By Halle Mason
It’s finally summer, which means wedding season is upon us! I don’t know about you, but showing up to a wedding alone can be a little daunting. Sure, it’s all fun and games until the DJ starts playing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and you’re stuck looking like a chump while everyone else pairs off. But there are tons of ways to be fabulously single at a wedding—in my experience, it’s the optimal way to navigate a wedding. Here’s just a few reasons why you don’t need to have a date to have a good time.
Hellloooo, Groomsmen
At a family wedding last weekend, one of my cousins said to me that bringing a date to a wedding is like bringing a dead deer to a hunting trip. I acknowledge, it’s a super weird simile, but it makes sense right? Since I went stag to the wedding, I got to dance with the single groomsmen. Let me just say, groomsmen are one of my favorite parts of a wedding, decked out in their adorable tuxedos—plus, they’re almost required to get down on the dance floor.
Keep Those Heels High
Since you’re not part of a pair, there’s no matching or worrying that you’ll be taller than your date. At last weekend’s wedding, I rocked a pair of five-inch stilettos. Granted, my feet throbbed and my calves ached for two days afterwards, but it was worth the pain. What better way to show people you’re single and fabulous than by looking it?
Beware: Gravity is a relentless bitch, and with great height comes great responsibility.
New Friends
Chances are you’re not the only single girl at this wedding. Find some other girl and dance your faces off.
You know that you already have one thing in common: no date. There’s a weird connection—a sense of recognition or kindred spirit—when two single girls find each other in a crowd.
Open Bar
Even if you’re feeling self-conscious about arriving stag, there’s one guaranteed way to cool off those nerves: alcohol. Whether you want the throbbing in your feet to stop, the groomsmen to magically become more attractive, or the ability to proudly jam to “Single Ladies,” the answer can almost always be found at the bottom of a glass (as terrible as I know that sounds).
Do What You Want, Answer to No One
We all have a weird side, and sometimes when we’re on an official date, there’s pressure to act a certain way, to say a certain thing, to be a certain version of yourself that isn’t entirely all you. When you go to a wedding alone, you don’t have to worry about impressing anyone.
Take off your shoes, toss your Spanx in your clutch, and throw caution to the wind, because you’re single and here to have a good time.
Wedding season doesn’t have to involve scrambling to find a date for each event. I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly keep potential dates in my back pocket for special occasions. If I had good date options, I wouldn’t be single. Single or not, those are my proven reasons why every girl should go stag to a wedding at least once.
About Halle
Halle spent the first 18 years of her life in Nebraska. Then she spent two more years of her life explaining to Minnesotans that she didn’t grow up on a farm, she didn’t live near a cornfield, and she didn’t drive a tractor to school. She currently exists as a professional juggler, running from class, to her internship, to teaching yoga classes. What she wants more than anything is to adopt a Cavalier puppy, name him Fitz (after Mr. Darcy, obviously), and spend the weekends snuggled up with her puppy and any 19th-century novelist.
Halle shares her own 20-something perspective on her blog “Looking for Mr. Darcy,” (inaworldofwickhams.tumblr.com) and on her Instagram @lookingformrdarcy.