white wedding

hallelujah, wedding season is over! 5 down, zero to go (until winter).

the middle child of my 'other family' got married this weekend. our families were almost parasitic growing up - vacations, dinners, summers at the pool. i babysat their three kiddos through much of my high school years. and now they are all married. in fact, their oldest boy (at the ripe old age of 25) has a baby already and another on the way.

it was a lovely outdoor ceremony and an exceptionally beautiful day for august. they wrote their own vows, and ryan's were the most incredibly real and personal and sweet i have ever heard. it made my heart break for someone to love me that much. for someone to vow to put Christ, but only Christ, before me in his life. to promise, with tears streaming down his cheeks, to return me to the Lord someday in mint condition.

the ceremony was definitely the highlight. my warm glow of happiness and pleasure at seeing long loved friends quickly slid into the mire of self pity by the time we got to the reception. the young (21 for the bride and 23 for the groom) couple crammed a reception room with other ultra-young beautiful people from whom i sought refuge at a table where the parents of my childhood best friend were sitting. the thick choke of panic and defensiveness kept rising in my throat as i tried desperately not to sink. yeah, no, no boyfriend. nope, not loving my job. looking for a new one, actually. yes, still with my roommate in the apartment near the lake. no, no trips coming up any time soon. why? well, no cash. yep. yep. so how are the grandbabies??

the only real relief and truly pleasant part of the entire reception was my enthusiastic recruitment of basically the entire pool of guests, young and old, to clammor around the TV at the bar and scream our heads off to cheer on my pretend boyfriend du jour, michael phelps, as he relayed to his magical 8th medal. i wish i had my camera to take a shot of an entire wedding smooshed into a bar including the bride, groom, and wedding party: mouths agape, heads straining to see the screen (i had been standing there for a while by this point and was closest to the TV). we screamed and jumped. and the DJ blared into "we are the champions" when our triumphant yell indicated to the cheap seats that it was in fact a victory.

and then i eagerly went home to sleep off a pityparty hangover.