Share
MidReal Story
Love's Scam
Scenario:Marriage is a scam.
Create my version of this story
Eliza Hart
competitor wedding planner, professional rivalry with Harper, stylish and confident appearance, ambitious and cunning.
Mason Cole
best friend and coowner of the wedding planning business with Harper, supportive of Harper, tall with a warm smile, loyal and optimistic.
Harper Jennings
wedding planner, skeptical of love and marriage, friends with Mason and rivals with Eliza, petite with sharp features, pragmatic and witty.
I’ve been a wedding planner for over a decade, and I’ve seen it all.
The bride who fainted at the altar.
The groom who got so drunk he passed out before the cake was cut.
The mother of the bride who tried to seduce the best man.
The father of the groom who tried to seduce me.
I’ve had bridesmaids show up in white dresses, grooms forget their vows, and mothers-in-law insist on a last-minute change of venue because they didn’t like the color of the carpet in the church.
I’ve had brides cry because their flowers were carnations instead of roses, and grooms cry because they were getting married at all.
I’ve had bridesmaids get into fistfights over bouquets, groomsmen get into fistfights over bar tabs, and ring bearers get into fistfights over whose turn it was to play with the ring pillow.
I’ve had brides who were virgins and brides who were pregnant and brides who were both.
I’ve had couples who had been together for twenty years before they finally tied the knot and couples who got engaged after knowing each other for twenty minutes.
I’ve had couples who looked so happy on their wedding day that it practically hurt to look at them, and couples who looked so miserable that it was hard not to laugh.
I’ve seen more brides naked than a bride should be comfortable with, and more grooms drunk than a groom should be.
I’ve seen more flowers wilt, more cakes melt, and more dresses split than a bride should ever have to deal with.
I’ve seen more fights, more arguments, and more slammed doors than I care to think about, and I’ve seen enough mothers-in-law who were convinced that the bride wasn’t good enough for their sons to make me want to go on a mother-in-law killing spree.
But through it all, my business partner and best friend, Mason Cole, and I have managed to keep our sense of humor.
Because, frankly, if we hadn’t been able to laugh about it, we probably would have killed ourselves and everyone around us long ago.
My name is Harper Jennings, and I’m a wedding planner.
I also happen to believe that marriage is the biggest scam ever invented by the human race.
Or at least the biggest scam ever invented by the human race since religion was first used to explain the inexplicable—and milk money out of people too dumb to know any better.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against people who want to get married.
To each his own, as my grandmother always said.
If two people love each other enough to make a lifetime commitment to one another, then all the power in the world to them.
But let’s call a spade a spade here: marriage is not about love.
Marriage is about property rights, inheritance, and having someone who will always be there to pick up your socks when you fling them halfway across the room.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
The truth is, I think people ought to be able to do whatever they want to do—so long as they’re willing to live with the consequences of what they’ve done and not try to force me to do the same.
As for me—well, I’m twenty-seven years old, I’ve had my heart broken once too often, and I’ve got more important things to worry about than ending up like my mother: married to a man who ran off with his secretary and left her with two kids and a mountain of debt.
I guess you could say that my parents’ failed marriage left me scarred for life where love is concerned—or maybe it was the night of my senior prom, when I walked in on my date doing the limbo with another girl while I was upstairs having sex with his best friend that did it.
Either way, the only white dress you’ll ever see me in will be the one they bury me in.
If there were any justice in the world—and if karma worked the way it was supposed to—I’d probably drop dead the moment I said "I do."
Or at least that’s what I always tell my clients when they ask if my partner and I are married.
