Culture has changed over weddings but there is pressure

Marriage, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s what every girl dreams about, right?

Falling head over heels and riding into the sunset with your Prince Charming, vowing to love each other until your last breath?

As a self-confessed Disney fanatic, I’ve spent too much of my time daydreaming my very own Aladdin will whisk me off my feet when my shopping bags snap in the middle of the pavement, rescuing his damsel in distress.

But edging ever closer to those dreaded thirties, I do wonder if there’s a ‘deadline’ to getting married and how much time do we need to find ‘the one’.

I suppose the reasonable answer should be ‘no, there’s not a deadline’, but I suspect for my fellow unmarried twenty-something British Asians, there may be a slightly different answer.

I’ve been born into a generation where arranged marriages as we knew them seem to be, for the most part, a thing of the past and ‘love matches’ now prevail.

Despite common misconceptions, I know few people who have had the traditional arranged marriage over the past two decades and instead, there are plenty of starry-eyed lovers who have happily brought two families together with little input from their relatives.

But even with this cultural shift, at every birthday party, family barbecue, chance meeting and of course weddings, the question on everyone’s lips seems to be ‘so when are you getting married?’

It’s like the unavoidable missile you know is going to hit you and there’s absolutely no way to dodge it.

But the answer can never be ‘I don’t know’, because that’s inevitably followed by tales of bringing countless children into the world and the joys of married life which only remind you how quickly your youth is slipping away.

Everything soon becomes a harsh warning about how much there really is to do – find the prince, fall in love, get engaged, plan the wedding, finally marry – but you’re still alone.

It’s enough to send even the most hopeless romantic into a quarter-life crisis every time anyone pops the painful question. Not to mention, the answer to every calamity in life seems to be ‘find a partner’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many singletons hustled with this very question have every intention to settle down eventually, but does this somewhat constant pressure help on the path to finding true love?

Dating apps specifically for the single British Asian are fast becoming the go-to place to scour for love, while the invisible but ever so present ticking time bomb looms.

Everyone means well, the older generation just want the best for their children and as they married young, it seems the norm – and I totally get that.

But more often than not, I’m left thinking, ‘I really need to get a move on’. What if the unthinkable becomes reality and I hit the big 3-0 and I’m no closer to finding my Romeo?

The course of true love might not run smoothly but one thing’s for sure, the prince always get the princess in the end.

For the time being, I think I’ll keep hold of that Disney dream. I’ve still got plenty of time.