Look, I’m fully aware that I’m not all that and a bag of chips — I know that people won’t stare at me, slack-jawed, all wedding day long. Amazingly, our guests have other interests. They lead full lives. They will be chatting with others, they will be raiding the dessert bar, they will be checking their cell phones,* they will be scanning the crowd for potential date material, they will be refilling their drinks.**

And yet.

There are times when I think — gulp — about being up there getting hitched, or dancing, or commandeering the microphone,*** and everyone will be watching me. This thought alone is enough to make me reconsider elopement or, failing that, maybe just hiding out under the bedcovers for the entirety of the wedding day.

It goes even deeper than mere stage fright, too. There are times when I just can’t fathom why anyone would want to witness the beau and I get married. Besides our moms, that is. There’s just something that feels a touch narcissistic about the whole thing — O HAY U GUYZ, KOM WATCH US GET MARIEED! Is it wrong if your wedding feels like a show? No, I suppose not, because it is. It’s just that there’s a fine line between honesty and spectacle, and sometimes I can’t gauge which side I’m standing on for this wedding.

And it’s times like this I really have to sit myself down and have a heart-to-heart. Ritual is important, I remind myself. Community is important. People need a reason to come together — especially these days, when our respective communities are scattered across the far reaches of the country and even the globe.

Yes, people will look. But they’ll also love and support. Not unlike a night out on the town, our guests will be wined, dined, danced, and socialized at our wedding — but it won’t be empty and contrived entertainment. At the wedding’s best moments, our individual personalities, our laughter, our shared happiness will meld and grow until it becomes something bigger than all of us, together.

And that’s what keeps people coming back. After all, it can’t just be the open bar that makes people fly or drive hundreds of miles to join in your wedding celebration, right?

Right?

Right.

Eh. This is all just part and parcel of muddling my way through this thing. I will get up there during the wedding and I will like it. And if I don’t, well… there’s always that bed to hide in.

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* This has always sort of annoyed the crap out of me. It’s been sitting on the table in front of you the whole time. Why do you have to pick it up and look at it every five minutes? Are you feverishly praying that someone texted you? Are you checking your stock options? Are you looking at pr0n? What? What is it?

** Repeatedly. Copiously.

*** I know it’s “weird” for the bride to speak at a wedding, but man. Personally, I can’t imagine hosting any party – and this is going to be a mother of a party – without getting up to welcome my guests and thank them for coming. Yeah. I don’t mind getting up in front of 100 people to say hello, and yet the thought of them watching me incites terror. I don’t understand me, either.