🧵 Thursday Thread: “I don't want you to be perfect. Why would I want that? I want you. I want all the parts of you, the broken ones, the ones you've kept hidden away.” - The No-Show

The Wedding & Marriage Thread ... please share all your stories, happy, sad, funny, poignant, and in between

Hi, friends,

Have I mentioned that my son Max and his girlfriend Kaela got engaged in November, and are planning a June wedding? Have I mentioned that Kaela, in what feels like another lifetime, was a student in my elementary class for four years at the same Waldorf school Max also attended, after which Kaela’s family moved away and we lost touch? Have I mentioned that Max and Kaela saw each other for the first time in almost 20 years later in 2023, at the wedding of yet another of my former elementary students?

They’ve asked harpist Nicolas Carter to play for their ceremony. Nicolas was a parent of yet another student in my Waldorf class and … played harp at my wedding with Jon in 2005. A wedding to which I invited my whole class, including Kaela, who was there (but not pictured in this photo).

Life is such a trip.

Have I also mentioned that Max and Kaela have asked me to speak at their wedding? Well, they have. And, being a story person, I am craving them now.

I wrote about this topic for The Rake 20 years ago, in a long-form reported essay that examined the history of marriage and how it has changed over time. When the piece was published, Jon and I had been married for four months:

Now that my dress is back from the cleaners, and the sealed marriage certificate has arrived back from the county, I wonder. Does this piece of what appears to be recycled printer paper, solemnly signed by us and three friends (including one who performed the ceremony, because we belong to no church), change anything beyond our ability to add each other to insurance policies or unplug life support someday? Is marriage as sacred as it’s cracked up to be? In fact, is it sacred at all, if you said “forever” once but took it back and divorced after ten or fifteen years?

My Rake marriage story is extremely dated and I use some language (the reference to shooting oneself in the first line, for example) that I would not use today, but many of the questions it raises and explores still interest me.

So … what are your wedding and marriage stories and/or your current thoughts about what marriage even is or isn’t?

Jeannine

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