By Mandy Matney
Laura Mesi, a 40-year-old fitness instructor, married herself earlier in September in a full ceremony with four bridesmaids, a three-layer cake, watermelon, 70 guests and a $12,000 wedding dress, The New York Times reports.
She even went on her own honeymoon to Egypt.
The ceremony carried no legal weight, but who cares? To Mesi, it was all about loving herself .
“You can have a fairytale without the prince,” she told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper. “I firmly believe that each of us must first of all love ourselves.”
Mesi got the idea two years ago when her 12-year relationship ended and she told her girlfriends if she didn’t find her soul mate by 40, she’d marry herself.
And unlike most women who make strange deadlines and promises for their future love lives, Mesi stuck to it.
The trend can be traced back to 1993 when Linda Baker, a dental hygienist from Los Angeles, was sick and tired of showering her married friends with gifts and decided to host her own self-marriage ceremony, according to Vice.
Sologamy gained pop culture steam in a 2003 episode of “Sex and the City” when Carrie Bradshaw was annoyed after attending another baby shower (naturally) and it dawned on her that single people get no holidays or special occasions to celebrate themselves while being forced to spend hundreds on their married friends’ showers and wedding celebrations.
Carrie then told her friend she’s marrying herself and registered at Manolo Blahnik so her annoying friend would feel obligated to buy her the shoes she wanted, inspiring single woman everywhere.
Several other single brides and even a groom have held “self-marriage” ceremonies. A Houston woman married herself in 2015, according to ABC News. A Naples man married himself earlier in 2017, according to BBC.
There is even a American company “I Married Me” that specializes in self-marriage kits.
But while websites like Mashable are calling Mesi “heroic,” not everyone is impressed.
“The fairy tale? and which? the fairy tales have a story, what is yours? TV?” one commenter wrote.
The Daily Wire calls sologamy “the saddest trend you’ve ever heard of.”
But is it? This watermelon is anything but sad.
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