(Reuters)
THE FIFTH COLUMN
A company called LUX* recently sent me the most charming email. I don’t know if LUX* is an acronym for anything, and I couldn’t see a footnote to correspond with the asterisk, so I presume that’s just stylishly meaningless typography for its own sake. (Later, upon reflection, I thought it might be a play on Baudelaire’s Invitation au Voyage offering “luxe, calme et volupté”, but that didn’t resolve the problem of the asterisk.)
“On the edge of harmony” is the title of the short email. Sounds great! I’d like to be on the edge of harmony, even sitting on the fence of harmony, but only if the edge or fence were inclining gently in the direction of harmony, rather than tending away. You see what I mean? One can recede, too, from the edge of harmony. When I was looking over a cliff the other day, I certainly felt I had to recede from the edge.
Be that as it may, the asterisk people claim reassuringly: “A wedding change a life and the ceremony that prove that engagement must be perfect.”
I’m not sure if that’s heteronormative. Perhaps a heteronorm could enlighten me?
Reading further into the email, it becomes clear that what is on offer is something at Saint-Gilles, which the internet helpfully informs me is on the island of Réunion. In fact, it’s technically called Saint-Gilles-des-Bains, which means you can go for a little dip in the sea nearby, for Réunion has lots of sea. Given that Saint-Gilles-des-Bains is located
in the Saint-Paul area, just up from L’Ermitage-les-Bains and La Saline-les-Bains, Réunion also has lots of hyphens.
What the hyphenated location offers, according to LUX*, is “the possibility to celebrate the union in front of an idyllic and most beautiful Renuion Island”.
This worried me a little, because I thought we were on land here, not in front of it, but perhaps LUX* is a little punctuation-fluid. Or we’ve switched islands.
“Anticipation is part of the future bride and groom joy,” the email proceeds. “The making-of has to be an instance moment that shows the singularity of your couple.” Sounds lovely — if you have bride and groom joy. If not, I suppose, you had better get on with the making-of … for an instance moment, at least.
The chef “will be glad to create a unique menu close to the preferences”, which is often a hopeful sign that the meal will be edible, however unique. (What? Unicorn steak?)
Moreover, before one gets to eat anything preferential, one will be able to “dress in a harmonious and peaceful place”. This apparently allows one to “feel confident to read the glare in the lover’s eyes”, which sounds a bit scary, but I certainly do like to dress in a harmonious and peaceful place.
The last time I tried to dress on a wobbly mountaintop in the middle of a cyclone, as teams of agitated mountaineers hanging from pitons cried for help, I discovered I was losing control of the ends of my bow tie, and the subsequent knot was not even on the edge of harmony.
*www.luxresorts.com