Wedding Ruminations

As you already know, two fellow bloggers survived a road trip, survived almost running out of gas twice, and survived being two single girls at a wedding. And here is one of them making up for the lost time with a long post and a classic visual:

A voice echoes in the crowded room, "All right all you single ladies out there, it's time to catch the bouquet!" The following walk toward the dance floor is starting to feel more and more like apprehensively crawling onto an over-sized petri dish. Fortunately at this wedding, I am in good company, hidden with my fellow blogger behind the giggling gaggle of ringless girls (I naturally write "girl" realizing it feels more acceptable to be a single girl than a single woman). Extremely Tall Girl has no competition when it comes to catching the floral ball. She triumphantly holds it high, smiles for the camera, probably knowing the catch means nothing, probably secretly wishing it did. Oh if only it were that easy: a beautiful man flies toward my face as I gaze upward with colored lights illuminating my starry pupils and smile of awe, while other girls are jumping at him rather violently knowing, "there's not too many of those." But it does them no good--the man comes straight at ME, and lands gracefully into my receiving hands. Ah. What a lovely scene. 

You all know what comes next: the Sexy Leg Show. The single men are now asked to gather (and why is it so much easier to naturally write men as opposed to boys?). You would think a chance for some healthy competition would leave the men running to the plate; however, it takes a good two minutes longer for them to step up after the groom stretches his neck upward scouring the room for his single friends. Finally, an unimpressively sized group of guys moseys on to the dance floor with pocketed hands. The garter is flung. Ironically, Very Short Guy has no competition as he is literally airborne to catch the lacy trophy, all while the guy it was actually heading toward watched in both fear and amusement, without taking one step back nor forward, hands still at side. This scene might actually be a more realistic portrayal than our share of the tradition. 

And all the while, I'm analyzing the amount of men on the floor: "...Huh..." 

It's dwindling, girls. However, I refuse to jump and push. I remain in the back of the gaggle with my bud, snickering at the nonsense of it all. Besides, we are still in our young 20's for goodness sakes (mid 20's is probably more accurate but we're not going to go there)! What's the fuss about? But when it comes down to it, I can't deny my hands were slightly raised, just in case that bouquet so gracefully decided to land in them. I refuse to be airborne, 1: because come on, who wants to be compared to Very Short Guy? We has gots to be smoother than that! 2: It's supposed to be easy. No jumping necessary. 

Point: I had breakfast with a bridesmaid the morning before the big day--awesome girl. She had recently gotten married, quite quickly after meeting her man (much like the bride of the weekend). I asked her a common question in regards to her husband, "How did you know?" mostly because the ability to know, to be certain that this is the person you should wake up next to every day for rest of your life baffles me (let's just say what that really means--to know you want to be fondled by this person for the rest of your life truly baffles me. Baffles.)

So how did she know? The typical and frustrating answer usually is (*insert gleeful, high-pitched voice*), "I just knew!" Fortunately, this married bridesmaid gave a more substantial answer for a quizzical single like me. She knew because it was just easy. They immediately felt comfortable, and it just fit. She wondered why people believed relationships required putting so much fuss into it all, questioning everything, laboring over interactions, finding excuses for their partner and finding blame in themselves. She believes, and actually knows first-hand, it doesn't have to be like that. It can be...easy. 

Well this just sounds ridiculous. Easy? We have a blog because we have some adjectives for dating in mind...and easy is obviously not one of them. However, something else to note is that before this major life decision, she was fighting another one. Previously engaged to an aspiring pastor she had been with for four years, she was fussing, questioning, laboring, finding excuses and finding blame. Deep down she had the knowledge that he put his church before everything, including any future family and including her. We can easily say "ugh, typical," in response to this, yet we can also easily respond with, "he's dedicated and passionate, and he's working hard for God. I'd be selfish to take him away from that." If we loved the guy, we'd most likely go with the latter. Ugh, typical...but true. 

She had asked him to go to a family member's wedding with her (may the wedding theme live on!) and he said he couldn't because, you know, church stuff. How can you argue church stuff?? But it was really important to her, and she knew that a more fitting guy would see this in her pleading eyes. She also knew that his church, which was also her church, would actually love for him to go to this wedding with her. Despite knowing this and other comparative, painful revelations, she was stuck because she was already so committed (an upcoming blog topic by Rachel that I will not get into now). Hey, I've been there and I'm sure you have at some point. You become blinded in the behavior patterns, and someone telling you it's supposed to be easy sounds not just ridiculous, but like an insult. 

He ended up telling her after a year of being engaged that he didn't love her anymore. Heartbreak. She spent two years not dating and it ended up being a spiritually enriching time. She even thought to herself, "this would be the perfect time to meet someone, because I don't actually need to meet someone." Isn't it interesting how it always works out like that? Here's an embarrassing thought of mine for you to have fun with (just call me airborne guy in disguise *said with accompanying shudder*): sometimes I want to be in that spot of not "caring" to date because I know it is at this point I'd probably meet someone really great who thinks I'm equally great...but isn't that still caring? So then I get frustrated that I am caring when I'm not supposed to be, and even more frustrated for being tempted to hope for a "spiritually enriching" time because it would prepare me for this great person, which defeats the purpose. Not sure if that made sense; give me a "hear hear" if so, or a "God bless her" if I won your perplexed pity.

Back to bridesmaid. It was exactly at this time that she met her now husband, and again I say, it was easy. Even though her message seems too easy to be true (har har), she is a woman who speaks from experience, who has been on both sides of the track. Well ladies, what do you think? Is it supposed to be easy? This is an especially pertinent question for two certain bloggers (I'll own up to the fact that I am one of them) who just last night made a joke deal (or serious perhaps?) which basically states: 

"If you jump, I'll jump." 

In other words, if this other blogger states her feelings to said person, consider me airborne alongside her (with a totally different said person, of course. We don't share). Yet as I type this, I think there's no point because jumping implies this is not easy, and it's supposed to be easy or else it's fussing, questioning, laboring, finding excuses and finding blame (yet, don't we do all this anyway when we decide to not jump?). We tell ourselves to get over the bouquet because it's not landing gracefully in our open hands, regardless of whether or not the bouquet knows our hands are open and available. Instead we hide behind a wall of willing women, snickering to ourselves and secretly shaming ourselves for being on the dance floor in the first place, dreaming that the catch actually means something. 

This is where I'm at now: I'm not going to jump for the bouquet. There's too many lights on the dance floor, too large of a crowd, and the bouquet just might be too pretty, and colors possibly too different from my dress (although my hands might be slightly raised upward). I refuse to jump. Sound good? Sound stubborn? Yep, that's because it might be, but instead I'll call it "not caring." 

In the mean time, I'll probably get smacked in the face with some other bouquet thrown at me. And I'll come here to complain about it. 

By the way, while this was being written, Chandler and Monica got married. It wasn't easy for them, then again, it's television.