Everyone Loves a Wedding…NO, Everyone Loves LOVE ❤️

Remember the saying, “Everyone loves a Bride?” I believe the phrase made an appearance in the Elton John’s song from the movie, Mona Lisa Smile, “In the Heart of Every Girl.” It’s June, the most popular month for weddings. You may have gotten married in June, watched recent wedding videos on Instagram or have a wedding on your agenda this month. Today is our 38th wedding anniversary, last weekend I watched several versions of videos from Peter Phillips wedding to Harriet Sperling and this weekend, we have traveled to celebrate the wedding of close family friend’s daughter…Yes, I  do enjoy a good wedding.  EVERYONE loves a wedding…

     It doesn’t seem possible. The cliche, “time flies,” is so true! It seems like just a handful of years ago, I was closing out my third grade classroom for the school year at Doyle Ryder Elementary School in Flint, Michigan on Thursday before our Sunday wedding and preparing for a future with my best friend. In reality, what was more exciting to me was the start of a new life together.  In seeing weddings over the years, that to me is the sign of a couple that has a good prognosis for a long and happy marriage, is a couple that is focused on the marriage and not on the wedding; the wedding is a day, the marriage is a lifetime. In those thirty-eight years, we have been fortunate to see two of our three children get married themselves (prayers answered, I prayed that we would live to see our kids get married and have their own children; two down, one to go and counting to next year when Zach and his fiancee’, Claire will have their wedding).

We are fortunate. I have friends who were not as fortunate. That’s one of the things you pray for, that and most parents pray to be able to live long enough to raise their children into adulthood and then to see them get married. I give God thanks for that prayer answered too. God has been so good to us. Actually God does answer our prayers, they just might not be answered the way we hope,  as we accept as Christians that we understand and pray that “Thy will be done, on earth”.  Likes most families, life is a blend of good and tough times and if you make good choices, your chances are mostly good. However, those tough times, can be blessings in their own way. In our experience, the hardships made us see how much we could handle and how God gave us the strength to get through things we could not have imagined. For that reason, both the good AND tough times I am grateful for and the lessons we all learned from them, like how a family sticks together and supports one another up.  I love a wedding…

     What constitutes a “good wedding”? you may ask. A wedding where there is love abounding with those closest to the couple in attendance, the couple are truly in love and don’t go into marriage with unrealistic expectations. Inviting their Lord and Savior into their married lives from the beginning, is where it starts.  Couples that marry young, may not have had much life experience, but that lack of life experience can be a blessing as the couple ‘grows up together.’ That’s not all bad. An older couple who has had more life experience could be more appreciate of finding ‘the right person’ if they have been dating for a while. That can be good too.  We have been to second weddings where we were so happy for the couple, as each had a chance to start over and each were able to put bad circumstances behind them. Isn’t that the best when two giving people who were the ones hurt by selfish individuals (& ‘takers’), gets a chance to have a happy life with someone who is equally a giver?!!  We’ve been to small weddings, large weddings, two weddings in a barn and weddings at halls and clubs. What is so cool is that each couple and family, gets to do their wedding the way they wish. Our daughter-in-law grew up in a very small town right outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, an area with many Amish,  farms and barns (they are not Amish). Where as people in many parts of the country have to search to find a barn for a ‘barn wedding,’  the Robinsons wouldn’t have to drive far to find one and two of their daughters had lovely barn weddings. Alex and Amanda’s wedding was in a barn on a farm that once had a guest house where frenchman, Marquis d’Lafayette, stayed before the Revolutionary War. It was fitting since this is where Amanda grew up. Another sister had a wedding at another barn with it’s own unique story. Another sister opted for a wedding in an old Civil War era Warehouse. Again, Lancaster Pennsylvania and it’s surrounding area is home to so much United States history. 

Our daughter and son-in-law had her wedding at the Church where our family attended, followed by a reception at the club where our kids grew up playing golf and our family spent so much time from April-October. Our kids would get their lawns cut, finish any school work or chores around the house and get out to play until it was too dark to see the ball. It was fitting that Sasha’s wedding party took place there where we had so many memories of family time spent. She and her husband are doing the same with their girls.  In March, our youngest son got engaged to Claire. They are planning a very small wedding with immediate family. A wedding is a time for a couple to faithfully and legally start and establish their life together.  I love it the way Shane Filan says in his lyrics in Beautiful in White, 

“With this ring I say to the world 

  You’re my every reason, you’re all I believe in

       With all my heart, I mean every word

  So as long as I live I love you”

Everyone who gets married gets a chance to do it their way and everyone loves a wedding.

     …In the last week, there have been many nice Instagram Reels from the second wedding of Princess Anne (King Charles of England’s sister)’s son, Peter Phillips to National Health nurse, Harriet Sperling. It was a second marriage for both. My first thought were when I saw the videos were, “She’s wearing a white dress, complete with veil and train and it’s her second wedding.” After watching another video to  “Beautiful in White,” I felt differently. However, seeing Queen Consort Camilla, the groom’s aunt in a cream ensemble and hat, I felt the same way about her choosing to wear a color too close to white, (and still do) as it’s an unwritten rule-or maybe it’s written, Camilla should have known- YOU DON’T WEAR WHITE TO A WEDDING as a guest.  It was good viewing, all of it; from the three ‘bonus sister’ adorable bridesmaids, the two daughters of Peter Phillips and the one daughter of Harriet, all in the 12-14 year old age group, holding the bride’s train, the groom greeting his sister, Zara in a periwinkle dress and fascinator, the cousins arriving, including the Prince and Princess of Wales in their finery, the

King’s arrival and the exit following the service, held in the Cotswold in Gloucestershire, with the groom holding a clear dome umbrella for he and his bride.  Viewing it all, we saw an extended family of second marriages, unfaithfulness, tragic death of a family member, family members not in attendance due to their own cutting the ties of family (Harry, Meghan & Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor), two have faced cancer and most likely other issues we are unaware of. The British Royal Family may be one of the wealthiest families in the world, yet money doesn’t necessarily guarantee happiness or a smooth path; quite the contrary, as some may say that more money means more problems.  King Charles’ clan may live in castles and palaces and drive Range Rovers and Rolls Royces, but they still experience many of the same problems we do and everyone loves a wedding…

     Lastly, we have traveled to celebrate a longtime family friend’s daughter’s wedding. Our families have been close for over thirty years and we have all seen one another through the storms of life. Family will be there for you in those times, but friends, not always.  They have been and it is an honor to be there with them to celebrate. I recall when our daughter got married, the photographer got a photo of my husband walking down the church aisle with Sasha and he caught our friend and looking at my husband as if to say, “We am so glad to be here with your family on this special day.” Yes, it is an honor to be there for them. It’s still so easy to remember when they moved to our town as if it were just a few short years ago.  I  will cry when I see the Bride walk down the aisle with her Dad because everyone loves a wedding…No. In my opinion, everyone loves LOVE…

It’s a Great Day❤️