Today was wedding day. I had done a bunch of praying last night and this morning for Abby’s wedding to go off without a hitch. I wanted it to be totally perfect for her, and for her groom, who’s also a good friend of mine. The weather channels were predicting rain, but when we got there it was the most perfect day ever. This is the best shot I could get of the ceremony venue, but that hill rolls straight down into Lake Michigan, so it was just stunning:
Oddly enough, I didn’t take a lot of photos tonight. I was too busy having fun with my friends. The vows Abby and Kortny read were phenomenal. And I’m always the first to critique someone else’s writing, but these were perfect. Such an ideal representation of these two loving people and how they love one another.
After the ceremony, we took Polaroid pictures. They don’t even make Polaroid cameras anymore, but Kortny had dug up an old one and some film, so that’s what they did for the guestbook. Of course, I had to take video of the Polaroid developing, because WHEN WILL WE EVER SEE THIS AGAIN???
Here’s the final outcome:
The party was equally great — their families are just so wonderful, and there was this uninhibited, unreserved sense of love in the air. Many of the married couples there, friends of the families, had been married over 30 years. Wow. And they still seemed very much in love and vibrant and committed to each other. It was heartening. I grinned from ear to ear watching them dance.
When I was at Abby’s bachelorette party in April, her cousin kept telling me “You need to meet my brother! You’ll meet him at the wedding! I can’t wait to introduce you guys!” and so of course I was like, “Oh, okay, whatever,” and I forgot about it entirely. But she ran up to me right after the ceremony and was like “Sasha! My brother’s over there! He’s going to come talk to you!” And he did, and it actually didn’t suck at all. He’s super fun to talk to, tall, handsome, employed, creative, diverse interests and hobbies, strong circle of friends, everything I look for in a man. We hung out for a lot of the night. The catch? He lives in Indianapolis. Ha! But he claims he’s a great storyteller, he just doesn’t have a mastery of actual writing. I was like “I’m the opposite! Let’s co-author a book!” So I’m going to demand that he send me an outline to write from. If nothing else, I networked.
And I just can’t emphasize enough how much fun I have with my friends. It was like a mini-LA reunion, especially since so many of us have moved to different cities since the days we were rolling around Manhattan and Hermosa Beach like a bunch of — well — 22-year-olds. We laugh so hard when we’re together. We converse so easily, like no time has passed at all.
I’m now the only one of this group of girls who’s not in a serious relationship or married or engaged right now, and I thought it was going to be hard to be there because of that. It wasn’t. I had so much fun chatting with them and getting to know the men they were with today. These are just phenomenal men. I mean, my girls hit it out of the ballpark with their life partners. They did not settle. They endured a lot of heartbreak on the road to finding the man who could be a perfect partner. These relationships are different than the ones we were in five years ago. These relationships have depth and weight and focus. I can sense it. It actually made me delighted — delighted for my friends, and delighted because I know it will happen for me too.
Anyway. Here’s some of the pics I took:
And then I took this one with my old buddy Nick, who’s basically played every role in my life imaginable at this point:
And I remembered that I had this photo of us, probably taken around Christmas 2003:
Same pose, right? SO CUTE! Altho it scares me that I can already see aging in my face, but whatever. It’s so good to have these people you’re connected to for life, to have these bonds that you know can and will endure everything. I have that with my friends. Today, Abby has that with her husband. Perfect and magical.
