The Next Wave

The tail end of the flood of marriages is passing. We've been to a dozen or so weddings in the past 5 years. Our friends (and we) were all slow starters, relatively speaking. The first of my friends to get married was a Dartmouth classmate who married his childhood sweetheart in 2002 on labor day weekend. Five minutes later, two other dear ol' Dartmouth friends married each other. Since then, many more friends - college and otherwise - have gotten hitched. The last of my inner circle who wants to get married is doing so in Denver this May.

So now the next phase begins. The divorces.

In our completely non-scientific observations, we've noticed that the more people spend on the actual wedding party, the shorter their marriages seem to last. (We figure we're sitting pretty, having only spent $75, plus tea and dessert at the local coffee shop.)

Two friends who married on Long Island in the summer of 2003 (and whose wedding probably cost at least 1000 times what ours did) have recently filed for divorce. Two more friends who married "down the shore" in New Jersey in the summer of 2004 have a disaster brewing - both of them liked the idea of being married more than they liked each other. I can only hope they do the right thing and call it quits before the karmic debt skyrockets.

The only positive aspect of this is that the divorce wave is hitting before the baby wave did.

Of course, I hope I'm not speaking too soon...