Beach Wedding

At most weddings the onlookers are in kind of a daze, looking around, worrying are they dressed right, but not at the one I just went to, held on the sand within 60 feet of the ocean. Here the guests were riveted by spectacle - mostly the spectacle of wind sending veils of mist past the happy couples’ faces; of bridesmaids shivering like frail papery jonquils in a late-March chill. It seemed a shame not to have sun; even the man officiating said so. He also said he was going to be frank with us all: “Marriage is an ordeal,” he said bluntly, quoting cultural anthropologist Joseph Campbell.I don't know about you but I think it’s good to say this straight out rather than passing on the fib that people are going to find in their mates all they had ever wanted in life. As one who's been married for four long decades I can tell you the man is right: “This person is so flawed!” you think at first - right before realizing  how flawed you are yourself . Sometimes you don't see how the other guy can put up with you at all.Just after the ceremony, people were hurrying to the bath house to get warm, ducking various body parts under the electric dryers just like Michael Keaton did with his baby in  that movie Mr. Mom. But then there was champagne, and freshly steamed lobster and all the great music a person could want. And by the time darkness fell that wind had scraped the whole sky clean of clouds to reveal a moon as big as Christmas.I stood near the giant bonfire not caring a bit that its flying sparks might drill holes in my nice new dress. I was so happy to be at this wedding of someone who has been like a son to us since he was a child of 14 with a mouthful of braces; at the wedding of Chris and his luminous bride Claire, all of us there together to help blend their two great families and be warmed by the fire of their love.