Weddings

I have two weddings to attend this summer. The first one is a week from Saturday. The couple is around my age. The second one is in August and is that of a 25 year old coworker and the guy she's already actually married to ("We got married in November, but we're being wedded in August"). It's their story to tell. I'm not telling it here.

Weddings for me are not in the same category as birthday parties or Bar Mitzvahs. They never have been. Although any type of event in which people experience and express emotions makes me do the same, weddings tend to go a step beyond that for me.

In 1979 my best friend Nancy got married. I was a silly, rock concert going little twerp when I was 19, who had no idea what responsibility was. Getting married was something grown ups did. I wasn't ready for my friends to be getting married.

I cried during her wedding. We're not talking dainty, sentimental little tears, we're talking burgundy faced, snot running down the front of my pale peach bridesmaid's dress sobbing. I did this on the stage, during the entire ceremony. Even the part where her dorky now-ex-husband vowed, in his southern drawl, "For sickness and in health". The entire ceremony, I kid you not. I don't think anyone was looking at the bride. They were too distracted by the freak show that was me.

I cheered up a bit at the reception, enough to go after the tossing of the bouqet with great vigor. In the wedding album shot that will exist for all posterity, I am about two feet off the ground, my back arched, arm outstretched, facial features set in a gruesome chariacture of over-eagerness. I think at the time we called it the "Wendy Abdul Jabar shot" I have made her swear that if I ever become famous she will not send that picture into People magazine.

About 13 years later my best friend from Denver, Barbara, got married. She had moved to New York six months earlier. Long story short: I spent the day before the wedding with my ex-boyfriend Stuart and his wife. And then I was literally the only person at the wedding who was single. Bad combination of circumstances. This led to my once again, although for different reasons, being a sobbing mess. I didn't realize this until I was writing this, but that was the first night that I was offically unhappy about being single.

I'm happy to report that I made it through bridesmaid duty at the above wedding ceremony tear free. I think the fact that I was wearing size 8 AA shoes when I'm an 8 B helped (they were really cute shoes, and on sale. I didn't think they would cause the mind-numbing pain that they did all through the 6 1/2 hour or however long it was ceremony). I saved my nervous breakdown for the reception.

"So Wendy" you're thinking "Have you ever been, er, normal at a wedding?" Why yes I have. I have a great time at most weddings. And that's my plan for the two weddings I'm attending this summer. Despite the fact that I am currently not at all happy being single and that a certain nordic someone had told me I'd be getting married around this time.... I will go to these weddings happy for the couples and happy to be part of fun celebrations. That's the plan. And although no one has reason to believe me at this point, I am pretty certain that I'll be getting married within the next few years. At least that too is the plan.