I have quite a high hit rate when it comes to meeting people at weddings. Two of my serious relationships were with people I met at weddings (one of whom is now my husband). But, interestingly, one of the weddings that comes to mind when I think of the most fun I had – the most loved I felt – was right after a horrible breakup.
Did I meet anyone? No.
Did I feel wobbly going into it? Very. (Especially because I was a bridesmaid and very much embedded in the day.)
Did I get into bed that night feeling like something had shifted and that everything would actually be ok – maybe even wonderful? Absolutely.
The thing about weddings is that, while they’re obviously about the couple, they are also about community. And, because this one involved a pretty spectacular group of people, some of the love that was beamed at the couple was also beamed at me, sometimes by people who I had never met before.
As we had our hair and makeup done that morning, I was swept up in the joy of the ritual of getting ready, the specialness of being with a close friend – and her closest friends – in the lead-up to such a big moment. We drank champagne, we ate a delicious breakfast, we talked and talked and laughed ‘til we cried.
It was when we headed to the venue that the heightened emotions started to hit me.
I remember so clearly waiting on the other side of the ceremony door before the music started, marvelling at how calm my friend was in her exquisite dress. I smiled at her, and she winked at me. And I thought – wow, she’s way more relaxed than I am right now!
As the doors opened, I realised that I was totally unprepared for what it would feel like to walk down the aisle. It wasn’t that I was sad for myself and what I had “lost” (I use inverted commas here because aren’t breakups actually such a gift in hindsight?). It was more that, because I was in a bit of a raw emotional place, I felt the momentousness of this moment for my friend so keenly.
Thankfully, as much as everyone loves a sobbing bridesmaid, I managed to get it together fairly quickly. One of my favourite parts of the ceremony – again, a moment still so clear in my mind a decade later – was the reading: A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton. I had never heard it before.
It starts like this:
The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice.
Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.
Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with
kind words and loving thoughts.
“I like this Dinosaur,” thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
“Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny.
He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.”
“I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur,” thought the Dinosaur.
“She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice.
She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.”
Quirky, sweet, fun. The story goes on for a while in much the same way, but it was the ending that really got me:
Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old. Look at them. Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.
And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.
For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
A little later on, when it was time for the first dance, the brief was that the bridal party would join in at a certain point – a prelude to the dancefloor opening to everyone. I stood on cue, looking for my pre-assigned groomsman counterpart, but was quickly joined by a different groomsman: the fiancé of one of the other bridesmaids.
“What’s going on?” I asked him in a whisper.
“Change of plan,” he smiled. “Let’s go!”
Let me tell you, this guy could dance. He spun me round and round the floor in a way that made me feel like I could dance (not the case), and I was drenched in total, uninhibited, childlike joy.
As the song ended and everyone joined the dancefloor, his lovely fiancé came up to us.
“What happened?” I asked her. “Why did we switch partners?”
“Oh, we just thought you could use a proper dance!” she said. “Was it fun?”
The most fun. I was so moved.
I started to get the feeling that, beyond the bridal party, some of the wedding guests had been told that I had had a tough time lately. This didn’t feel weird or condescending or unnecessary. It was done so lightly in the context of a much more important day, and with so much genuine care, that I was lifted up on this wave of love.
Towards the end of the evening, a woman I’d met a few hours earlier joined me at the bar. As we leaned against it, waiting for drinks that neither of us needed, she told me that she thought I was great, and that I deserved to be impossibly happy.
As the last song ended and I walked out into the cool night with my beautiful friend, I realised that, in that moment, I was.
So, yes – weddings are about the couple getting married. But they’re also, in both a specific and a general way, about love. And, sometimes, unexpectedly, that love ricochets around everyone and everything, landing in ways that are remembered for years and years afterwards.
What a gift.