Sepideh Saremi

I’ve been married almost three weeks now and here are my observations on this fine institution (and on the less fine one - weddings):

1. Marriage makes all your fights seem like nothing. We don’t fight a lot anyway, but our few fights in the last three weeks have been so chill. Mostly, fights are my fault. I am the full-Iranian one, so the hot head is mine. Plus I get really mean when I’m PMS-y. But now that this relationship thing is all locked and loaded, I lose my steam during fights right away, because there’s no real point. Storming off in a huff has no real impact when you are just going to run into him in the kitchen and probably he’ll be washing the dishes.

2. Calling your dude “husband” is a lot less lame than “fiance.” Ugh, what a horrible word “fiance” is. I felt like a real jerk every time I uttered that word, so I am relieved for the upgrade to “husband.” I still prefer using his name, though.

3. No more Persian-store weirdness. I always felt kinda bad doing our Persian shopping together before we got married, because I felt like all the old people of my parents’ land were judging me for hanging out with a man that I wasn’t married to. Probably they couldn’t have cared less and hardly noticed such a generically white-looking couple anyway, but now we are married, so what a relief that is in case they did notice and were judging me! Now I can buy my lavash and bamieh with peace of mind. I definitely flash my left hand around as much as possible, though, because the best defense is a good offense.

4. Compromising on a wedding is stupid. We wanted to elope, and our parents wanted a wedding. So we did this kinda in-between deal that involved just them. Obvs it had its good parts, but my recommendation for people who are the elopey types? Just elope. Then you aren’t stuck wearing fake eyelashes for 12 hours and having to make conversation over dinner when you are already so tired and just want to go to bed already.

5. This is closely related to #4, but dieting for your wedding day and freaking out about all the stuff like the dress and the shoes and whatev? I bought my dress the week before the wedding and I was fat on my wedding day. I was freaking out about it for a while because I am, right now (and was then), the fattest I’ve ever been. But who cares. I finally realized the wedding day is one day out of the jillion of a marriage and yes the pictures are forever but I just bought a cool dress that fit and got a pro hair-and-makeup job and I got over myself. I keep getting annoying comments from people who were projecting their own wedding fantasies on my life but I don’t like most of their marriages (or divorces, ahem) so why should I listen, right??

6. Getting married at a young age = awesome (if you are ready, which I was/am). I think a lot of people are confused about why I decided to get married at 24 and my answer is too long to put in one bullet point but it is mostly comprised of the words love, teamwork, and awesomeness.