That time I went to a wedding in CA

It's strange to have written so much about an event, a wedding, without having included anything much about other people. Believe it or not, I did not attend a wedding that only involved me. And yet, I'm reticent to write about other people for fairly simple reasons. First, I'll get them all wrong. It only takes having five or so serious conversations to figure out that we have only a fractional clue of what's going on in someone else's head. And so, I am afraid of misrepresenting them, or having them appear anything but clever and sane, on the grounds that I believe it's best to portray others in the best light.

That said, I should say that as I headed off with my makeup looking quite smashing I thought briefly on the bride: the girl who was marrying my oldest friend. And the thing that impressed me the most about her was that she was nice. I don't mean it pejoratively. The term, like love, has been worn thin by overuse. And yet, if you were to ask me what one quality would likely sustain a long marriage, I'd probably say someone who is nice. Someone who will always, or nearly always, we aren't saints every day, think of you in the best light. This is the sort of person who will largely regard others as reified human beings, ensouled creatures, or at the very lest, not assholes who are in the way.

I've long made the joke that in relationships it's important to be with someone good looking because personality always fades, you start hearing the same jokes, the same stories, the same way of checking their watch, all those habits become familiar, and, barring sainthood, not endearing. And yet, someone who is nice will always be nice. And I can't say that I've ever found being kind to be out of style.

I was also a fan of my bridesmaid, who was funny and opinionated and mildly threatening. Precisely the type of girl who I would have been scared of when I was younger, but who I find to be quite entertaining now. The groom's father wore lederhosen to the rehearsal, and I have to be honest and say that his legs looked fantastic. And we'll just leave it at that. Anyhow, this wedding was made interesting and fun by a myriad of people who are going unnamed, and I'll apologize to all of them at some point when I see them again, which may be never.

I arrived on the day of the wedding as promptly as possible. I am a person who enjoys being on time. I am, for reasons often beyond my control, often late, and I can't communicate how satisfying it was to be on time. Sure, when you're on time, it actually turns out that you're early as no one is expected to actually be on time, and you wind up inconveniencing everyone around you by being on time. People are always feeling guilty when you show up on time though they are secretly wondering why you showed up so early. In this case the groom's mother and grandmother had to shuffle off to another room, so I could walk around the room in my tux with the sweet satisfaction that being on time can only bring, which is boredom as no one is really interested in talking with the person foolish enough to have arrived on time. I looked out the window at a small creek running through tunnels of grass and boughs of trees, such a beautiful place to be early.

In reality, being early is great because it grants you these great moments of silence that are never there when you are late. When you are late, you rush around and then arrive at the event just as it begins, or more likely, just after it has begun, and everyone always thinks this an advantage, but they miss the quiet moments this way: the view out the window, a conversation with an old friend that can only happen when you are early and catching worms or streams of silver light weaving through trees.

Eventually the stragglers arrive, and we take turns drinking from a bottle of Fireball and having our ties properly fixed up by my friend, who, after seeing the shoddy job that I'd done with my tie, insisted on doing a proper double Windsor. And, as he puts the tie around my neck, checking the length, as if he is my father, I ask him if he can see that I'm wearing makeup, "only a little," he answers without judgment, which is what friends are made for.

Eventually we had corsages put on, and I am reminded of my first high school dance, what an incredibly terrifying evening it was and will always be since we cannot rewrite the past. After a moment, my friend who has tied my tie comes inside and says he can see the groom and his new bride from the balcony, having their first look at one another. I step outside with him, and we steal a few moments of watching the two of them gazing at one another on a small brick path, bathed in light. They look magnificent. My friend says that the moment is beautiful and strange in a way, to have known someone since we were children, and now to be watching him, decades later, on the day of his wedding. We reflect on this for only a short time as we conclude thereafter that is probably strange or uncultured, to stand on a balcony when a couple is supposed to be getting their first look.

After a while, when its become clear that no sandwiches have been ordered, we drive up the small street and up the steep hill to the wedding. In this case, I've had enough fireball that I hand the keys off to the bride's younger brother, and I tell him to gun it up the hill. "Changing gears is for slower cars." Inside the small tea house where we start to realize that we're not getting any lunch, we, a bunch of married guys, give advice to the bride's  younger brother, who is in college, about relationships and women, none of which I'm remembering right now, but all of which was, I'm sure, pure gold.

Outside, as we were talking about the tight knit nature of our group, and that brief period of time when we were going out in our early twenties, decrying our ability to have anything approaching a traditional good time, a friend of the groom's asked us what we did when we went out, specifically,

"What happened when one of you met a girl?"

We all looked at each other and laughed. "Girls?" my friend said. "No one ever met any girls."

H: Well then how did all of you end up married?

G: Just went with the first girl that would have us.
(This is of course a joke as we are all married to lovely, intelligent and discerning women, though the latter point may be in question).

And we passed the time in just such a way, laughing, going to the bathroom and waiting to be told to walk down the aisle.

After a bit, we stood around a small table with champagne and talked about death. It was a wedding after all. The bridesmaid I'd been paired with is a nurse in an ICU. I was telling her, as I tell everyone, how bad our nation, and I am, at thinking about death.

"I plan on living forever, or at least reaching the ripe old age of Methusalah.

The truth of the matter is that the most spiritually significant time in my life was spent in a hospital. I told her how I watched a very gentle old man go from simple rehab to death's door in the ICU. She said, with real conviction, that she loved to help people die well that the process of helping someone to end their life was fulfilling. Then she told me that they had also recently saved someone who's heart had stopped on an elevator. "We can do some amazing things," she said. And I could have talked like that for hours, about death and dying, but then I remembered that I was at a wedding, and such topics are probably better left for other days.

After more time passes, we are called to our duty: to walk down the aisle slowly while looking fantastic. I'm pretty sure I hit on one of two. In most of the pictures I look like my face is partially deformed: note, do not talk to the person you are walking with on the aisle. Smile straight ahead, nod at some people: you will look better in the pictures. At the front, seeing my oldest friend, I went up and shook his hand, a gesture I've picked up after so many weddings through the years, a gesture that never feels wrong but still appears strong and manly. I've seen people hug, which also acceptable.

The ceremony was one of the best I've been to, despite the service exceeding the usual 15 minute cap that I enjoy. The vows were written by the groom and bride, and were wonderful. And the sermon was about how important friends had been to the character formation and lives of the two individuals being bound together. In fact, I still remember spending the night for the very first time at the groom's house, a very scared six year old. "Don't worry," he told me, "we have an alarm." Moments later, when that alarm went off, I was pretty sure that my life was over. It wasn't the end that night. I know because I ended up at his wedding.

Back in the tea house we cracked open a bottle of champagne while we waited for the crowd to clear. A receiving line at a wedding is an interesting thing. I remember being shocked at my own wedding by the number of people that I barely knew. "Who was that?" I found myself asking S as each person left us to smile at the next.

At the reception, we all got wine and waited for the dinner to start. At some point, I knew that my wife would ask me about the food, but I was already forgetting what I was eating. I'm just not cut out for remembering food. We ate beans, maybe? Most weddings, when you're not part of the bridal party are pretty much about the reception. You want to know if there will be an open bar, who you are sitting with, and when the music will be queued up, so you can show off the latest dub step moves that you learned from watching Youtube.