I don’t

For the most part I rarely give weddings much of a thought. It’s sort of the same thing with kidney dialysis: I have no need for it so it never enters my train of thought. So it goes with weddings, I am not currently married, don’t see myself ever again entering into marriage so there are bigger fish to fry on a daily basis. But lately for various reasons I the wedding topic has been swirling around and I have been faced with them. For one thing today would have been my parents’ 42nd wedding anniversary. Last year we celebrated it with a bang and all of let out a bunch of tension we had been holding too tight for too long. We laughed and screamed and cried while we missed my dad.
This year my mother signed on to photograph a wedding of a close family friend on this day. Her thinking was that this couple seems like a good, strong unit and she believed it was a great day to start out a marital union. For obvious reasons my mother did not do any weddings last summer, but she wants to get back into them and is again dipping her photographic toe into the mix. When she does do weddings I usually tag along to lend a hand when it comes to doing big family portraits; I get people to smile, hush crying children and am forever arranging those long, frilly bridal trains. and it is a job I always dread.
I have such serious issues when it comes to weddings. Much like that character in Pretty in Pink who missed her senior prom and forever felt as though she was missing something, I feel much the same about weddings. When I attend these things with my mother I always feel as though I have some sort of stain on my pants that alerts everybody that not only am I failure at marriage but that I never had a proper wedding. I worry as I am setting up the photos that they are whispering, “Yes, she does seem to know sitting arrangements, but did you know she was over 7 months knocked up when she tied the knot and she was wearing a tie-dye Lane Bryant smock dress?” I know this is just my paranoia, but it is so true. Also true is the fact that I have such a deep, burning case of wedding envy that I come home from these weddings and fantasize about colors and gift bags. This is particularly warped since I was never one of those girls who plans her wedding from the age of seven; I never wanted to get married. I thought it was a deranged, naive hope to enter into.
So here I am, looking 37 in the eye and still having wedding envy. I have no man and not even the prospect of a man in my near to far future. And if I did have a man, I would likely be so wigged out that the thought of marriage would scare me into another Lane Bryant smock. I can’t imagine ever loving somebody enough to agree to something so outlandish as freaking forever. Nor can I imagine loving somebody enough as to spend thousands of dollars declaring my love in front of everybody I have ever known. Because deep down I know that there would be more than a hand full of people who would be snickering from the pews, “Shheez, can you believe these two? Who the hell are they fooling? I give ‘em 18 months at the most.” And then a betting pool would begin while we were declaring forever to one another.
This is just another twisted torment I put myself through from time to time. The cold hard truth is that I would looooooooooooove to be a bride. After all this time I would love to wear white. I would love to spend months and months planning the flowers and the music and the gift bags. I would love to have a party be all about me, me, me.
Tonight as I left the wedding, the sun was beginning to set and the music was firing up. I left before the father-daughter dance because that is something I am not yet strong enough to watch, but I saw enough to know that it would be a great party and that this was, indeed, a good, solid couple. I commend their courage and wish I could have once done the same.