As of today, I’ve been married four months.
At the time, coronavirus didn’t exist. Or maybe it did. Viruses are tricky that way. Regardless, the first cases wouldn’t be reported for another few weeks.
Four months later, and a couple who wants to get married has lost the luxury I had when my husband and I wanted the same. They, unlike us, are intimately familiar with the language of pandemic. They’ve had to learn fast. No one wants to host a party that kills.
People understand the dilemma this puts couples in. At least, they seem sympathetic. And yet, we hedge. We apologize for talking about something so silly as our wedding day.
It’s there if you look, in the various articles written by people, usually women, who have had to cancel their weddings because of coronavirus. “We were, in so many ways, so very lucky,” one woman writes in British Vogue. “I know it sounds trivial to be so upset about postponing a wedding,” another writes in Glamour UK.
Our apologies miss the point. They assume that what we canceled or rescheduled shouldn’t matter, at least not so much. A wedding is just a party so why am I so sad? People are out of work, we say. People are dying.
We punish ourselves with this logic. We shame ourselves for no reason. A wedding is never just a party. It’s a wedding. That’s why it hurts so bad.
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The month I got married, I found it much more comfortable to consider my makeup than my vows. My lipstick never made me cry.
I would imagine walking down the aisle and feel the top of my head tingle with excitement. I would sneak a peek at our rings and grin for hours. I would sit at my kitchen table and sob as I practiced the words I would say to my husband.
I never feel this way about a birthday party or a BBQ. My heart never leaps with joy when I host a potluck. To call my wedding “just a party” leaves so much out of the conversation.
So I encourage you to stop apologizing. You’ve done nothing wrong. It is OK to feel sad about your wedding. It is OK to mourn what should have been.
Instead, acknowledge that your grief is real. The happy tears. The tingling nerves. The butterflies. They’ll come back faster if we acknowledge that they left at all.
P.S. This post was inspired by this amazing article by Monica Chin. Weddings aren’t mentioned in Ms. Chin’s article, which is part of the reason I wrote this one, but I wanted to be sure and give credit.