Seeing the prompt today — “Wedding” — I realized that the only weddings I’ve attended have been my own. I’ve been part of some pre-wedding stuff for my cousins, but otherwise? No. The only person saying “I do” in my life has been me, and as we know, I don’t. I should have said, “I might” not “I do.”
My first wedding was the whole shebang with expensive white dress, people in the church, reception, all of it. I was 22 and had known my husband since 9th grade. Our meeting in Mr. Morland’s biology class was one of those movie things — eyes meet, sparks fly but it was years (four) before we went out together. We’re in some classes together throughout high school. Various girlfriends and boyfriends and finally we find each other. I seriously think this might have been made into a Hollywood movie… Hmmm. ANYHOO it lasted 6 pretty miserable and scary years.
Looking back I don’t know if it was a mistake or not. Back then, marriage was one of the “easiest” ways for a girl to get out of the family house.
The second wedding was a lot simpler. It happened in my mom’s backyard. I guess I shredded the photos of that in the great Purge of the Evidence of the Examined Life. BUT I had a GREAT dress and everyone had a good time. The only downside is that the man I probably SHOULD have married showed up a couple days before the wedding. I hadn’t seen him in years. He lived in Europe. He’d just packed up, crossed the “pond,” got a job delivering a new car across the US so he could get to me economically. Long story… Anyway, the Good X and I got home from ordering the wedding cake and found him on the steps to our apartment building. The day of my wedding, even my mom said, “So who IS the groom?”
When the universe speaks to me, even shouting isn’t loud enough.
The Good X and I had 12 mostly OK years together. We’re still friends and a kind of family.
There was a third wedding, and it was my favorite. Extremely low-key. It even had a reason beyond “luv'”. In fact the witness — my good friend — took me aside and said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with ‘luv’ does it?”
“No, god no.”
“OK. Then I’ll do it. Let’s go.”
Destiny designs rollercoasters for each of us and these were some of the “thrills” on mine.
Some weddings lead to happy, if complex, lives together. I admire that. Here are two that I know of. ❤
The featured photo is a car in Guangzhou decorated for a wedding back in 1983.
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
I envy your interesting life. I’m married 51 years, yes to the same guy.
❤ I think a happy marriage is a great achievement. It just wasn't in the stars for me which is OK, too. Maybe it's what you make of the hand you're dealt.
A white dress! My sister (married in 1964) agreed that marriage was the easiest way out of the house but, at 18, the easiest way into marriage was pregnancy. Thus, she wore beige. (P.S. They are still married.)
X Number 1 and I should have gone for counseling. There was no good reason it couldn’t have worked out except that he hit, kicked and shoved me. I brought problems of my own into that mess, too. BUT back then counseling was looked down on if it was even available. Over the years we talked it all over, but it was a case of the cow leaving the barn, etc. I think it’s great your sister is still married — I can’t imagine what my life would have been if any of these had worked out other than a lot different. I don’t feel like a failure (a lot of the divorced women of my generation do), but all this ‘growing up’ was time consuming and probably stole energy from other things.
“There was not good reason it couldn’t have worked out except that he hit, kicked, and shoved me” ?!? I think those are pretty good reasons for you to get out while still physically, if not emotionally, intact. Longevity in a marriage is only as good as the marriage. I remember (more than once) listening to my parents fighting (after I was supposed to be asleep – or had been asleep but awakened by the fighting) and heard one of them mention staying together “for the sake of the children”. I wanted to get out of bed and go yell at them to get divorced for the sake of the children. I was afraid of what would happen to me for listening. That didn’t stop me from wishing (when they were later than expected coming home from trips) that they had been killed in a car crash and my siblings and I could stay together as a family without them.
All that is WHY I got out. 😀 My parents fought at night, too. I ended up retreating to the basement to sleep on the roll away bed to get away from it. It was related to my dad’s illness and my mom’s general and yet somewhat solipsistic freaking out over what lay ahead, but that is exactly why counseling could have helped (early on) the first X and me. It reached a point of no return. And, his dad beat his mom. We brought so much shit into our own way-too-young marriage, but we didn’t know. I felt so liberated when it was over that I was surprised when he showed up at my apartment filled with remorse much later, already married to another woman he’s still with. I was surprised he didn’t feel liberated, too. I wouldn’t venture a pronouncement on what makes a marriage last. It’s only been in the last five years I’ve understood something about long-term romantic love and what it entails and why I never managed it. It seems to me that might be consistency, kindness and patience — three things that were not a big part of my parent’s relationship but which I am determined to maintain my current, very strange, romantic relationship. It’s easy at 6000 miles, though. 😉
“Destiny designs rollercoasters…” I love that!
❤ It feels like that to me!
It feels that way to me, too!
Better than a merry-go-round. Rollercoasters might be scary but merry-go-rounds make me nauseous 😀
Wow! So I have to ask, “What happened to the guy that showed up on the steps just before the wedding to the Good X?? I’m happy to be married to Sparky – he’s a good egg and loving and gentle and kind. I made the right decision. A former boyfriend asked me to marry him 3 times (and of course I turned him down 3 times) while I waited for Sparky to figure out what he really wanted…