Wedding Thoughts
I got married about a month ago. From my social media, you might know it, but only from one grid post, a dark, black and white polaroid our photographer shared with us as a preview to the full edit. It’s not even totally obvious – my husband and I are walking up a set of stairs, no veil/altar/ring closeup, and grinning like madmen. As if we were the first people to ever think of getting hitched. As if we were the first people to have ever fallen in love. I’m in white, yes, but I don’t know, it just doesn’t read very BRIDE.
Other than this, I kept a relatively low profile in the year leading up to our nuptials. When my husband proposed, we were in France with no cell service, and only wifi as long as we were in our hotel. The trip turned into an “engagement moon” which is not a term I ever thought I would utter, let alone use on myself. But it was an amazing luxury, to live in that bubble before telling our family and friends and colleagues.
For better or for worse, I self identified as A Girl Who Was So Not Obsessed With The Idea of Her Future Wedding Day. Snobby behavior, I’ll admit it, but internalized misogyny is a sneaky little bitch. You never know when or where it might spurt out of you. That said, by the time we were back in New York, the initial manic excitement had eased off into a low, constant thrumming, and I was afraid that if I posted anything about it on my socials, I would inadvertently kill my own buzz. Plus, I don’t know, privacy? I surprised myself by wanting to keep it to ourselves, to our immediate circle.
I thought defensively, “if you aren’t checking in on me, then you only have yourself to blame if you’re finding out 6 months late.” I started treating it as a filter for my friendships. I have historically put a lot of effort into maintaining relationships, and I saw this as an opportunity to find out who my ride or dies were. Indeed, about six months into our engagement, I got drinks with an old coworker, a beloved coworker, someone I considered myself close with for many years. I told her the news, she squealed, I squealed, we toasted. I had to gently tell her she was not invited: “we’re keeping it small.” I was surprised at myself. We probably could make room. Why had I put my foot down? She would be extremely fun to have at the party, she was enthusiastic and supportive. But it had been almost a year since our last rendezvous, and I was the one who initiated this one. If not for me, we likely would have gone another few months, or years without seeing one another.
I don’t say this as a dig, rather, an acknowledgement that friends come in and out of our lives like tides. And sometimes the ebb happens during big life events. If I had gone to the trouble of posting about our engagement, I would have instantly shared that information with the 400 or so people who follow me. Coworkers, old bosses, old boyfriends’ mom’s shell accounts that ex boyfriends used to watch my stories “undetected,” spam bots, one or two blue checkmarks. My usual circle, my consistent circle, is pretty small. The pandemic really changed the shape of my world: a lot of my best friends are long-distance, and I never quite rebuilt when the world started opening back up. I am sceneless. The friends that are left here in New York are old-timers or people I must now refer to as “acquaintances” (a word I hate and try to avoid unless talking about a group. Most of my acquaintances see me the same way, so why do I feel like it’s a dirty word? Something to explore in therapy.)
Maybe it was old scars from middle school getting itchy (I had no friends within my school system). Anyone I socialized with was effectively long distance. From summer camp or nightly ballet classes or family friends who lived a state away To soothe myself, I preempted any public rejection, parroting tween advice books, “I don’t want to hang out with anyone who doesn’t want to hang out with me.” It was useful at twelve, a protective armor that helped me shift my narrative, but at thirty-one, I wonder if perhaps it’s not so cut and dry.
Anyway, now that I’m a month out, and on the precipice of receiving my precious photos (Gollum voice), I’m conflicted about what to do with them. On the one hand, it’s my life, and it’s my account, so what the hell, why shouldn’t I post every damn picture? Every still life, every candid, every portrait that announces, “Behold, me! A perfect specimen of youth and beauty! Behold, my sexy husband! Who I suckered into spending the rest of his days with me! Behold, our elevated taste and social status and —-” here, you might start to understand my discomfort with the whole thing.
Rebecca is a writer, marketer, and sometimes event coordinator based in Philadelphia. She writes Don’t Copy Me, a weekly newsletter about recommendations and life on Substack, and you can follow her on Instagram @itsrebeccap.