My week started with an engagement.
This couple — a bride and a groom — had spent the year apart. The groom was deployed in Japan. On Sunday night, he made it home safe. The first thing he did was get down on one knee.
Technically, he’d already asked. The couple hired me in January after a virtual proposal, which used to be rare but now, unfortunately, is how we live our lives. Their wedding is in October.
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I’m not sure what stage of grief we’ve reached – bargaining? acceptance? — but positive updates seem to be the theme of this week.
Chrissy Teigen officiated a wedding between two stuffed animals and I watched all 8 minutes and 43 seconds of it. This couple got married on their living room rug and this one in a video game. #ZoomWedding emerged.
All of this good news begs the question: Why have a wedding? Not just right now but really, ever?
A wedding is, at first glance, a completely insane thing to have whether or not there’s a global pandemic. It’s expensive, exhausting, a logistical nightmare. And we haven’t even talked about the audacity of pledging yourself to a mortal.
And yet.
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My week ended with a consultation call. A bride and a groom getting married in July 2021.
Is it completely insane to be planning anything right now? they asked.
Yes but also no, I replied.
Yes in the sense that nobody knows what the future will bring. No in the sense that “planning” is just another word for “hoping” and hoping is hard but necessary.
It doesn’t have to cost money. Hoping can be you and your partner talking about something that isn’t disease. It can be saying, “Not now but when we can.” It can be remembering that you already did the hard part: You found each other.
So why then a wedding? Why are people still having them?
Because a wedding is about happiness and joy but most of all hope. Hope in each other but also the future. We get hitched, take the plunge, tie the knot. We pretend that we know what’s ahead but we don’t. Have we ever?