards. I took a deep breath. I could do this.

‘Actually, there will be no groom at this wedding,’ I said.

Claire’s ponytail bounced.

‘Ah! Say no more! I’ve done lots of same sex marriages.’

She opened her notebook and wrote ‘Two brides, no groom’ and then said it out loud too.

I looked around to see if anyone could hear our conversation but the cafe at Pembroke Lodge buzzed with Friday afternoon chatter and people seemed much more intent on eating their scones and clotted cream than paying attention to us.

I shook my head.

‘No, I’m not marrying another woman, I …’

Claire cried out in dismay.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made assumptions. Is your fiancé “they/ them”?  Let me fix this.’

She crossed out ‘Two brides. No groom’ and wrote “Partner”.

Outside the large Georgian windows, I could see the patio with the  round metal tables, where Mum and I used to sit for our monthly cream tea dates.  The trees she loved like old friends, were the sort of plump baby green that you only get for a few weeks in May and the flower beds looked like a Monet painting, not empty, as they had been when Mum and I were last here, in November.

‘So, a sunset wedding on a boat, sailing from Richmond to Henley. Lovely! Whose idea was it, you, or your partners?’ said Claire.

I leaned forwards. I had to tell her.

‘Actually, I need to explain something about who I’m marrying. You see…’

‘Please don’t worry. I’m very open-minded. I don’t care how people identify themselves. Love is all that matters! You don’t need to explain anything.’

She was wrong. She had no idea how much explaining I had to do.

Mum was the first person I told about my unconventional idea, right here in Richmond Park. As we talked, a bride appeared near the patio, and we watched her go into Pembroke Lodge, which was also a wedding venue.

‘It’s a good omen! A sign you’re doing the right thing,’ Mum smiled.

I had been relieved, and she had been excited.

Now, it felt as if she was sitting in the café with me and Claire, nudging me with her elbow as if to say, ‘Go on, tell her!’

‘Claire, I need to clear something up. I’m not marrying another person; I’m getting married to myself!’

Claire’s eyes widened.

‘I don’t understand. Is this an actual wedding or something ironic, like Carrie in Sex and The City when Carrie said she was marrying herself to get some shoes?’

‘A bit like that,’ I said. ‘Except I am getting married for real. I want a public commitment to myself, and celebrate it too. Vows, dinner, DJ, bouquet- I want a proper wedding, but just to me.’

‘Is that legal?’ Claire’s black lashes blinked like clouds over her sky-clear eyes.

I sighed inwardly.

When I told my sister Amber, who was in her first year of university, she arched her micro bladed eyebrows at me and also said, ‘Is that even legal?’

‘I don’t think it’s illegal,’ I replied. ‘Personally, I think it should absolutely be legal, maybe with some tax breaks and not having to pay singles-supplements in hotels.’

We had laughed.

‘Well, you were always a bit weird so go for it. Mum’s chemo will be over by then and it will cheer her up. What are you going to wear? Will I be a bridesmaid?’ she said, accepting  it all as only a Gen Z could have.

My other sister, Tanya, was less enthusiastic.

‘I’m the eldest. I should have the first wedding in the family. And it’s not even a wedding so what on earth are you doing? It’s silly.’

She had been with her boyfriend for four years and wanted him to propose. I had wondered if I should wait until after Tanya’s wedding, but then I thought about Mum, whose time was limited. I wanted her with me.

Mum had loved my plan. In fact, it was because of her that I got the idea in the first place. One day, as we watched Selling OC and ate spag bol when she was home from the hospital, she said that she had finally figured out the secret to a happy life.

‘A pity I’m only realising how to live life properly when I’m at the end of mine,’ she joked and I had laughed too, my throat thick with tears.

‘OK, so tell me. Maybe I can benefit from this wisdom then,’ I said.

‘When I was growing up, the goal was always to meet a man who would love me and look after me, and then have children who would love me and look after me. It wasn’t that different for men either, the end goal was always marriage, so you weren’t lonely, or alone. But when I got cancer, I realised that somewhere in all this, we should have been told that first and foremost, we need to look after ourselves,’ she paused and laid her head back on the sofa.

I let her rest for a moment. She took my hand.

‘You have all been such a joy in my life, and made me feel so loved and cared for, but the truth is, that when I got sick, it was just me who had to fight the terror and cope with the effects of the chemo. It was only me who had to deal with my marriage breaking up in the middle of all that. Of course, it’s such a comfort to have you three girls with me but ultimately, it was me who had to find my way through, and no one tells you that.’

‘So, what would you have done differently?’ I said.

‘Well, if I had been told this, I would have been prepared for it. I wouldn’t have automatically outsourced my happiness to another person and believed they could take my pain and worries away. Only I can overcome that. I would have invested more time in me, nurtured myself more, made myself stronger, paid more attention to myself. I brought you girls up in the same way, telling you that you will fall in love, and someone will look after you, but I was wrong. Of course I hope you all fall in love and meet someone, and they will of course look after you, but your first relationship, even when you’re married should be with yourself.’

I had watched as my father left mum in the middle of chemo and how she was alone in her hospital bed when we went home, and alone when she wrote goodbye letters to the people she loved. She was also the one who made a list of all the things that she wanted to do for herself with me and my sisters, like sitting in the sun in Richmond Park, eating fish and chips and cloud-gazing in the endless sky there.

When we spotted the bride at Pembroke Lodge, the idea came to me in  a flash.

‘Mum, I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. When I get married, it will be because I’m in love with someone, but I want to take charge of my own happiness myself. We talk about self-care and not needing men to complete us, but I think we should commit to ourselves formally, just like people take vows at a wedding. We can have a sort of wedding and celebrate it!’ I said.

She loved the idea and wanted me to have my ‘wedding’ after her chemo, so she could give me away, to me.

Claire’s face flushed pink as I talked about Mum.

‘I love this so much. Your mum was right!’ she said. ‘Have you finalised the guest list?’

I nodded.

‘Only twenty-five.’

It hadn’t been hard to decide who was coming. Mum’s eldest sister, Yasmeen Aunty was easy to disinvite. She had gripped my shoulders, almost shaking me when she realised that I was serious.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I won’t let you make a fool of yourself in front of everyone. It just looks desperate. What are you going to do when you want to get married for real? Divorce yourself?’ she said.

 She had suggested that I hadn’t got over my parents’ breakup or Mum’s death and what I really needed was some therapy at a healing retreat.

‘I’ll pay for it. On second thoughts, if you have money to burn on some fiasco play wedding, then you can pay for the therapy yourself.’

I handed Claire my list, which had other names missing, too, such as Sam, who had been a friend since university and married young. He said that my plan was a threat to the future of the world. I had laughed.

‘Sam, it’s a party for me to celebrate my own commitment to my happiness. How is that hurting anyone?’

‘I know you’re a feminist and all, but this is taking things too far. Is this the future then? No need for partners of any kind and all babies born via sperm donation. What if men don’t want to only be used for their genetic material. Will women like you hunt them down and forcibly take their sperm?’ It’s dangerous and dystopian.’

As Claire and I walked to the car park, she told me she would send me links to cakes, bouquets and details of viewing boats. We walked down the path where I had pushed Mum in her wheelchair to our car the last time I came to Richmond Park with her. She said the park had an energy that she could feel seeping into her, like a vitamin infusion, and the sight of antlers amongst rugby players was something she never took for granted. Mum had left me her emerald ring, the first piece jewellery she bought herself with her first furniture  commission. She wanted me to wear it when I made my vow to love myself, be true unto myself, to be kind to myself, forever and ever.

Claire stopped and took out her pad.

‘I couldn’t think of what to call this project, but I’ve got it now!’

She wrote ‘MARRY ME’ on the page.

I smiled as I walked back to the car, thinking of the real treasure Mum had left me with: being strong in myself.

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