So many of you have been writing me lately, and leaving comments, worrying about your wedding being frivolous or not something you deserve. And let me tell you now: you deserve it. But more than that, your community needs your wedding almost as much as you need your wedding. They need it for hope, they need it for joy. When people are throwing bachelorette parties, bridal showers, and engagement parties for you, when they buy you gifts and they ask if they can help you with anything, it’s simply because they want to participate in your joy. They want to lift you up, and in so doing, let themselves be lifted too. And your responsibility is simply to let them (and write thank you notes afterward) and then to pass it on. That’s it.
Margaret, who’s dad died three years ago, left this poem in Morgan’s post about weddings in the faith of death, as a wedding reading she was considering using, and I think there is no better a reminder of why we do this thing that we call a wedding:
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
– Li-Young Lee
First Picture: by Cameron Ingalls. If you haven’t seen this wedding on 100 Layer Cake, you must. It’s such a clear answer to the statement, “But I can’t do what I want, I have to…” Because of course you can. If you’re tired of all of this, grabbed your loved ones, find a tree, and get married under it this weekend.
The rest, wedding graduates, reminding us of why: Drea shot by Michele Wayman, Sarah, Me & a friend, and April, all shot by One Love Photo
