The Thing About Weddings

I grew up loving weddings. They were so fun! Pretty dresses like in a fairytale, pledges and tokens of eternal love, those cream cheese mints, and CAKE!!!! What's not to love about weddings? As the years have gone by all that stuff has only gotten better. Unfortunately, my childhood fervor for weddings has waned in the past decade or so. They tend to have the same effect on me as birthdays--I'm not getting any younger . . . Am I making the right choices with my life? . . . Will I always be a wedding guest and never a bride? . . . This cake is so good!. . . Am I destined to be alone? I also get very frustrated at weddings because when I fantasize about my own, certain songs come to mind that I'd like to have. Yet sure as the sun rises in the east, the next wedding I attend has stolen my songs. Yes, stolen them. I can't help it if I want to be a little different from everyone else. I acknowledge that it's virtually impossible for me to have a song in my wedding that no one has used before me, but you can't blame a girl for dreaming. (Don't worry, Flee, I've stopped dreaming about using music from "The Lion King", apparently no one wants to steal that one!)

My worst wedding experience was the wedding of a dear friend. It was in the my home congregation back in NM many years ago. The whole course of the wedding and preparations, everybody who'd ever known me kept smiling and raising their eyebrows at me saying things like "You're next!" "You're day is coming!" "You're going to find someone soon!" . . . Images of knocking each of them upside the head with songbooks kept flashing through my mind as I smiled and politely endured these comments, even the sweet old ladies. Having been recently thwarted in love, mercy was a virtue that was difficult for me to come by. I don't think these well-meaning, good-hearted folks realize how irritating it is for a single girl to hear those things. (I know not all single gals feel that way, but I know a few who do.) Speaking as one that does, I already feel "love-impaired", defective, & beyond hope. I don't need to be reminded of it by all the people who watched me grow up. I haven't even gotten to the worse part of this experience, which was the tossing of the bouquet. Yes, that time-honored tradition that I started dreading in my late teens. It wasn't a game anymore. It had become the single girl's only hope for a future at the altar. My stomach churns just thinking about the possibility of having to participate in one. At this wedding, though, I had no choice and nowhere to hide. As I stood there, surrounded by a few strangers and a bunch of young girls whom I had counseled at church camp, time suddenly stood still. The moment had arrived and all I wanted to do was get it over with, get home, and into a comfortable pair of shoes. It was in that moment that all those young girls turned their eyes on me, then to one another and almost in unison began to shout, "Let Lisa catch it!! Let Lisa catch it!!!" The large group of them parted like the Red Sea and left me standing there in the middle of the room in utter mortification. Oh for the earth to open and swallow me up! And I still didn't catch the thing. I know in my heart that catching the bouquet signifies nothing, except the much underestimated female capacity for violence. But I can't help but think, "God, please, throw me a bone!"

These days being single isn't the horror I always thought it to be. I'm not saying it's easy or that I don't still long for a mate. However, I've been single pretty much my whole life and spent most of my 20's thinking I'd shrivel up an die if I didn't marry by the time I was 30. I'm neither dead, nor shriveled and no worse for the wear, so what was all the fuss about? I just don't know. I must say, though, that God has worked on me to bring me to this place. He put wonderful people in my life, like Sarah, who showed me that being single was something embrace and celebrate. Even more recently He has sparked a renewal within me. I'm pursuing my relationship with Him more than I have in a long time & I'm really thankful for that. Why did I ever let it stagnate? I know that He's never left me and I have never stopped praying, but I have really missed God! Know what I mean?

I went to another wedding of another dear friend this past weekend. I re-connected with old friends who've long left Lubbock. It was WONDERFUL! I still had some pangs from the usual nagging questions, but I had more fun than I've had in a long time at a wedding. My compliments to the bride, who chose not subject her single friends to the anxiety-producing tradition of the bouquet toss. Clearly she understands the woes of that love-lorn crowd, whether we have chosen our states or not. Besides, not having to worry about that dreaded moment in the celebration made it much easier to enjoy the cake. And it was GOOD!!!