The Reception

Slightly before dawn on a brisk, cloudless Saturday in May, I drive to a wedding reception. The stars strain to be seen, exhausted from a night of glowing, as my car trundles up a narrow gravel road to the ranch. I pass through the wicker gates in an absent sort of daze, swerving into an unmarked parking spot, vaguely giddy at having the vast, muddy lot nearly all to myself. At least for now.

I slide out of the car and stretch. I’m still sleepy. It’s fair, all things considered—it is six in the morning, after all—but something halts my creeping apathy: an inexplicable guilt that snags like a thorn in my side every time I think this way, of the possibility of today being anything less than the perfection the clients are expecting on their big day. The guilt catches me mid-stretch, and I freeze for a split second, then shake myself out and hike my way up to the reception hall.

Beyond the reception hall, the ranch stretches over several dewey acres, a handful of crumbling barns scattered over rolling hills. The ranch hasn’t had livestock in years, which technically deprives it of its title, though my boss says the word “ranch” has the perfect sound and rhetorical

By Anonymous

power to attract city people, so its name stays in the venue. The gentrified country air is, admittedly, quite refreshing.

The reception hall is a former hayloft, repurposed and heavily glamorized with shiny wood floors and insulated four-pane windows. Even though I’ve worked here for eight years, I could never afford to celebrate my own wedding here; it’s three months’ wages for the basic package. Nevertheless, as a member of the banquet staff, I spend countless hours inside of it, anyway. Vines of fairy lights curl around columns holding the roof up, which cast various shades across the room at the press of a button, depending on the client’s intended atmosphere. The light falls delicately through the east-facing windows.

True to expensive hipster venue form, I once overheard my boss tell a client that the hall costs $10,000 upfront to rent from 10 AM to midnight (enough to feed 60 orphans for a month, according to my math). This is even before the catering, vendors, live music, or any of the other hallmarks of overpriced, highfashion soirees. As I step through the massive oak doors each morning, I can’t help but feel like I’m turning on the TV to an episode of My

Big Fat Midwestern Wedding, except every time I hit mute and tune out the show. This is not my TV entertainment; this is how I pay my rent.

Inside, my team is relieved to see me. Before the decorations can be set up, the tables must be assembled, but before that, the floor must be cleared, but before that, everything must be spotless. There is no room for filth, only the illusion of it. By seven, the entire floor is buffed and waxed—not an easily surmountable feat, given the footage. By eight, the windows are scrubbed to gleaming. By nine, my team of ten has assembled nearly thirty round tables where guests will sit. Afterwards, a handful of my coworkers unravel swaths of sheer curtains and begin the odious process of draping them from the ceiling in identical parabolas while I, by second nature, work napkins into dainty shapes.

Who’s getting married today? I don’t even know the client’s names, though I could, if I had remembered to check the list. It’s not my fault I forgot, really; I’ve worked dozens upon dozens of receptions at this point. Maybe hundreds. Besides, knowing people’s names before actually meeting them makes me form irrational assumptions about them, which inevitably form into idealizations, which inevitably form into disappointments. Better to close off all guesses. I know these clients have more money than usual because all hands are on deck, but that means little to me or my coworkers, who are paid by the hour and owe no one gifts.

My coworkers and I enjoy passing judgment on the newlyweds’ arbitrary tastes and personal touches. It distracts us from the fact that our paychecks come from their pockets. I know the bride likes these particular pink hibiscuses, the vibrant and stunning ones that couldn’t have grown under a North American sun, while I set up massive clusters of them at each table. The groom stamps his proof of input in the form of silk tablecloths and wine glasses so huge they would more aptly be called crystal goblets. No children are invited to this reception, a fact I debate whether or not actually does the guests a favor. As I hang the last of 45 Tuscan lanterns, I assume both the bride and groom were raised feeding from a silver spoon.

The absurdity of it all registers unconsciously within me as I work, as it always does, a quiet and insistent hum at the back of my brain. On the one hand, having such a big ceremony seems tone-deaf to the majority of the world that can’t drop obscene amounts of cash at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, I understand the want for selfindulgence. If you could lease your own little slice of paradise to spend your first few hours of forever, why wouldn’t you? What is a wedding if not a flawless photo op?

Unfortunately, I’m the only one who thinks this way. My coworkers, most of whom work several other jobs, have sworn off the idea of having wedding receptions entirely, for the sake of sticking it to these types of venues for shoving money into fire. They assert they’ll never host a ceremony anywhere more exciting than a courtroom. A few have even sworn off marriage entirely, arguing the facade of a picture-perfect marriage has corrupted peoples’ minds. They claim that at some point, marriage stopped being about union and became a financial power move. Hence the reason all of us are paid minimum wage to make a wealthy couple’s rustic wedding fantasy come true for twelve-ish hours.

At the end of the day, however, it hardly matters what we think. We don’t get a say in how people spend their money, and our lives more or less hinge on them wasting it.