Feeling lovelorn or maybe that the right person is out there to be found anywhere? Worry not, because the 21st century seems to have something for everyone. If you have given up on finding the perfect significant other, you now have the option to marry yourself.
True love may have just been a mirror away all this time.
The BBC reports that “growing numbers” of people around the world are now choosing to enter into solo wedded bliss. It’s called “sologamy” and it is very real, lest anyone think this is satire.
It all seems to have started in 2000 (told you it was a 21st century thing) when a performance artist in New York named Gabrielle Penabaz decided to work her way through some heartbreak by having a wedding for herself replete with flowers, a ring, a dress, and vows. It was such a success that she began charging people to officiate their own solo weddings.
Penabaz offers the weddings as performance art, but the regular wedding rituals are adhered to by most of the more than 1500 people she estimates having “married.”
These weddings are not legally binding, as marriage is a contract between two people. They do seem to bring happiness to people, however.
Penabaz says that the “ceremonies are usually very cathartic,” and that “80% of the people” “shed a tear reading their vows.”
The BBC says that there is no way to get a real count of how many people have participated in solo marriages but it is significant enough that business have noticed and are seizing the opportunity to provide sologamy services.
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