Love, Laughter & Ever After

One summer, when we were young, Doug was telling, complaining rather to his landlord how many weddings we had. His landlord quickly replied, "Enjoy it. When you get to be my age, all you do is go to funerals." Point taken.

There were several years we received nary a wedding invitation. Then, the nuptial cycle began for the kids of family and friends. Invitations picked up. I won't lie. We were a little excited, remembering all of those weddings of old. I'd like to say we reminisced about the beauty of the ceremony or the purity of young love. But it was really about the beer. Lots and lots of beer.

It's funny how quickly you go from being young and hip to old and clueless – as indicated by my use of the word "hip." When we attended one of those second round of weddings a few years ago, we discovered quite quickly we had transcended our youth. We got ourselves all dolled up, sat brightly at church, then went to the bar before the reception, following the wedding party just like we used to do.

Then we noticed something. Actually, the bartender pointed it out. "What are you guys doing here? With all these young people?" We finished our drinks and sheepishly plodded to the reception to join the other middle-agers.

Officially old.

Fast forward to 2018. Two nephews got married this year. One was married at a lovely country club in Las Vegas. The other was married in our hometown church. Both were spectacularly fun in their own ways. And here's the thing. It had nothing to do with the drinks consumed. Not that we didn't consume. We did. But this time the joy had everything to do with the beauty of the ceremony and the purity of young love. I guess it takes some aging to appreciate those things.

I'll end with a quick, sweet story from the weekend. We went to the church early to partake in family pictures. When I saw my brother-in-law (father of the groom), he didn't bring up how beautiful the kids looked or how smoothly everything was going. He smiled sweetly and asked, "Have you seen my wife?" She was smashing! And it didn't go unnoticed by her husband of over thirty years. Perhaps I should correct my earlier statement. Not only was I struck by the purity of young love, but of all love. That's the real magic of a wedding.

Love, ever after.