My cousin is getting married on Saturday, and a good friend of mine from college is getting married in October, while yet another cousin and another college friend both just got engaged. I tell you all of this to explain why I’ve had the subject of Weddings on my mind lately. Not to say that there haven’t been enough portrayals of it in the movies and on TV lately, most often showcasing atrociously bad behavior or hilariously outrageous circumstances. It’s clearly a popular subject matter, and one that people enjoy watching, be it a dress fitting that has gone horribly and hysterically wrong, or a bride who cannot seriously be this spoiled and demanding. I realize that I’m in the minority when I say that I steer clear of most of these shows. The majority of them do not make me laugh so much as make me uncomfortable, and I refuse to give bride-monsters any more undeserved attention than they already get. 

I understand that these are hyperboles, exaggerated portrayals of what the average American wedding is like. And thank goodness for that. What bride or groom wants their special day to be overrun by so much drama? The minor blunders that inevitably occur at weddings are enough to deal with. But they also serve as a reminder that nothing, no wedding, no special event is ever perfect. (I bet even Kate Middleton experienced some tiny problem on her wedding day – her stocking ripped, or her shoe heel broke, or her sister was running late.) And, as bizarre as it sounds, those small imperfections often end up the most precious and memorable. 

Like how I couldn’t stop weeping on my own wedding day, and I had to beg my bridesmaids to distract me while we waited in the room at the back of the church sanctuary during the prelude. We compared underwear and told abominable jokes. And I realized how much my nine-year-old sister loved me when she became distressed by my tears, not understanding I was crying with joy, not sorrow. 

Or when my mother’s voice began to wobble as she sang “I Was There To Hear Your Bourning Cry” during the prelude. We had worried that might happen, but I had wanted to hear my mother’s beautiful singing voice on my wedding day, and so she had agreed to do it for me, despite the risk of tears. 

Or when my bridesmaids had trouble locating the three tiny loops sewn in the back of my dress for my bustle, and we spent fifteen minutes trying to hook the heavy train of my skirt up. We now have some quite hilarious photos of my bridesmaids bending over and staring at my bottom as I try to stand there patiently and not look foolish.   

Or when my new husband and I left the reception in my old Taurus and it was “decorated” by the groomsmen with toilet paper and shaving cream. However, it had begun to rain – a cold, January rain – and we had to pull over at a gas station less than a mile from the church so that my husband could clean off the windshield because we could no longer see where we were going when the “décor” disintegrated into smears and globs.

All of these moments are so clear and vivid to me - more clear and vivid than much of the ceremony - and I can never think of them now without smiling. So, odd as it may sound, I’m wishing that my friends and family who are soon to be brides experience their own moments of imperfection, of unexpected humor or affection. And that years from now they can look back on those memories and smile. Because perhaps that’s the best gift a person can truly give at a wedding. Happy, and slighty bizarre, memories for a lifetime.