Originally published May 1st, 2019
Second weddings are strange. From debating on if you can wear white, obviously, the virginal jig is up when you’re walking down the aisle with three kids. To who gets an invite, it’s a no on your ex folks. It can be overwhelming. Factor in the immense anxiety that accompanies remarriage and you’ll feel like you’re drowning in a sea of bullshit instead of a comfortable bottle of wine.
My first time around there was no wedding. It was two kids at a courthouse in jeans and pockets full of empty promises. When I approached getting married again, it was with a sprinkle of fantasy and a cold shot of reality. Weddings can be pretty… pretty fucking expensive. With personal reminders that I failed at this marriage thing the first time around, and panic attacks every time wedding planning was mentioned, I concluded that I no longer possessed the bride gene. It had got up and walked its ass out the door the day my first marriage collapsed. Without that vital gene to make wedding planning palatable we threw together a wedding in six weeks. I made it clear to everyone that anything longer than that and I was going to pull a Julia Roberts and bolt.
As far as I was concerned all we needed was clothing for the tiny bridal party, someone to take quality pictures, some delicious cake, and someone to make it all legal. I figured we could totally do it all in a friend’s backyard and order pizza after the vows. What I assumed we would do isn't what we actually did. Why? Because it wasn’t my groom’s second wedding. It was his first and he had waited a long time to take the leap. While I could pivot the wedding from a year of planning and a 250+ guest list, full of people we really didn't want to be around anyways, love required me to reach down deep and dust off a morsel of the bride gene so we had a day that brought us both joy.
Not wanting to repeat the same tired vows I had said before, we wrote our own. They were personal and honest. We were two people, in the middle of immense personal growth, coming together under a tree on the nerd calendar’s holiest of days. Our union wasn’t based on the thought that we could fix each other or that we needed each other to be whole. Instead, it was and is based on the reality that we’re both arrogant enough to believe we can make this work. That we believe we have the strength to love and raise three kids together. All while loving and pushing each other to be the best version of ourselves every single day. Making it legal ensured we had an expensive accountability buddy for the days when we aren't as strong as we need to be.
Almost a year later and I can say it doesn’t matter if you wear white. Nor does it matter if you devour pizza or catered deliciousness. The flowers will die. The pictures will eventually fade. All that will remain is the commitment of two people who want to be better than they were the day before and their belief that they’ll have better luck together than they will alone.
So do what makes you happy and enjoy the cake because the real work is what happens after the wedding clothes come off.
“There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive… wormhole refractors… You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.”
― The Doctor
Copyright(c) 2019 Rayven Holmes
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