A friend recently got married in Ibiza - during a once-in-a-decade red storm. She and her now-husband spent the days prior trying to rearrange the whole thing, and almost cancelled. On the day itself, the heavens opened, the outdoor Diptyque candles were never lit, and the bride’s dress became a mop.
The atmosphere, however, was electric. The comradery of making the best of the situation sparkled through the downpour. It wasn’t the painstakingly constructed event they’d planned, but it served as a keen reminder: a wedding is a beginning; a birth of a new life together. Birthing is a messy yet joyous business, where nothing ever goes to plan. To place so much emphasis on the events of a single day misses the point.
Weddings are wide-eyed promises to bind your life together with another’s: to love and look after one another, build an existence in tandem, and weather it together. Life will throw everything at you - good and bad - and agonising over the music tripping or the speeches falling flat won’t change any of that. (Although arguably, the very best weddings - for guests, at least - are the ones where the speeches are a little too drunken, the dance floor is a space for experimentation, and the bathrooms are ripe with drama.)
In the end, on my own wedding day, I leaned into the imperfections. I wore a pink mushroom print dress. I walked myself down the aisle. A reading was mumbled. I gave a speech. We didn’t have a cake. A dear friend was a last-minute drop out; another turned up out of the blue. After staggering along the street to hail a cab back to our hotel, my husband took one look at the rose petal-covered bed and exclaimed: “What the hell is this?” before promptly swiping them all off.
It might not have been anyone else’s version of perfect, but I’m not sure what that means, anyway. It was simply the chaotic, hopeful beginning of our marriage. As an opening act, it wasn’t half bad. It was, at least, perfectly ours.
