H i. It’s Carrie Bradshaw. I wanted to let you know that I’m getting married.
To myself. Oh, and I’m registered at Manolo Blahnik. So.
.. thanks.
Bye!” A single, unattached and childless Carrie leaves this iconic phone message on an episode of Sex and the City after her expensive designer shoes get stolen from a baby shower. It was a way of settling the score; a way of sticking two fingers up to a system that deemed one woman’s “traditional” lifestyle choices – a husband and kids – more serious and important than the “selfish” alternative of staying single and lavishing money on one’s footwear. Carrie had no real intention of marrying herself; she just wanted her snarky friend to shell out the $485 required to replace a pair of lost Manolos.
But it turns out the main character we all love to hate was way ahead of her time. Cut to more than 20 years later and the practice of marrying yourself, otherwise known as “sologamy” or “autogamy”, seems to have become far more popular, if not quite fully mainstream. In June this year, Rebecca Holberry proudly wrote in Metro about the decision to throw herself a lavish, solo wedding for her 40th birthday following two serious relationships that ultimately failed and five years of single life.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realised my relationships had brought nothing but disappointment and drama. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I wanted a marriage any more,” she said. “But the dress? The cake.