10/01/2024
The best life advice I have ever read was in a book by Cheryl Strayed (under the pseudonym "Dear Sugar") called Tiny, Beautiful Things. Brilliant and wise, hers is some of the best wedding day advice I have ever read.
Dear Sugar,
Iâm getting married in a few months. Why do I feel totally aggressive and angry? How does anyone get through this event?
Aggressive
Dear Aggressive,
My guess is youâre the bride and that you feel aggressive and angry because youâre in wedding planning hell and youâre caught up in all the expectations, outdated fairy tales, over-priced products, and irrational beliefs that one adheres to when one believes it is possible to flawlessly orchestrate the behaviors, conversations, drinking habits, and attire of a large group of in-laws, out-laws, friends, strangers, and coworkers while simultaneously having a meaningful and intimate exchange with your sweetheart in front of an audience. It is not.
Or at least itâs not possible in exactly the way youâre imagining now. Iâm quite certain that whatever youâre all worked up about these daysâ the colors of your napkins, the invitation that should or should not be sent to your motherâs cousin Rayâ matters little and whatever will actually happen on that day when you get married will positively blow your mind.
Your wedding is going to be a kick, honey bun, but only after you accept that it isnât something to âget through.â Perhaps it might help to stop thinking about it as the perfect âevent,â but rather a messy, beautiful, and gloriously unexpected day in your sweet life.
My own wedding was really something, though for a good stretch it appeared that everything had gone to hell. As our one hundred or so guests arrived, it was pouring rain and weâd made no rain contingency plans for our outdoor wedding. Mr. Sugar realized heâd forgotten his pants sixty miles away, back in the city where we lived, and I realized Iâd forgotten the marriage license. My mother- in- law arrived dressed like a sheepherder from biblical times if sheepherders from biblical times wore teal, and one of my old friends pulled me aside to grill me about why I hadnât chosen her to be a bridesmaid. I couldnât find the bobby pins Iâd brought to pin my veil to my hair and then once other bobby pins had been purchased, in a mad dash relay effort that involved two local drugstores, I and seven of my girlfriends couldnât get the veil to stay on my head.
Many of those things seemed calamitous at the time, but they are now among my most treasured memories of that day. If they hadnât happened, Iâd have never run down the street in the rain holding Mr. Sugarâs hand laughing and crying at the same time because I was going to have to marry him in a dingy library basement instead of on the banks of a beautiful river.
Iâd have never felt the way it feels when everyone you know volunteers to drive at an illegal speed to retrieve a pair of pants and a piece of paper. Iâd have never known what a biblical- times sheepherder might look like in teal, and that important piece of information about my old friend.
And I wouldnât have been so distracted by getting those damned bobby pins in my hair that I didnât realize the rain had stopped and Mr. Sugar had discreetly enlisted our guests to carry one hundred white wooden chairs a quarter mile, from the terrible library basement back to the grassy spot on the banks of the beautiful river, where I had hoped to marry him in the sunlight and did.
We all get lost in the minutiae, but donât lose this day. Make a list of everything that needs to be seen to and decided and worried about between now and your wedding day and then circle the things that matter the most to you and do them right. Delegate or decide on the other stuff and refuse to worry anymore.
Let your wedding be a wonder. Let it be one hell of a good time. Let it be what you canât yet imagine and wouldnât orchestrate even if you could. Remember why it is youâve gone to so much trouble that youâve been driven to anger and aggression and an advice columnist.
Youâre getting married! Thereâs a day ahead thatâs a shimmering slice of your mysterious destiny. All youâve got to do is show up.
Yours, Sugar
