I want to say here and now that I am a fan of weddings, I really am. I love weddings, I love the idea of marriage, I love married couples, well...you get the idea. I myself have been in several weddings, not twenty seven mind you, but a decent few. I have been nearly everything a girl can be in a wedding; the welcoming party manning the guest sign-in, helping with food, a flower girl, a bridesmaid, and even maid of honor. Always a bridesmaid...
May I say here and now how very much I hate that phrase. Please don't misunderstand me, I have been honored to be in every single wedding I was asked to be a part of, particularly when I have been asked to be in the wedding party. It meant that I made enough of an impact in a woman's life that on what is supposed to be the greatest day of their life, they were given the task of figuring out what three or four women they wanted to be there for them with them beside them to help them and support them in one of the grandest celebrations life has to offer. When given this rather daunting task, I was one of the women that they chose. While their choice has not always necessarily made sense to me, I am honored by it. I have every right to be.
I like attending weddings despite the always awkward time after the ceremony where we all wait for them to finish pictures and munch on whatever interesting finger (and sometimes not so finger) foods that are served to us on little plastic plates and we sit at tables with people we have never met and explain our association to either the bride or groom, sipping on either sweet tea or a punch concoction that somehow remains a mystery while they play nondescript typically uninteresting music in the background.
Then they announce the entrance of the bride and groom. The awkward waiting is replaced by the beautiful moment of the first dance. I personally love this part. I adore the idea that they first dance belongs to them, accompanied by a song that is their own, that we are all invited on a wonderfully intimate moment as they spin (and in some cases stumble) on a dance floor that has been barred from anybody else so that it can be christened by the newly married couple. Some couples talk, some just smile, some blush, some whisper in each others ears, some brides lay their head on their new husbands chests, some get really crazy and throw a few spins in there. This is usually followed by the daddy/ daughter dance. "Butterfly Kisses" used to have the monopoly on this particular moment, but no more! Good ol' SCC comes out with "Cinderella" giving us all another reason to cry at these things...or at least I cry. The Dad holds his daughter and smiles, in part because he is getting rid of her, in part because this day is proof that she has found the happiness that he always hoped she would. They dance and all the world watches as they physically manifest their own bittersweet farewell. For some reason it always brings a tear to my eye. There is such love as they dance, such hope. The father represents both himself and her mother as he sends forth his little girl with the hopes that he raised her well, he trusts her life and well-being to another man in one of the greatest forms of sacrifice in existence today.
After some dancing, typically including some form of line-dance comes the other awkward moment of weddings, well one of many. The slow dance. I've always hated slow dances in my adult life. They just remind me of Prom and basically every other dance I've been to. I sit...alone watching as other happy couples join hands and hold each other close. There have been the rare occasions where a dear friend who was the bride's brother danced with me like he promised, despite the fact his girlfriend and ex were both there. It made me smile because I enjoyed myself. It was just two friends dancing and it meant nothing more. We laughed and I tried not to fall on my face. I have danced with children, twirling them, inducting them into a world that I hope and pray as I hold them in their arms that they won't go through unaccompanied. I pray that they have partners for their slow dances that will inevitably come to pass. Then there was the time that they made me and the boy who had caught the garter dance together, or they instigated it and I had the guts to ask him (which if you know me, took a lot for me to do). Why did they want us to dance? Well because apparently it is a tradition rarely practiced that the girl who catches the bouquet dances with the boy who catches the garter. Which leads me to the inspiration for this whole thing.
As of Saturday evening, I have now caught a total of five bouquets. Five of them. Most girls go through life catching maybe one. Oh no, not me, I have to be weird. So I catch five. Usually, and please believe me when I say this, I only tried to catch it before it hit the ground. I wasn't really going for it, I'm not one of those single girls who tackle and push and fight to catch it. I used to want to, but it wasn't for the sake of catching it, I was just too competitive not to 'win'. I stopped believing in the 'magic' of catching the bouquet quite some time ago. After catching yet another one, (again, simply to save it from hitting the ground (there is picture proof), I only got up to get it because I was called out) I became curious about why this tradition happens in the first place. Like so many things in regards to our odd traditions, the origin is rather barbaric (like did you know the reason bridesmaids used to wear dresses similar to the bride is so that they'd confuse evil spirits? Apparently it was a bit more of a commitment and sacrifice to be a bridesmaid back then, then again, who doesn't want to be a possible scape goat for evil spirits?) and the tradition of throwing the bouquet is no different. The tradition started in fourteenth century France. A bride was considered particularly lucky on her wedding day to the point that as soon as the wedding ceremony was over, there was a stampeding horde typically comprised of single women that would rush her in order to rip off a piece of her wedding dress to obtain a bit of said luck. They would rip pieces off of her dress. So in order to appease the crowd, she would fling her bouquet and run. So you know, they wouldn't stampede her and rip off her dress. Yeah, thankfully nobody does that anymore, but the tradition remains. There is still stampeding in certain cases, some cases of violence, but the origin is barbaric at best. And we follow it, these strange traditions that exist simply because they always have. They are a part of weddings that too often serve as short versions of Valentine's Day to us single folk. Are they intended to do so? I don't think so. They are a celebration that, despite ourselves, as happy as we are for our friend, whether bride or groom, we feel that dull or sometimes searing pain in our hearts that what we see is nothing we have a part in. I have single friends who hate weddings for this very reason and refuse, no matter how close the friend, to accept an invitation to a wedding. Regardless of my reservations on weddings and their often odd and strangely founded traditions, I am not a part of this group.
Why? Because I still believe in love. I believe in it so hard. Have I been hurt? Yeah, not nearly to the extent that many have, but the reasoning behind that is enough for a whole different posting, but I have understood heartbreak. Have I watched two people 'in love' grow to hate each other and go back on their vows? Yes, I have and my heart breaks. Call me naive, I am under the childish delusion that when two people love each other and promise to love each other for the rest of their lives, make a covenant before God (who supposedly brought them together in the first place) that they'll stay together forever. Love is a state of permanence in my mind. Blame it, if you want, on the rather fantastic example of my own parents. They have stayed together and has it been hard? Absolutely, but no songs are ever written about the love stories that come easily. Have I been 'alone' and wouldn't know what it would be like to not be that way? Yes, but I am not one of those girls who need a 'man' in her life to define her. I don't need to be in a relationship to know who I am, a good thing too. I listened at Daniel and Samantha's wedding as they said their vows that they had written to each other, I saw the tears well up in his eyes as he saw her for the first time, I watched the love in their eyes as they danced and it made me smile.
I smiled because I still believe. I believe in love and I believe in the beauty of sharing your life with another person. I believe love is one of the greatest things that God has ever come up with, it is the driving force that perhaps doesn't make the world turn, but it makes the mad spinning worthwhile. I love weddings because I know that some day...some day it will be at my wedding that people will be smiling. It will be my first dance that people will cry to. It will be my eyes that well up with tears while saying my vows. It will be his eyes I stare into with the keen and overwhelming revelation that this man, my dearest friend, is who God has blessed me with and has deemed perfect just for me. It will be my bouquet that I toss at single girls to appease them so I don't get my dress ripped and you better believe that is precisely what I will be thinking about as I do it. I love weddings because even if only for a day, despite what little things go wrong it is a celebration of everything that God created to be right with the world. It is a reflection of Jesus and His Bride. It is something beautiful and despite its absolute madness, I love weddings. I truly, truly do.
No comments:
Post a Comment