'It's a woman's wedding day but instead of excitement, she feels dread as she reflects on the societal expectations she has to submit to. Inspired by the style of Dorothy Parker's short stories: 'The Garter', 'A Telephone Call' and 'Big Blonde'.
Full Description:
This short story was one of my year 11 creative pieces that I wrote. The task was to ‘compose a creative piece that challenges or reinforces contemporary ideals of masculinity and/or femininity. The piece must echo a theme, mood or tone reflected in the stories studied in class’. I’m very passionate about discussing and breaking the stereotypical expectations focused on gender and so I wanted to write a story that followed a woman’s thought process as she was walking down the aisle on her wedding day. All my family members raved about their wedding day, however when watching the 2017 National Geographic documentary “Diana: In Her Own Words”, I was struck with the quote she said about her wedding day: “I don't think I was happy. I never tried to call it off, in the sense of really doing that, but I think [it was] the worst day of my life”. This strong emotion of not calling off the wedding despite her unhappiness was heavily present in my mind when creating this piece. I thought, maybe Diana felt she had to marry Charles because so many people expected her to and thought that becoming a princess was what would make her happy. This heavily inspired me as I came up with the plot of the story.
When creating this project, I initially started by researching wedding vows. When I found one that I liked, I started to experiment with ways of weaving them into the story, particularly as the conclusion was reached, thus building tension as to what the ending would be.
Bibliography: Callaway, N 2021, How to Write Wedding Vows and Samples, viewed 30 July 2021, https://www.thespruce.com/sample-wedding-vows-3489433
Photo Bibliography: Atkinson, ME n.d., Woman facing a wedding aisle, Photograph, Getty Images, viewed 9 October 2022, https://www.verywellmind.com/social-anxiety-and-walking-down-the-aisle-3024406
