This week we learned, via BuzzFeed, about a new trend in weddings: bouncy castles. A wedding company has opened an initially successful line of wedding-themed inflatable trampolines. Photos depict shoeless groomsmen and bridesmaids bouncing and giggling like first-graders at a birthday bash.
The Scrapbook is not opposed to any novelty in weddings. In men’s attire, for instance, we cautiously approve of the trend toward suits and away from tuxes, since only a vanishingly thin slice of the male population ever has reason to don formal evening wear. Tuxedos begin to seem vaguely ridiculous, like cravats and top hats.
But bouncy castles? What’s the next step in the slow infantilization of American life? We envision a dark and moronic future when wedding planners hand out activity books with mazes and dot-to-dots so attendees don’t get rowdy before the ceremony begins; when wedding favors include Chinese handcuffs and Pez candy dispensers and little bottles of bubble solution; and when wedding revelers, instead of celebrating the matrimonial bond with appropriate adult beverages, simply go home and sleep off the sugar high they got from all that cake and ice cream.
For now, we’ll hope the trend passes. But the minute The Scrapbook receives a wedding invitation printed in Comic Sans font, we’ll know that Western civilization has at last reached its tragic conclusion.
