THE WEDDING

  Well, I recovered beautifully from my near-fatal bout with the imaginary flu, so I was able to attend a wedding on Saturday. Hubby, the kids, and I went. We had a very good time. And as I always do during and after going to any social event, I think about everything that took place.

I have to admit I was relieved that the actual wedding ceremony was only a half hour in length. God might smite me for being this way, but I really dislike long weddings. My attention span is minimal at best, which means anything over a half hour is totally lost on me. I end up scoping out every aspect of the church, the guests, and anything else that somehow distracts me. Granted, the wedding IS supposed to be for the benefit of the bride and groom and to their liking...not mine. It just helps when it is to the point and not filled with a bunch of secular jargon that anyone not of that particular faith can possibly understand. This wedding was perfect for me! No crying kids who were bored...no coughing and clearing of the throat...no shuffling around in the pews. Seems everyone appreciated listening to and watching the vows being exchanged. As we come to expect at most weddings, the bride and groom looked radiant, and the wedding party lovely and handsome.

The reception immediately followed the ceremony and was held at a hotel. It was a dinner and dance reception. Excellent! The decorations were very tasteful, and the proceedings of the reception were extremely well-organized. Bonus points for that. The food was killer good, and I told the gentleman carving the roast beef that he was my new best friend for the healthy portion of meat he laid on my plate. I won't mention that I practically salivated all over that huge hunk of meat his knife was slicing and that I gave the dude my wide-eyed, pleading puppy dog look to encourage him to give me a nice serving. I am not sure why I do that...I can never eat large portions of food. I get full too fast, and I waste far more than I eat. Oh well. Maybe it has something to do with feeling like I have a way with meat men. ::wicked grin::

Throughout the reception, we danced, drank (I avoided alcohol except for the obligatory champagne toasts), and laughed a lot. I also did my critiquing of the event. I like watching people. When folks are unaware they are being studied, they behave more like themselves. THAT'S what I want to see. Except for one young chick who was in her twenties, overly impressed with herself, and I feel certain believes she hung the moon and the stars ::eyeroll::, there was not a single guest who was unpleasant. (I caught her giving some obnoxious and scathing looks to other young ladies and women who were either attractive, had the attention of others, or in some way must have stolen the much-deserved limelight she felt she deserved. Never mind that she was not the bride nor even a member of the bridal party. My tolerance for people like that falls into the zero, zip, nil category.)

My daughter danced, and she wished our son would join her on the dance floor. He would not. That was simply not going to happen. When I told him that at his own wedding he was going to HAVE to dance, his response was, "This I know." He makes me laugh. Rhythm was denied him from birth. The God of Dance must have sneezed at the time of his conception, because the gorgeous boy of mine cannot get those feet or limbs to react to the music. My daughter on the other hand has ALL of the rhythm. I could watch her move and groove for hours. Matters not what type of music is playing, she can easily and effortlessly find the rhythm and her body instinctively moves to it. Guys have to love when she shakes her groove thing. I think the time has arrived for me to seal her up in a tower away from the gropes of said young men. She is ripe for the picking, and it has me nervous. Ah, my dear husband. He is not shy about dancing. He follows the beat well, and he does not look like a doofus on the floor. At least not to me. Our daughter informed him he looked like a "dork" when he dances. I burst into hysterics when she said that. Hubby took it like a real trooper. She has since revised his "dork" status to now be that he is "not that bad" and he "dances better than most parents do." His response to her was, "I feel so much better now." I was cracking up.

It was interesting. The mother and father of the groom have not spoken to each other in nine years. Need I say their divorce was acrimonious? After quite a battle, the father received full custody of the two children when they were very young. The mother, for whatever reasons she may have had, was not a part of their early years. As the boys grew older, they did have the desire to visit their mother occasionally. She had remarried and had children. But the boys always wished to remain with their father (who is a very close friend of ours). I watched with interest how he would behave having to spend so much time around his ex. He earned my admiration. No one would have been able to detect all the bitterness that surrounded their relationship. He sat with me for a bit late in the evening, and I complimented him on the way he handled such an awkward situation. He told me he did it for his son. And isn't that the way it should be? Too bad more parents who find themselves in similar predicaments cannot call up the necessary class to do the right thing for the sake of their children.

Everyone looked so tremendously happy all evening long. It is usually that way at weddings. A joyous occasion that has a trickle down effect on each one of the guests. The long-time married couples hold hands and sneak in smooches. Those who have been together only a few years, snuggle closer and recall their own weddings. The families of the bride and groom beam. The very young children remain hopelessly clueless and just deem the event another place to have fun. Maybe those who are struggling day-to-day in their own relationships or just with life can, for at least a short time, forget about their problems. There was not an unhappy face among all the guests.

I watched the interactions between the bride and groom. I saw such hope, so much love, and a "look" in the faces of the couple. I wish them the happiest of times, yet I know the way will sometimes be paved with obstacles. I hope they will be able to always keep a large part of what they felt toward one another yesterday. We can never tell how lives will twist and turn over time. And maybe after many years the relationship will have changed dramatically~and not necessarily in ways we wish. But there is usually some magic in marriages and long-term relationships...if we truly want to find it.

"Love is friendship set to music." ~Channing Pollock