If getting married is on your bucket list, then here's an idea: Have yourself a nice weed wedding. Weed weddings, as explored in a new Atlanticfeature, have become increasingly common since a growing number of states started voting yes to legalization.
Wait. So maybe weddings aren't the despair factory they've cracked themselves up to be?
Bec Koop, who runs Irie Weddings & Events in Denver with business partner Madlyne Kelly, confirmed the awesomeness of weed weddings Monday and said the practice is actually expecting a popularity increase in 2017. Irie Weddings & Events, for example, worked on a dozen weed weddings in 2016 but has already (!!!) booked more than that for the year ahead. "This movement is simply making it more acceptable to enjoy cannabis as part of a group in a social setting at a wedding," Koop told the Atlantic's Elizabeth Limbach.
And what should an attendee at a weed wedding expect, other than two people promising each other an eternity in the presence of cannabis? For some, putting together a weed wedding is as simple as swapping out the celebratory champagne with a celebratory smoke. For those interested in a more communal vibe, there's the most popular option: a fully stocked bud bar.
Speaking with Complex Wednesday, Primal Therapeutics founder Jordan Person said the union of marijuana and marriage is simply the next logical step in weed liberation. "In legal states where marijuana is recreationally available and more adults openly turn to smoking a joint over drinking a beer, it only makes sense that the freedom would leak into the wedding industry," Person told Complex. "I know personally every wedding I have ever attended I have to sneak away to consume. I am getting married this fall and my fiance and I are both in the cannabis industry and we can't wait to incorporate cannabis into our big day."
Primal has been a part of the weed weddings industry for several years, Person added. As for the future of the legal weed industry at large, Person theorized that we need not stress about the potential difficulties under a new (and seemingly weed-unfriendly) White House administration. "I feel this is still the infancy stage of what will become the biggest industry in our history," Person told Complex. "The more education that surfaces the more reefer madness disappears."
If a weed-infused wedding is starting to sound like your cup of tea, here are some stats to potentially push you over the edge. According to data from the National Survey of Family Growth, that oft-repeated estimate that "half of all marriages" end in divorce is actually pretty inaccurate. The chance of marriage #1 (out of however many you so desire) lasting more than a decade was 68 percent for women and 70 percent for men in 2010, according toRefinery 29. When considering the divorce rate peaked at 40 percent back in 1980, those numbers don't look too abysmal. Must be the weed.
