This weekend an old buddy of mine from high school tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend he met in college years ago. The ceremony took place outdoors on a balmy, may-as-well-be-summer evening beneath a picturesque sky blue ceiling in Mother Nature’s master bedroom: the Veritas Vineyard in Charlottesville, Virgina.
It was one of those ceremonies you talk about to others when it’s over. Not about the décor or the food or the setting. Not about the band or the bridesmaids. And not about the crazy grandmother who threw back 12 shots of Jameson and busted out a mean boogie-woogie-woogie during the Electric Slide. But about the actual ceremony.
You know, that sort of important part at the beginning of the night?
I sat in the last row of seats at this wedding and the amount of love pouring out of the hearts of my two friends and their families I swear at one point crept all the way behind me and gave me a deep tissue massage. It was so genuine and heartwarming and impressive that I felt truly honored just to share this moment in time with them. You could hear the whispers later on: “Adam and Kate Lynn will be together forever.”
Because these days, that’s what we tend to do. We judge. We predict. And we set an over-under.
And why not? We know our friends and loved ones well, we think. So in this geological era otherwise known as the Divorceous Era, we predict whether or not they’ll become extinct and we roll the dice.
How many weddings have you attended where you wonder just how in love the bride and groom really are? Where you later turn to a friend, check your side mirrors, and casually say, “I give them a year.”
Odds are, if that’s the case then the ceremony probably won’t be the topic of your Facebook status Or Twitter tweet.
I feel like the wedding ceremony is often overlooked these days and sometimes intentionally overshadowed by everything else going on at the wedding. And that’s also very telling. If the pretentious stuff is more memorable than the most important moment in the bride’s and groom’s lives, then that deep tissue massage may feel more like a nagging pinch on the shoulder.
We all run into the occasional situation with friends where we sorta wonder why they're dating the person they're dating. I mean, really, what are they doing?
And then we have those friends who we learn may be wondering themselves, but don't know how to get out of the hole they've dug. I once asked a friend months before his wedding whether or not he was ready for the big day. "There's no turning back now," he told me.
Yeesh.
Fortunately, I can report that friend is happily married and I don’t see any sort of mistake being made. In the end, wedding jitters are perfectly normal. And hey, a prediction is just a prediction. It doesn’t mean we’re right. Even the best couples can fall victim to the worst marriages.
Still, I wonder, how many couples these days foolishly rush in to tie a knot that’s bound to become untangled during a miserable day in court? I wonder, how many divorcees out there were once pessimistically whispered about by friends? I wonder, what's the average rate of an "I-told-you-so?"
Yes, we all have that happen at some point in life. And we don't really know how to tell them their significant other could perhaps be a significant awful. This was once apparently the case with a relationship in my life, some friends of mine later revealed after it had ended. It’s not easy to prevent an I-told-you-so from happening. We can talk about it with other friends. We can attempt to drop some hints. I would certainly want my friends to let me know if they saw something in my girlfriend that perhaps I've overlooked. In the end though, it's not up to my friends to mold my life and make my decisions.
We control our own destinies. And sometimes we rush into those destinies. We put our concerns on the shelf, or sweep them under our beds in hopes they don't turn into boogeymen down the road. We hope for the best.
We hope.
At my wedding, I hope my friends are whispering like they did at Adam and Kate Lynn's wedding and the many other ones I've been to where I knew the couple was meant to be. There's no hoping for the best at those weddings. It's a sure thing.
So now I put this question upon you: Should friends tell friends when they have concerns about a relationship or marriage? Or should they stay out of it and let the chips fall where they may? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
