The happiest day of THEIR lives

I can almost hear the church bells ringing in glorious harmony as another blissfully happy couple ties the knot.

Weddings.

Yes weddings! The peak of happiness for some and equally they can be the pinnacle of utter despair for others. Don’t get me wrong, I am pro-marriage. I am definitely pro-marriage but the process of getting married is what I am talking about, not for the bride and groom, but the experience of their single guests.

It should be noted, I am genuinely delighted when people fall in love and are prepared to stick together in sickness, in health, for richer and for poorer. That is admirable.

Congratulations.

My concern with weddings is that they are a bit like funerals. Stay with me….. Yes, weddings are like funerals because they force you to stand still and reflect on yourself. Weddings make you look at your life and wonder… “What will my destiny be?”

While the happy couple are gloriously celebrating their undying love with their nuptials, it can be easy to wonder where your elusive darling is lurking as it highlights your singleness.

To make matters worse for the single person weddings are entrenched with the traditions and rituals that rub serious amounts of salt into the breaking heart of a single person.

SOB.

As a single woman the absolute worst part of the wedding is when all the single ladies are forced together, as if on display in a zoo, to see who will catch the bride’s bouquet. Will it be your turn next? No thank you. I don’t particularly like flowers and the superstition that if you catch it you will be next to marry, simply doesn’t work. I know this is a fact because otherwise I would have been married by now – about 15 times over!

One friend of mine had suffered so many humiliating years if being forced to stand in front of the wedding party ‘hoping’ to catch the bride’s bouquet, that at her own wedding she refused to even toss her bouquet! The distress she had experienced as a single person by standing there among other single women, mostly young girls under the age of 15, was so significant that she didn’t want to make the single women attending her wedding feel the same way. It was such a beautiful gesture that really touched me and actually enabled me to enjoy her wedding much more, being safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to run and hide in the bathrooms when the painful moment rolled round. Phew.

Weddings remind single people that they are indeed single. Weddings dangle the carrot in front of you – it is so close and so, so, very far away as well. There can be great joy and hope as you celebrate the love of your nearest and dearest but also sorrow and grief in reflection of what may be left unfulfilled in your life. As a single person it can be a tricky mine-field to navigate but as people getting married there are also lovely touches to a wedding that can bless single guests. We are all in different seasons in life and I love the idea of being sensitive to the people around us that we care for – till death do we part.