Wedding season. According to most romcoms and sitcoms, it’s the time of year that single people hate the most, probably because their core premise is that if you don’t have a significant other, you must cry yourself to sleep every night, hugging a cat/tub of Ben and Jerry’s. In reality, of course, it’s an opportunity to eat cake, get a little champagne drunk and have sex with a groomsman in the bathroom. I’ve certainly had worse weekends.
Unfortunately – or not – it looks like everyone’s in for a wedding boom. After months of rescheduling and reorganizing, couples can finally start getting married without the fear of accidentally killing their granny with the coronavirus. Apparently 20% more weddings are expected to happen in 2021 and 2022 than in previous years. Provided we can avoid more lockdowns, of course. Get vaccinated, folks!
Of course, not everyone wants to hook up with groomsmen. Sometimes they’re the ugly groom’s uglier brothers, or sometimes people aren’t attracted to men. Fortunately, Tinder is here to save the day. Personally, I can’t imagine anything worse than explaining to extended family that I met my date on a casual sex site, but apparently, I’m in the minority because Tinder has observed a 45% increase in people using the term ‘plus one’ in their bios. This means that in 50 years’ time, cute old couples will sit down with their grandchildren, pull out the wedding album and point to their friend’s dates, saying “Oh look, there’s Brad from Tinder. Remember Brad from Tinder, [husband’s name]? He dated [guest’s name] for two weeks and then she ghosted him because he had a foot fetish”. It’s great to have these magical moments to look forward to and then cherish for years.
I digress. For reasons completely beyond my understanding, people are using Tinder to find dates for weddings. Tinder, trying to be a compassionate and helpful app, is launching a ‘Plus One’ feature in November 2021. This is part of the new ‘explore’ section, which includes other features like the Hot Takes poll. Basically, if you need a wedding date, you go to the ‘Plus One’ section and select ‘looking for’. If for some reason, you want to go to a stranger’s wedding, you go to the ‘Plus One’ section and select ‘willing to be’. To make this more appealing, Tinder has teamed up with WeddingWire and they’re giving $460 to the first 100 people to sign up for Plus One. The money is supposed to go to the cost of attending the wedding, which seems… excessive? I guess if you include the price of a new dress, a gift, and transport, you might spend quite a bit of money, but that seems like too much.
They’re also producing a guide with ‘key wedding concerns’, addressing things like planning an outfit, buying the right gift, and attendance etiquette. Apparently, people are feeling worried about social situations post-pandemic, which will make everyone who’s got social anxiety and felt worried about social situations pre-pandemic laugh. Like yeah, I do live in fear of wearing the wrong shoes and being thrown out of the ceremony, but I’m also worried about having an anxiety attack in the toilets. I guess it’s nice that WeddingWire and Tinder are trying to address one of those problems. It’s also good to be reminded that the only person at the ceremony or reception wearing white should be the bride since it seems that a fair number of prospective mothers-in-law have forgotten about that.
I am enthusiastically pro-clumsy attempts to help. I’m not sure that what Tinder or WeddingWire are attempting to do will actually be useful, but I love the fact that they’re trying. Tinder certainly seems like a medium singularly unsuited for any interaction with the terminally committed, given that its whole purpose is to facilitate quick, meaningless sex. I’ve never swiped through, looked at a profile, and thought, yes, this is the person I want next to me at my aunt’s wedding, and to be honest, I’d probably just go alone or take a friend. Clearly, someone at Tinder’s headquarters disagrees with me, though, so now we all have to have a complete stranger on our special day – but mercifully, at least they’ll have bought the right tasteful gift and appropriate wedding attire.
Rachel Hall, M.A., completed her education in English at the University of Pennsylvania and received her master’s degree in family therapy from Northern Washington University. She has been actively involved in the treatment of anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, and coping with life changes and traumatic events for both families and individual clients for over a decade. Her areas of expertise include narrative therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and therapy for traumatic cases. In addition, Rachel conducts workshops focusing on the psychology of positive thinking and coping skills for both parents and teens. She has also authored numerous articles on the topics of mental health, stress, family dynamics and parenting.
