'Australia's Best Wedding' Is Australia's Worst Wedding

Can you identify the point at which couples decided that the strength of their love was best reflected by the degree to which they infuriate bystanders? I cannot.

If recent news is any indication, we are knee deep in the era — not merely a phase or a passing trend, but an actual era — of public chaos and bedlam for the sake of one couple’s special specialness. On Monday, we learned of a man who caused a massive traffic jam so that he could propose to his lady in the middle of a busy highway. Today, it’s an Australian couple whose impossibly extravagant wedding included four helicopters, a motorcade of sports cars worth $50 million, and a fighter jet. Oh, and a sea plane, because no wedding is complete without one. How romantic. The subtle and classy affair, which the groom declared to be “Australia’s best wedding,” shut down an entire suburb — a suburb of which, not coincidentally, the groom happens to be deputy mayor. Nice work; the public is no doubt thrilled with his job performance.

As these public displays are supposedly meant to reflect the emotion shared between two individuals, such extreme love deserves to be conveyed not just in actions, but actual words. Words like…

I love you so much that I’ll make us look like horrible humans.
I love you so much that I don’t care about the existence of anyone else.
I love you so much that I’ll make everyone hate us.
I love you so much that I will get arrested and/or lose my job.
I love you so much that I will die at the hands of individuals who have been sent into a murderous rage because of my incomprehensible narcissism.