03/ 25/ 2017
I’ve been a part of eleven different weddings. I was close friends with each bride and was happy to be a part of such a special moment in their lives.
A guy I dated for a while nailed it when he called me a wedding expert. For five ceremonies, I was a bridesmaid, and for three, I was the Maid of Honor. I’ve literally handled it all at this point:
I’ve calmed a bride down over a hairdo;
I’ve planned multiple bachelorette parties;
I’ve done the seating arrangements and steamed and ironed table cloths;
I’ve picked out wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses and ties and suits;
I’ve helped with menus;
I’ve arranged the bouquets and center pieces;
I’ve tied hundreds of bows on chairs;
I’ve proofread invitations and assembled party favors;
I’ve ironed one wedding gown;
I’ve done two different brides’ hair;
and I have liaised with overbearing parents on numerous occasions.
I was genuinely happy to serve my friends in these ways. To be asked to help in any wedding is a big honor and a responsibility I take seriously.
Like any skill, I’ve become better at weddings with practice. For instance, by the second wedding, I learned it’s best to not voice every opinion, because ultimately, it’s the couples day. They will want different things, and they are entitled to that because, after all, it’s their big day and not yours. So I began wearing bridesmaids dresses without question and doing my hair and makeup the way the bride wanted it done. If there was a centerpiece the couple loved, I would prepare them in that way. Being a part of a wedding is about service. It’s about doing all that you can to support the couple and help them through the highs and lows of the process.
I didn’t think my friendships with these brides would change after their respective weddings. Looking back, it was naive of me to think that way. I mean, we all lived in different places, which made communication hard. We started to grow and change as people and weren’t there to witness that change. We’d make other friends in other cities. Also, and it’s so obvious, but saying “I do” made my friend partners in crime with someone else, not me.
I sound like a victim here, and honestly, I felt like one. After all, I wasn’t the one that caused things to be different. They had by getting married (yes, I sound like a jerk, but full transparency is important).
Accepting changes in my friendships was hard. I described it to my therapist as “mourning the loss of a friend.” Does that sound dramatic? It surely does. I wanted to protect myself from feeling the discomfort and pain that came along with a changing friendship. So I’d fight the change by not calling my friends as often or being careful to not share as openly when we did speak. Was this passive aggressive? Absolutely, but it was my coping mechanism, and at the time, it was my solution to handling the change.
Eventually I learned better. With time and maturation, I learned that resisting change takes away the chance for that life experience to refine our character. I began to understand that it wasn’t only natural for friendships to change overtime, but that it was also healthy. Not experiencing relational shifts signifies something deeper—perhaps you’re not changing or growing. Life offers many different experiences. Some we will live through joyfully, others will invoke fear, and some will feel like hell. Experiencing the good, bad and ugly is how we grow. And that personal growth is dependent on our experiences and circumstances.
I’m different than I was at 17 or 21 or 27 or even 30. If I’m different, then how I interact with someone will change too. The wedding wasn’t to blame. No one was to blame actually. In fact, I was changing just as much as my married friends were. And that is a great thing, because I like the person I am now at 31 better than who I was at 17 or 21 or 27 or 30.
Change is good. Change also takes time. It’s uncomfortable and can feel stifling. But, it’s also where that magical refinement process happens, and dealing with change is worth that.
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