The craziness of a weekend (2) - the Wedding

Yes, the last of the series of weddings of this year. a lot of weddings have happened lately, mostly on facebook and you see classmates come back with a bling on their fingers and a hyphenated name. but this one belongs to my my closest roommate from college who i loved a lot. who i also talked about during my post about her choosing her church people as 90% of her guests at the wedding as well as her maid of honor and bridesmaids.

So i left work early on friday to be at her wedding rehearsal and dinner. and we all spent the night at her bridal suite. the whole time it felt somewhat surreal to me. When my other roommate Linda got married a month ago yes i felt bad during the wedding, but not horrible. This time, i felt like things are going to change from this point on. for multiple reasons, but i also know that it somewhat signifies something bigger than the wedding itself.

To make long story short, yes, i was annoyed at the fact that 90% of the party was made up by her church group. i was not too thrilled about having to stand in the extreme cold while they recited chapters from the bible, sang songs praising the Lord, and preached about Christianity to believers and non-believers. and the fact they said something about her life as a 'sinner' before she joined the church and met her husband. the fact that they talked about the duty as wife. the fact that they only met for such a short time and the the priest was making it sound like the greatest love ever and that their union is approved by the Lord. and the fact that we went to a PHO place for wedding rehearsal. the fact that her fiance was only nicer to people from her church and made rude comments about my other roommate because she wouldn't dance hip-hop during our practice for their reception entrance.

but all those feelings I could overlook. My friend looked beautiful in her dress, and when we helped her put it on in the morning I acutally got a bit teary because it was like giving a friend away. Then when I saw her with her dad again I got really sad, thinking about how my dad so wants to see us down the aisle and gives us away, but it most likely won't happen in the near future. Her dad is normally a stern man, and i know that he hasn't really approved of her fiance. and her fiance, being the way he is, probably couldn't care less to impress him (being someone outside of the church who can also potentially hinder my friend's walk to God).

Finally, during the reception, I cried when I saw her dance with her dad, i also got teary when I danced with her and her husband (separately). I knew exactly why i was upset (although I hid it really well throughout). during the maid of the honor speech and the best man speech i knew the truth. I jsut didn't tell it. I said "congratulations" only on every thing i bought them or wrote for them because i didnt' have anything more to say.

The truth is, these people only loved her after she's joined her church. If she didn't make that choice, or decided to leave the church, there would be no 'brotherhood' or 'sisterhood' left. I knew my freind since almost 8 years ago, and i loved her as a friend with or without her religion. i was there when she fell, when she was struggling with her career and school, when she broke up with her ex, when she moved to SD, when she got a new job, when she joined a church. I was the one who care about her the most. and yet i know once she's married into this community, our lives wouldn't be the same anymore. That's why i cried.

Of course, the fact that I was flying into Vegas for a million job interviews didn't help either. everyone's settled, and yet my career has barely started. I am fighting for a spot among the men, i have no prospect for marriage or children. and i think that made me very sad as well during the reception. I wanted all those love songs for my reception.

last wedding of 2009. i'm glad i survived.