Wedding Themes

Nadine’s wedding was on Sunday. Hope. Joy. Sequins. Triumph of authenticity. Any wedding will make you cry, because you love some person who is getting married and you see time going forward and that time being marked in an ancient, ritual way. Nadine’s wedding would have made you cry because it is possible to be true, to be truly in love and to tell the truth about it.

In Nadine’s vows, she looked into her fiance’s eyes and said “and on that night, you know the one, when I came back 4 AM and begged for you to let me in,” she didn’t give showy details, but there was no doubt we, all of her assembled friends and family, were looking at one of the darkest moments in their relationship and a humiliating one for her. This was no princess dream. This was a marriage.

Nadine’s wedding was the opposite of mine. I had tried to make my wedding authentic, and authentically me. But there was really no such person. And if there had been, she wouldn’t be the sort who could stand in front of everyone and tell the truth. Honestly, I couldn’t even look in my fiance’s eyes. I looked at the ground.

In the weeks coming up to my wedding, I mostly took my disappearing self out on my mother. We went shopping for dresses, and I sat down on the ground in David’s Bridal, that squat square of strip mall romance, and buried my whole self in the tulle skirt of a gown like a two year old throwing a tantrum. Then I shouted at her for questioning my choice of vegetarian food for the reception accusing her of trying to make me be something I wasn’t, trying to make me submerge my identity. (PS It wasn’t her doing that.)

I didn’t want to wear a David’s Bridal dress, I didn’t want to offer a chicken or fish option, and as a culmination I didn’t want red roses. I don’t know how they got there, or how they got sprinkled on the aisle, but I know that standing there with my father in that iconic moment before we walked, what I said to him was “where did these fucking roses come from?”

Nadine wasn’t at my wedding, because the same me who couldn’t tell the truth about how much she didn’t want to marry her wonderful fiance also couldn’t be honest with her girlfriends and had destroyed most of those friendships years ago. It was something I regretted so deeply when I stood at the back of the room on Sunday and watched this line of beautiful, irreplaceable women stand up at Nadine’s side. Part of the crying came from the ache for my place there.

While those women were growing into themselves together, and growing up, I was alone trying to outdo everyone. To achieve some kind of imperviousness that would negate the need for their love. Oh, I really regret that now.

The friend who stood by me at my wedding, who kept the day running, brought me water and laced up my gown was Leigh. Knowing she would be there on Sunday made me sick to my stomach all weekend and led to an accidental and early drunkenness.

Leigh, who was ready to believe the worst about me when Dan and I separated. Who said flat out that she wasn’t interested in my apologies when, deep in the depression of divorcing, I failed to RSVP to her engagement party. Leigh who, when we finally met after her honeymoon, asked me to defend my side of the story, who ultimately wasn’t satisfied with it, and who I fretted for years believed that I was still exactly that shitty person that had wrecked those friendships years ago.

Truthfully, I still fret about that. So it was hard to be briefly and cordially acknowledged by her, standing there with K like a guilty little kid. All the shame came flooding back from the time of my separation, which was, not flatteringly, also the beginning of K’s and my courtship. Real or imagined, I could feel her judgement all over me.

Shortly after Dan and I separated, he changed his relationship status on facebook from married to me to in a relationship with his new girlfriend. When I see that red heart icon that means someone is changing relationship status, I still get a sick jolt of memory. I can’t blame him, we were both not making most gentle decisions of our lives at that time. I made my status private on facebook, and then I made it private in life. I never told anyone, even close friends whether I was single or with K. Those were my two statuses for years.

When I got back from Nadine’s wedding, I sat in front of my computer, considering changing my status to “in a relationship.” I was sitting in a wading pool of guilt and shame, though. I couldn’t do it. What if Dan saw? What if Leigh saw? What would they think about me? I typed Dan’s name in and scanned his pictures, trying to see if he was in a relationship. It kind of looked like he was. He probably wouldn’t care if I changed my status. "Blah de blahdy blah glerk," said my anxious brain. This is not how I try to live my life.

So I emailed Dan and told him what I was doing and why I was doing it. About sneaking around his facebook, about feeling guilt and shame. I told him I hoped one day we would be friends who didn’t hide their relationship status from each other. Then I changed my status. Then about 110 people “liked” it, which I know is some flimsy meaningless contemporary substitute for community, but it actually made me feel pretty good. All those people taking a second to say “we’re glad you’re happy.”

The next day, Dan emailed me back. He said that I had nothing to be ashamed of and to stop worrying about it. He also said that he didn’t think a friendship would work. I am a new person. Not the person he knew. That was the person he’d liked. And for a second I was crushed, so crushed that I started trying to reimagine myself as a person he would want to be friends with. Old habits die so hard. And then I remembered to sit in it. And it felt bad. And I sat in it.

The person he was talking about was the one who got married when she didn’t want to.

The person he was talking about was the one who had destroyed her friendships.

The person he was talking about was the one who was steeped in shame and seeing herself through Leigh’s eyes.

But the person I AM is the one who wrote to him and admitted it. And the person I AM is the one who will wish Leigh health and happiness and try to leave it there. 

And the person I AM was lucky enough to be invited to Nadine’s wedding, despite how I had treated her, because when she saw me in my mid-divorce misery at Leigh’s bachelorette party all she had for me was compassion. And then Nadine let me back into her brilliant life. And so I got to witness her refusal to make the moment of her marriage untrue. That is my model for how to be.

So even though the person I was would try to find a way to make Leigh and Dan love this new me, the person I am is going to sit in it.