What really matters at a wedding
Last weekend I went to my niece’s wedding just outside of Bordeaux. It was totally beautiful – the sort of wedding pinned on Pinterest, saved on Instagram collections and generally fawned over.
Picture it…
Château with formal grounds and a courtyard, vineyards set out with long tables, an infinity pool to lounge by, and the most incredible sunsets.
Jaw-drop stunning.
Seats set in military perfection beneath shady trees for the wedding ceremony, parasols to keep away the beating sun and flower petals handpicked and dried for a year by the couple’s families stuffed into tiny envelopes.
And yet, as I sat at the end of row two with my reading ready to go on my lap, I found myself noticing completely different things.
Not the flowers.
Not the styling.
Not the swags on the chairs.
The things I noticed were much smaller.
Much more human.
Fifteen minutes before the ceremony, a mild panic arose for one of the guests – the zip of her dress had spectacularly failed whilst chatting over pre-ceremony Crémant. Twelve inches of unintentional skin on display.
Three minutes later I was sewing someone I had never met before back into her dress. Desperately trying to not stab her with a needle, not trash her style with a hastily-sewn repair but with enough strength that the dress wouldn’t fail when she was making shapes on the dancefloor at 2am.
Not exactly the calm ceremony prep I had envisaged.
Later, a tiny group of us found ourselves quietly protecting a near-dead mouse from a hundred unsuspecting wedding guests.
Not because anyone had to, but because nobody wanted him accidentally squashed under a guest in a 4 inch wedge.
The groom’s grandma stood up for her reading – I didn't understand a single word his Ome said.
It was in Latvian. But it was one of the most emotional moments of the ceremony.
And somewhere in between all of that, I realised something; The things people worry about before a wedding and the things people remember afterwards are completely different.
Couples worry about whether everything will go to plan – guests remember a mum’s pride bursting when she walked her daughter down the aisle.
Couples worry about whether the day looks beautiful – guests remember laughing with old uni friends.
Couples worry about details – guests remember feelings.
And that’s not to say that all the details, and the planning, and the deliberations over chair swags are wasted. They’re not. They become the backdrop to what a wedding is all about.
Which is probably why, when I think back on the wedding now, it’s not the grandeur of the chateau, or the cool of the pool that I think about .
I think about a grandma reading Latvian.
A sewing kit.
A tiny mouse.
And a family celebrating together after a year that had brought both huge joy and enormous sadness.
Because that's what weddings are, not a collection of perfectly executed details, but a collection of very human moments.
