(Note: if you missed part 1, I encourage you to read it as I shared how I afforded 16 weddings in one year. I hope it sparks ideas for how you can be more budget-conscious and creative when traveling, especially for weddings.)
In Part 2, I’m going to be a bit more vulnerable and share about the matters of my heart and mind. I’ll focus on how I dealt with and embraced:
- Singleness
- My limitations
- Being present
There’s much more that goes into attending 16 weddings, including facing the reality of my own relationship status: completely single.
I genuinely love watching my friends get married. I cry tears of joy, laugh during toasts and dance it out with my friends on the dance floor. What can be difficult about all these weddings, though, is realizing how far my own life is from that.
Most of the time, I genuinely love my singleness. I love investing time in my friendships. I love being spontaneous. I love bouncing around from one thing to the next, showing up for the things I want to be at. I recognize that I have a capacity and availability that many of my dating and married friends don’t have, and for that I truly am grateful.
Part of the reality of attending 16 weddings, though, was having marriage, relationships and romantic love undeniably presented and celebrated in front of me. I had to face my own emotions and desires in ways I hadn’t had to do before.
I’ve been single for most of my entire life, so…it’s what I know. While I may be comfortable and familiar with being single, that doesn’t mean I don’t desire to move out of that status. As more and more of my friends get married, I’m reminded that I’m not even dating.
When asked about it, I’ve explained that it’s no longer the fear of being alone that drives sadness or worry about my relationship status (though that is a perfectly valid fear that I think we all feel at times). I’ve accepted that if I never were to marry, I would be okay. I know God would provide the community and love I need, even if it’s not in the context of a husband.
However, what is most challenging is watching my friends all move “forward” in this life stage, feeling like I’m left behind. I fear that friends won’t invite me along because I don’t have a plus one to even out the numbers. I watch friends go on double or even triple dates and feel excluded just because I’m not in a relationship. I watch friends travel and spend vacations together and I wonder who I would travel with if I remain single 5, 10, 30 years down the road.
You see, it’s less about being truly “single” and more the reality of my community changing. When the first of my friends got married, it was exciting. But it also wasn’t affecting my day to day. It was mostly friends from high school or college who lived in different states than me anyway. It was easy to celebrate their marriage and not notice a vast change in our relationship.
For me, it’s become increasingly challenging these last couple years in Chicago as friends have begun to get married. These changes are more evident. Friendships change. People’s availability and capacity changes. You are no longer as much of a priority. And it’s for good reason – a husband or wife should take priority – but that can make it difficult and lonely for the ones who experience the impact of a changed relationship, feeling as though they were left behind. Especially when it happens several times in the span of a year.
Side note: for those of you dating or married, please be intentional with your friends who are single. Never underestimate the impact of inviting your single friends along, reminding them that you value their company even if they don’t have a partner. And single friends, don’t assume your dating/married friends aren’t available. It takes intentionality from both sides.
To be even more vulnerable, there’s the natural questions of “what’s wrong with me” or “I guess I should get used to this”. When I see marriage happening for friends all around me, I can’t help but wonder if it will ever happen to me. Or wonder why it isn’t happening. It becomes too easy for us to think of every reason for why (fill in the blank of, “I’m not ___ enough” or “I’m too ____”).
And while those emotions and thoughts are valid, we have to be careful about what we think about ourselves. Our identity does not hinge on our relationship status.
Because the truth is, I’m not promised marriage. I don’t know my future and I can’t pretend or claim that I know I’ll get married. Singleness very well could be the reality for the rest of my life.
Right now, I’m balancing that potential reality while still trying to let myself desire and hope for a romantic partner. It feels like a teeter-totter. One day, I feel cynical and tell myself that it will never happen for me. I may attend my friends’ weddings but I’ll never have one of my own. Another day, I find myself thinking about the beauty of a true partnership, how I’m limited by myself and how my heart does desire to have someone to walk through life with.
I struggle with the tendency to believe it won’t happen to avoid disappointment. Living in the gray is uncomfortable and unknown. While I wish I had the answers about my future, I don’t. Functioning out of a place of fear and self-protection is not what I believe God wants for me. Deep in my heart, I desire to hope and believe this could happen for me too.
Sixteen weddings in one year naturally caused me to face the reality of my singleness in ways I never had to do before. I learned that I can desire marriage and companionship for myself, while at the same time, support and celebrate my friend who was making that commitment now. One emotion doesn’t have to contradict the other. Giving myself permission to feel both was healthy and enabled me to feel genuine joy, excitement and support for my friend getting married.
For now, I’m single and I desire to make the most of it, whether I stay single for my entire life or whether that changes tomorrow.
Regardless of whether you’re single, dating or married, we all will still feel alone at times. We are humans and we crave intimacy, companionship and feeling known. That isn’t limited to romantic relationships – all of our relationships require intentionality, care and investment. How are we showing up for one another?
I may not have the “love” of a boyfriend right now, but I have love from many others and I don’t want to lose sight of the value of those relationships. After all, valuing my friendships is why I chose to attend these 16 weddings in the first place.
At times, my life felt like I was living out the movie “27 Dresses”, including putting makeup on in public places, changing in the bathroom of a Greyhound bus or attending two weddings in the same weekend (three times). Last year forced me to accept that I have limitations.
With being invited to a total of 33 wedding-related events, I had to make some tough decisions about my attendance. I may not have missed a single wedding, but I did miss other events, wedding-related or not. I felt my capacity stretched in new ways when I had to say no or miss out on events I would have normally loved to attend.
It was difficult when showing up for a friend’s wedding meant missing another friend’s bachelorette. When traveling to another state made my time in Chicago more limited. When a wedding conflicted with a friend’s birthday, housewarming or other social event.
There were times I flew back on early morning flights after a wedding so that I wouldn’t miss other important events in my community. I tried my best to balance these weddings while still remaining present and intentional with my community in Chicago. That was perhaps my personal biggest challenge.
At my core, I love to support and be there for my friends. This last year, I had to accept in a new way that I couldn’t be there for everyone, even if I wanted to. I am human. I have limits. I cannot do it all. I began to accept those truths and acknowledge that I have a capacity, and it is my responsibility to steward that well.
While I value showing up for my friends, if I’m showing up completely empty and drained, is that really showing up? During this time, I had to take an honest look at my commitments, my relationships and my time to better understand my capacity.
I began to practice saying no and even stepping away from environments that drained energy so that I could give the best version of myself. I intentionally set aside time to recharge (self-care in the true sense of the word), whether that meant time at a coffee shop, going to the gym and cooking myself dinner, or being present in my church community.
As I was learning how to feel freedom in saying no, it was difficult as I had to work through fears of my friends being disappointed. I had to accept that I was giving and doing all that I could. Even if it’s not as much as I wanted to or normally would be able to give, it’s what I could give in that season. And that had to be enough.
It was good (but terrifying) practice to see how my friendships stood on a foundation greater than my fears. For example, there was one bachelorette where I could only stay for half of it due to cost and other commitments. Instead of making any comment to make me feel guilty, my friend genuinely and enthusiastically said, “I’m just so glad you’re coming at all!”
Receiving grace and empathy allowed me to feel more freedom to acknowledge my capacity. When you have the opportunity, please extend grace to your friends. Especially when you know they are trying the best they can.
It was very difficult for me to push through the fear of disappointing my friends, but I had to accept my limitations and trust these long-term friendships were stronger. After all, they invited me to one of the most important days of their life!
Despite feeling my capacity and limits completely stretched, I tried to focus on being present throughout the year.
I wanted to enjoy each wedding on its own and not focus on the amount I planned to attend in total but when I looked at my calendar, I certainly felt overwhelmed. I knew I had to focus my attention one wedding at a time. It was challenging, especially when I needed to make decisions and purchases for weddings in advance (another reason why my tracker was helpful), but it helped my brain capacity accept the realities of all the details.
The most challenging stretch was when I attended 7 weddings in 8 weeks. In that timeframe, I also traveled to Las Vegas and San Jose for two different work trips. Easy, right?
I kept my suitcase at the foot of my bed, filled with a toiletry bag, my go-to wedding shoes, and a few other regular items. Why bother unpacking when you need to leave again in 5 days?
Removing as many logistics as possible helped me have the mental space to focus on the purpose of the event and why I was traveling. By the time I showed up, I tried to let all other worries and situations float away from my mind so I could focus on celebrating that couple.
Viewing each wedding as its own individual event provided energy to celebrate my friends when their day/weekend rolled around. I really did not want to become numb to weddings.
Early on, I realized how each wedding provided a unique and memorable experience. Never again will you have the same people, the same venue, the same ceremony together creating that experience for the guests. Even when I attended weddings with several of the same friends, each wedding truly felt different.
It became a mental game for me to stay alert and pay attention to what made that wedding unique. I began to take mental notes (and even wrote some down) for what stood out to me about that friend’s wedding. Sometimes, it was:
- Having no seat assignments for dinner
- Watching how the couple greeted everyone after the ceremony
- Enjoying a coffee bar before the reception
- Watching a family member perform the ceremony
- Witnessing multiple choreographed dances at one wedding
- Partaking in surprising the groom with a performance
- Listening to the story of how the couple met told at the ceremony
- Participating in salsa dance lessons at the reception
- Sending off the couple on a boat
- Watching the ceremony with a beautiful backdrop
- Laughing along to an energetic father/daughter dance
- Dancing to the music with a live band
- Enjoying a bonfire outside with a bluegrass band
- Hearing “you may now kiss your wife” (instead of bride)
- Watching fireworks at the end of the night
- Celebrating at a two-story venue
Those are just glimpses of some of the moments throughout the year. Whenever I started feeling overwhelmed, I would focus my mind on finding those moments that make each wedding special. And there were many moments that stood out. And they were beautiful.
To my friends who got married in 2019, thank you. Thank you for inviting me into your special day. I loved celebrating and witnessing your commitment to one another and I hope I can continue to show up in your friendship as you celebrate wedding anniversaries to come.
As I look back on “the year of weddings”, I can’t help but feel grateful. Sure, it was challenging at times, but some of my favorite moments of last year were at friends’ weddings. What did I learn from attending 16 weddings? Friendship, commitment and love is worth it. Every time.
The Beauty In Our Brokenness 