I don’t understand the vast amounts of money that so many spend on weddings in general. I do not understand the significant proportion of that money being spent on large, elaborate wedding cards running into many pages, in particular. It was refreshing to come across this wedding card online – one that is not only simple, but also funny and remarkably honest.
Akshar Pathak is a graphic designer and social media influencer whose average post receives many thousands of likes. Apparently he is getting married this December. He posted this image of possible wedding card invite which didn’t find favour.
These images of the ‘honest wedding card’ tell it like it (usually) is: how our weddings are designed to keep up with the Joneses (or Sharmas in this case) maintain social status etc. The card also mentions our tendency to time weddings in a way that thousands of weddings happen on the same day. It includes useless directions to the venue and takes digs at how the hosts are so often late to their own function.
Not only does the wedding card call out our many idiosyncrasies and the way our weddings reflect our hypocrisies, it is objectively funny. Little wonder then, that the ‘honest wedding card’ garnered 3k+ retweets and well over 10k likes on Twitter (with ten times as many likes on Instagram).
In recent times, a new cutesy trend of wedding cards addressed (supposedly) by lisping kids have become popular. The card mentions ‘Mintu ke papa’ and his ‘canteenwali whisky’ in a nod to this practice. Some think it’s endearing; some think it’s downright cringe-worthy.
It is true that we end up inviting a bunch of people we barely know to our weddings. For their part, at least some of those people attend weddings only for a free lavish meal and bring along only a very modest token gift.
Now when we do everything in the full glare of social media, wedding related hashtags have become all the rage. The hashtag #ShaVerma (ShaVerma, Shawarma, get it?) may sound hilarious; but there may well be undertones there as well, as this tweet suggests.
This twitter user spotted a typo and is clearly deeply troubled by it. I totally get that. This troubles me as well.
While Sharma is a common North Indian surname, Verma is common in the South; its variations can be found in the North East. This tweet points out how inter-caste or inter-regional marriages are still uncommon and frowned upon by many.
When people write ‘blessings only’ on their card, they do so to avoid receiving a bunch of useless recycled wedding gifts. But what they really want to say is this, acknowledged the tweeple.
The card is funny, relatable and really quite accurate in pointing out some purely Indian attitudes and wedding practices. Keep ‘em coming Akshar, said the tweeple about the honest wedding card.
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