Weddings

I am going to a wedding today, on 10.10.10. I know several people getting married today, on this auspicious day. I think of how I have only been to a handful of weddings in my life, and each one has been so different.

The first one I don't remember because I was three: I was the flower girl at my own parents' wedding. Then when I was a teenager my oldest brother got married in a tiny Vegas chapel by a very unfortunate-looking chaplain. I remember we took a limo there, and during the ceremony I cried my eyes out I was so touched. My mom married again a few months before I did. It was at the church I used to attend when I was in high school, and the reception was at her house. I helped her pick her dress, and during the ceremony I lit a unity candle with my new sister-in-law, whom I had only just met.

Then I got married, and it was good.

A few months later, one of my friends from college had an Indian wedding in Connecticut, with Indian food, Indian music, and Indian guests. My husband and I sat at the non-Indian, college friends table. The colors, smells, sounds, and traditions were amazing. Later on that year, my brother-in-law got married in Chile, where the pastor never showed up and someone had to step in and impromptu marry the bride and groom, and where an aged pseudo-pop star hijacked the wedding by crooning for an hour. His music was not conducive to dancing.

Months later my husband and I were in Serbia, at a beautiful Orthodox ceremony with Roma music and incense and strong brandy sipped from 10:30am onwards. Now I am in anticipation of today, a Jewish wedding of two special ladies in a chimney in Georgetown.