I consider it a powerful portent of good luck to stumble across a wedding unexpectedly.
I love going to weddings and I consider it a great honour to be invited to one. Weddings make me feel giddy and new. They recharge me. It is a special privilege to bear witness to a public declaration of love, isn’t it?
To be in the presence of a wedding is truly inspiring. Here are two people who take an oath before friends and family (and sometimes a god) to love one another for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do they part. That’s a big promise. We’re talking POVERTY. ILLNESS. And VARIOUS OTHER BAD TIMES that are not specifically mentioned… burned dinners, poopy diapers, projectile vomiting, hangovers, tents that don’t want to stay upright and granny underwear. Shall I go on?
It’s amazing to be part of a select group of friends and family and celebrate the lives of two people who have chosen to spend the rest of their lives together, vomiting and finicky tents poles notwithstanding.
To be in the presence of such promise, surrounded by other spectators who are all beaming with love and emanating great waves of happiness, is both humbling and wondrous.
So perhaps you can see why stumbling on a wedding (even if they are strangers) is a lucky happenstance. I stop for a moment to take it in. I always sense a wave hovering there. I’m not a religious person. I see it as a wave of good karma or good spirits. Does this seem hokey? I like to dip my toe into the moment. On the periphery, I can absorb a part of the love and the good wishes and keep them close to me.
I feel a glimmer of the happiness I felt on our own wedding day. The remembrance of that happiness returns like a bird in spring. I take a deep breath and think. For a moment it feels exactly like that day long ago. At least it does for me, and it’s enough to wipe the slate clean and forget about those freakin’ tent poles.
You can do this too. If you find yourself standing outside the doors of a wedding of people you don’t know, remember, there is a great thing happening and you are on the edge of it.
Let the record show I would never crash a wedding, although I understand perfectly why someone would do such a thing. I would not, however, hesitate to sneak a photo of a strangers wedding.
Yesterday it happened again.
It was a fluke. I was returning to my car. The church was there. Instead of rushing home I decided to peek around the corner.
And found this:
I took a few photos and sat down on the outer corner of the church steps. I held my camera in one hand, a hot coffee in the other. A man came out a side door. He saw me, smiled, and walked away. The sky was bright. I couldn’t hear much of what was being said indoors. Only a few words escaped and met my ears: God, love, togetherness.
I felt full. And lucky.
